Front Burner

Move over $7 cupcake, stand aside luxury gelato, because there’s a new kid in the galaxy of boutique lickables: the gourmet popsicle.

I recently shot a brilliant garden program for urban youth in downtown Durham, NC. They told me that Loco Pops buys some of the herbs they grow for use in their eclectic popsicles. I had never heard of this place and rushed over immediately following the shoot. 

I found a simple storefront with a licking bench outside and a couple freezer display cases at the counter inside. The options included small, medium or large selected from the cream-based side of the white-board menu or the ice-based side. Considering it was nearly cocktail hour, I bought a Mighty Mojito. I discovered it to be non-alcoholic, a good idea considering the amount of children wandering around my knees with various liquid colors dripping off their chins. The Mojito was sharply limey and tart, not too sweet. Next up, Mango Chile, also from the ice-based side. The mango’s meatiness made it creamier and more rich than the mojito, and the chile kicked in just in time toward the bottom of the stick. My friend went with Lavender, perhaps sourced from the SEEDS farm nearby. It tasted like a sweet bouquet touched by Provencal sunshine – whatever that means. It was excellent.

It has become abundantly clear to me that vegans can not trust non-vegans. I don't think it's necessarily premeditated, but non-vegans don't realize the scope of the diet's restrictions.

A few weeks ago, some very pleasant and well-meaning PR folks came to town and were delighted when I told them about my vegan project. They happened to have some samples from The Protein Bakery, which, they explained, is an excellent vegan bakery. Relieved and excited, I popped the espresso brownies and peanut butter cookies into my desk.

Today, in a fit of sweetness, I grabbed one of the brownies and summarily began eating. It was delicious. Tender, chocolatey, not too sweet. Astonishing, really, since I'd have thought it would have milk, butter, or anything else I'd traditionally known to make baked goods so wonderful. About half way through, I was overtaken by curiosity and read the ingredients. I found eggs and butter, two tasty but forbidden items.

I was fooled today. I was too trusting and won't let it happen again.

(and, in case you were wondering, I did finish the brownie. It could have been fudgier, but throwing it away would have been a horrible waste. The eggs and butter weren't the brownie's fault.)

Last Tuesday, I stopped choosing to eat animal products. Meat, butter, milk, yogurt, and even honey, are off the list until the first or second week of August. I got the idea for this vegan experiment in February, and to be frank, it sounded a lot better back then. July, then about five months away, seemed like a ideal month, with all of its fresh produce. I wouldn't miss meat, right? I'd have strawberries and string beans to distract me.

Since that fateful day back in February, I've been gathering website, sources, blogs, products, and general advice to ease my transition to a plant-based diet.

To be clear, I am living this diet because I'd like to force myself to think about food differently. There are certain things I take for granted, like butter, that don't necessarily have to be a part of every meal (or every day). It is my nature to find extreme things disagreeable, so I seriously doubt I'll be staying vegan after the trial period. I do hope I can find some new recipes that I'll want to keep handy.

I suppose the only real caveat is that this diet can't interfere with my normal job duties, which involve tasting food for the magazine. This is an admittedly large loophole but I promise to use it judiciously. Keep an eye on The Front Burner because I will be updating it throughout each week. If you have any recipes that don't include meat, fish, poultry, or any dairy products (and still manages to taste good), please leave it in a comment!

One last thing. Fear not, carnivores, we will continue to post on all the things I can't eat.

Photo by Online Editor Rex Perry.

It's hard for me to believe Kelsey and I have been living together six months now. As I've noted, we generally get along except when we cook together. Last week, she was horrified to discover that I use our sponges to clean surfaces contaminated by raw meat. The thought of cleaning surfaces with anything other than a sponge was a new one to me, so I asked her how she would, for example, clean a bowl used to make (truly delicious) turkey meatballs. Kelsey pointed to the dishwasher. My mom (a self-admitted kitchen cleaning fanatic) and dad (frequently the opposite) both use sponges to clean meat-contaminated surfaces, so I went to the web to sort this out once and for all.

Kelsey, as per usual, was mostly right. Sponges can and do harbor a really terrifying amount of bacteria, yeast and mold, but with diligent cleaning it's fine to use them on meaty surfaces.

