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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_85320\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/no-sugar-lustig1000a.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/no-sugar-lustig1000a.jpg\" alt=\"Dr. Robert Lustig gave a lecture at KQED titled: Sweet Revenge: Turning the Tables on Processed Food. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" class=\"size-full wp-image-85320\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Robert Lustig gave a lecture at KQED titled: Sweet Revenge: Turning the Tables on Processed Food. Photo: \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/author/wendy-goodfriend/\" target=\"_blank\">Wendy Goodfriend\u003c/a>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Before the New York Times asked if \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">sugar was toxic\u003c/a>, before Michael Bloomberg \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_soft_drink_size_limit\" target=\"_blank\">tried to ban\u003c/a> large sodas in New York City, before people starting calling sugar “\u003ca href=\"http://www.bloomberg.com/video/-fed-up-is-sugar-the-new-tobacco-OJp4SJCORu2GNkCA~9PDvw.html\" target=\"_blank\">the new tobacco\u003c/a>,” UCSF endocrinologist Robert Lustig stood in front of a crowd of UCSF extension students and told them that the increase in obesity over the last 30 years is the result of one thing: \u003cstrong>increased amounts of sugar in our diet\u003c/strong>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM\" target=\"_blank\">Lustig’s lecture\u003c/a>—a combination of righteous anger and dry science—went on to become a surprise viral hit: since it debuted on YouTube in 2009, it’s been viewed almost five million times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That lecture was just the beginning of Lustig’s campaign to prove that sugar is the cause of the rise of obesity and other dangerous diseases. He wrote a New York Times bestseller, 2012’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fat-Chance-Beating-Against-Processed/dp/0142180432/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406681873&sr=8-1&keywords=fat+chance\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cem>Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, and came out with a companion cookbook \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/The-Fat-Chance-Cookbook-Recipes/dp/1594632944/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1406681873&sr=8-2&keywords=fat+chance\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cem>The Fat Chance Cookbook: More Than 100 Recipes Ready in Under 30 Minutes to Help You Lose the Sugar and the Weight\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, in December of 2013. Recently, he spoke at KQED for a special presentation (airing in October) called “\u003cstrong>Sweet Revenge: Turning the Tables on Processed Food\u003c/strong>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lustig’s popularity can partially be attributed to his message that obesity is the result of a broken food system—not laziness or gluttony. For many people, who’ve been told for years that if they simply had more willpower, they’d be guaranteed thinness and good health, his message is a relief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of those people is Cindy Gershen. When Lustig met Gershen, the owner of \u003ca href=\"http://sunrisebistrocatering.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Walnut Creek’s Sunrise Bistro\u003c/a>, she was 100 pounds overweight. After meeting Lustig and following his eating advice, she lost the weight and started teaching a nutrition class at Concord’s Mt. Diablo High School, where many of her students have undergone similar weight loss transformations. In 2007, she created the \u003ca href=\"http://www.wellnesscitychallenge.org/about/\" target=\"_blank\">Wellness City Challenge\u003c/a>, a healthy living advocacy group that encouraged restaurants to remove trans fats and citizens to exercise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_85330\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/cindy-gershen-robert-lustig1000.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/cindy-gershen-robert-lustig1000.jpg\" alt=\"Cindy Gershen and Dr. Robert Lustig co-wrote The Fat Chance Cookbook. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" class=\"size-full wp-image-85330\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cindy Gershen and Dr. Robert Lustig co-wrote The Fat Chance Cookbook. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gershen, who developed the recipes for last year’s Fat Chance cookbook, described Lustig’s message as a revelation: “I tried every kind of dieting. They said decrease your calories; increase your exercise; you’re lazy; you’re stressed out. And then I met Dr. Lustig. He said it was none of those things. It was all the sugar and it was a lack of fiber. I changed my food to the things that he told me to do. I’ve lost 100 pounds; I’ve restored my vitality, my health, and I’m happy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lustig instead attributes the rise in obesity (increasing one percent every year) and other related health problems to the rise of sugary processed foods. His catchphrase—repeated throughout his lecture and his books— is that \u003cstrong>a calorie is not a calorie\u003c/strong>. Our body processes different types of fats and carbs in radically different ways. Take fat. There are good fats, like the omega-3 fatty acids (found in wild fish and flax,) and bad fats, like omega-6 fatty acid found in corn-fed beef. Omega-3s reduce inflammation and repair membranes, whereas omega-6s cause inflammation and increases risk of health problems like arthritis and cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_85314\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/robert-lustig-get-too-much1000.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/robert-lustig-get-too-much1000.jpg\" alt=\"We Get Too Much...Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" class=\"size-full wp-image-85314\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">We Get Too Much...Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The same goes for carbs. There are good carbs, like lactose, the sugar found in milk, or fiber-heavy foods like vegetables and whole grains. But the worst carb of all, says Lustig, is sugar. It’s omnipresent in our food supply (77% of the foods in the America food supply include added sugar), and plays a huge role in metabolic syndrome, which leads to diseases like diabetes: Lustig cited a study that showed while eating an extra 150 calories per day did not increase diabetes prevalence worldwide, if those calories came from soda, diabetes prevalence went up 11-fold for the same number of calories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_85315\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/robert-lustig-get-too-little1000.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/robert-lustig-get-too-little1000.jpg\" alt=\"We Get Too Little...Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" class=\"size-full wp-image-85315\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">We Get Too Little...Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The negative effects sugar has on our bodies are staggering: sugar alters our hormones so we don’t register hunger the way we normally would, making us eat more; it spikes our dopamine, making us requiring us to eat more sugar for the same effect; and it affects our liver in the same way that alcohol does. We consume an astounding 18 bags of sugar per year, and half of that is added sugar, hidden away in our ketchup and potato chips under names like brown rice syrup and fruit puree (last year, Lustig wrote an ebook called \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Sugar-Has-56-Names-Shoppers-ebook/dp/B00E8OLID2/ref=la_B00ABNHXOW_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406682134&sr=1-3\" target=\"_blank\">Sugar Has 56 Names: A Shopper's Guide\u003c/a>). And even if we tried to cut down on sugar, food companies have every incentive to keep us from doing just that: sugar is a cheap preservative that extends food’s shelf life and keeps prices low.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listening to Lustig’s lecture, it’s easy to feel powerless, or think back guiltily to the honey in your tea or the granola you ate with your yogurt this morning (“Granola,” Lustig said sternly, “is a dessert.”). Yet, there are things we can do to fix what Lustig calls our “toxic food environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_85312\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/robert-lustig-toxic-cleanup1000.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/robert-lustig-toxic-cleanup1000.jpg\" alt=\"Dr. Robert Lustig's Toxic Clean-Up Tips. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" class=\"size-full wp-image-85312\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Robert Lustig's Toxic Clean-Up Tips. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The most valuable change, he says, is shifting your diet to one low in sugar and high in fiber. You don’t need to skip every birthday cake or break room muffin, but toss the soda and juice (which is just as bad as soda, according to Lustig) and start eating more vegetables and whole grains. Lustig cited the famous \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?pagewanted=all\" target=\"_blank\">Michael Pollan maxim\u003c/a> to “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants” but told the audience to focus on the first part of the sentence—focusing on eating real food, he said, the kind your grandmother would recognize, is the most efficient way to better health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lustig, a former college actor, has a flair for the dramatic. At the beginning of his lecture at KQED, he promised to “change your whole thinking about obesity, diets, and what really causes many of our most dangerous diseases.” It’s a bold claim, especially when we’re awash in diets all claiming to be the healthiest choice, with the high fat Paleo crowd competing against the low fat diet advocates (A debate which Lustig is ambivalent on: they’re both healthy, he said, but he has no preference for any particular diet as long as it’s high fiber, low sugar and free of processed foods.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, even if you’re one of the millions who watched Lustig’s original lecture, or you’ve read one of the countless articles about cutting your sugar intake, there’s still much to be gained from reading Lustig’s books, or watching his KQED lecture when it airs in October. Lustig has the ability to distill complex biological processes into simple explanations, the case studies from his work illuminate the misconceptions we have about obesity (it’s hard to argue that obesity is a personal choice when confronted with an obese six month old), and perhaps most importantly, the ability to inspire hope about an issue that often seems impossible to fix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s easy to watch a YouTube video and resolve to drink less juice. It’s not as easy to get large swathes of people to stop buying soda, to reform school lunch menus or make unprocessed food more accessible to lower income populations. Yet watching Lustig talk about the injustices in our food system, his Brooklyn accent growing thicker the faster and more passionately he speaks, gives you hope. Our government may not care that they’re drowning us in sugar. The companies that sell us our food certainly don’t. But Lustig does, and he’s not going to stop talking until people listen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\n\u003ch3>Lustig’s Dos and Don’ts\u003c/h3>\n\u003cul>\u003cstrong>Do:\u003c/strong>\n\u003cli>Shop the edges of the store, not aisles for real food\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Eat more omega-3 fatty acids, found in wild fish and flax\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Eat fruit as dessert, and if you’re craving cookies or cake, make your own\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Increase consumption of micronutrients, the vitamins and minerals found in fruits and vegetables\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Up your fiber intake. Fiber protects your liver from sugar, says Lustig, and keeps you from overeating.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Eat more whole grains like farro, quinoa, steel-cut oats, hulled barley or brown rice\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul>\u003cstrong>Don’t:\u003c/strong>\n\u003cli>Drink your calories. Avoid soda, sports drinks and juice\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Shop hungry—it leads to poor food choices\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Eat anything with “partially hydrogenated” in the ingredient list. That means it contains trans fat, which our bodies can’t metabolize and ends up lining our arteries.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Buy anything that has sugar as one of the first three ingredients\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Eat corn fed beef or farmed fish. Corn oil contains omega 6 fatty acids, which lead to inflammation\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Buy processed food. “If it comes with a label,” says Lustig, “think of it as a warning label.”\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The UCSF endocrinologist tells you how (and why) to start reducing sugar in your diet...and yes, you can still eat dessert.",
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"title": "Sweet Revenge: Dr. Robert Lustig Explains How to Cut Sugar, Lose Weight and Turn the Tables On Processed Foods | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_85320\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/no-sugar-lustig1000a.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/no-sugar-lustig1000a.jpg\" alt=\"Dr. Robert Lustig gave a lecture at KQED titled: Sweet Revenge: Turning the Tables on Processed Food. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" class=\"size-full wp-image-85320\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Robert Lustig gave a lecture at KQED titled: Sweet Revenge: Turning the Tables on Processed Food. Photo: \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/author/wendy-goodfriend/\" target=\"_blank\">Wendy Goodfriend\u003c/a>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Before the New York Times asked if \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">sugar was toxic\u003c/a>, before Michael Bloomberg \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_soft_drink_size_limit\" target=\"_blank\">tried to ban\u003c/a> large sodas in New York City, before people starting calling sugar “\u003ca href=\"http://www.bloomberg.com/video/-fed-up-is-sugar-the-new-tobacco-OJp4SJCORu2GNkCA~9PDvw.html\" target=\"_blank\">the new tobacco\u003c/a>,” UCSF endocrinologist Robert Lustig stood in front of a crowd of UCSF extension students and told them that the increase in obesity over the last 30 years is the result of one thing: \u003cstrong>increased amounts of sugar in our diet\u003c/strong>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM\" target=\"_blank\">Lustig’s lecture\u003c/a>—a combination of righteous anger and dry science—went on to become a surprise viral hit: since it debuted on YouTube in 2009, it’s been viewed almost five million times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That lecture was just the beginning of Lustig’s campaign to prove that sugar is the cause of the rise of obesity and other dangerous diseases. He wrote a New York Times bestseller, 2012’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fat-Chance-Beating-Against-Processed/dp/0142180432/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406681873&sr=8-1&keywords=fat+chance\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cem>Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, and came out with a companion cookbook \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/The-Fat-Chance-Cookbook-Recipes/dp/1594632944/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1406681873&sr=8-2&keywords=fat+chance\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cem>The Fat Chance Cookbook: More Than 100 Recipes Ready in Under 30 Minutes to Help You Lose the Sugar and the Weight\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, in December of 2013. Recently, he spoke at KQED for a special presentation (airing in October) called “\u003cstrong>Sweet Revenge: Turning the Tables on Processed Food\u003c/strong>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lustig’s popularity can partially be attributed to his message that obesity is the result of a broken food system—not laziness or gluttony. For many people, who’ve been told for years that if they simply had more willpower, they’d be guaranteed thinness and good health, his message is a relief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of those people is Cindy Gershen. When Lustig met Gershen, the owner of \u003ca href=\"http://sunrisebistrocatering.