tupelo gold

Occasionally I like to share interesting little tidbits of information that I stumble upon. It's my earnest attempt to diverge from my otherwise self-indulgent entries; the ones that seem to center upon food, my ongoing weight obsession or objects of desire (but now that I think about it, this is about both food and an object of desire AND it could be about weight obsession too . . . so perhaps I've once again failed here . . . ). Last week I had lunch with a friend who shared his new hobby as a bee-keeper with me. It reminded me of a movie I saw many years ago starring Peter Fonda, entitled "Ulee's Gold." Ulee's Gold referred to the Tupelo Honey he harvested as a bee-keeper in the south. Tupelo honey is yet another of those culinary delights that is produced in limited quantities due to geographical constraints (like Chuao Chocolate). If you're not familiar with Tupelo Honey, I've taken the liberty of reprinting some of the information taken directly from the product page of L.L. Lanier and Son's Tupelo Honey website (http://www.lltupelohoney.com/). Perhaps they will forgive me for quoting from their site if this results in purchases from you. I can attest that Tupelo honey is a special product that merits tasting.

Their information follows:
"Tupelo Honey is produced from the tupelo gum tree which grows profusely along the Chipola and Apalachicola rivers of northwest Florida. Here in the river swamps, this honey is produced in a unique fashion. Bees are placed on elevated platforms along the river's edge, and they fan out through the surrounding Tupelo-blossom-laden swamps during April and May and return with their precious treasure. This river valley is the only place in the world where Tupelo Honey is produced commercially.

Real Tupelo Honey is a light golden amber color with a greenish cast. The flavor is delicious, delicate and distinctive; a choice table grade honey. Good white tupelo, unmixed with other honeys, will not granulate, and due to this high fructose low glucose ration, some diabetic patients have been permitted by their physicians to eat Tupelo Honey.

Black tupelo, ti-ti, black gum, willow and severl other honey plants bloom in advance of white tupelo and are used to build up colony strength and stores. Since these sources produce a less desirable, darker honey, which will granulate, the product is sold as bakery honey. Possibly it is just that or a blend which is a cheaper honey for which the buyer may be paying a premium price.

The important point which we wish to make here is that all honey that is being labeled Tupelo is not top quality Tupelo Honey as the bees make it and as skilled beekeepers produce it. Some honey may be very light in color and could very well have a high percentage of gall berry. Gall berry blooms right after Tupelo. It is attractive, as it is a light white honey, but it is not Tupelo and will soon granulate. Some honey is labeled Tupelo and wildflower. In this case the buyer has no guarantee of just how much real Tupelo he may be getting.

Fine Tupelo is more expensive because it costs more to produce this excellent specialty honey. To gain access to the river locations where the honey is produced requires expensive labor and equipment. In order to get fine, unmixed Tupelo Honey, colonies must be stripped of all stores just as the white Tupelo bloom begins. The bees must have clean combs in which to place the Tupelo Honey. Then the new crop must be removed before it can be mixed with additional honey sources. The timing of these operations are critical and years of experience are needed to produce a fine product that will certify as Tupelo Honey.

Nutrition Facts

The black particles on the top of the honey jar are beeswax and pollen. This occurs because the honey is not heated or processed; it's in its natural state the way honey should be. When honey is heated and processed it takes all the living enzymes, nutrients and pollen out of the honey; therefore, creating just another sugar not a nutritious product. Honey in its natural state is a health food. Tupelo Honey is made primarily of fructose sugar which has been called the queen of sugars. The reason being is that it's the easiest sugar for the body to use and absorb. It does not tax the body or its digestive system like white cane or granulated sugar. Honey should be kept at room temperature with a tightly closed lid. The only thing that will make the honey go bad is moisture, so keep the lid on tight. In addition to its sugars, honey contains as its minor components a consdierable number of mineral constituents, seven members of the B-vitamin complex, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), dextirn's, plant pigments, amino acids and other organic acids, traces of protein, esters and other aromatic compounds, and several enzymes."

Also (and this is me again), most store bought honeys are laced with corn syrup. In fact, some "honeys" are primarily corn syrup, so buyer beware.

comfort food

I'm a nervous eater. Give me something to worry about, anything, and BAM! something's immediately in my mouth. AND 99% of the time, I can guarantee you it's not going to be a carrot stick. No sir, carrot sticks do not a pacifier make. I need real comfort and real relief. Bugs Bunny food does not cut it. Give me something that soothes me like a mother's caress. Chocolate cake for instance. Or chocolate chip cookies (newly baked in the oven and still hot) or an entire Amano Chuao Chocolate bar (yes, I've become a snob). As I write this, I see a common theme emerging. Chocolate does reign, but I am not so close-minded as to exclude other flavors as I seek instant solace. Pizza is equally effective at vanquishing the discomfort of anxiety as is a good hamburger or hot dog (with fries please). I cannot imagine how others cope with their anxieties, but if it does not entail food, well, I just feel sorry for them. These lesser strategies will undoubtedly leave vestiges of PTSD.

