Photography: Jack O Lanterns by Jooliree

Food is apart of our life. We have a plethora of choices in our day to day lives. If we wake up hungry, with an empty refrigerator like myself, we think to ourselves “Hmm. I’m hungry, where can I go to get a bite to eat?”. If we want to have a fun time at a neat restaurant with some people that are close to us, this is a different decision. Cook at home? Meet at a Sushi restaurant? Today I throw down some options of gaining knowledge about food in general for everyone, this way you will know exactly why you have that pink shredded stuff called pickled ginger on your plate at that Sushi restaurant.

1. Food Blog Blog - A great site for discovering new food blogs and ideas
2. B Feed Me - Fun ideas and recipes, amusing injections by the author
3. Fast Food Facts - Cool site about fast food
4. Becks and Posh - Interesting and Intelligent posts, helpful for restaurant professionals
5. FX Cuisine - Some exciting angles on recipes with an Italian prospective
6. Everything Rachel Ray - Not an official site, which keeps it within interest
7. Coffee Works - Coffee and everything in between, good ideas to keep you away from the plain egg
8. The Old Foodie - Catch up on your food facts, history, and oddities
9. Smitten Kitchen - Yummy recipes, great pictures, and refreshing ideas
10. 101 Cookbooks - A great site for new recipes and new ideas
11. Dads Dish - Interesting quips from a mans trials and tribulations with food
12. Leftover Queen - Thoughtful ideas on food in general, not just that 3 day old Chinese takeout
13. Aphrodisiaka - Recipes, thoughts, and beautiful women cannot go wrong
14. Chocolate and Zucchini - Fun and intuitive recipes with a French accent
15. Food Pornographer - Rated XXX, that is if you are hungry with no food in house
16. Cooking with Amy - A great resource for chefs and wannabes
17. Cooking for Engineers - Simple layout with a ton of learning potential
18. Food Timeline - Get into the history of the food on that plate
19. Worlds Healthiest Foods - Letting you know what food is naughty and nice
20. Epicurious - Irresistible site dedicated to all things food
21. Copy Kat - In attempt to discover that secret recipe
22. Appellation America - Find wines from all over
23. Zagat - THE source for restaurant reviews and information
24. Delicious Days - A beautiful site about food and how to enjoy it
25. Curious Cook News - Keep yourself updated in the world of food
26. Fermentation - A great daily blog about a wonderful beverage called “Wine”
27. Law for Food - Very informative site about the lawful and controversial aspects of food
28. Obsession with Food - Quality content about food, ideas, and news topics
29. Knifes Edge - Insightful scriptings of a fellow foodie
30. Chez Pim - Beautifully written prose about one persons mission to discover food
31. Is My Blog Burning - Events, discussions, and cautionary tales of food

Mandolines have become a very useful tool in all types of kitchens. They make it easy to make several uniform cuts in a short amount of time. There are alternatives to them such as Robo-Coup attachments, the ever popular Salad Shooter from the ’90’s, or great knife skills with a lot of patience. I have seen several different models of Mandolins come to market recently, so I thought I would go over a few of them.

A Mandoline is basically a plastic or metal "chute" with a razor sharp blade three quarters the way down to slice whatever you may be forcing down on to it. A Mandoline makes such a great kitchen tool because it allows you to make several cuts both quickly and uniformly. There are also several types of attachments to can use with a Mandoline. You can get attachments that make sharp zig-zag cuts or wavy crinkle cuts. Often times a Mandoline comes with a hand guard. These are useful for protecting your hands from getting sliced, as I have done many times.

Mandolines are actually quite basic tools. The differences among them are the materials that are used to make them and they way they are constructed. You see, Mandolines tend to be abused quite regularly. Also, a well endowed Mandoline will have the ability to adjust the angle at which it stands, and adjust the height of the cutting blade, to make thinner or thicker cuts. Imagine making potato chips from a 50 pound bag of russets. You will almost never find a plastic Mandoline in a restaurants kitchen, it will be made of metal, and treated like gold. A good Mandoline is not cheap, however it is very useful. Here are some Mandolines that I found that are available.

1- Bron Professional Mandoline Slicer

This is the best Mandoline Slicer on the market, hands down. It is made of stainless steel and nothing else. These guys practically invented the Mandoline. This is what restaurants buy and use.

Cost - $150 to $190 (depending on options)

Bron Mandoline on Amazon

2 - MIU Stainless-Steel Professional Mandoline Slicer

If I were to buy a Mandoline for a home kitchen, and didn’t feel it necessary to spend almost $200, I would get this Mandoline. It is mostly stainless steel, comes with a few decent blades. And it doesn’t have the annoying gimmicks built in claiming to make it better than the Bron.

