Tag Archives: food

there’s always room for jello. in your room.

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JELL-O is no longer a staple of potlucks and dinner parties nationwide, but the product is still popular. Even if the age of jiggly “salads” was before your time, you may have fond memories of packing a JELL-O cup for lunch or having one as a snack after school. Now, you can return to those simpler times with the brand’s new inflatable furniture line, The Jelly Collection.

The comfy seats come in four colors: red (meant to evoke JELL-O’s strawberry flavor), green (lime), yellow (lemon), and orange (orange). Designed to look like giant gelatin molds, the chairs may spark your appetite. Luckily, they each come with a built-in JELL-O cup holder for your snacks.

“For over 150 years, JELL-O has been at the heart of joyful family moments, big and small,” Tyler Parker, brand manager of desserts at Kraft Heinz, said in a statement. “With The Jelly Collection, we’re not just celebrating our rich history; we’re bringing it to life for today’s families. By blending our heritage with a modern twist, we’re inviting consumers to embrace the playful spirit that has made JELL-O a beloved favorite for generations.”

After launching on Amazon on September 10 for $30 apiece, the chairs sold out quickly. It’s unclear when—and if—Kraft Heinz plans to restock the limited-edition home decor item.

Jelly is having a bit of a moment in popular culture. The resurgence of the Y2K aesthetic has ushered in a new wave of the jelly-inspired trend, with jelly makeup that makes skin look glossy, translucent home decor, and jelly shoes all making a comeback on social media and in the real world.

‘molded salads are best served in situations where they have little or no competition..
like television,
gelatin is too often a vehicle for limp leftovers that couldn’t make it anywhere else.’
*peg bracken

 

*Peg Bracken was an American writer of humorous books and articles on cooking, housekeeping, etiquette and travel. She graduated from Antioch College in 1940, got married, and worked as an advertising  copywriter along with Homer Groening, father of Matt Groening. Groening and she also made a comic strip, Phoebe, Get Your Man together.

During the 60s and 70s, Bracken’s writing reassured women that they did not have to be perfect to have a happy home. Her best-known book is The I Hate to Cook Book, written in 1960. The book came about when she and some other working-women friends came up with a core of recipes strong on ease of preparation. It was followed by The I Hate to Housekeep Book and The Appendix to the I Hate to Cook Book. The recipes are distinguished by unusual names and peppered with sardonic comments. For example, one recipe is for “Wolfe Eggs,” which are for eggs the way the fictional Nero Wolfe would cook them. “Stayabed Stew” could be left to cook by itself and was perfect “for those days when you are en negligee, en bed, with a murder story and a box of bonbons, or possibly a good case of flu”; mashed potatoes topped with cheese and baked in a casserole become “Spuds O’Grotton’. Her selection of simple main dishes is “30 Day-by-Day Entrees, or, The Rock Pile”.

The recipes themselves were written in much the same style (“Brown the garlic, onion, and crumbled beef in the oil. Add the flour, salt, paprika, and mushrooms, stir, and let it cook five minutes while you light a cigarette and stare sullenly at the sink”).

 

 

image/source credits: jello/amazon, kraft heinz, mental floss, calea johnson

burning calories.

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day one

of my return to healthy habits

slipped a pan of veggies

into the oven

got involved in a project

  over-roasted them a bit

is ‘char’ considered fiber?

‘food over flame burns, food over heat cooks.’

-alfred the great

too hot to handle.

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 this new combo

 got me wondering

isn’t this soup meant be a cure-all for any ailment

(i already feel sad for the chickens)

created by grandmothers around the globe

as the medicine for anything from a broken heart to a broken ankle?

when ‘ghost pepper’ enters into the recipe 

(i do not feel sad for the ghost peppers)

it somehow loses the original idea of ‘soothing comfort and a warm hug’

unless the idea it to completely burn out and obliterate any ailment you may have?

and perhaps may have come down with in the future?

your system doesn’t dare, and may never be the same. 

grandma has gone rogue.

she is not messing around anymore. 

