This is another one of my weight loss posts, so don't bother clicking through if that's not what you want to read.

I used to joke about my weight and my poor eating habits. As of last year, however, I decided to do something about it. When we arrived in Utah last summer, I weighed 240 pounds, more or less, and I was feeling horrible about my long-term prospects. So I decided to use the move to Utah as an impetus for change: I started walking to work (three miles, one way), enrolled in a fitness counseling program at BYU, and lifted weights three times a week with my oldest son. By the end of the year, I had lost 30 pounds. Weight loss seemed so easy then.

It took me another three months of waxing and waning to lose 10 pounds, but I had reached my intermediate goal of dipping below 200 on the scale. And I assumed that the heat and increased activity of the summer months would result in even more rapid weight loss. Unfortunately, summer also brought conference season. Lots of airplane travel, restaurant food, conference snacks, and disrupted routines. Suddenly, I found myself gaining again at an alarming weight rate. By mid-July, I was back up to 208 pounds. Ugh!

With most of my conferences complete, I re-asserted control over my diet and exercise. I cut out desserts for the rest of the summer, ate lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, and started running. Again. I had first taken up running last fall, but I had lapsed. Now I decided to run the three miles to work. Unfortunately, I couldn't run much more than a mile without breaking down. So I did the run-walk as well as I could manage, and after a few weeks, I was running the whole way. Is there any better way to lose weight than running? Well, hunger strike, I suppose. Anyway, in the month and a half or so that I have been running, I have lost 12 pounds, which puts me around 196 and falling. I feel a new wardrobe coming on.

I decided to write this post because I got my hair cut this morning. As I was sitting in the chair at the BYU barbershop, watching my gray and brown hair fall to the ground, I asked, "how much does hair weigh?" When I am in weight-loss mode, I am looking for every angle. If hair made a material difference in my weight, I would seriously consider shaving my head. But the barber didn't know the answer to my question, and by the end of the cut, I was convinced that the answer was, "not enough to justify shaving your head."

If you have ever had to lose weight, you know that crazy things like this go through your mind all of the time. One day last year I asked my wife how much one of my legs weighed. Amputation wasn't a real option, but I was just curious how quickly I could reach my weight goals by shedding body parts.

And, of course, I think constantly of the wrestlers at my high school, who used to run around in sweat suits, spitting to get down to the necessary weight. Spitting is gross. And the effect on weight lasts only until you get to the next drinking fountain. But like I said, crazy thoughts.

My ultimate goal is to weigh between 165-170. One of my neighbors told me the other day not to lose any more weight or I would look emaciated, but he is delusional. My ability to lose weight from doing what I am doing right now will taper off soon, and I will need to redouble my efforts if I am going to reach that goal. The next frontier: portion sizes. I have been working half-heartedly on this one for awhile, but it's time to get serious. If last spring is any guide, it's the last 10 pounds before reaching the goal that are really tough.

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So I was listening to Kai Ryssdal's interview with Peter Chapman, author of Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World, when Chapman remarked casually, as if we all knew already, "it's a highly vulnerable crop and at the moment is suffering from diseases which might soon -- within the next decade or so -- wipe it out."

A world without bananas!?

As it turns out, I probably am the last person in the world to get the news. Websites on the Panama Disease are abundant. Bananas have a fascinating history, and clearly the most popular fruit in the Smith household. I will be so sad if they vanish ...

Thanks to loop_oh for the photo.

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Somehow I learned to love Grape Nuts when I was a child, and I still eat them from time to time with yogurt. I did that this morning, and I can't get through a bowl without thinking of Euell Gibbons.

Cattails are edible? We used to smash cattails on the road so the seeds would fly through the air. It never occurred to me to eat one. Though I still like the taste of alfalfa.

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Good restaurants are scarce in Utah Valley, but I discovered one tonight, thanks to a tip from my colleague, Fred Gedicks. Inspired by an offer to publish my article -- and the fact that my wife and daughters went to SLC for the evening -- I took my sons to Pizzeria Seven Twelve. (A restaurant with it's own light-content blog.)

We walked in and got a table at 6:30 pm on a Saturday, but it won't be long before this place will require an hour wait. It's all about the pizza, and this is the best pizza I have ever eaten. Sorry, New York.

If you don't believe me, read some of the other reviews.

By the way, the "712" is a reference to the temperature of the brick oven, imported from Italy. The server told me on the sly that the oven actually cooks at 780 degrees, but the owners liked the sound of "Seven Twelve." I am in favor of whatever it takes to get pizza that good.

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Last year, I blogged about a restaurant called Cereality, which is simply a restaurant that sells existing cereals, either alone or in combination with other cereals, toppings, and milks.  While visiting the University of Arizona in connection with the Law & Entrepreneurship Retreat (thanks to Gordon and Darian Ibrahim, our organizers!), I had the chance to visit The Cereal Boxx, a smaller-scale copycat.

The Cereal Boxx seems to be a local establishment ("Tucson's Premier Cereal Restaurant"), and did not seem to have the wide array of offerings as Cereality.  However, I really enjoyed it, and I loved my cereal.  I ordered the Health Nut, which had Kashi Go Lean, Special K, bananas, blueberries, cranberries and almonds.  Yum. 