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Walnut Creek’s Sunrise Bistro\u003c/a>, she was 100 pounds overweight. After meeting Lustig and following his eating advice, she lost the weight and started teaching a nutrition class at Concord’s Mt. Diablo High School, where many of her students have undergone similar weight loss transformations. In 2007, she created the \u003ca href=\"http://www.wellnesscitychallenge.org/about/\" target=\"_blank\">Wellness City Challenge\u003c/a>, a healthy living advocacy group that encouraged restaurants to remove trans fats and citizens to exercise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_85330\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/cindy-gershen-robert-lustig1000.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/cindy-gershen-robert-lustig1000.jpg\" alt=\"Cindy Gershen and Dr. Robert Lustig co-wrote The Fat Chance Cookbook. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" class=\"size-full wp-image-85330\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cindy Gershen and Dr. Robert Lustig co-wrote The Fat Chance Cookbook. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gershen, who developed the recipes for last year’s Fat Chance cookbook, described Lustig’s message as a revelation: “I tried every kind of dieting. They said decrease your calories; increase your exercise; you’re lazy; you’re stressed out. And then I met Dr. Lustig. He said it was none of those things. It was all the sugar and it was a lack of fiber. I changed my food to the things that he told me to do. I’ve lost 100 pounds; I’ve restored my vitality, my health, and I’m happy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lustig instead attributes the rise in obesity (increasing one percent every year) and other related health problems to the rise of sugary processed foods. His catchphrase—repeated throughout his lecture and his books— is that \u003cstrong>a calorie is not a calorie\u003c/strong>. Our body processes different types of fats and carbs in radically different ways. Take fat. There are good fats, like the omega-3 fatty acids (found in wild fish and flax,) and bad fats, like omega-6 fatty acid found in corn-fed beef. Omega-3s reduce inflammation and repair membranes, whereas omega-6s cause inflammation and increases risk of health problems like arthritis and cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_85314\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/robert-lustig-get-too-much1000.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/robert-lustig-get-too-much1000.jpg\" alt=\"We Get Too Much...Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" class=\"size-full wp-image-85314\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">We Get Too Much...Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The same goes for carbs. There are good carbs, like lactose, the sugar found in milk, or fiber-heavy foods like vegetables and whole grains. But the worst carb of all, says Lustig, is sugar. It’s omnipresent in our food supply (77% of the foods in the America food supply include added sugar), and plays a huge role in metabolic syndrome, which leads to diseases like diabetes: Lustig cited a study that showed while eating an extra 150 calories per day did not increase diabetes prevalence worldwide, if those calories came from soda, diabetes prevalence went up 11-fold for the same number of calories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_85315\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/robert-lustig-get-too-little1000.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/robert-lustig-get-too-little1000.jpg\" alt=\"We Get Too Little...Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" class=\"size-full wp-image-85315\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">We Get Too Little...Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The negative effects sugar has on our bodies are staggering: sugar alters our hormones so we don’t register hunger the way we normally would, making us eat more; it spikes our dopamine, making us requiring us to eat more sugar for the same effect; and it affects our liver in the same way that alcohol does. We consume an astounding 18 bags of sugar per year, and half of that is added sugar, hidden away in our ketchup and potato chips under names like brown rice syrup and fruit puree (last year, Lustig wrote an ebook called \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Sugar-Has-56-Names-Shoppers-ebook/dp/B00E8OLID2/ref=la_B00ABNHXOW_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406682134&sr=1-3\" target=\"_blank\">Sugar Has 56 Names: A Shopper's Guide\u003c/a>). And even if we tried to cut down on sugar, food companies have every incentive to keep us from doing just that: sugar is a cheap preservative that extends food’s shelf life and keeps prices low.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listening to Lustig’s lecture, it’s easy to feel powerless, or think back guiltily to the honey in your tea or the granola you ate with your yogurt this morning (“Granola,” Lustig said sternly, “is a dessert.”). Yet, there are things we can do to fix what Lustig calls our “toxic food environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_85312\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/robert-lustig-toxic-cleanup1000.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/robert-lustig-toxic-cleanup1000.jpg\" alt=\"Dr. Robert Lustig's Toxic Clean-Up Tips. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" class=\"size-full wp-image-85312\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Robert Lustig's Toxic Clean-Up Tips. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The most valuable change, he says, is shifting your diet to one low in sugar and high in fiber. You don’t need to skip every birthday cake or break room muffin, but toss the soda and juice (which is just as bad as soda, according to Lustig) and start eating more vegetables and whole grains. Lustig cited the famous \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?pagewanted=all\" target=\"_blank\">Michael Pollan maxim\u003c/a> to “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants” but told the audience to focus on the first part of the sentence—focusing on eating real food, he said, the kind your grandmother would recognize, is the most efficient way to better health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lustig, a former college actor, has a flair for the dramatic. At the beginning of his lecture at KQED, he promised to “change your whole thinking about obesity, diets, and what really causes many of our most dangerous diseases.” It’s a bold claim, especially when we’re awash in diets all claiming to be the healthiest choice, with the high fat Paleo crowd competing against the low fat diet advocates (A debate which Lustig is ambivalent on: they’re both healthy, he said, but he has no preference for any particular diet as long as it’s high fiber, low sugar and free of processed foods.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, even if you’re one of the millions who watched Lustig’s original lecture, or you’ve read one of the countless articles about cutting your sugar intake, there’s still much to be gained from reading Lustig’s books, or watching his KQED lecture when it airs in October. Lustig has the ability to distill complex biological processes into simple explanations, the case studies from his work illuminate the misconceptions we have about obesity (it’s hard to argue that obesity is a personal choice when confronted with an obese six month old), and perhaps most importantly, the ability to inspire hope about an issue that often seems impossible to fix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s easy to watch a YouTube video and resolve to drink less juice. It’s not as easy to get large swathes of people to stop buying soda, to reform school lunch menus or make unprocessed food more accessible to lower income populations. Yet watching Lustig talk about the injustices in our food system, his Brooklyn accent growing thicker the faster and more passionately he speaks, gives you hope. Our government may not care that they’re drowning us in sugar. The companies that sell us our food certainly don’t. But Lustig does, and he’s not going to stop talking until people listen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\n\u003ch3>Lustig’s Dos and Don’ts\u003c/h3>\n\u003cul>\u003cstrong>Do:\u003c/strong>\n\u003cli>Shop the edges of the store, not aisles for real food\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Eat more omega-3 fatty acids, found in wild fish and flax\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Eat fruit as dessert, and if you’re craving cookies or cake, make your own\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Increase consumption of micronutrients, the vitamins and minerals found in fruits and vegetables\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Up your fiber intake. Fiber protects your liver from sugar, says Lustig, and keeps you from overeating.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Eat more whole grains like farro, quinoa, steel-cut oats, hulled barley or brown rice\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul>\u003cstrong>Don’t:\u003c/strong>\n\u003cli>Drink your calories. Avoid soda, sports drinks and juice\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Shop hungry—it leads to poor food choices\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Eat anything with “partially hydrogenated” in the ingredient list. That means it contains trans fat, which our bodies can’t metabolize and ends up lining our arteries.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Buy anything that has sugar as one of the first three ingredients\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Eat corn fed beef or farmed fish. Corn oil contains omega 6 fatty acids, which lead to inflammation\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Buy processed food. “If it comes with a label,” says Lustig, “think of it as a warning label.”\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut, Sometimes You Just Drive One",
"title": "Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut, Sometimes You Just Drive One",
"headTitle": "Bay Area Bites | KQED Food",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_85280\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 3209px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/6400231905_e2fe98c1b0_o-1-_wide-1c782ae0b35647e68af5dfe3e0cee782561044d8.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/6400231905_e2fe98c1b0_o-1-_wide-1c782ae0b35647e68af5dfe3e0cee782561044d8.jpg\" alt=\"The Planters Nutmobile, seen here taking a starring turn at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, is hitting the road for a yearlong trip across the U.S. Photo: Peter Roan/Flickr\" width=\"3209\" height=\"1805\" class=\"size-full wp-image-85280\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Planters Nutmobile, seen here taking a starring turn at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, is hitting the road for a yearlong trip across the U.S. Photo: Peter Roan/Flickr\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/07/28/336123328/sometimes-you-feel-like-a-nut-sometimes-you-just-drive-one\" target=\"_blank\">All Things Considered\u003c/a> [audio src=\"http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/atc/2014/07/20140728_atc_odd_jobs_6_planters_peanut_driver.mp3\"] \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>by Alex Schmidt, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/07/28/336123328/sometimes-you-feel-like-a-nut-sometimes-you-just-drive-one\" target=\"_blank\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (7/29/13)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three recent college graduates are getting paid to take a road trip. The one catch? They have to drive a giant peanut while they do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The giant Nutmobile is part of a brand campaign by Planters, the snack food company. They've hired the grads as brand ambassadors to drive it around the country. After all, it takes teamwork to maneuver a 27-foot-long, yellow peanut in shopping mall parking lots. But if you think handling the vehicle sounds tough, there's more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Today, I get to walk in the shoes of a 98-year-old American icon,\" says Megan Kreuger, one of the Nutmobile's drivers. \"I get to greet the customers and Planters fans as Mr. Peanut.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_85281\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 200px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/9440021394_dc5e7b8e86_o_sq-9ff2129863180e47be618f57e7a07b529f88edaf.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/9440021394_dc5e7b8e86_o_sq-9ff2129863180e47be618f57e7a07b529f88edaf.jpg\" alt=\"Dashing at any hour, Mr. Peanut refuses to remove the monocle even for this snapshot with one lucky couple. Photo: Donwhite6/Flickr\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" class=\"size-full wp-image-85281\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dashing at any hour, Mr. Peanut refuses to remove the monocle even for this snapshot with one lucky couple. Photo: Donwhite6/Flickr\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The three team members take turns dressing up in a 7-and-a-half foot tall, yellow, puffy-foam Mr. Peanut costume. It's hot out — over 90 degrees in the sun. But Kreuger is looking forward to it. That's because Mr. Peanut is a silent character.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's hard to be on all the time,\" Kreuger explains. \"So, having the Mr. Peanut moment, I can throw a thumbs-up and communicate all I want, and I don't need to speak with people.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team sets up the same event repeatedly. They park at stores, sporting events and concerts. One of them dresses up as Mr. Peanut and the other two hand out coupons and samples. There are actually three Nutmobile teams — nine brand ambassadors total — which will be driving around the U.S. for the next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These team members beat out thousands of applicants for the job. Melanie Rodriguez, who is from the Rio Grande Valley along the Texas-Mexico border, says this made her family especially proud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's like the little Hispanic girl has made it big,\" Rodriguez says. \"That's great because it's really hard, given the economic status of that area, just to make it out. They're very proud of me and couldn't be happier.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Planters says it hired candidates who were dependable, responsible, outgoing and trustworthy. The three team members count on each other for everything from parking help to social bonding — even to assistance with the Mr. Peanut costume.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mr. Peanut himself is a dapper fellow. He wears a top hat, a monocle and a snazzy grin. No sooner does he leave the Nutmobile than passersby react with smiles of their own, high fives — and some concern. One would-be fan even cracks a joke about the heat in the suit: \"He's dry-roasted, as we like to say.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Kreuger hands out hugs and poses for social media photo ops, Rodriguez and Mason Kerwick hand out samples and coupons. Kerwick is also from Texas, and says the brand ambassador gig is perfect because he's hoping for a career in marketing. But he's enjoying the tour while it lasts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"If the real world is bowling, and you put the bumpers up — this is that job,\" says Kerwick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team members have to do grown-up things like expense reports and they're on their own, but they're not going to fall in the proverbial gutter of life's bowling alley just yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We still have that buffer,\" Kerwick says. \"We're not paying rent. We're not having to commute into an office and sit at a desk all day long.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After an hour in the sun, Mr. Peanut takes a break. Rodriguez helps Kreuger take off the costume inside the Nutmobile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While they do so, Kreuger takes a moment to debrief. \"I was waving a lot today,\" she says. \"I'm really working on being more active as a peanut.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As tough as the job can be, there are also perks to roving the country in a giant peanut. Kreuger lived in Wisconsin all her life, and now she gets to see the country for the first time. A few weeks ago, the team had a gig at a stadium outside New York City. The event? A concert headlined by Beyonce and Jay-Z.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We can't honestly complain about any heat or anything for the summer,\" she says. \"We went to Beyonce for free. Any minor inconveniences are so small now.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "After graduation, a group of college students landed a nutty job — quite literally. For the next year, they will don the monocle of Mr. Peanut and drive the Planters Peanut Nutmobile.",