Cost - $60

MIU Professional Mandoline on Amazon

3 - OXO Good Grips Mandoline Slicer

This slicer looks pretty simple to use. The chute is very adjustable, it comes with a hand guard, has a few blades, and at least the plastic is not too thin. However, there is a lot of plastic, so it would probably break if it fell out of my 3 story window. (which is what happened to my last Mandoline)

Cost - $68

OXO Mandoline Slicer on Amazon

4 - Cuisinart Mandoline Slicer

I would not recommend buying this Mandoline. It looks like a joke. If you adjust a Mandoline to a specific cut height, you want it to be just right. Lets say you put a potato on it, with some pressure as is the method for using a Mandoline, and the metal bends a little you will get a messed up cut. Now add some wiggly plastic legs to that and pray that you do not shave the skin off of your palm.

Cost - $40

Cuisinart Mandoline on Amazon.

5 - Benriner Japanese Mandolin Slicer

I like this Mandoline. It is small enough to put in a knife bag, it has an angled blade that seems to cut everything with less force, and it is made in Japan so it must be sharp. This is the type of Mandoline you pull out to do a quick or detailed job. Has a couple blades, and you can rip off the hand guard and throw it away. Good-bye Salad Shooter!

Cost - $37

Benriner Mandoline Slicer on Amazon

I like Coffee. The thing is, once you have had great coffee it gets hard to drink that St#rb#cks stuff again. I recently was in Jamaica and had their Blue Mountain Coffee. Probably the best coffee I had ever had. It could be because it might have been the freshest coffee I ever drank, none-the-less, it was great and I want more. I was wondering to myself, where else does coffee flourish?

The 2 Main Types of Cultivated Coffee Beans

• Coffea Canephora
• Coffea Arabica

Look at This Map to View Types by Geography

Top 10 Coffee Producing Countries

1. Brazil
2. Colombia
3. Indonesia
4. Vietnam
5. Mexico
6. Ethiopia
7. India
8. Guatemala
9. Côte d’Ivoire
10. Uganda

Famous Coffees

• Ethiopian Harrar Coffee
• Hawaiian Kona Coffee
• Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee
• Kopi Luwak Coffee

Most Expensive Coffees

1. Starting off the list at $160 per pound is Kopi Luwak
2. Hacienda La Esmeralda (Panama, $104/lb)
3. Island of St. Helena Coffee Company ($79/lb)
4. El Injerto (Guatemala, $25-50/lb)
5. Fazenda Santa Ines (Brazil, $50/lb)
6. Jamaica Blue Mountain ($49/lb)
7. Los Planes (El Salvador, $40/lb)
8. Kona ($34/lb)
9. Starbucks Rwanda Blue Bourbon ($24/lb)
10. Yauco Selecto AA (Puerto Rico, $22/lb)
11. Fazenda Sao Benedito (Brazil, $21/lb)

Additional Resources

Coffee Geek

Coffee Review

Coffee - National Geographic

Fair Trade Coffee

Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee - Amazon.com

Estate Hawaiian Kona Coffee - Amazon.com

Ethiopian Harrar Coffee - Amazon.com

Olive Oil has long been the oil of choice for Chefs worldwide. It can be used for anything from pan frying to drizzling on raw and ready to eat vegetables. It has excellent health benefits as it is an unsaturated fat. Olive Oil comes in many forms, flavors, and grades which make it all the more interesting in terms of discovering its capabilities. So let’s discover how it is produced.

The production of Olive Oil begins in the time of the Roman Empire. It was considered a symbol of peace and fertility. Currently over 95% of Olive Oil comes from the European Union. Spain alone accounts for 30% of Olive Oil Production and Greece devotes 90% of its cultivated land to the farming of Olive Trees. It seems that Spain cultivates most of the Worlds Olive Oil, however much of that is exported to Italy for packaging and distributing.

Steps in Production

• First, the Olives are shaken from the trees and collected
• Second, the Olives are grinded to a pulp using heavy millstones
• Third, that pulp paste is spread onto mats and staked on top of each other
• Fourth, those mats are put into a press in which tons of pressure are put on the mats, forcing the oil to be collected

Grades of Olive Oil

• Extra-Virgin Olive Oil - made from the first pressing and contains no more than 0.8% acidity
• Virgin Olive Oil - made from the second and third pressing, and has acidity of less than 2% and has "good taste"
• Pure Olive Oil - a blend of refined oil and Virgin Olive Oil
• Olive Pomace Oil - oil extracted from the leftover pressings using solvents

Additional Resources

How to Taste Olive Oil

Alternative Uses for Olive Oil

Greek Olive Oil

The Olive Blog

FDA Decree on Health Benefits of Olive Oil

The Flavors of Olive Oil: A Tasting Guide and Cookbook - Amazon