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Today I visited Wisconsin's cheese mecca, Monroe, home to the Monroe High School Cheesemakers. I stopped for lunch in Baumgartner's Cheese Store and Tavern, where I snarfed down a Limburger Cheese sandwich. Have you ever eaten Limburger cheese? If you haven't, let's just say this: Baumgartner's serves the sandwich with an after-dinner mint.

If you have tasted Limburger, chances are it was made in Monroe at the Chalet Cheese Cooperative, the only Limburger manufacturing facility in the U.S. Unfortunately, Chalet has been closed, so I haven't been able to visit on this trip. I hope to get back in June.

By the way, as I sat eating my sandwich, the sound system was playing "Feelin' Groovy" by Simon and Garfunkel. Indeed.

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If you have been to Berlin, I assume that you have sampled Currywurst. I prefer Bosner (or Bosna) Wurst, which I encountered as a Mormon missionary in Linz, Austria, but the core ingredients are the same: sausage/hot dog, ketchup/tomato sauce, and curry powder. (The Bosner also has onions and a bun.)

Butchers in Berlin who make sausages for Currywurst are upset by imported sausages from other EU member states. So the butchers have applied for "geographic indication" protection, like that afforded "Champagne" or "Parmigiano Reggiano." The butchers want their sausage to be known as "Berliner Currywurst." The problem is that the sausages don't become "Berliner Currywurst" until you top them off with tomato sauce and curry powder. As explained by Axel Nordemann is an attorney with Boehmert and Boehmert, one of Germany's top intellectual property law firms:

The sausage itself is not a Berliner currywurst, it needs something additionally to become a currywurst. You see, you can take this ground sausage for the currywurst, you can take it and eat it with mustard, and then it's certainly not a Berliner currywurst.

As noted by Nordemann, the average consumer of Berliner Currywurst can't tell the difference between the local sausages and the imports. "Es ist mir wurst," so to say.

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I admit it -- I'm an ice connoisseur.  I love good ice.  Good ice to me is pellet ice, or crushed ice (if it is crushed small enough).  Little bitty ice with lots of surface area.  My interest in good ice is both for chilling drinks -- I have a hypothesis that it cools drinks better -- and also for the chewing after the drink is gone.  I can tell you all the places I know that have good ice, which convenience stores (mostly in Texas, especially the QT, but also the Sheetz in Virginia and the Marathon here in Champaign), which restaurants (Sonic, hands down).  Pellet ice is much more available in Texas than either Wisconsin or Illinois -- no one can beat Texas for super-huge convenience stores with soda fountains that take up an entire wall!

The WSJ today finally gives ice love some respect.  Apparently there are many closet ice connoisseurs out there (I prefer this term to the kind of gross "ice chewer" term the WSJ uses).  I, too, have purchased ice in bags from Sonic.  My spouse has also priced pellet ice machines, which are far more expensive than cube ice machines.  I 'll have to tell Paul that Amy Grant gave Vince Gill a pellet ice machine.  Surely I'm worth one, too!

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Regular readers of Conglomerate know that I have been working to reduce my weight. When I initially disclosed my plan on October 5, I was down 12 pounds since early August. In a comment to that post last month, I noted that I had lost 23 pounds. Today, I reached my goal for 2008 (a week early): down 30 pounds!

One of the gazillion imperfect measures of health and well-being is the Body Mass Index (BMI), which is a rough measure of body fat based on height and weight. When I started focusing on my weight, I was well within the BMI "Obesity" category. As of today, I am merely "Overweight."

The change is noticeable enough that people have started asking, "How did you do it?" Which makes me think that I should plan this out. Maybe I could end up with an endorsement, like Jared the Subway guy. One of the many problems with that idea is that my approach has been mind-numbingly obvious: start exercising and eat less.

Of course, the simplicity of my approach and the ensuing success makes me wonder why I waited so long to start ...

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Even if I weren't trying to cut back on meat consumption, I would have a hard time getting excited about the Tanka Bar: "100% Natural Buffalo Cranberry Bar." Here is the sales pitch:

Based on traditional wasna and pemmican, we combine high-protein, prairie-fed buffalo and tart-sweet cranberries with our secret, patent-pending herbal-based preservative. Then we slow-smoke it to perfection for 9 hours. At only 70 calories, these bars are perfect for today's nomadic Native always on the go! Take some with you next time you hit the trail.

So, this is like jerky with cranberries added?

Even if that doesn't appeal to you, the business behind this story is interesting. Here is the scoop from Marketplace:

Trendy as energy bars are, in point of fact Native Americans have been onto the secret for ages. Last December Steve Tripoli brought us the story of a company in South Dakota hoping to repackage and market a more traditional high-protein snack. The Tanka bar is a combination of dried buffalo meat and cranberries. Tanka roughly translates to Big Idea. A fitting name, says company president Mark Tilsen:

MARK TILSEN: Coming from the pioneer reservation, which is one of the poorest places in the country, this is as grand and as big as you could think of to launch a nation and hopefully someday an international brand.

We talked to Mark at the Black Hills Pow Wow in South Dakota where he's launching the bar today. He says his company, Native American Natural Foods, has produced 100,000 bars for the launch and they've almost sold out.

TILSEN: Every time somebody tastes it their eyebrows go up and they say, "That's not what i expected." Because it's all natural and the cranberries are almost whole in there and you get this burst that we call the taste of energy.

As opposed to the sawdust most of 'em taste like. But good flavor's not cheap. A Tanka bar will set you back $2.25.