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"datePublished": "2014-07-29T10:10:59-07:00",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_85280\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 3209px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/6400231905_e2fe98c1b0_o-1-_wide-1c782ae0b35647e68af5dfe3e0cee782561044d8.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/6400231905_e2fe98c1b0_o-1-_wide-1c782ae0b35647e68af5dfe3e0cee782561044d8.jpg\" alt=\"The Planters Nutmobile, seen here taking a starring turn at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, is hitting the road for a yearlong trip across the U.S. Photo: Peter Roan/Flickr\" width=\"3209\" height=\"1805\" class=\"size-full wp-image-85280\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Planters Nutmobile, seen here taking a starring turn at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, is hitting the road for a yearlong trip across the U.S. Photo: Peter Roan/Flickr\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/07/28/336123328/sometimes-you-feel-like-a-nut-sometimes-you-just-drive-one\" target=\"_blank\">All Things Considered\u003c/a> \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>by Alex Schmidt, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/07/28/336123328/sometimes-you-feel-like-a-nut-sometimes-you-just-drive-one\" target=\"_blank\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (7/29/13)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three recent college graduates are getting paid to take a road trip. The one catch? They have to drive a giant peanut while they do it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The giant Nutmobile is part of a brand campaign by Planters, the snack food company. They've hired the grads as brand ambassadors to drive it around the country. After all, it takes teamwork to maneuver a 27-foot-long, yellow peanut in shopping mall parking lots. But if you think handling the vehicle sounds tough, there's more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Today, I get to walk in the shoes of a 98-year-old American icon,\" says Megan Kreuger, one of the Nutmobile's drivers. \"I get to greet the customers and Planters fans as Mr. Peanut.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_85281\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 200px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/9440021394_dc5e7b8e86_o_sq-9ff2129863180e47be618f57e7a07b529f88edaf.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/07/9440021394_dc5e7b8e86_o_sq-9ff2129863180e47be618f57e7a07b529f88edaf.jpg\" alt=\"Dashing at any hour, Mr. Peanut refuses to remove the monocle even for this snapshot with one lucky couple. Photo: Donwhite6/Flickr\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" class=\"size-full wp-image-85281\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dashing at any hour, Mr. Peanut refuses to remove the monocle even for this snapshot with one lucky couple. Photo: Donwhite6/Flickr\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The three team members take turns dressing up in a 7-and-a-half foot tall, yellow, puffy-foam Mr. Peanut costume. It's hot out — over 90 degrees in the sun. But Kreuger is looking forward to it. That's because Mr. Peanut is a silent character.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's hard to be on all the time,\" Kreuger explains. \"So, having the Mr. Peanut moment, I can throw a thumbs-up and communicate all I want, and I don't need to speak with people.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team sets up the same event repeatedly. They park at stores, sporting events and concerts. One of them dresses up as Mr. Peanut and the other two hand out coupons and samples. There are actually three Nutmobile teams — nine brand ambassadors total — which will be driving around the U.S. for the next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These team members beat out thousands of applicants for the job. Melanie Rodriguez, who is from the Rio Grande Valley along the Texas-Mexico border, says this made her family especially proud.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's like the little Hispanic girl has made it big,\" Rodriguez says. \"That's great because it's really hard, given the economic status of that area, just to make it out. They're very proud of me and couldn't be happier.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Planters says it hired candidates who were dependable, responsible, outgoing and trustworthy. The three team members count on each other for everything from parking help to social bonding — even to assistance with the Mr. Peanut costume.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mr. Peanut himself is a dapper fellow. He wears a top hat, a monocle and a snazzy grin. No sooner does he leave the Nutmobile than passersby react with smiles of their own, high fives — and some concern. One would-be fan even cracks a joke about the heat in the suit: \"He's dry-roasted, as we like to say.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Kreuger hands out hugs and poses for social media photo ops, Rodriguez and Mason Kerwick hand out samples and coupons. Kerwick is also from Texas, and says the brand ambassador gig is perfect because he's hoping for a career in marketing. But he's enjoying the tour while it lasts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"If the real world is bowling, and you put the bumpers up — this is that job,\" says Kerwick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team members have to do grown-up things like expense reports and they're on their own, but they're not going to fall in the proverbial gutter of life's bowling alley just yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We still have that buffer,\" Kerwick says. \"We're not paying rent. We're not having to commute into an office and sit at a desk all day long.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After an hour in the sun, Mr. Peanut takes a break. Rodriguez helps Kreuger take off the costume inside the Nutmobile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While they do so, Kreuger takes a moment to debrief. \"I was waving a lot today,\" she says. \"I'm really working on being more active as a peanut.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As tough as the job can be, there are also perks to roving the country in a giant peanut. Kreuger lived in Wisconsin all her life, and now she gets to see the country for the first time. A few weeks ago, the team had a gig at a stadium outside New York City. The event? A concert headlined by Beyonce and Jay-Z.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We can't honestly complain about any heat or anything for the summer,\" she says. \"We went to Beyonce for free. Any minor inconveniences are so small now.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Tequila Nation: Mexico Reckons With Its Complicated Spirit ",
"title": "Tequila Nation: Mexico Reckons With Its Complicated Spirit ",
"headTitle": "Bay Area Bites | KQED Food",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_83863\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 3252px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/107705519_wide-1a03dc1f7414e697aeddc4e36756d7e0fc9c220e.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/107705519_wide-1a03dc1f7414e697aeddc4e36756d7e0fc9c220e.jpg\" alt=\"Blue agaves grow in a plantation for the production of tequila in Arandas, Jalisco state, Mexico, in December 2010. In the past 20 years, tequila has become fashionable all over the world, demonstrating that producers' international sales strategy has been a great success. Photo: Hector Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images\" width=\"3252\" height=\"1826\" class=\"size-full wp-image-83863\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blue agaves grow in a plantation for the production of tequila in Arandas, Jalisco state, Mexico, in December 2010. In the past 20 years, tequila has become fashionable all over the world, demonstrating that producers' international sales strategy has been a great success. Photo: Hector Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/06/24/323714694/tequila-nation-mexico-reckons-with-its-complicated-spirit\">Morning Edition\u003c/a> [audio src=\"http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2014/06/20140624_me_tequila_nation_mexico_reckons_with_its_complicated_spirit_.mp3\"] \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/5252035/the-kitchen-sisters\">The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/06/24/323714694/tequila-nation-mexico-reckons-with-its-complicated-spirit\">NPR Food\u003c/a> (6/24/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Mexican town of Tequila in the western state of Jalisco is the heart of a region that produces the legendary spirit. Any bottle of tequila must be made from the Weber Blue species of agave, grown and distilled in this region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Field after field of agave gives this land a blue hue, defining an economy and its traditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_83864\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/img_0683-0ed78c5143b2a6b8a9ac32444545ab55bcfb6b6f.jpe\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/img_0683-0ed78c5143b2a6b8a9ac32444545ab55bcfb6b6f-290x217.jpe\" alt=\"Guillermo Erickson Sauza's family has been making tequila for five generations. Photo: The Kitchen Sisters for NPR\" width=\"290\" height=\"217\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-83864\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Guillermo Erickson Sauza's family has been making tequila for five generations. Photo: The Kitchen Sisters for NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But using just one species of blue agave to make 100 percent blue agave tequila is done through cloning the plants, without pollination or flowering. After \"doing this for so many generations, the agaves are getting weaker, and the only way to protect them is by the increased use of pesticides and herbicides,\" David Suro of the Tequila Interchange Project tells us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That and other environmental issues have \u003cem>tequileros\u003c/em>, or tequila makers, concerned about the future of the industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Spirit's Hidden History\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guillermo Erickson Sauza, a member of one of tequila's royal families, gives us a tour of his 125-year-old tequila distillery process in the town of Tequila on the northwest slope of the Tequila volcano. His distillery and hundreds of others, both large and small, fill the hills and valleys some 60 minutes outside Guadalajara, Jalisco's capital and Mexico's second-largest city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cenobio Sauza, his great-great grandfather, got to the town of Tequila in the 1850s when he was 16. At the time, it was a boomtown, and many people were setting up tequila distilleries there. The natural spring water, the rusty red volcanic soil, the climate all made the region perfect for the growing of blue agave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> Cenobio started the brand of Tequila Sauza in 1873, and was the first to export tequila into the U.S. In 1893, Tequila Sauza made a sensation when it was served at the Chicago World's Fair. At that time the drink was called \u003cem>vino mescal\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> Traditionally, Guillermo tells us, \"tequila was the drink of cement workers and bricklayers.\" At weddings and celebrations in Sauza's own family, and families like his, brandy was served, not tequila.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> In 1946, Guillermo's grandfather Javier took over Sauza, and slowly helped make tequila what it became — one of the premier products of Mexico. In a move that shocked his family, he sold the distillery in 1976 without warning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_83875\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1120px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/tequila-siembra-azul.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/tequila-siembra-azul.jpg\" alt=\"Siembra Azul founder and owner David Suro holds a glass of tequila in one of the aging vaults at the distillery in Arandas, Jalisco, Mexico. Photo: Erich Schlegel/Erich Schlegel/Corbis\" width=\"1120\" height=\"629\" class=\"size-full wp-image-83875\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Siembra Azul founder and owner David Suro holds a glass of tequila in one of the aging vaults at the distillery in Arandas, Jalisco, Mexico. Photo: Erich Schlegel/Erich Schlegel/Corbis\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Through the years, the family held on to one of its small, old distilleries. About a decade ago, Javier's grandson decided to come back to Tequila and started making the drink in the old traditional way, using a stone crusher, taking a long time to age the spirit. He brought out his first brand, which he called Los Abuelos, or \"the grandparents,\" in Mexico. In the U.S., Los Abuelos is sold under the name Fortaleza, which means \"fortitude.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'Agave Business Is A Casino Business'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> It takes five to eight years for the blue agave, the only kind of agave that can be used to make official appellation tequila, to mature. Growing agave is risk-filled, and requires knowledge and maintenance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_83865\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/agave-empire_custom-665afad1e3f220432d1f40f9b7ce77b68d1a5746.