As we approach Thanksgiving, it occurs to me this annual ritual is the ultimate close-looped system of anxiety and anxiety relief. The stress induced from cooking for relatives (don't get me started about the in-laws!) and hoping it passes muster is way up there on the Richter Scale of anxiety. But how poetic and beautiful that at that moment, when everybody sits down at the table (the silent scream moment), there is all of that food laid out in front of you to gently appease you with its fattening grace. Ah, turkey, ah, mashed potatoes, ah, gravy . . . where have you been all year?

So (as you probably surmise from this small rant), I am once again gaining weight. Chalk that up to the bathroom remodel. No matter. Give me comfort any day over a trim build. It is a good thing I'm writing this. If I were speaking to you at this very moment, you would find it difficult to understand me with all of the food that is in my mouth. Oh, and could you pass the gravy please?

the best camera and the hipstamatic

With the advent of cell phones, and more specifically the iPhone, an increasing number of people are using these sophisticated devices as their primary cameras. One photographer, Chase Jarvis, popularized the idea on his website, http://www.thebestcamera.com/, named for the concept that the best camera is the one you have with you. Jarvis created an iPhone app that enables photos taken with the iPhone to be manipulated and shared easily with others. Another pair of photographers developed a similar app for the iPhone called Hipstamatic. The Hipstamatic app mimics the appearance of toy cameras on the iPhone and offers (for a cost over and above the initial $1.99 investment) the look of different films, lenses and flash attachments. The Hipstamatic folks have also developed a website where iPhone images (based upon monthly themes) can be uploaded to a gallery, but in this instance, to be judged for prizes by the public.

At the suggestion of one of the artists represented by Phillips Gallery here in Salt Lake City, the gallery is hosting an open invitation for iPhone photographers to submit some of their best images (on a juried basis) to be displayed and sold at the annual holiday show. Although I don't own an iPhone, I was able to borrow one for a day from one of my co-workers to play with the Hipstamatic app for a possible submission to the forthcoming show. The primary problem with the Hipstamatic app is that want you see is not what you get. In other words, the final image is different than the image viewed on the screen as you are composing. Ironically, one encounters this very same problem with a real toy camera. Once you have familiarized yourself with the problem however, it becomes relatively simple to compensate accordingly.

Briefly, I found the Hipstamatic app to be quite fun. I re-discovered the joy of shooting anything and everything just for the fun of it and can see why the sites are becoming increasingly popular. I will not be abandoning my more traditional photography utilizing a full-fledged camera, any time soon, but for a diversion (and perhaps down the road when I finally succumb to an iPhone), I'm happy I tried it. Someday in the not too distant future when the resolution of a cell phone, will be high enough to merit serious consideration (they are currently up to the five to eight megapixel range), I might make the ultimate switch. Until that time, I'm content to borrow my co-worker's cell phone for a few moments here and there to play with on an occasional basis. As for my serious work, I'm sticking with my "old" digital cameras.

different worlds

My co-worker, Kim, and I inhibit entirely different worlds. Admittedly, our age difference is one factor, but it goes beyond that. Kim is a hipster, a burner, a designer, an actor, a clubber (is that even the term for somebody who goes "clubbing?"), a performer (by this I mean somebody who dances in front of audiences while twirling a lit ball of fire on the end of a rope. I suppose the term is "fire dancer"). I am none of these things.

Our worlds collide only briefly at work and through our mutual love of photography. She moves in a world whose existence I am barely aware of; one that exists simultaneously in the very same city, on the very same streets that I inhabit yet never visit. I've seem images of her world on Facebook and on her website and on the computer monitor as she shares them with other co-workers more closely aligned to her age and lifestyle (although I suspect they rarely visit Kim's world as well). Kim's world seems to hold "glitz" and "glamour," and begins as night falls.