This is the first product for Native American Natural Foods, but it's not the first business with big aspirations riding on buffalo ... or, more properly, bison. Remember Ted Turner's Montana Grill? (Which, oddly enough, has no restaurants in Montana.)

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How can you be anti-juice?  Commercials with cute kids singing songs about their juice, which looks jummy and sweet through the TV.  But is juice all that great?  Yesterday, the NYT had an article entitled Sugar Finds Its Way Back to the School Cafeteria.  The gist of the article is that Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Co and Cadbury Schweppes were very "shrewd" in voluntarily agreeing to only supply water, low-fat milk and juice to elementary and middle schools and additionally other drinks with less than 66 calories per 8 ounces, light juices and diet sodas to high schools.  The reporter wants us to be outraged that this will open the door to drinks like Gatorade, Propel and Vitaminwater that are "enhanced" with vitamins our kids don't even need!  And of course we all know that (gasp) Coke owns Vitaminwater!!

Why not be outraged about juice?  First of all, (gasp) who owns the juice companies?  Coke owns Minute-Maid, Pepsi owns Tropicana, and Cadbury Schweppes owns Mott's.  Ah, shrewd.  Second, juice is very high-calorie.  If all this whoopla is about preventing obesity in children, then shouldn't we really be worried about calories?  According to the Minute-Maid website, an 11.5 ounce can of grape juice has 180 calories.  That's more than the 140 calories in a can of Coke.  And what nutrients do children get?  100% of Vitamin C.  And that's about it, plus 40 grams of sugar.  Compared to Propel (15 calories per 12 ounces, 3 grams of sugar, 15% of Vitamins C and E, 40% of Niacin and B6), I'd rather my kids drink Propel (which also now comes with calcium).  Vitaminwater has a few more calories (8 ounces has 55 calories, 13 sugars, 40% Vitamin C, 20% of various B vitamins), but it still seems better than juice.  Every pediatrician we've ever known has warned against giving kids, especially older than toddlers, juice.  Many parents I know water down juice, and Mott's has just figured this out and will now sell diluted juice that's part water/part juice. 

The funniest part of the article was a principal basically saying "jsut put in working cold water fountains."  Our kids go to a school where every student has a water bottle and fills it up with water throughout the day, even at lunch.  Look Ma, no calories!

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Here is the press release from Campbell Soup Company: "Although the premium chocolate category is experiencing strong growth and Godiva is well-positioned for the future, the premium chocolate business does not fit with Campbell's strategic focus on simple meals,-including soup-baked snacks, and vegetable-based beverages."

Apparently, Campbell's wants to focus more on "wellness" (see the latest Campbell's 10-K) and premium chocolate doesn't fit the bill. That's not what they told me at the Schokoladenmuseum in Cologne! If you are interested, here is a nice rundown on the health effects of chocolate.

Finally, a word about Godiva. When I was in Brussels earlier this year, people steered me away from Godiva and toward Wittamer and Pierre Marcolini on the ground that "Godiva is now American."

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Either way, it's pizza in a cone. Here and here.

I can definitely see this succeeding on State Street in Madison.

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Seriously.

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With seven people in my family, each of us is assigned a day to cook the family dinner. (My oldest daughter threw a wrench in the system by moving away to college! But we work around that.) Sunday is my day, and I decided to go Austrian today. I spent a good chunk of my Saturday afternoon with my son making Tiroler Knödel ... mmm. Here is a step by step guide. (But use Kaiser rolls, not French baguettes!)

We will have some Wiener Schnitzel, too, but for me the Knödel is the star of the show. Now, if I could just learn how to make Apfelstrudel.

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My light blogging of late is due to a vigorous travel schedule. Yesterday, I visited Larry Ribstein, Christine Hurt, Cindy Williams, Richard Ross, Bob Lawless, Paul Stancil, and Amitai Aviram (among others) at the University of Illinois. My hosts were not only gracious, but they offered very helpful comments on the early-stage paper that I presented.

Today, I am presenting the same paper at Ronald Mann's workshop at the University of Texas. More on happenings in Texas in a later post, but I have already encountered Kate Litvak, and hope to see other faculty during the course of the day. At lunch Ronald introduced me to "stuffed avacado" at Trudy's. Here is the menu description:

A fried, breaded avocado stuffed with spiced chicken and cheese. Covered with choice of sauce and cheese. Garnished with an avocado slice. Served with lettuce and tomato.

Extraordinary!

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Every fall law students and med students participate in the Dean's Cup, which is designed "to foster camaraderie between the two schools and to give back to the community through local charities." My favorite event is the Bake-off, which I judged tonight for the third time.

Three other judges and I each graded 55 desserts (no, that is not a typo!) on presentation and taste. Students seem quite expert at making all varieties of cheesecake and chocolate was a favorite ingredient, but a Crème Brûlée took home the top prize.

How did I feel after sampling 55 desserts? Jittery and slightly nauseous. After eating that much sugar, I had a strong craving for vegetables or meat. T&S co-blogger Russell Arben Fox was in town, so we ate at the New Seoul Korean Restaurant, where Russell introduced me to kimchi. (Russell was a Mormon missionary in Korea.) Even I was surprised to realize that I had never tried kimchi, though I am game for almost anything with garlic.

Now the question is whether I will sleep tonight.

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My teenage son and I paused for a few minutes over the apples in the grocery store this morning. He likes to eat them in slices, and he was looking for "Pink Ladies," but the store didn't have any. I suggested "Honeycrisp," but we couldn't find those, either. We ended up with McIntosh.