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/agave-empire_custom-665afad1e3f220432d1f40f9b7ce77b68d1a5746-290x184.jpg\" alt=\"Agave has been at the heart of Mexican culture for centuries. Its uses were endless: aguamiel, a fresh nectar beverage, pulgue (fermented nectar), syrup, vinegars, string, rope, shoes, textiles, nails, paper, thatch, tiles, fuel, sop, bandages and snakebite cures. Image: Courtesy of Robert English\" width=\"290\" height=\"184\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-83865\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Agave has been at the heart of Mexican culture for centuries. Its uses were endless: aguamiel, a fresh nectar beverage, pulgue (fermented nectar), syrup, vinegars, string, rope, shoes, textiles, nails, paper, thatch, tiles, fuel, sop, bandages and snakebite cures. Image: Courtesy of Robert English\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>So agave growers and tequila producers must be looking far ahead at all times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \"Agave business is a casino business,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://www.tequilainterchangeproject.org/members/board/\">David Suro\u003c/a>, president of the Tequila Interchange Project, a nonprofit organization and consumer advocacy group for agave distilled spirits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the same way wine producers are always wrestling with climate, weather, bugs and soil conditions, the \u003cem>tequileros\u003c/em> and agave producers are working just as hard. But instead of one season of growth and then harvest, they have to tend their fields for five to eight years before the sugar levels are high enough for harvest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Suro produces a tequila, too, called Siembra Azul. \"It's kosher certified,\" he says. \"There's not a Mexican institution to certify organic. So the kosher certification is the closest [to prove how] very careful we make our tequila.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003cstrong>Composting Tequila\u003c/strong> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> Mexican video journalist Rogelio Navarro says Guadalajara is the Silicon Valley of Mexico in many ways. \"I would compare the tequila industry to the electronic industry, which is so important to us here,\" Navarro says. That means tequila is likely to play a huge part in the future of Mexico's economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traditionally tequila was a Mexican family business passed from generation to generation. Now that is changing. \"The biggest tequila companies are not Mexican anymore; they are internationally owned,\" he says. \"Tequila produces a lot of jobs and a lot of money, and now they just the sent the first package of tequila to China, and they're expecting to sell millions of liters of tequila in China.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> Navarro notes that tequila not only means alcohol — it also means culture. It's associated with folkloric dancing, with music, with film, with tourism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> The Tequila Chamber of Commerce and the Tequila Regulation Council are now very focused on what is happening with tequila all over the world, says Navarro. And they make sure that tequila produced in tequila country is actually tequila because of the agave they are using and the amount in the final product. There have long been troubles with people both in and outside of Mexico producing something they label as tequila that is not true tequila, not 100 percent blue agave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Navarro has been following some of the efforts to make tequila production more organic and sustainable, as it is an industry that produces a serious amount of waste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_83879\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1120px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/pinas.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/pinas.jpg\" alt=\"Piñas are piled into the ovens at La Alteña Distillery in the highlands of Jalisco, before (left) and after being roasted, and before their juice has been fermented and distilled into tequila. Photo: Kitchen Sisters for NPR\" width=\"1120\" height=\"425\" class=\"size-full wp-image-83879\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Piñas are piled into the ovens at La Alteña Distillery in the highlands of Jalisco, before (left) and after being roasted, and before their juice has been fermented and distilled into tequila. Photo: Kitchen Sisters for NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"The cellulosic waste, or bagasse, is what is left once you cook the agave plant and chop it and put it through a mill. ... What do they do with all this organic trash?\" he says. \"They were trying to compost it, and you can use it back in the agave fields as well, but in the past it's been easier to just throw away. Now, there's a guy that decided, what are people in Brazil are doing with the cane? And he bought the machines and started compressing the bagasse and making bricks, and he started to sell them as charcoal for roasting and bricks for houses.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> Carlos Camarena is a third-generation family master distiller and one of the most respected \u003cem>tequileros\u003c/em> in Mexico. Tequila, Arandas and Atotonilco are three of the major areas where agave thrives and exceptional tequila is made. We make the pilgrimage with him to his La Altena distillery in the highlands of Jalisco, where he makes the legendary Tequila Tapatio, Tequila Ocho and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside is a huge round pit made of stone, with a stone wheel on top of it. \"What we are looking at is called a \u003cem>tahona\u003c/em>,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past, the wheel was turned by mules. The stone crushes the agave and squeezes out the juice. Three years ago, Carlos' father pulled out the mules and replaced them with a John Deere tractor to pull the wheel. Tequila Siete Leguas, about an hour away near Atotonilco, is one of the last distilleries to crush its agave with the huge stone wheel pulled by mules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tequila For The Next Generation\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At La Altena, Camarena is thinking deeply about the environmental impact of making tequila. \"We're noticing the summers are getting hotter and hotter every year, and the winters are getting colder,\" he says. \"So much hot is making the plant grow faster, but not letting it get all the nutrients from the soil and develop the sugar content and the acidity and to be as healthy.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> And he notes that \u003cem>tequileros\u003c/em> face a particular difficulty because blue agave plants being used to produce these millions of gallons of tequila are clones from the same mother. This monoculture style of agriculture over time requires more and more pesticides and herbicides to carry on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> About eight years ago, Camarena also got interested in treating all of the residues at the distillery instead of just dumping them in the garbage. With all the organic materials it's producing, it started making an organic fertilizer that it put back on the agave fields. And the distillery started recycling all the water it uses instead of just throwing it away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Camarena is awaiting certification as a green industry because he is focused on controlling all aspects of the \"leftovers\" the distillery creates through the tequila-making process, to make certain it has no polluting effect, including reducing emissions into the air from its boilers and stills. He tells us, \"If I want to change the world, I need to start by changing yourself, and let's see if that attracts other people to do what they have to do in order to have a better planet for people who come after us.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Agave Goddess\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carmen Villareal is one of the few women in Mexico to run a tequila company. It's called Tequila San Matias, and it's now 127 years old. Villareal tells us about Mayahuel, the pre-Columbian goddess of fertility and maternity who is a sort of patron saint of tequila and is often pictured with 200 breasts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Our agaves have babies,\" says Villareal. \"Normally one agave can have 10 or 12 babies, so it is about being productive.\" Villareal sees Mexico through the eyes of Mayaguel, the productivity and fertility of tequila working for the growth and wellness of the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Mexico is a country with great poverty,\" she says. \"Tequila is an important income for the country. For example, our distillery is located in a tiny town, and we are practically the only source of work in the area. The way I see the industry, we we can help bring wellness and opportunity to our country.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>More From The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://www.kitchensisters.org/\">The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/a>, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, are Peabody Award-winning independent producers who create radio and multimedia stories for NPR and public broadcast. Their \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/series/91851784/hidden-kitchens-the-kitchen-sisters\">Hidden Kitchen\u003c/a> series travels the world, chronicling little-known kitchen rituals and traditions that explore how communities come together through food — from modern-day Sicily to medieval England, the Australian Outback to the desert oasis of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Some of tequila's oldest traditions are fast being erased as international spirit conglomerates take over family businesses. And tequila makers are worried about their impact on the environment.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_83863\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 3252px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/107705519_wide-1a03dc1f7414e697aeddc4e36756d7e0fc9c220e.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/107705519_wide-1a03dc1f7414e697aeddc4e36756d7e0fc9c220e.jpg\" alt=\"Blue agaves grow in a plantation for the production of tequila in Arandas, Jalisco state, Mexico, in December 2010. In the past 20 years, tequila has become fashionable all over the world, demonstrating that producers' international sales strategy has been a great success. Photo: Hector Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images\" width=\"3252\" height=\"1826\" class=\"size-full wp-image-83863\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blue agaves grow in a plantation for the production of tequila in Arandas, Jalisco state, Mexico, in December 2010. In the past 20 years, tequila has become fashionable all over the world, demonstrating that producers' international sales strategy has been a great success. Photo: Hector Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/06/24/323714694/tequila-nation-mexico-reckons-with-its-complicated-spirit\">Morning Edition\u003c/a> \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/5252035/the-kitchen-sisters\">The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/06/24/323714694/tequila-nation-mexico-reckons-with-its-complicated-spirit\">NPR Food\u003c/a> (6/24/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Mexican town of Tequila in the western state of Jalisco is the heart of a region that produces the legendary spirit. Any bottle of tequila must be made from the Weber Blue species of agave, grown and distilled in this region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Field after field of agave gives this land a blue hue, defining an economy and its traditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_83864\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/img_0683-0ed78c5143b2a6b8a9ac32444545ab55bcfb6b6f.jpe\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/img_0683-0ed78c5143b2a6b8a9ac32444545ab55bcfb6b6f-290x217.jpe\" alt=\"Guillermo Erickson Sauza's family has been making tequila for five generations. Photo: The Kitchen Sisters for NPR\" width=\"290\" height=\"217\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-83864\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Guillermo Erickson Sauza's family has been making tequila for five generations. Photo: The Kitchen Sisters for NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But using just one species of blue agave to make 100 percent blue agave tequila is done through cloning the plants, without pollination or flowering. After \"doing this for so many generations, the agaves are getting weaker, and the only way to protect them is by the increased use of pesticides and herbicides,\" David Suro of the Tequila Interchange Project tells us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That and other environmental issues have \u003cem>tequileros\u003c/em>, or tequila makers, concerned about the future of the industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Spirit's Hidden History\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guillermo Erickson Sauza, a member of one of tequila's royal families, gives us a tour of his 125-year-old tequila distillery process in the town of Tequila on the northwest slope of the Tequila volcano. His distillery and hundreds of others, both large and small, fill the hills and valleys some 60 minutes outside Guadalajara, Jalisco's capital and Mexico's second-largest city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cenobio Sauza, his great-great grandfather, got to the town of Tequila in the 1850s when he was 16. At the time, it was a boomtown, and many people were setting up tequila distilleries there. The natural spring water, the rusty red volcanic soil, the climate all made the region perfect for the growing of blue agave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> Cenobio started the brand of Tequila Sauza in 1873, and was the first to export tequila into the U.S. In 1893, Tequila Sauza made a sensation when it was served at the Chicago World's Fair. At that time the drink was called \u003cem>vino mescal\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> Traditionally, Guillermo tells us, \"tequila was the drink of cement workers and bricklayers.\" At weddings and celebrations in Sauza's own family, and families like his, brandy was served, not tequila.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> In 1946, Guillermo's grandfather Javier took over Sauza, and slowly helped make tequila what it became — one of the premier products of Mexico. In a move that shocked his family, he sold the distillery in 1976 without warning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_83875\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1120px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/tequila-siembra-azul.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/tequila-siembra-azul.jpg\" alt=\"Siembra Azul founder and owner David Suro holds a glass of tequila in one of the aging vaults at the distillery in Arandas, Jalisco, Mexico. Photo: Erich Schlegel/Erich Schlegel/Corbis\" width=\"1120\" height=\"629\" class=\"size-full wp-image-83875\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Siembra Azul founder and owner David Suro holds a glass of tequila in one of the aging vaults at the distillery in Arandas, Jalisco, Mexico. Photo: Erich Schlegel/Erich Schlegel/Corbis\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Through the years, the family held on to one of its small, old distilleries. About a decade ago, Javier's grandson decided to come back to Tequila and started making the drink in the old traditional way, using a stone crusher, taking a long time to age the spirit. He brought out his first brand, which he called Los Abuelos, or \"the grandparents,\" in Mexico. In the U.S., Los Abuelos is sold under the name Fortaleza, which means \"fortitude.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'Agave Business Is A Casino Business'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> It takes five to eight years for the blue agave, the only kind of agave that can be used to make official appellation tequila, to mature. Growing agave is risk-filled, and requires knowledge and maintenance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_83865\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/agave-empire_custom-665afad1e3f220432d1f40f9b7ce77b68d1a5746.