She ventures forth in the cover of night (when I am sequestered safely at home, doors locked, dinner cooked, with some time ahead of me perhaps allotted to some channel surfing in front of the TV before retiring to bed) as the city lights ignite, exactly the time vampires begin prowling for their nightly blood feast, if they truly exist. And if they do exist, well, I'm sure Kim has met a few along the way. She gathers with friends (who, I imagine, are disguised during the day to look like you and me) who share her interests and travel the same paths; some who have undoubtedly made the annual trek to Burning Man with her. Sometimes I suppose she practices her fire dancing with some of them, sometimes she simply drinks and chats with them (punctuated intermittently with peals of laughter). Sometimes she probably just hangs out with them. Whatever she does, I am sure she does it with more flare and style and edginess than I could ever hope to bring to the same circumstances.

Nonetheless, I consider us friends. It's interesting how the workplace and proximity can make the strangest of bedfellows. Many of us live entirely different lifestyles and travel in entirely different circles, yet we co-exist, brought together in a sort of community by some commonality (be it work, our shared hobbies, our shared place of worship). People we would normally never conceive of forming bonds with become our friends. How marvelous is that? The world is an interesting place, full of diversity and possibilities. Although I may never attend Burning Man, I feel I know it, all because of my association with Kim and our annual ritual of show-and-tell upon her return. And, should I be out there in the city at night, and should a vampire or two choose to descend upon me as their evening's prey, I am confident that if Kim is anywhere nearby, she will vouch for me and divert those vampires elsewhere.

the facebook phenomenon revisited

Last year I blogged about my first experience with Facebook. At the time, I declared it to be an impersonal way of getting personal with friends. I also suggested that it made me feel like a socially-challenged hermit as it validated my dearth of friends (at present, I’m at 38 versus another friend who has 400, although at the time of the original posting, I only had 19 friends)! And as previously mentioned, one of my more active friends, is the seventeen year-old who mows my lawn (Hey again, Taylor!).

Since that time, I’ve become a little more accustomed to the social network and on Friday, for the first time ever, I had a chat session on Facebook with one of my Facebook friends. Interestingly, my friend, Sarah, and I have never met. We began our on-line friendship when Sarah’s mother, Susan, a good friend of mine, provided the “connection.” My friend knew Sarah and I shared a number of interests and since that time, Sarah and I have communicated exclusively via the internet. We share an odd combination of interests ranging from our support of CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), our love of all things sci-fi (particular Star Trek), and our mutual respect and awe for the wonderful recipes originating from the Cooks Illustrated folks.

It surprises me how friendships can form without ever actually meeting a person face-to-face (For a cautionary tale of the downside of establishing a friendship via Facebook, I suggest you see the documentary “Catfish”). Our conversation flowed as easily as it would have if we had met via conventional means. So thank you, Susan, for the introduction, thank you, Sarah, for the friendship and thank you, (albeit a still wary one from a novice user), Mark Zuckerberg, for establishing Facebook, a cultural phenomenon of our times.

lotus

One of the many (or few) "guy" things I can lay claim to is my fascination with fast automobiles. I first became acquainted with the Lotus marque in high school as I devotedly watched "The Prisoner" television series. In the title sequence, Patrick McGoohan, the protagonist of the show, drives a Lotus Super Seven into the tunnel entrance that leads into British Secret Services headquarters. I immediately fell in love with that automobile and still dream of someday possessing one. Although the genuine Lotus Super Seven is officially out of production by Lotus, several manufacturers continue to produce very accurate reproductions of the vehicle. Colin Chapman founded Lotus and is a legendary figure in racing and sports car circles. I even know a gentleman who named his son, Colin, in honor of Colin Chapman. But I digress.

Colin Chapman's main philosophy of building fast cars dealt with a high power to weight ratio. He would employ any means possible to reduce the weight of each model to generate the fastest acceleration and top speeds possible for a given engine output. Some of his powerplants were quite modest, but because the automobiles they were installed in were so light, the resulting vehicles performance numbers were incredible.

Last week at the Paris Auto Show, Lotus unveiled its new product line. Amazingly, they introduced 5 new models; the Elite, Esprit,

Elan,

Elise,and Eterne.
All are beautifully designed automobiles. I share them with you here as another testimony to the spirit of Colin Chapman.

america the plentiful

The other day, Joni asked if I would make her my special sandwich, a concoction I learned from an old girl friend's mother. It consists of english muffins, paper thin slices of ham (which are easily purchased these days courtesy of Hillshire Farms), tomatoes, and paper thin slices of onion topped with muenster cheese (don't forget the butter and mayo) melted in the broiler. When I ran down to the local supermarket to purchase the requisite ingredients, I was very annoyed to find that there was a sale on Wonder Bread traditional english muffins, resulting in an empty shelf of my preferred sandwich substrate (a word utilized to excess by my daughter's former and annoying boy friend). I was thus forced to purchase the Sara Lee english muffins that were on the shelf below in ample supply. If you're like me (and I know you are), you've come to develop deeply ingrained loyalties to specific products. As an example, Best Foods mayonnaise is the only brand of mayonnaise worth purchasing. Likewise Heinz ketchup (although over the years I swear it has become more watery).