All of this got me in the mood to go apple picking, which is (almost) an annual ritual in my family. My favorite apple off the tree: Cortland.

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Tonight, I took my sons to the Flat Top Grill, a "create your own stir-fry restaurant." It is a fun concept, but the learning curve is steep. Check out the website, where they explain the system. Now imagine the servers explaining that to everyone who walks in. It was pretty chaotic, and in a group of four, I suspect that at least one person is destined to make some bad choices. In our group, only half of us were pleased with the result, and one of my sons thought his was inedible. (They removed that one from the bill because he had followed the server's recommendations!)

So far they have only 10 locations, but if you are close to one of those, it's worth a try. My tip: unless you are experienced as assembling stir fry, stick with the "recipies" until you have the feel for it. Oh, and get the Indian flatbread by adding a blue stick to your bowl. Mmmm, good.

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It's no surprise that states with a vast array of great food, music and culture are states with active ports-of-entry for immigrant groups during our nation's history.  Texas is no exception, with the port of Galveston functioning as a southern Ellis Island during it's beginnings.  The NYT today pays homage to the influence of food made by the many German immigrants that made Texas their home:  beer, barbecue, and even ice cream.  (No wonder we felt so at home here in Milwaukee, with beer, sausage, and custard!).  The article spotlights Blue Bell ice cream, made in a town in Central Texas called Brenham, now made fashionable with antique/art shows and "ranchettes."  The Texas Longhorn may be the most identifiable bovines in Texas, but the Blue Bell cows run a close second.

Blue Bell is definitely the best ice cream in the world.  It is not sold in fancy stores where you pay $3.50 for a scoop in a waffle cone.  At times, you may be able to buy a half gallon of Blue Bell ice cream in the grocery store for $3.50, if it's on sale.  When I was growing up, Blue Bell was only sold in central Texas, so the rest of us had to suffer.  A family friend was rumored to have followed a Blue Bell truck he spotted in Lubbock all the way to Amarillo to see where the truck was going.  Now, the ice cream is found in 16 states and all over Texas.  My favorite flavor is Vanilla Bean.  The Blue Bell creamery even hosts a fun run in Brenham each March, and several years ago, Paul and I ran the very scenic 10K with it's sadistic uphill stretch in mile 6.  But at the end, you know what they had for us?  Ice cream.  We all run for ice cream!

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My favorite salad (by a longshot) is the tomato, mozzarella, and basil salad, with fresh Brandywine tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese (not grated pizza cheese!), fresh basil, freshly ground pepper, sea salt, and some high-quality olive oil. Even my teenage son loves this salad. He especially loves the mozzarella cheese, but for me the key is the tomatoes. You don't have to use Brandywine tomatoes, which can be hard to find, but if you have a choice, why not?

By the way, isn't is amazing how much there is to know about everything, even Brandywine tomatoes?

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I don't drink wine, but this is a trip to Napa Valley that I could really enjoy.

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I have been developing a taste for dark chocolate lately. When I was a child, I threw all of the dark chocolate in my Halloween bag away. Is this another sign of my developing maturity? Or am I losing taste buds?

At least I can claim some health benefits.

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O.K., I'm not sure what part of this post is the hardest to disclose -- (1) I was reading Vanity Fair while getting my hair done or (2) the one article in VF that held my attention the longest was on Sweet'N Low.  The article was actually an excerpt from the forthcoming Sweet and Low:  A Family Story by Rich Cohen, the grandson of Benjamin Eisenstadt, developer of Sweet'N Low for Cumberland Packing.  The story of the rise and stabilization of S'NL has at least two interesting components -- the concept of branding and the influence of (and influence on) the FDA.  The excerpt briefly tells the tale of opportunities, openings in the market created by the FDA.  T

The first window of opportunity came in 1969 when the FDA banned cyclamates.  The S'NL guys had spent millions researching how to make the product without cyclamate just in case and had stumbled upon a saccharin formula in an attempt to create a kosher version.  In the weeks before the makers of Diet-Rite and Tab could regroup, S'NL (with saccharin) took over and became No. 1 in a matter of months.  S'NL was not as able to adapt in 1977 when the FDA banned saccharin.  The Eisenstadts fought the ban, but in the three months that saccharin was banned, the maker of Aspertame, GD Searle, were able to convince the FDA to approve its sweetener after being rejected several times.  (Interestingly, the differences noted between application times are (1) presence (or absence) of another approved sweetener; (2) change in administration; and (3) the hiring of Donald Rumsfeld by GD Searle to push the application through.) 

The second point of interest is the branding of Nutrasweet.  Nutrasweet was branded not as a "sugar substitute" for dieters but as an "alternative sweetener" for everyone who likes sweets.  The swirl became a part of Diet Coke and recognizable everywhere.  The end of the tale is that now S'NL is #3 in the alternative sweetner market but more profitable than ever because Nutrasweet enlarged the market from the "diet foods" aisle.

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My mother, who is a full-blooded Norwegian, used to make lefse at Christmas. It looks like a tortilla, but lefse is made from potatoes and butter (or shortening or cream). Also, lefse typically is rectangular, not circular. Most people spread butter on one side, roll it up like a cigar, and eat it. If you have a sweet tooth, sprinkle sugar on the butter. If you are adventurous, try lefse with lutefisk (cod soaked in lye). I am not that adventurous.