The best way to disinfect a moistened sponge is a 1-minute trip to the microwave (on high). Make sure you wet it first. A dry sponge will almost certainly catch on fire and destroy your microwave. Properly administered, this fix will kill more than 99 percent of whatever E. Coli, staphylococcus, and salmonella you might have on there. We don't have a microwave. I got used to not having the space for one while living in New York City and now would rather save the counter space. For those of us living in the 1930s, boiling the sponge for 3 minutes will accomplish the same 99.99 percent effectiveness. (So says the USDA.)

That's a great weight off my mind. The studies address other decontamination methods, such as freezing, dishwashing, and soaking in chlorine, but find them to be significantly less effective. Now I'll be keeping my sponge as dry as possible and boiling it every few days. Nothing warms the home and heart quite like the smell of boiling sponge. At least it won't burn down my apartment.

Photo shared by blmurch.

It seems like the holidays are always right around the corner at Cottage Living. Last week we completed our November entertaining photo shoot and I did a little behind-the-scenes shoot of my own. Head on over to flickr if you'd like to check out the slideshow.

Food can get stuck in your head as easily as a 1984 pop song (“Time After Time”? Ha, gotcha!). In the middle of a long, two-day climb in the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains, I had visions more tasty than tune-y.

Highway 395 from Reno, Nevada south almost to Los Angeles is big on sunshine, hot springs, mountains, and sagebrush, but small on good eats. Arguably the best in the whole 230-mile scenic stretch, the Whoa Nellie Deli hides within a standard-issue Tioga Gas Mart (aka Mobile Station), at the eastern base of the road that bisects Yosemite National Park. You’d expect Fritos and Gummi Bears, but co-owner Dennis Domaille holds nothing back. He built a professional trapeze next to the parking lot because he always loved the high-wire act (it was open to the public until a few years ago). Then he hired passing motorcyclist and San Diego native Matt “Tioga” Toomey as chef.

So as I climbed higher into the snowy mountains, I thought of what I’d order: Two soft flour tortillas wrapped around plump, lightly battered white fish strips, a perfect drizzle of special sauce, and homemade salsa, a mango margarita, frozen, and a slice of dense-yet-moist chocolate cake as big as my head. I’d be eating it soon, I told myself. Out there on the picnic table, bare feet on green grass, sun beating down just warm enough from above the jagged crest of mountains behind me. Mono Lake and its odd tufas down in the valley below.

Much to my roommate Kelsey's chagrin, I  tend to seek out subtly flavored foods. I'll prefer a mild Brie instead of her aged Gouda; chard sauteed with a bit of garlic, not her Asian fusion garlic-peanut-soy-ginger version; or the occasional teaspoon of honey in my tea to her preferred 1/4-cup. It's not that I don't enjoy assertive flavors, I would rather concentrate on a few subtle ones.

This spring, Haagen-Dazs launched an awareness campaign to inform consumers about colony collapse disorder, and to benefit the sustainable pollination research programs at UC Davis and Penn State. Researchers and beekeepers estimate that 1/3 of all honeybee colonies have been abandoned since 2006. The reasons aren't entirely clear yet, but the NRDC believes the sudden disappearance could be the combined result of pesticide exposure, inadequate food supply, and an emerging immune system virus.

The cause is noble and the ice cream is delicious. The super silky Haagen-Dazs Honey Vanilla worked wonders in my newly minted minimalist version of Strawberries Romanoff. The recipe follows:

I'm really glad CHOW didn't let being bought by CBS mess up their mojo. They turned out some noteworthy posts on funny supermarket commercials, British people eating squirrels, and the guy who saw the emerging food crisis coming (to name a few).

Overseas, Deb from Smitten Kitchen shared some gorgeous pictures of Prague and Vienna, and Kim is now officially famous in Korea.

And back home, Chicago has lifted its foie gras ban. Fois gras is cruel, but a ban on serving it doesn't really change much. Consumers shouldn't have to be prevented from buying it, they should know what they're eating and be allowed to make informed choices.

Photo shared by Dave-F.