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/agave-empire_custom-665afad1e3f220432d1f40f9b7ce77b68d1a5746-290x184.jpg\" alt=\"Agave has been at the heart of Mexican culture for centuries. Its uses were endless: aguamiel, a fresh nectar beverage, pulgue (fermented nectar), syrup, vinegars, string, rope, shoes, textiles, nails, paper, thatch, tiles, fuel, sop, bandages and snakebite cures. Image: Courtesy of Robert English\" width=\"290\" height=\"184\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-83865\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Agave has been at the heart of Mexican culture for centuries. Its uses were endless: aguamiel, a fresh nectar beverage, pulgue (fermented nectar), syrup, vinegars, string, rope, shoes, textiles, nails, paper, thatch, tiles, fuel, sop, bandages and snakebite cures. Image: Courtesy of Robert English\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>So agave growers and tequila producers must be looking far ahead at all times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \"Agave business is a casino business,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://www.tequilainterchangeproject.org/members/board/\">David Suro\u003c/a>, president of the Tequila Interchange Project, a nonprofit organization and consumer advocacy group for agave distilled spirits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the same way wine producers are always wrestling with climate, weather, bugs and soil conditions, the \u003cem>tequileros\u003c/em> and agave producers are working just as hard. But instead of one season of growth and then harvest, they have to tend their fields for five to eight years before the sugar levels are high enough for harvest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Suro produces a tequila, too, called Siembra Azul. \"It's kosher certified,\" he says. \"There's not a Mexican institution to certify organic. So the kosher certification is the closest [to prove how] very careful we make our tequila.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003cstrong>Composting Tequila\u003c/strong> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> Mexican video journalist Rogelio Navarro says Guadalajara is the Silicon Valley of Mexico in many ways. \"I would compare the tequila industry to the electronic industry, which is so important to us here,\" Navarro says. That means tequila is likely to play a huge part in the future of Mexico's economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traditionally tequila was a Mexican family business passed from generation to generation. Now that is changing. \"The biggest tequila companies are not Mexican anymore; they are internationally owned,\" he says. \"Tequila produces a lot of jobs and a lot of money, and now they just the sent the first package of tequila to China, and they're expecting to sell millions of liters of tequila in China.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> Navarro notes that tequila not only means alcohol — it also means culture. It's associated with folkloric dancing, with music, with film, with tourism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> The Tequila Chamber of Commerce and the Tequila Regulation Council are now very focused on what is happening with tequila all over the world, says Navarro. And they make sure that tequila produced in tequila country is actually tequila because of the agave they are using and the amount in the final product. There have long been troubles with people both in and outside of Mexico producing something they label as tequila that is not true tequila, not 100 percent blue agave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Navarro has been following some of the efforts to make tequila production more organic and sustainable, as it is an industry that produces a serious amount of waste.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_83879\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1120px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/pinas.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/pinas.jpg\" alt=\"Piñas are piled into the ovens at La Alteña Distillery in the highlands of Jalisco, before (left) and after being roasted, and before their juice has been fermented and distilled into tequila. Photo: Kitchen Sisters for NPR\" width=\"1120\" height=\"425\" class=\"size-full wp-image-83879\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Piñas are piled into the ovens at La Alteña Distillery in the highlands of Jalisco, before (left) and after being roasted, and before their juice has been fermented and distilled into tequila. Photo: Kitchen Sisters for NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"The cellulosic waste, or bagasse, is what is left once you cook the agave plant and chop it and put it through a mill. ... What do they do with all this organic trash?\" he says. \"They were trying to compost it, and you can use it back in the agave fields as well, but in the past it's been easier to just throw away. Now, there's a guy that decided, what are people in Brazil are doing with the cane? And he bought the machines and started compressing the bagasse and making bricks, and he started to sell them as charcoal for roasting and bricks for houses.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> Carlos Camarena is a third-generation family master distiller and one of the most respected \u003cem>tequileros\u003c/em> in Mexico. Tequila, Arandas and Atotonilco are three of the major areas where agave thrives and exceptional tequila is made. We make the pilgrimage with him to his La Altena distillery in the highlands of Jalisco, where he makes the legendary Tequila Tapatio, Tequila Ocho and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inside is a huge round pit made of stone, with a stone wheel on top of it. \"What we are looking at is called a \u003cem>tahona\u003c/em>,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past, the wheel was turned by mules. The stone crushes the agave and squeezes out the juice. Three years ago, Carlos' father pulled out the mules and replaced them with a John Deere tractor to pull the wheel. Tequila Siete Leguas, about an hour away near Atotonilco, is one of the last distilleries to crush its agave with the huge stone wheel pulled by mules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tequila For The Next Generation\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At La Altena, Camarena is thinking deeply about the environmental impact of making tequila. \"We're noticing the summers are getting hotter and hotter every year, and the winters are getting colder,\" he says. \"So much hot is making the plant grow faster, but not letting it get all the nutrients from the soil and develop the sugar content and the acidity and to be as healthy.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> And he notes that \u003cem>tequileros\u003c/em> face a particular difficulty because blue agave plants being used to produce these millions of gallons of tequila are clones from the same mother. This monoculture style of agriculture over time requires more and more pesticides and herbicides to carry on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> About eight years ago, Camarena also got interested in treating all of the residues at the distillery instead of just dumping them in the garbage. With all the organic materials it's producing, it started making an organic fertilizer that it put back on the agave fields. And the distillery started recycling all the water it uses instead of just throwing it away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Camarena is awaiting certification as a green industry because he is focused on controlling all aspects of the \"leftovers\" the distillery creates through the tequila-making process, to make certain it has no polluting effect, including reducing emissions into the air from its boilers and stills. He tells us, \"If I want to change the world, I need to start by changing yourself, and let's see if that attracts other people to do what they have to do in order to have a better planet for people who come after us.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Agave Goddess\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Carmen Villareal is one of the few women in Mexico to run a tequila company. It's called Tequila San Matias, and it's now 127 years old. Villareal tells us about Mayahuel, the pre-Columbian goddess of fertility and maternity who is a sort of patron saint of tequila and is often pictured with 200 breasts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Our agaves have babies,\" says Villareal. \"Normally one agave can have 10 or 12 babies, so it is about being productive.\" Villareal sees Mexico through the eyes of Mayaguel, the productivity and fertility of tequila working for the growth and wellness of the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Mexico is a country with great poverty,\" she says. \"Tequila is an important income for the country. For example, our distillery is located in a tiny town, and we are practically the only source of work in the area. The way I see the industry, we we can help bring wellness and opportunity to our country.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>More From The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://www.kitchensisters.org/\">The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/a>, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, are Peabody Award-winning independent producers who create radio and multimedia stories for NPR and public broadcast. Their \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/series/91851784/hidden-kitchens-the-kitchen-sisters\">Hidden Kitchen\u003c/a> series travels the world, chronicling little-known kitchen rituals and traditions that explore how communities come together through food — from modern-day Sicily to medieval England, the Australian Outback to the desert oasis of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "How Atomic Particles Helped Solve A Wine Fraud Mystery",
"title": "How Atomic Particles Helped Solve A Wine Fraud Mystery",
"headTitle": "Bay Area Bites | KQED Food",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82782\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/philippe_hubert_slide-f9313655df965457a08776d5cbc4b4cf156b94fa.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/philippe_hubert_slide-f9313655df965457a08776d5cbc4b4cf156b94fa.jpg\" alt='French physicist Philippe Hubert uses gamma rays to detect radioactivity in wine. \"In the wine is the story of the Atomic Age,\" he says. Photo: C J Walker/Courtesy of William Koch' width=\"1200\" height=\"799\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82782\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">French physicist Philippe Hubert uses gamma rays to detect radioactivity in wine. \"In the wine is the story of the Atomic Age,\" he says. Photo: C J Walker/Courtesy of William Koch\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/06/03/318241738/how-atomic-particles-became-the-smoking-gun-in-wine-fraud-mystery\">Morning Edition\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nhttp://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2014/06/20140603_me_how_atomic_particles_became_the_smoking_gun_in_wine_fraud_mystery.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a laboratory, deep under a mile-high stretch of the Alps on the French-Italian border, \u003ca href=\"http://www.cenbg.in2p3.fr/-La-composition-du-groupe-?lang=en\">Philippe Hubert\u003c/a>, a physicist at the University of Bordeaux, is testing the authenticity of a bottle of wine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We are looking for radioactivity in the wine,\" says Hubert. \"Most of the time the collectors send me bottles of wine because they want to know if it is fake or not.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By taking the bottle in the hand and putting it close to a detector, Hubert records the gamma rays. The level of those gamma rays emitted can often tell him something about when the wine was bottled. For example, if it was bottled before about 1945, there shouldn't be any cesium 137 — radioactive evidence of exploded nuclear bombs and the Atomic Age — in the wine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that's not the only way to do it. Maureen Downey, wine detective and founder of \u003ca href=\"http://www.chaiconsulting.com/about-us/maureen-downey/\">Chai Consulting\u003c/a> wine appraisal and authentication in San Francisco, has a toolkit of items she uses to forensically examine bottles of wine — razor blades, magnifying glasses, jewelers loupes, flashlights, blue light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Counterfeit wines have become a much bigger problem of late,\" says Downey. \"In the last year, I myself have written reports for about $5 million worth of fakes.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as fraud goes up, experts are going to greater lengths than ever before to authenticate wine — the fibers of the label paper, the tiny pits in the glass, the depth of the punt in the bottom of the bottle, all hold clues. And so do the corks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Fraudsters put a lot of work into trying to make their corks look distressed,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://www.ft.com/life-arts/jancis-robinson\">Jancis Robinson\u003c/a>, a longtime wine writer for \u003cem>The Financial Times\u003c/em>. \"It's important that the label look like it's been around the block a bit, so they might rub it with a bit of earth or coffee grounds.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Uncovering The Jefferson Bottles\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"There are two ways to counterfeit wine,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://www.patrickraddenkeefe.com/bio/\">Patrick Radden Keefe\u003c/a>, a staff writer at \u003ca href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/\">The New Yorker\u003c/a>. \"You're either messing with the bottle or you're messing with the wine itself.\" He wrote a story a few years ago about one of the most intriguing fakes of all: \u003ca href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/09/03/070903fa_fact_keefe\">the Jefferson bottles\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82783\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/atomic-wine-tj-wine_custom-28dba66d3b0ff140085afd025d39bf16abaca645.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/atomic-wine-tj-wine_custom-28dba66d3b0ff140085afd025d39bf16abaca645.jpg\" alt='The \"Jefferson bottles\" that Bill Koch paid some half a million dollars for and later discovered were fakes. Photo: CJ Walker/Courtesy of William Koch' width=\"1000\" height=\"808\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82783\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The \"Jefferson bottles\" that Bill Koch paid some half a million dollars for and later discovered were fakes. Photo: CJ Walker/Courtesy of William Koch\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The saga of the Jefferson bottles begins in 1985 at a wine auction at Christie's in London where they auctioned off a bottle of 1787 Lafite, from one of the finest vineyards in France.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It was a very old bottle inscribed in a spindly hand with 1787, Lafite, and the letters 'Th.J,' \"\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>says Keefe. \"Christie's said that evidence suggested that this bottle came from a collection of old French wines which had belonged to Thomas Jefferson.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bottle sold for about $157,000 to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs/2013/04/08/in-billionaires-legal-crusade-against-counterfeit-wine-money-is-the-least-of-it/\">Forbes family\u003c/a> — the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold at auction. Keefe says that when Malcolm Forbes was told he'd won the bid, he said, \"It's more fun than the opera glasses Lincoln was holding when he was shot. And we have those, too.