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Last Thursday, I was in Chicago during a blizzard. Lucky me.

Normally, Frontera Grill has a long wait, but Chicagoans decided to eat in on Thursday night. The Frontera Grill is located only a block from my hotel, so I slogged through the snowdrifts and was rewarded with an amazing Mexican meal. This was my main course:

Carne Asada - Montana Natural rib steak, marinated in spicy red chile and wood- grilled, served with black beans, sweet plantains with sour cream, and guacamole.

Yum! My only regret is that I was too full to eat dessert.

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I was enlisted by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) to participate in some strategic planning this morning, and my unexpected reward was a box of chocolates from Wisconsin chocolatier Candinas. I am not a chocoholic, but I enjoy fine Swiss chocolate as much as the next person. Candinas did not disappoint.

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I love root beer. Always have. When I was a boy, I drank A&W Root Beer from frosty mugs in my home town. As I have moved around the country, I have made a point of sampling the local brews. In Oregon, I fell in love with Henry Weinhard's, but in Wisconsin, I drink mostly Sprecher.

This weekend, for the first time, I tasted a root beer from Boylan Bottleworks in New Jersey. Unlike Henry Weinhard's and Sprecher, Boylan didn't make Luke Cole's list of Ten Best Root Beers in America for 2004, but it's excellent root beer in a cool bottle. It doesn't displace Henry Weinhard's as my favorite, but Henry Weinhard's is hard to find here in the Midwest, and Boylan's is a nice substitute.

The #1 root beer on Cole's list is Gale's, made in Chicago. If I can't find Gale's in Madison, I will be in Chicago on December 8. Gives me something to do there ...

Other root beer reviews are located here and here. Henry Weinhard's fares well on the first link, but not as well on the second. Of course, the second ranks IBC as the top root beer, and that is just wrong. IBC is a fine root beer, but not in the same league as Henry Weinhard's.

UPDATE: More reviews here. This is really an amazing site with 311 root beer reviews. Obviously, my passion for root beer is mild in comparison. Somehow, I missed Anthony's top-rated root beer, which is made and distributed in Oregon. It's called Bulldog.

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As a guest here, I know to be respectful of my hosts. And I mean to be – I am. So I don’t want you to think I’m being cheeky with this post. I’m not. I’m being quite serious.

Fine cheese. Like Gordon, I have a penchant for it. Why just the other day at the Portland Farmer’s Market I bought a delectable artisan lavender farmer’s cheese. It’s the sort of cheese Gordon would blog about. It’s a little like this one.

But should the highbrow cheeses really get all the attention? Some may be loath to admit it, but there’s some real quality in the lowbrow stuff, too. And, as it turns out, I can be quite lowbrow.

Take, for instance, port wine cold pack cheese food.

It’s delicious stuff. Really. Spread it on a Wheat Thin (a low-brow cracker, of course) and savor the piquant, creamy flavor. Or slather it on a crusty baguette and pretend it’s cheap-wine-soaked camembert. Whatever gets you over that initial revulsion.  Sure, it may come in a plastic tub. It may merit its own CFR entry distinguishing it from actual “cheese.” It may be Day-glo orange and pink. But it’s delicious nonetheless.

And there’s some incredible, lowbrow cheese-related foods that shouldn’t be neglected. We all know about Philly cheesesteaks and other lowbrow cheese-related sandwiches, but have you tried poutine? It’s – now stick with me here – french fries, covered with cheese curds, and topped with gravy. It’s a Quebecois delicacy, and, perhaps, "Canada’s most pervasive contribution to world cuisine" (whatever that means). It's so good, it's easily worth the 3 months each order takes off your life. Even without the fries and gravy (but with the addition of a little beer batter and oil) deep fried cheese curds may be the very apotheosis—the eidos, if you will—of low-brow, cheese-related cuisine.

(On a related note, this seems like a good time to mention that Montreal may be home to the most wonderful collection of junk food in the world.  In addition to poutine, there's smoked meat sandwiches, May Wests, and the Wilensky's special, each a stand-out in it's class).

I could go on. Suffice it to say fine cuisine is not necessarily haute cuisine.

UPDATE:  My friend Dave points out that I neglected to pair the appropriate wine with my recommendation.  He corrects the oversight.

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I taught two classes on Halloween, so I brought candy for my students. Here was the mix: Butterfinger, Kit Kat, Nestle Crunch w/Caramel, Smarties, Twix. Can you guess which one was the most popular? How about the least?

Answers below the fold ...

Most popular:  Nestle Crunch w/Caramel (once someone noticed the caramel, they were gone!)
Least popular: Butterfinger

I love Butterfingers, especially in frozen custard. I was just reading the ingredients in a Butterfinger, and they include "Confectioner's Corn Flakes." What is that? I know about confectioner's sugar (powdered sugar), but I have never heard of confectioner's corn flakes. My Google search didn't turn up much of interest there. Anyone have the scoop?

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If you have driven I-94 from Chicago to Minneapolis (or vice versa), you have seen the signs for the Norske Nook Restaurant & Bakery. If you have never stopped, you are missing out on some of the best pie you will ever encounter.

I grew up in Osseo, Wisconsin, and when I was a child, the Norke Nook was a small diner that had the feel of a school cafeteria. Truth be told, I didn't eat there much. My parents and I went out for fried fish every Friday night (I really dislike fried fish, so I usually ate chicken), but otherwise, I frequented the local A&W Root Beer stand.