“a good spicy challenge strikes a balance between flavour and fear.”

*adam richman

 

*adam richman is an american actor and television host. He has hosted various dining and eating-challenge programs on the travel channel and history channel.

does costco know something?

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 costco’s readywise emergency kit has people worried 

While there’s plenty to love at Costco, like the salad kits, sheet cakes, and mini oreo cheesecakes, it has also been prone to some food controversy in the past, including the massive chocolate chunk cookies that were hurting people’s stomachs. Now Costco is stirring up emotions again with its new monster dinner kits that have customers worried the retailer is warning us the apocalypse may be coming.

Costco recently released the Readywise Emergency Food Supply Bucket, which features 150 servings of various food choices. Costco’s website lists the servings as “80 servings of hearty entrées & sides, 30 servings for nourishing breakfasts, and an additional 40 drink servings.”

For $80, this massive meal kit includes 12 servings each of pasta Alfredo, cheesy macaroni, brown sugar and maple multi-grain, apple cinnamon cereal, and 10 servings of white rice. You’ll also find 6 servings each of teriyaki rice, creamy pasta and vegetables, potato pot pie, tomato basil soup with pasta, chicken noodle soup, and crunchy granola. There are also 16 servings of vanilla pudding and orange drink mix, plus 24 servings of whey milk alternative.

The bucket has a 25-year shelf life thanks to being made with freeze-dried and dehydrated foods. You also only need to add water to eat or drink the items. Costco’s website explains that ease of preparation “isn’t just about simplicity; it’s about maintaining a sense of normalcy when the world around you might feel anything but normal.” Naturally, many wondered what this warehouse retailer was trying to get at.

One Instagram user posted about this latest Costco find, calling it the “Costco Apocalypse Dinner Kit, commenters quickly added their thoughts. One commenter asked, “Does Costco know something?” Someone else added, “If the apocalypse comes, where are you getting fresh water to prepare these dried meals?”

‘in ‘Shaun of the Dead,’ it’s not shaun’s fault that there’s a zombie apocalypse – he just has to get through the day.’ -edgar wright

 

 

source credits: costco, all recipes, carissa chesanek

buttered noodles.

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‘noodles are not only amusing, but delicious.’

-julia child

 

 

image credit: cuinary hill

‘there is food for everyone on this planet, but not everyone eats.’ – carlo petrini

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a Too Good To Go bag from Give Thanks Bakery

Americans waste a lot of food, but an app that recently expanded to Metro Detroit is aiming to get that food on plates and out of landfills. The United States throws away approximately 120 billion pounds of food a year, according to Recycle Track Systems. The bulk of that waste comes from homes, followed closely by restaurants, grocery stores, and food service companies.

Too Good To Go partners with restaurants to help the eateries sell surplus food to customers at a discount. It’s pretty simple – the restaurants list surprise bags on the app that customers can claim for a small fee and pick up during a specified time. The app is open to restaurants, grocery stores, and food suppliers. Currently, nearly 80 Metro Detroit businesses have signed up for Too Good to Go.

Surprise bags in Metro Detroit typically range from $3.99 to $6.99, and could contain anything from entrees and baked goods to ingredients used at the restaurant. Customers can expect to pay about ⅓ of what the items would have cost at full price. Baked goods are the most popular category of leftover food, but any unsold food item could end up in your bag.

“It’s really fun for the customer,” said Too Good to Go spokesperson Sarah Soteroff, referring to the surprise that comes with each bag. She said the variety “reflects the unpredictability of food waste.” Since the Detroit launch, the app is now also open to restaurants statewide.

According to the Michigan Sustainable Business Forum, food is the most prominent waste in the state’s landfills. That waste is bad for the environment, the economy, and people in need. Food waste is responsible for 10% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Additionally, about 25% worth of freshwater is used annually to produce food that gets wasted. These food losses amount to around $1.1 trillion lost annually. Beyond the environmental and economic issues, this food is going to waste while millions of people go hungry.