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After that, wine collectors began jockeying to get hold of other Jefferson bottles as they began to emerge on the market. Bill Koch, whose brothers Charles and David of Koch Industries are often referred to as the Koch brothers, is an avid collector of art, Western Americana and wine. He purchased four of the Jefferson bottles in the late 1980s for a half-million dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"When people came to visit and have wine in his capacious wine cellar at his home in Palm Beach,\" says Keefe, \"Bill Koch would proudly show off his Jefferson bottles.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2005, when the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston was preparing for an exhibit of Koch's collection, it contacted the \u003ca href=\"http://www.monticello.org/site/about/thomas-jefferson-foundation\">Thomas Jefferson Foundation\u003c/a> at Monticello to verify the provenance of the wines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"All of us at Monticello at that time were very skeptical\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>about any connection between Jefferson and these wine bottles,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/cinder-stanton-author-those-who-labor-my-happiness-slavery-thomas-jeffer\">Lucia (Cinder) Stanton\u003c/a>, a senior historian who has worked at Monticello for over 30 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jefferson was the \"leading wine connoisseur of the Republic, the presiding expert in French wine in this country,\" Stanton says. He ordered wine for George Washington, and he wrote out descriptions of the first growths and best wines in France for a number of American merchants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was also a meticulous record keeper who recorded every aspect of his life in detail. When he returned from France he had the wines he'd purchased for himself and President Washington carefully shipped to the U.S. According to his detailed books, they all arrived intact, she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"In his vast records of over 60,000 documents,\" says Stanton, \"there was nothing that suggested Jefferson had ever ordered any of these wines. In the so-called Jefferson bottles, there were about a dozen bottles including a 1784 and a 1787 Chateaux d'Yquem, a 1787 Lafite, a Margaux. Most of them were 1787, a vintage Jefferson never ordered in his life.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'Saddle Up'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Bill Koch realized that he had potentially been crossed, he contacted Jim Elroy, a former FBI agent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Elroy is a kind of a genial, bloodhound of a guy,\" says Keefe, the reporter. The ringtone on his cellphone is the whistled theme to the Clint Eastwood cowboy film, \u003cem>The Good, The Bad and the Ugly\u003c/em>. \"So Koch says to Elroy: 'Saddle up.' And Elroy did.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elroy put together a team of wine experts, including a former Scotland Yard inspector in England and a former MI5 agent in Germany, and launched an international investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I identified the perpetrator as a man named Hardy Rodenstock,\" says Elroy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82791\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1120px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/lafite-kitchensisters.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/lafite-kitchensisters.jpg\" alt=\"Bottles of vintage wine dating back to the end of the 18th century are carefully labeled and stored in the cellars of Chateau Lafite Rothschild, Bordeaux, France. Photo: Adam Woolfitt/Corbis\" width=\"1120\" height=\"628\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82791\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bottles of vintage wine dating back to the end of the 18th century are carefully labeled and stored in the cellars of Chateau Lafite Rothschild, Bordeaux, France. Photo: Adam Woolfitt/Corbis\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Hardy Rodenstock was a former music publisher who managed German pop acts. He had been a fixture on the European wine scene since the 1980s. He was well-known for hosting lavish, flamboyant wine tastings inviting celebrities, dignitaries and wine critics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Hardy I met quite a few times,\" says wine expert Jancis Robinson. \"Hardy supposedly found the Jefferson bottles in a bricked-up cellar in Paris, but he couldn't give anymore details. He was never specific about exactly how many bottles there were.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Cesium 137 Test \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jim Elroy had a hunch that the wine in the Jefferson bottles did not date back to the 18th century, but he needed a way to prove it, preferably without opening the bottle and destroying its contents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82784\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 3282px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/17532707_h5983090-07318bc3d05e76ed1b922adbfb8193327b82ff77.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/17532707_h5983090-07318bc3d05e76ed1b922adbfb8193327b82ff77.jpg\" alt=\"Herve Guegan of the Nuclear Research Centre of Bordeaux runs a test on a 1944 vintage bottle of Medoc wine. Photo: Regis Duvignau/Reuters /Landov\" width=\"3282\" height=\"2463\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82784\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Herve Guegan of the Nuclear Research Centre of Bordeaux runs a test on a 1944 vintage bottle of Medoc wine. Photo: Regis Duvignau/Reuters /Landov\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"I started looking in \u003cem>Scientific American\u003c/em> magazine,\" said Elroy, \"and I found an article that Philippe Hubert, a French physicist, had written about using low-level gamma ray detection for cesium 137 to date wine. Cesium 137 did not exist on this planet until we exploded the first atomic bomb.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As physicist Philippe Hubert explains: \"The cesium radioactivity we find in the wines reflects exactly the history of the Atomic Age. It is radioactive isotope, which is not natural. It's a fission product. First you had the development of the nuclear bomb: Hiroshima, Nagasaki. Then in the '50s and '60s, the Cold War between the U.S. and Soviets, and the nuclear atmospheric tests. Then in 1986 — the Chernobyl accident, which released a lot of cesium activity into the atmosphere. And then Fukushima Daiichi in Japan — we are following that.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This radioactivity is everywhere on Earth — in our food, clothing, the cells of our body. \"It is in the atmosphere,\" says Hubert. \"And then with rain this radioactivity falls on the grapes. When you make the wine, this comes into the wine and stays into the wine.\"\u003cstrong>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jim Elroy was confident that this was going to be the smoking gun that would prove Rodenstock guilty of fabricating the Jefferson bottles. He personally flew to the French-Italian border where Hubert was going to do the test, carrying the Jefferson bottles in bulletproof cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"By looking at the level of gamma rays emitted from a bottle of wine,\" Elroy explains, Hubert could determine when the wine was bottle. Obviously, if it was bottled before about 1945, there shouldn't be any Cesium 137 in the wine.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The experiment took place a mile underground to shield the test from the gamma rays in the atmosphere. \"In order to shield the detector even further,\" says Elroy, \"we had to use lead that was smelted prior to 1945. In this case, it was Roman lead smelted shortly after the birth of Christ.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hubert subjected the Jefferson bottles to the test. \"We don't need to open the bottles,\" says Hubert. \"The gamma rays can escape the wine and cross the thickness of the glass without any problem.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Unfortunately,\" says Hubert, \"we could not detect any cesium inside the wine.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So it was certain that the wine had been bottled before the Atomic Age. But there was no way this test could prove whether or not this wine was as old as Jefferson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Recipes And Dentistry Provide More Clues\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Counterfeiting wine is nothing new. People have been doing it for centuries. \"Louis XIV had a royal decree that all of the wine barrels coming from the Côtes du Rhône area had to be stamped with a CDR to prove that they were Côtes du Rhône,\" says wine detective Maureen Downey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In modern times, fraudster Rudy Kurniawan, who is now in jail for creating and selling counterfeit wine, built an entire laboratory in his condo in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Kurniawan's kitchen was literally a factory for making counterfeit wine,\" says Downey, who went through the evidence with the FBI. \"He had recipes written on bottles in his kitchen. For example, his recipe for 1945 Mouton Rothschild said: one-half 1988 Pichon Melant; one-quarter oxidized Bordeaux; and one-quarter Napa Cab.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You're not talking about plonk that is being put into these bottles,\" says Downey. \"These are careful recipes. I don't know if Kurniawan was a great chef or a chemist.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And what about those Jefferson bottles? Bill Koch's investigators tracked down the people in Germany who had engraved the Jefferson bottles with Th.J. They used a modern dentist tool that could not possibly have existed in the time of Thomas Jefferson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"One expert likens it to Abraham Lincoln holding an iPhone,\" says Downey. \"When you've got Abraham Lincoln in a photograph holding an iPhone, we've got a problem.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>More From The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://www.kitchensisters.org/\">The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/a>, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, are Peabody Award-winning independent producers who create radio and multimedia stories for NPR and public broadcast. Their \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/series/91851784/hidden-kitchens-the-kitchen-sisters\">Hidden Kitchen\u003c/a> series travels the world, chronicling little-known kitchen rituals and traditions that explore how communities come together through food — from modern-day Sicily to medieval England, the Australian Outback to the desert oasis of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "By testing for radiation, detectives showed that wine bottles purportedly from Thomas Jefferson's collection were fake. And with wine fraud rising, authentication is getting even more sophisticated.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82782\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/philippe_hubert_slide-f9313655df965457a08776d5cbc4b4cf156b94fa.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/philippe_hubert_slide-f9313655df965457a08776d5cbc4b4cf156b94fa.jpg\" alt='French physicist Philippe Hubert uses gamma rays to detect radioactivity in wine. \"In the wine is the story of the Atomic Age,\" he says. Photo: C J Walker/Courtesy of William Koch' width=\"1200\" height=\"799\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82782\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">French physicist Philippe Hubert uses gamma rays to detect radioactivity in wine. \"In the wine is the story of the Atomic Age,\" he says. Photo: C J Walker/Courtesy of William Koch\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/06/03/318241738/how-atomic-particles-became-the-smoking-gun-in-wine-fraud-mystery\">Morning Edition\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\nhttp://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2014/06/20140603_me_how_atomic_particles_became_the_smoking_gun_in_wine_fraud_mystery.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a laboratory, deep under a mile-high stretch of the Alps on the French-Italian border, \u003ca href=\"http://www.cenbg.in2p3.fr/-La-composition-du-groupe-?lang=en\">Philippe Hubert\u003c/a>, a physicist at the University of Bordeaux, is testing the authenticity of a bottle of wine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We are looking for radioactivity in the wine,\" says Hubert. \"Most of the time the collectors send me bottles of wine because they want to know if it is fake or not.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By taking the bottle in the hand and putting it close to a detector, Hubert records the gamma rays. The level of those gamma rays emitted can often tell him something about when the wine was bottled. For example, if it was bottled before about 1945, there shouldn't be any cesium 137 — radioactive evidence of exploded nuclear bombs and the Atomic Age — in the wine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that's not the only way to do it. Maureen Downey, wine detective and founder of \u003ca href=\"http://www.chaiconsulting.com/about-us/maureen-downey/\">Chai Consulting\u003c/a> wine appraisal and authentication in San Francisco, has a toolkit of items she uses to forensically examine bottles of wine — razor blades, magnifying glasses, jewelers loupes, flashlights, blue light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Counterfeit wines have become a much bigger problem of late,\" says Downey. \"In the last year, I myself have written reports for about $5 million worth of fakes.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as fraud goes up, experts are going to greater lengths than ever before to authenticate wine — the fibers of the label paper, the tiny pits in the glass, the depth of the punt in the bottom of the bottle, all hold clues. And so do the corks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Fraudsters put a lot of work into trying to make their corks look distressed,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://www.ft.com/life-arts/jancis-robinson\">Jancis Robinson\u003c/a>, a longtime wine writer for \u003cem>The Financial Times\u003c/em>. \"It's important that the label look like it's been around the block a bit, so they might rub it with a bit of earth or coffee grounds.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Uncovering The Jefferson Bottles\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"There are two ways to counterfeit wine,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://www.patrickraddenkeefe.com/bio/\">Patrick Radden Keefe\u003c/a>, a staff writer at \u003ca href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/\">The New Yorker\u003c/a>. \"You're either messing with the bottle or you're messing with the wine itself.\" He wrote a story a few years ago about one of the most intriguing fakes of all: \u003ca href=\"http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/09/03/070903fa_fact_keefe\">the Jefferson bottles\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82783\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/atomic-wine-tj-wine_custom-28dba66d3b0ff140085afd025d39bf16abaca645.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/atomic-wine-tj-wine_custom-28dba66d3b0ff140085afd025d39bf16abaca645.jpg\" alt='The \"Jefferson bottles\" that Bill Koch paid some half a million dollars for and later discovered were fakes. Photo: CJ Walker/Courtesy of William Koch' width=\"1000\" height=\"808\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82783\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The \"Jefferson bottles\" that Bill Koch paid some half a million dollars for and later discovered were fakes. Photo: CJ Walker/Courtesy of William Koch\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The saga of the Jefferson bottles begins in 1985 at a wine auction at Christie's in London where they auctioned off a bottle of 1787 Lafite, from one of the finest vineyards in France.