When I was in high school, things started to change. All of a sudden, cars from outside the state of Wisconsin started to appear in downtown Osseo. They had read about the Norske Nook in Jane and Michael Stern's book Roadfood, which rated the Norske Nook among the ten best roadside stops in the US. When I was in high school, the only reason someone from outside of Osseo would have heard of my hometown was ... well, there really was no reason to know about Osseo. Now, when I tell people around here that I grew up in Osseo, they immediately recognize it as the home of the Norske Nook.

So later today, on our way to visit my parents, who have moved further north to Eau Claire, we will stop at the Norske Nook for dinner and some pie. If you find yourself there and are confused about which pie to order, here's a tip from an insider: Sour Cream Raisin. I know what it sounds like, but just trust me on this.

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Jonathan Cohn has a piece up at The New Republic arguing for a "twinkie tax", which is to say a tax on saturated fat and transfatty acids. Cohn is quick to acknowledge that it is not enough that government wants to save people from making themselves fat, but argues that financial externalities justify the heavy regulatory hand.

As taxpayers, we all bear the burden of higher medical costs--either directly, by paying for Medicare and Medicaid, or indirectly, by subsidizing employer-based health insurance (which is tax deductible). So, when some people choose to eat poorly, we all end up bearing the financial burden for their decisions. A Twinkie tax would help rectify this, however modestly.

First off, note that this argument is usually rejected in the context of Medicare and other federal welfare programs. The whole idea of government-collectivized social insurance programs is that people do not simply pay for their own follies. I am not positive this is a good idea, but it does seem to be the idea. People who choose not to exercise regularly, fail to brush their teeth twice a day, buy Pontiacs instead of Volvos, drive instead of flying, or work jobs in factories rather than doing menial office or janitorial work are not exempted from Medicare coverage or the income-tax-health-care-deduction simply because they brought their problems upon themselves. People do (and should) make tradeoffs between health and other kinds of happiness, and for better or worse we regularly subsidize those who pick happiness over health.

[I happen to think that the income-tax-health-care-deduction is a bad idea in a progressive tax system, because it disproportionately favors the rich, but that is a chat for another day.]

So even though there is something intuitively appealing to the notion that we should tax those who impose big costs on the health care system, skeptics are entitled to ask-- why single out this cost? Why not tax unsafe cars, or unsafe drivers, or people who drive at all? Why not tax those who fail to brush their teeth, or who work dangerous jobs, or who engage in perilous sexual practices? And so on. If the response is that those taxes and regulations will come too, some day, then we are entitled to ask, why start here?

I have been assuming for the sake of argument that those who consume transfats and saturated fats really do impose net costs on the government welfare system. But I have no idea whether this is in fact the case. People used to raise similar arguments about smokers, but Kip Viscusi (among others) convincingly showed that cigarette smokers in fact save the medical care system money because many of them kill themselves off so quickly. So I would also like some more careful evidence of the medical-costs argument, even though I argue that it is irrelevant.

And for that matter, let us suppose that we agree with Cohn about the empirical question-- that eating transfats costs the welfare system-- and let us suppose that we also agree that for some reason the consumption of fats should be singled out, rather than any other unhealthy practice. Why is Cohn's proposed solution-- a health-care-dedicated fat tax-- the right one? First of all, the fungibility of federal funds makes it unclear how much good it will do to dedicate the tax proceeds to health care. Second of all, this will not totally remedy the problem Cohn raises. People who eat twinkies in moderation and develop no related health problems, or who eat immense quantities of saturated fats but kill themselves first with lung cancer, or who simply have arranged for health care that is not particularly subsidized by the federal government, will all be forced to pay more for their food, even though they are not costing the health care system any money at all. We will replace one alleged unfairness with another, and it is not clear it will be an improvement. If we want to keep federal medical welfare programs, but also want to single out unhealthy consumption of saturated fats for punishment, why not simply make those who develop saturated-fats-related-health-problems (defined imperfectly) ineligible for subsidized treatment of those health problems? This too would be imperfect, but it would approximate Cohn's idea of fairness more closely than his own plan.

It is arguments like this that make us libertarian types so nervous about the pervasiveness of the welfare state. As Virginia Postrel has pointed out, once everything is government taxed and subsidized, then every private decision can become an allegedly public one. At first, this made my Federal Income Tax class invigorating and exciting-- every life decision was also a tax issue!-- as the semester went on, though, I realized how frightening that was. The power to spend, John Marshall might have noted, is the power to destroy.

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In pursuit of more local eats, we discovered Michael's Kitchen in Taos, New Mexico, which came highly recommended by the Philmont staff. If you can find something delicious on this menu, you simply aren't trying.

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When I travel, I always look first for the local restaurants, which is a source of frustration for my children. ("How about Arby's? We haven't been to Arby's for a long time.") I am in the minority, and not just in my family. The whole purpose of national chains is to provide quality signals that alleviate search costs. But I enjoy the search, and I especially enjoy finding a local favorite. On this trip, we hit paydirt on the first day in Ames, Iowa, when we had lunch at the Hickory Park Restaurant Co. It wasn't fancy, but the food was real -- e.g., real mashed potatoes ... mmm -- and the prices were very reasonable. Try it the next time you are in Ames.