Too Good To Go got its start in Coppenhagen in 2016. It then launched in the U.S. in 2020, and it is now active in 30 cities across 17 states. Soteroff said the app has helped save about 330 million meals worldwide, with 12 million saved in the U.S. alone. According to Soteroff, since Too Good To Go expanded to Michigan, around 3,200 meals that otherwise would have ended up in the trash have been saved.

Beyond keeping food out of the trash, Soteroff said using the app helps both participating businesses and customers financially. Participating businesses are charged a small fee to use the app. Through the app, Soteroff said these businesses have been able to earn an estimated $39 million from food sold through the app that otherwise would have ended up in a dumpster. Meanwhile, she said customers have saved about $120 million by purchasing discounted food through the app. Once you make your first Too Good To Go purchase, the app tells you how much you’ve saved compared to retail price.

 “imagine walking out of a grocery store with four bags of groceries, dropping one in the parking lot,

and just not bothering to pick it up. that’s essentially what we’re doing.”

– Dana Gunders, Food & Agriculture Scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

 

 

 

 

souce credits: amber ainsworth, fox 2 news, recycle track systems

‘with a doughnut in each hand, anything is possible.’ – jameela jamil

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it’s a big decision, take your time.

national donut day is celebrated on the first friday of june. established by the salvation army in 1938 to honor the “donut lassies” — women who served donuts (originally a European delicacy) to hungry american soldiers duringWW I. once they returned home, american soldiers longed for the donuts they had overseas. they grew increasingly popular in the u.s., and americans have been loving donuts ever since.

“do-not touch my donut.”

-me 

 

 

 

 

image credit: washtenaw dairy

just peachy.

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a look back, it’s that time of year again, and some things never change –

how to clean your entire kitchen while trying to prepare a 1-minute healthy and guilt-free breakfast

1. since peaches are not quite in season yet, take a bag of frozen peaches out of freezer to defrost in fridge, go to sleep dreaming of healthy breakfast smoothie

2.  take peaches out of fridge on the next day to chop up and create delicious and guilt-free smoothie

3. notice the fridge shelf below bag is a bit sticky

4. notice the bag has leaked (even though it’s unopened), while defrosting

5. take everything off of sticky shelf

6. notice peach juice has leaked to the back of the shelf and hardened into a solid gel

7. take out giant sticky shelf and place in sink

8. turn on hot water to melt off hardened peach juice gel

9. notice peach juice has dripped down into fridge drawers below where the shelf was

10. take out drawers

11. say a few things back to fridge that is now incessantly beeping due to door being ajar too long

12. feel my feet getting wet and turn back to sink

13. notice hot water running on shelf placed in sink is somehow flowing over it and onto counter and beyond

14. notice water has also flowed into junk drawer and cupboards below counter while on its way to the floor

15. slide on floor as i turn off water, pull out junk drawer, empty it, throw away things that are waterlogged

16. empty cupboards below, dry out everything, grab beach towels to clean up floor

17. turn back to fridge, still beeping, notice bottom of fridge has peach juice on it also, now that drawers have been removed

18. get more towels, empty entire fridge, wash and dry everything, replace shelves and drawers and contents, wash and dry floor

16. cut open peach bag, notice the peaches are now dried out due to lack of juice. put them in a bowl. add whipped cream. back to healthy eating plan tomorrow.

17. notice one ant milling around, sensing a dot of sticky peach nectar somewhere.

‘with personality.’

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highly doubt that i can pull the trigger on this one. 

 

‘some of the recipes in the book have evolved for us. many haven’t.

*thomas keller

*thomas keller is  is an American chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author. He and his landmark Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry in Yountville, California, have won multiple awards from the James Beard Foundation, notably the Best California Chef in 1996, and the Best Chef in America in 1997.

 

 

 

 

 

source credit: general foods, jello brand, vintage ad, hunt’s

 

it’s all in the presentation.

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well…

 “the charm of food presentation lies in the surprise it brings to the table.”

-restaurantmode.com