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It was a very old bottle inscribed in a spindly hand with 1787, Lafite, and the letters 'Th.J,' \"\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>says Keefe. \"Christie's said that evidence suggested that this bottle came from a collection of old French wines which had belonged to Thomas Jefferson.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bottle sold for about $157,000 to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs/2013/04/08/in-billionaires-legal-crusade-against-counterfeit-wine-money-is-the-least-of-it/\">Forbes family\u003c/a> — the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold at auction. Keefe says that when Malcolm Forbes was told he'd won the bid, he said, \"It's more fun than the opera glasses Lincoln was holding when he was shot. And we have those, too.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After that, wine collectors began jockeying to get hold of other Jefferson bottles as they began to emerge on the market. Bill Koch, whose brothers Charles and David of Koch Industries are often referred to as the Koch brothers, is an avid collector of art, Western Americana and wine. He purchased four of the Jefferson bottles in the late 1980s for a half-million dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"When people came to visit and have wine in his capacious wine cellar at his home in Palm Beach,\" says Keefe, \"Bill Koch would proudly show off his Jefferson bottles.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2005, when the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston was preparing for an exhibit of Koch's collection, it contacted the \u003ca href=\"http://www.monticello.org/site/about/thomas-jefferson-foundation\">Thomas Jefferson Foundation\u003c/a> at Monticello to verify the provenance of the wines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"All of us at Monticello at that time were very skeptical\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>about any connection between Jefferson and these wine bottles,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/cinder-stanton-author-those-who-labor-my-happiness-slavery-thomas-jeffer\">Lucia (Cinder) Stanton\u003c/a>, a senior historian who has worked at Monticello for over 30 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jefferson was the \"leading wine connoisseur of the Republic, the presiding expert in French wine in this country,\" Stanton says. He ordered wine for George Washington, and he wrote out descriptions of the first growths and best wines in France for a number of American merchants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was also a meticulous record keeper who recorded every aspect of his life in detail. When he returned from France he had the wines he'd purchased for himself and President Washington carefully shipped to the U.S. According to his detailed books, they all arrived intact, she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"In his vast records of over 60,000 documents,\" says Stanton, \"there was nothing that suggested Jefferson had ever ordered any of these wines. In the so-called Jefferson bottles, there were about a dozen bottles including a 1784 and a 1787 Chateaux d'Yquem, a 1787 Lafite, a Margaux. Most of them were 1787, a vintage Jefferson never ordered in his life.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'Saddle Up'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Bill Koch realized that he had potentially been crossed, he contacted Jim Elroy, a former FBI agent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Elroy is a kind of a genial, bloodhound of a guy,\" says Keefe, the reporter. The ringtone on his cellphone is the whistled theme to the Clint Eastwood cowboy film, \u003cem>The Good, The Bad and the Ugly\u003c/em>. \"So Koch says to Elroy: 'Saddle up.' And Elroy did.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elroy put together a team of wine experts, including a former Scotland Yard inspector in England and a former MI5 agent in Germany, and launched an international investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I identified the perpetrator as a man named Hardy Rodenstock,\" says Elroy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82791\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1120px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/lafite-kitchensisters.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/lafite-kitchensisters.jpg\" alt=\"Bottles of vintage wine dating back to the end of the 18th century are carefully labeled and stored in the cellars of Chateau Lafite Rothschild, Bordeaux, France. Photo: Adam Woolfitt/Corbis\" width=\"1120\" height=\"628\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82791\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bottles of vintage wine dating back to the end of the 18th century are carefully labeled and stored in the cellars of Chateau Lafite Rothschild, Bordeaux, France. Photo: Adam Woolfitt/Corbis\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Hardy Rodenstock was a former music publisher who managed German pop acts. He had been a fixture on the European wine scene since the 1980s. He was well-known for hosting lavish, flamboyant wine tastings inviting celebrities, dignitaries and wine critics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Hardy I met quite a few times,\" says wine expert Jancis Robinson. \"Hardy supposedly found the Jefferson bottles in a bricked-up cellar in Paris, but he couldn't give anymore details. He was never specific about exactly how many bottles there were.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Cesium 137 Test \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jim Elroy had a hunch that the wine in the Jefferson bottles did not date back to the 18th century, but he needed a way to prove it, preferably without opening the bottle and destroying its contents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82784\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 3282px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/17532707_h5983090-07318bc3d05e76ed1b922adbfb8193327b82ff77.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/17532707_h5983090-07318bc3d05e76ed1b922adbfb8193327b82ff77.jpg\" alt=\"Herve Guegan of the Nuclear Research Centre of Bordeaux runs a test on a 1944 vintage bottle of Medoc wine. Photo: Regis Duvignau/Reuters /Landov\" width=\"3282\" height=\"2463\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82784\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Herve Guegan of the Nuclear Research Centre of Bordeaux runs a test on a 1944 vintage bottle of Medoc wine. Photo: Regis Duvignau/Reuters /Landov\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"I started looking in \u003cem>Scientific American\u003c/em> magazine,\" said Elroy, \"and I found an article that Philippe Hubert, a French physicist, had written about using low-level gamma ray detection for cesium 137 to date wine. Cesium 137 did not exist on this planet until we exploded the first atomic bomb.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As physicist Philippe Hubert explains: \"The cesium radioactivity we find in the wines reflects exactly the history of the Atomic Age. It is radioactive isotope, which is not natural. It's a fission product. First you had the development of the nuclear bomb: Hiroshima, Nagasaki. Then in the '50s and '60s, the Cold War between the U.S. and Soviets, and the nuclear atmospheric tests. Then in 1986 — the Chernobyl accident, which released a lot of cesium activity into the atmosphere. And then Fukushima Daiichi in Japan — we are following that.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This radioactivity is everywhere on Earth — in our food, clothing, the cells of our body. \"It is in the atmosphere,\" says Hubert. \"And then with rain this radioactivity falls on the grapes. When you make the wine, this comes into the wine and stays into the wine.\"\u003cstrong>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jim Elroy was confident that this was going to be the smoking gun that would prove Rodenstock guilty of fabricating the Jefferson bottles. He personally flew to the French-Italian border where Hubert was going to do the test, carrying the Jefferson bottles in bulletproof cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"By looking at the level of gamma rays emitted from a bottle of wine,\" Elroy explains, Hubert could determine when the wine was bottle. Obviously, if it was bottled before about 1945, there shouldn't be any Cesium 137 in the wine.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The experiment took place a mile underground to shield the test from the gamma rays in the atmosphere. \"In order to shield the detector even further,\" says Elroy, \"we had to use lead that was smelted prior to 1945. In this case, it was Roman lead smelted shortly after the birth of Christ.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hubert subjected the Jefferson bottles to the test. \"We don't need to open the bottles,\" says Hubert. \"The gamma rays can escape the wine and cross the thickness of the glass without any problem.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Unfortunately,\" says Hubert, \"we could not detect any cesium inside the wine.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So it was certain that the wine had been bottled before the Atomic Age. But there was no way this test could prove whether or not this wine was as old as Jefferson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Recipes And Dentistry Provide More Clues\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Counterfeiting wine is nothing new. People have been doing it for centuries. \"Louis XIV had a royal decree that all of the wine barrels coming from the Côtes du Rhône area had to be stamped with a CDR to prove that they were Côtes du Rhône,\" says wine detective Maureen Downey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In modern times, fraudster Rudy Kurniawan, who is now in jail for creating and selling counterfeit wine, built an entire laboratory in his condo in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Kurniawan's kitchen was literally a factory for making counterfeit wine,\" says Downey, who went through the evidence with the FBI. \"He had recipes written on bottles in his kitchen. For example, his recipe for 1945 Mouton Rothschild said: one-half 1988 Pichon Melant; one-quarter oxidized Bordeaux; and one-quarter Napa Cab.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You're not talking about plonk that is being put into these bottles,\" says Downey. \"These are careful recipes. I don't know if Kurniawan was a great chef or a chemist.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And what about those Jefferson bottles? Bill Koch's investigators tracked down the people in Germany who had engraved the Jefferson bottles with Th.J. They used a modern dentist tool that could not possibly have existed in the time of Thomas Jefferson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"One expert likens it to Abraham Lincoln holding an iPhone,\" says Downey. \"When you've got Abraham Lincoln in a photograph holding an iPhone, we've got a problem.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>More From The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://www.kitchensisters.org/\">The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/a>, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, are Peabody Award-winning independent producers who create radio and multimedia stories for NPR and public broadcast. Their \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/series/91851784/hidden-kitchens-the-kitchen-sisters\">Hidden Kitchen\u003c/a> series travels the world, chronicling little-known kitchen rituals and traditions that explore how communities come together through food — from modern-day Sicily to medieval England, the Australian Outback to the desert oasis of California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Native Americans Have Superfoods Right Under Their Feet",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82756\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 544px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/lambs-8e0d95e31a9a1a3a9924205d8eda02ca39cab150.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/lambs-8e0d95e31a9a1a3a9924205d8eda02ca39cab150.jpg\" alt=\"Wild superfood: Lamb's-quarters is rich in thiamin, vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium and potassium. Photo: Nesson Marshall/Flickr\" width=\"544\" height=\"408\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82756\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wild superfood: Lamb's-quarters is rich in thiamin, vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium and potassium. Photo: Nesson Marshall/\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/nesson-marshall/9268495931\">Flickr\u003c/a>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>by Eliza Barclay, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/06/02/317444736/native-americans-have-superfoods-right-under-their-feet\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (6/2/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On American Indian reservations, the traditional diet of wild plants and wild game for food is increasingly being replaced with a far less healthy diet of predominantly high-carb, high-sugar foods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along the way, obesity and type 2 diabetes rates have soared. At nearly 16 percent, American Indians and Alaska Natives have the highest prevalence of diabetes among all U.S. racial and ethnic groups, \u003ca href=\"http://www.diabetes.org/in-my-community/awareness-programs/american-indian-programs/#sthash.SNOThKhA.dpuf\">according to\u003c/a> the American Diabetes Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While researchers have long suspected that the traditional plant foods consumed by Native American tribes in the Northern Plains were super nutritious, no one had ever really studied it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's what inspired a \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889157514000519\">paper\u003c/a> published earlier this year in the \u003cem>Journal of Food Composition and Analysis\u003c/em> by a group of researchers at Virginia Tech and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They analyzed the nutrients in 10 traditional wild food plants from three Native American reservations in North Dakota.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They found that reintroducing these plants — which include cattail broad leaf shoots, chokecherries, beaked hazelnuts, lamb's-quarters, plains prickly\u003cbr>pear, prairie turnips, stinging nettles, wild plums, raspberries and rose hips — into the diet of the tribes of the region could improve nutrition and potentially prevent disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82755\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/chokecherries-05a8bea40319f3bc1005ca933ea0c4e75689079c.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/chokecherries-05a8bea40319f3bc1005ca933ea0c4e75689079c-290x217.jpg\" alt=\"Twigs and leaves from chokecherries are high in vitamin K, fiber and calcium. Photo: pverdonk/iStockphoto\" width=\"290\" height=\"217\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-82755\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Twigs and leaves from chokecherries are high in vitamin K, fiber and calcium. Photo: pverdonk/iStockphoto\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The superstar of the study was lamb's-quarters, a wild green that's been consumed by hunter-gatherers from northern California all the way to Africa for food as well as medicine. The study found that one serving of steamed lamb's-quarters contained more than 60 percent of the thiamin, 40 percent of the vitamin B6, 60 percent of the calcium and 70 percent of the magnesium of the daily recommended intake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prickly pears, prairie turnips and hazelnuts also performed well in the tests — with high levels of calcium and magnesium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Will these foods make a comeback on reservations? That's unclear, but the researchers say they shared their findings with tribal leaders on the reservations where they collected samples.