We had lunch today at Montana Mike's Steakhouse in Colby, Kansas, even though none of us ordered steak. We didn't realize it at the time, but Montana Mike's is a franchise, and their niche is HIGE portions. Ridiculous portions, really.

Finally, we found a new-to-us custard chain in Lawrence, Kansas. Sheridan's Frozen Custard is operating in 13 states, and they made a very fine vanilla custard waffle cone.

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OK, this post is not as meaty as my co-bloggers' posts this weekend, but I want to warn people.  Diet Coke with Splenda tastes nasty.  Remember Tab?  Remember how you had never heard the word "aftertaste" and it probably didn't exist until Tab was invented?  DCW/S is worse.  A colleague who will remain nameless (ok, Scott M.) told me it was amazing.  But Scott doesn't like Diet Coke.  DCW/S is Diet Coke for people who don't like Diet Coke, but maybe liked Tab.

I did not taste DC until I was in college.

I remember the exact day that I bought a Big Gulp for 49 cents the summer between my first and second years of college.  It was a sunny day, and I was "laying out," which is not a salacious term, but the act of basking in the sun hoping that your skin will turn a different color and never once thinking that you would get skin cancer.  I was reading Time magazine.  Ah, memories.  Since then, I have been on and off "the sauce," as my husband calls it.  Ambrosia of the Gods, that's what I call it.  Sometimes I drink caffeine-free DC, which is ok.  I like DC from a fountain better than a bottle, and a bottle better than a can.  I don't know if it has saccharin, which supposedly kills rats in the laboratory, or Nutrasweet, which supposedly causes some sort of memory loss.  I really don't like rats, and I have a few memories I could do without, so I'll stick with regular DC and leave DCW/S alone.

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An editorial in the NYT yesterday called for the FDA to prohibit partially hydrogenated oils because the fats they contain promote heart disease.  Now I guess I should agree; for one reason, my family has a history of life-shortening heart attacks.  For another, I live in Wisconsin, a pro-dairy place that has an interest in banning partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.  I have heard that it is illegal in Milwaukee for restaurants to put margarine instead of butter on the table unless a patron asks for it.  My Bunco friends tell me that margarine does not exit your system for 14 days.  I also read on a menu (in a hamburger restaurant) that margarine is one carbon unit away from being plastic.  However, can this editorial be serious?

If we are going to call for the FDA to start banning food products that can promote life-threatening conditions, then is vegetable oil the place to start?  I assume that over time, the FDA has considered and then rejected arguments to ban produts that clearly lead to life-threatening diseases like tobacco and alcohol.  Why does the FDA not ban these substances?  Of course, these substances are addictive, so black markets will appear to fill the void.  I doubt that a margarine black market would appear.  Lots of people would say they are addicted to junk food, but probably not the partially hydrogenated vegetable oil in the junk food.  I would assume that innovative cracker and cookie companies would come up with a substitute, although it might be more expensive and might reduce the shelf life of the products.  So, banning vegetable oil might not be subject to that argument.  OK, how about the argument that banning substances that may have long-term health risks is overly paternal where a warning may be as useful?  (I am ignoring the effects of lobbyists for tobacco/alcohol companies or cookie/cracker companies.)

If we go down this road, then what about red meat?  (I can feel my entire home state shudder at that thought.)  Or at least organ meats?  Whole milk?  Egg yolks?  Cream?  Cheese? (Gordon, it's only a hypo -- don't worry).  Now these things at least have some protein attached to them, so in moderation they can be good for you.  Partially hydrogenated vegetable oil may not have healthful uses in any quantity.  But neither does high fructose corn syrup, which is not very good for you, either.  Let's ban that, too.  White sugar has no healthful properties and promotes both cavities and obesity.  Let's ban that while we're at it.

Have I convinced myself that we should ban partially hydrogenated vegetable oil?   No. 

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In case any of our readers live in the Austin, Texas area, I'm alerting you to cancel all of your restaurant plans for this weekend and head West.  Our best friends, Roger and D'Ana (UT Law '93) Mikeska, are opening a new restaurant out Hamiltoon Pool road:  The Lazy Fork.  If you've been in that part of the world, you know that Mikeska is synonymous with good barbecue, and if you're from the Temple area, you know that Roger's branch of the Mikeska clan has been running Cyclone restaurant for years and years.  I would give anything to be there tonight for opening night, but why don't all of you go and tell me about it!

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For me much of the fun of being in Europe is trying new foods. Last night my wife and I had our first night on the town as Suffolk hosted an excellent dinner at the Godset Restaurang in Lund. The restaurant is located in the old train station, so the dining room has high ceilings and a warehouse-like ambiance. A large, ancient clock sits on the north wall, reminding us to leave at 10:00 pm, though we stayed until 10:30. Besides the company, the highlight of the meal was a chocolate truffle for dessert.

Speaking of company, I sat next to Professor Valerie Epps, and we had a delightful evening. At the end of the meal, she taught the entire party a "second verse" of the Happy Birthday song -- which Valerie claims is British and which is sung to a different melody than the usual song. In any event, the second verse goes:

Why were you born so beautiful?
Why were you born at all?
You're no bloody use to anyone,
You're no bloody use at all.

Nice.

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On Saturday, I went to a Cub Scout camp with my wife and twin boys (9 years old). Dinner was prepared with Dutch Ovens. If you have never encountered Dutch oven cooking, here are some photos that will give you a sense of the experience.