(Several years ago when the Lost Boys were brought to the United States to allow them the opportunity to literally "live" they were overwhelmed by many aspects of our vastly different lifestyle. Upon visiting a supermarket for the first time, one of them commented in exasperation, "Why do you have so many varieties of the same thing?" He could not fathom from his experience, how we could possibly have so many choices of so many products when he was just thankful to eat anything each day.) His frame of reference could not embrace our overabundant and market-driven economy.

I was immediately reminded (all this from the outage of Wonder Bread english muffins) of how blessed we truly are. I find annoyance at not being able to purchase my preferred english muffin (in itself a luxury item, really) when people are starving in the world. Yes, yes, I know this is not a profound revelation, but a certain dose of reality, guilt and awareness is always an important thing to carry if we are to remember our humanity and to motivate us to do something, anything to contribute to alleviating the suffering of the world. I suppose this is why so many Americans have contributed to many of the funds to help re-build the devastation of the recent catastrophes in Haiti, the flooding in Pakistan, and in our own backyard (some years ago now) of New Orleans.

Several (actually, now many) years ago, when we lived in Connecticut, there was a threat of a bad Nor'Easter. The news outlets warned residents to stock up on vital supplies as we might be stranded in our homes for several days. Since we were new to such things, we were immediately overcome with fear and uncertainty and dutifully drove to our local supermarket. The scene there only contributed to our now mounting terror as people were frantically running to and fro, shopping carts in tow as they emptied the remaining stock of groceries on the picked over shelves. It looked like the store had gone out of business long ago and somebody had forgotten to remove a few items here and there as they packed up. We managed to cobble together some essentials from what remained (as well as from other stores we visited by way of preparation). Luckily, as things turned out, the cold front took a last-minute turn away from us and the dreaded Nor-Easter never arrived.

It did leave an indelible mark on my psyche however. It taught me that we should not necessarily take for granted those things that we have accepted as "givens" in our life. Store stocks are replenished weekly, with items brought out daily from their storage space in the back when necessary. But, in the event that distribution is disrupted due to a force majeure event, it is easy to see from my experience in Connecticut that a supermarket can be depleted of its stock in just one day. I cannot convey how vulnerable I felt that day in the Stop and Shop with all of those empty shelves. Similarly, a few years ago, we suffered a power outage here in Salt Lake City in the dead of winter that knocked out our electricity for five days. It was almost incomprehensible to us to imagine that we would be without power for that long. It was the reason we remained in our home for three days before moving in with my parents. We thought the infrastructure of the power company was such that it would rally to restore power in a timely fashion as it always had.

No wonder then, that residents in New Orleans were bewildered by the lack of support and rescue they received during their catastrophe. My own brother-in-law, a doctor at the Tulane Hospital was caught in the chaos. He brought his family to the hospital, figuring there were generators and supplies available to help them be comfortable and cared for during the interim until rescue arrived. Sadly, rescue only came after days of fear and danger. An armed gang tried to storm the hospital for its coffer of drugs. Shots were fired. My brother-in-law called his father at one point, the only time he ever betrayed fear and panic, pleading to be rescued somehow. One family member tried to purchase the services of mercenaries ($50,000) to stage a rescue attempt. During the negotiation process, helicopters from the National Guard ultimately landed (after taking direct fire from the armed gang below and firing back, thereby repelling them). Patients and the remaining hospital staff (my brother-in-law and his family included) where ultimately rescued intact.

So what is the take-away from all of this? I'm not sure. I would recommend a 72-hour survival pack for each member of your family, hopefully portable enough to take with you. Keep the essentials of food and water in your home; flashlights, a radio, a supply of batteries, some essential toiletries. I know some of you are much better prepared than I am and already have these in your possession. I applaud you for this. For those of you who may not have yet considered this, I urge you to invest some time and thought into getting this done. We are truly blessed to be living in this wonderful country, but although it is America the plentiful, it is important to be aware of contingencies should something happen.

And oh, yeah, contribute some of your earnings to a charitable cause, or better yet, donate some of your time in the service of your community.