I understand that the key to Dutch oven cooking is getting the right number of coals, both above and below the food. Dutch oven cookbooks specify the exact number of coals to get the right temperature.

This one is boiling, and the "chef" decided to remove the heat from above so that it cooks like a stew.

Tomato-based dishes were the most popular. Italian and Mexican.

My wife made a dessert: peach cobbler. It was so good that I didn't have a chance to snap a photo before it was gone.

Dutch oven cooking is an interesting subculture that has generated its own societies, cookoffs, merchants, and chefs. A word of advice: if you ever find yourself at a camp where Dutch ovens are being used, you absolutely do not want to get into a conversation with a Dutch oven fanatic about the flexibility of this device. Take my word for it: anything you can make in a regular oven, someone can make it in a Dutch oven. Just leave it at that and enjoy the evening outdoors.

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I wasn't planning to write a post about food today -- especially after Christine's gross cereal post -- but I just noticed Ann is blogging about Russ Feingold's visit to Alabama: "I don't know how this plays in the South, but, according to the article, wherever he went, Feingold handed out cheese, bratwurst and kringle. Don't know what kringle is? Won't you be excited when Russ comes to your town and you can find out?"

I know what a kringle is! Just this morning, I purchased a kringle at Scott's Pastry as a little breakfast treat for my wife's birthday. Kringles are a heavenly pastry. By the way, although I am not ready to start a kringle blog, I have touched on this subject before.

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I think my organic, high fiber cereal this morning had a bug in it.  It could be a burned piece of grain, but it has legs.  You can decide.  (Click on image to enlarge.)

Plaintiff lawyers need not email me. I'm sure this could happen to any cereal company.

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I'm fairly pro-consumer, but I just can't get behind the latest lawsuit against low-sugar cereal makers.  I thought the complaint in the McDonald's obesity lawsuit was quite clever, but I don't see that cleverness here.  Several months ago, the big cereal companies introduced "low sugar" versions of popular kids' cereals, such as Cocoa Puffs, Froot Loops, and Frosted Flakes.  A few weeks ago, the media was reporting that low sugar cereals had no nutritional advantage over the full sugar version.  So, within days, we have a lawsuit.

The plaintiffs argue that the "low sugar" claim, which was printed in large letters and prominently placed above the name of the cereal on the box, was misleading.  However, by law these cereals have "Nutrition Facts" printed on the box.  If consumers had looked at the Nutrition Facts, they would have seen that the calorie count was the same and the total carb count was the same.  The cereal makers didn't substitute protein for sugar or fiber for sugar, just other refined carbs.  Surely if you are that interested in buying low sugar products, you're savvy enough to read the Nutrition Facts. 

BTW -- my kids eat Count Chocula, full sugar.

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Yesterday, we had guests for Easter dinner, and we served both ham and turkey. (I am not sure where these meat traditions come from, but I associate ham with Easter and turkey with Thanksgiving. For some reason we decided to have both meats yesterday.) Alongside the meat, I served two chutneys from Gloria Sample and Co., which is based in my old home of Lake Oswego, Oregon. The Depoe Bay Cranberry Chutney and Shady Grove Apple Chutney were both incredible, but I was particularly recommend the apple chutney (which includes jalapeño peppers).

The appearance of the chutneys prompted a discussion on the distinction between chutney and jam, on the one hand, and chutney and salsa on the other. The dividing lines seem pretty blurry, but "chutney" is an East Indian concept, and is usually defined as a "relish" or more generally as a "condiment." The range of chutneys is broad, as it can contain fruit, vegetables, and all sorts of spices and can range from mild to spicy. Every chutney that I have ever had is both sweet and spicy, though I don't claim to be a chutney connoisseur.

As for the difference between chutney and salsa, here is a nice short article on the history of each. Here is a piece on chutney versus relish. And on chutney and jam, there is this from Smucker's. I assume that is more than you ever wanted to know about chutney.

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PEEPS--those marshmallow treats covered in granulated sugar--are among my favorite confections. (Hard for me to admit, since I consider myself first and foremost a chocoholic!) Having been introduced to these little treats by the Easter Bunny as a kid, I have been delighted, as an adult, to find that PEEPS now are truly a year-round candy item!

With that treasured or dreaded holiday, Valentine's Day, right around the corner, I am glad to report that you can "decorate and personalize" your own PEEPS Valentine hearts! I hope that I get one from someone special . . . . (Ahem. Did you hear that, dear husband?)

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Over the past week, I have had the opportunity to eat pizza slices at two legendary pizza restaurants. My co-blogger Greg Call and I met for the first time in San Francisco, and we had lunch at Blondie's on Powell. Pretty standard -- pepperoni and canadian bacon/pineapple -- but tasty. I gather from a quick tour of the internet that Blondie's gets mixed reviews on its home turf, but the pizza was solid.

Yesterday I ate lunch at a Madison favorite, Ian's Pizza. It has the divey atmosphere you would expect of a college pizza place, but the selection is anything but typical. I had two slices: (1) macaroni and cheese, and (2) steak n' fries. The only thing those two slices had in common was the dough, which was excellent, rivaling the pizza dough from New York's finest, most of which I tested during my search for the perfect pizza.

Speaking of my search for the perfect pizza, I am no longer a connoisseur of pizza. Age seems to have dimmed my pizza lust, but I still have some fond memories of the search. For