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Native Americans aren't the only ones who may be feeling a twinge of nutritional nostalgia. An appreciation for the health benefits of wild greens is part of what's driving \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2011/04/18/135412640/foraging-the-weeds-for-wild-healthy-greens\">the foraging trend\u003c/a> in cities and beyond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Jo Robinson argued in her 2013 book \u003cem>Eating On The Wild Side\u003c/em>, many wild plants are in many ways far more healthful than the stuff we buy today at farmers' markets. Take dandelions, for example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Compared to spinach, one of our present-day 'superfoods,' dandelion leaves have eight times more antioxidants, two times more calcium, three times more vitamin A and five times more vitamin K and vitamin E,\" Robinson writes. \"Our modern superfoods would have been substandard fare for hunter-gatherers.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82756\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 544px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/lambs-8e0d95e31a9a1a3a9924205d8eda02ca39cab150.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/lambs-8e0d95e31a9a1a3a9924205d8eda02ca39cab150.jpg\" alt=\"Wild superfood: Lamb's-quarters is rich in thiamin, vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium and potassium. Photo: Nesson Marshall/Flickr\" width=\"544\" height=\"408\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82756\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wild superfood: Lamb's-quarters is rich in thiamin, vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium and potassium. Photo: Nesson Marshall/\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/nesson-marshall/9268495931\">Flickr\u003c/a>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>by Eliza Barclay, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/06/02/317444736/native-americans-have-superfoods-right-under-their-feet\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (6/2/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On American Indian reservations, the traditional diet of wild plants and wild game for food is increasingly being replaced with a far less healthy diet of predominantly high-carb, high-sugar foods.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Along the way, obesity and type 2 diabetes rates have soared. At nearly 16 percent, American Indians and Alaska Natives have the highest prevalence of diabetes among all U.S. racial and ethnic groups, \u003ca href=\"http://www.diabetes.org/in-my-community/awareness-programs/american-indian-programs/#sthash.SNOThKhA.dpuf\">according to\u003c/a> the American Diabetes Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While researchers have long suspected that the traditional plant foods consumed by Native American tribes in the Northern Plains were super nutritious, no one had ever really studied it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's what inspired a \u003ca href=\"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889157514000519\">paper\u003c/a> published earlier this year in the \u003cem>Journal of Food Composition and Analysis\u003c/em> by a group of researchers at Virginia Tech and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They analyzed the nutrients in 10 traditional wild food plants from three Native American reservations in North Dakota.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They found that reintroducing these plants — which include cattail broad leaf shoots, chokecherries, beaked hazelnuts, lamb's-quarters, plains prickly\u003cbr>pear, prairie turnips, stinging nettles, wild plums, raspberries and rose hips — into the diet of the tribes of the region could improve nutrition and potentially prevent disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82755\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/chokecherries-05a8bea40319f3bc1005ca933ea0c4e75689079c.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/06/chokecherries-05a8bea40319f3bc1005ca933ea0c4e75689079c-290x217.jpg\" alt=\"Twigs and leaves from chokecherries are high in vitamin K, fiber and calcium. Photo: pverdonk/iStockphoto\" width=\"290\" height=\"217\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-82755\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Twigs and leaves from chokecherries are high in vitamin K, fiber and calcium. Photo: pverdonk/iStockphoto\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The superstar of the study was lamb's-quarters, a wild green that's been consumed by hunter-gatherers from northern California all the way to Africa for food as well as medicine. The study found that one serving of steamed lamb's-quarters contained more than 60 percent of the thiamin, 40 percent of the vitamin B6, 60 percent of the calcium and 70 percent of the magnesium of the daily recommended intake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prickly pears, prairie turnips and hazelnuts also performed well in the tests — with high levels of calcium and magnesium.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Will these foods make a comeback on reservations? That's unclear, but the researchers say they shared their findings with tribal leaders on the reservations where they collected samples.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Native Americans aren't the only ones who may be feeling a twinge of nutritional nostalgia. An appreciation for the health benefits of wild greens is part of what's driving \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2011/04/18/135412640/foraging-the-weeds-for-wild-healthy-greens\">the foraging trend\u003c/a> in cities and beyond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Jo Robinson argued in her 2013 book \u003cem>Eating On The Wild Side\u003c/em>, many wild plants are in many ways far more healthful than the stuff we buy today at farmers' markets. Take dandelions, for example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Compared to spinach, one of our present-day 'superfoods,' dandelion leaves have eight times more antioxidants, two times more calcium, three times more vitamin A and five times more vitamin K and vitamin E,\" Robinson writes. \"Our modern superfoods would have been substandard fare for hunter-gatherers.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "How Memorial Day Started -- and Why It's Now About BBQ",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82493\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/parksdh/5779951051/in/photolist-4RdWDu-c6SEom-MMevg-c6bPrY-eseRWW-4QvcH8-4SnFw2-4Qzooh-etRx2n-CRCDz-MM42F-eMx3y-4QzpCw-c5Trob-c3ZVF3-c6WXiu-JMhGu-6qk8bY-9NKL5t-4z5xYa-N1W58-MRfas-NkMkx-NQxgW-9PjGyF-9N7w88-eLC88-6qiPGd-cbSXFd-4z9Q9d-c8qGT9-4z5ymX-4z9QQG-96HaY5-MH7oi-4SgbgY-4RCcsH-86iFw6-euAHTz-4z9Qsd-9NagJY-9Ntypa-86EAQ3-9dvQ1g-4RGo5j-9Ncv4x-9Q1LKU-4R1JSr-2woCf8-4RGo6C\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/5779951051_d72d4a3849_z.jpg\" alt=\"Memorial Day at the San Francisco National Cemetery. Photo: Daniel Parks/ Flickr\" width=\"640\" height=\"482\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82493\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Memorial Day at the San Francisco National Cemetery. Photo: Daniel Parks/ Flickr\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lest ye forget, as you prepare your grills and marinate your meats for the weekend, Memorial Day was not always the summer food holiday it has become.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As opposed to Veterans Day, which honors living veterans, Memorial Day is a time to remember those who have died while in military service. The holiday originally started as Decoration Day, where the graves of soldiers were decorated with flowers and flags. Though President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, NY the official birthplace of Memorial Day the wake of the Civil War, dozens of towns continue to claim that they, in fact, were the originators of the holiday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's ancestry is so hard to trace -- particularly through to some of our current iterations -- because the custom of decorating tombstones precedes organized holidays. What is certain is that on May 5, 1868 national commander General John Logan declared May 30 Decoration Day, \"designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the first ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, 5,000 people participated in decorating the graves of fallen soldiers from the Civil War. By the late 1800s, all the northern states recognized Decoration Day. It wasn't until after World War I, when the holiday changed from recognizing Civil War soldiers to honoring all dead military, that the whole of the country participated on May 30 every year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.va.gov/opa/speceven/memday/history.asp?utm_source=3birds&utm_medium=Web&utm_campaign=AUBURNVW_Fun+Facts+About+Memorial+Day\" target=\"_blank\">U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs\u003c/a>, it is believed that date was chosen because flowers would be blooming across the country and would make wreaths with which to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers. And, so, for decades Memorial Day on May 30 was simply a day of memorial and remembrance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, in 1971, Congress declared Memorial Day a national holiday and passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which moved a handful of holidays -- including the newly nationally-christened Memorial Day -- to the nearest Monday. Today, Memorial Day is celebrated on the last Monday in May. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The change was meant to give federal workers the day off and create a long weekend, presumably to use the extra time in acts of memorial. However, many view the creation of the three-day weekend as the end of what Memorial Day was supposed to be about and the beginning of its decline into pits of barbecue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a resolution issued by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.legion.org\" target=\"_blank\">American Legion\u003c/a> in 2010, the group bemoaned the fact that many people now use the holiday as a time to celebrate instead of commemorate. The resolution reads: \"The majority of Americans view Memorial Day as a time for relaxation and leisure recreation rather than as a solemn occasion and a time to reflect and pay tribute to the American servicemen and women who sacrificed their lives in defense of our nation.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The resolution went on to call for the holiday to return to its original date of May 30 and for all American institutions to toll their bells for one minute at 11 a.m. Before he died, Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye, a World War II veteran and Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, also annually introduced legislation calling for a shift of Memorial Day back to May 30. But, the shift in the holiday's date and focus had already taken hold of the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of the three-day weekend, the (typically) nice weather, and the end of the school year fast approaching for kids, many families prefer to take advantage of the holiday to ring in the summer. Along with 4th of July and Labor Day (which marks the unofficial end of summer), Memorial Day is \u003ca href=\"http://www.hpba.org/consumers/barbecue/grilling-facts-and-figures\" target=\"_blank\">one of the three most popular days for grilling out\u003c/a>. According to \u003ca href=\"http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/lifestyle/holidays/may_2014/64_consider_memorial_day_the_start_of_summer\" target=\"_blank\">a poll by Rasmussen Reports\u003c/a>, 64% of American adults consider Memorial Day the unofficial start of summer, which explains why so many are eager to celebrate the sun and the long weekend with grilling and swimsuits. If we build it, summer will come -- despite the fact that the actual official start of summer is June 21.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an effort, though, to remember the day's remembrances, people are asked to observe a national moment of remembrance at 3 p.m. and fly flags at half staff until noon. Then, you can get to eating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you are planning to kick-off the summer, after remembering those who have died in battle, check out the \u003ca href=\"http://www.seriouseats.com/memorial-day\" target=\"_blank\">Serious Eats Memorial Day guide to grilling all things\u003c/a> -- it includes chicken, hamburgers, veggies, pork, seafood, and cocktails. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or, just relax with your family and appreciate everything and everyone that got you to this point.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Before you heat up the grill and celebrate with a cold one, here's a look at the history of how Memorial Day became the summer-kick-off, food-focused holiday it is now.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82493\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/parksdh/5779951051/in/photolist-4RdWDu-c6SEom-MMevg-c6bPrY-eseRWW-4QvcH8-4SnFw2-4Qzooh-etRx2n-CRCDz-MM42F-eMx3y-4QzpCw-c5Trob-c3ZVF3-c6WXiu-JMhGu-6qk8bY-9NKL5t-4z5xYa-N1W58-MRfas-NkMkx-NQxgW-9PjGyF-9N7w88-eLC88-6qiPGd-cbSXFd-4z9Q9d-c8qGT9-4z5ymX-4z9QQG-96HaY5-MH7oi-4SgbgY-4RCcsH-86iFw6-euAHTz-4z9Qsd-9NagJY-9Ntypa-86EAQ3-9dvQ1g-4RGo5j-9Ncv4x-9Q1LKU-4R1JSr-2woCf8-4RGo6C\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/5779951051_d72d4a3849_z.jpg\" alt=\"Memorial Day at the San Francisco National Cemetery. Photo: Daniel Parks/ Flickr\" width=\"640\" height=\"482\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82493\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Memorial Day at the San Francisco National Cemetery. Photo: Daniel Parks/ Flickr\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lest ye forget, as you prepare your grills and marinate your meats for the weekend, Memorial Day was not always the summer food holiday it has become.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As opposed to Veterans Day, which honors living veterans, Memorial Day is a time to remember those who have died while in military service. The holiday originally started as Decoration Day, where the graves of soldiers were decorated with flowers and flags. Though President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, NY the official birthplace of Memorial Day the wake of the Civil War, dozens of towns continue to claim that they, in fact, were the originators of the holiday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's ancestry is so hard to trace -- particularly through to some of our current iterations -- because the custom of decorating tombstones precedes organized holidays. What is certain is that on May 5, 1868 national commander General John Logan declared May 30 Decoration Day, \"designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the first ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, 5,000 people participated in decorating the graves of fallen soldiers from the Civil War. By the late 1800s, all the northern states recognized Decoration Day. It wasn't until after World War I, when the holiday changed from recognizing Civil War soldiers to honoring all dead military, that the whole of the country participated on May 30 every year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.va.gov/opa/speceven/memday/history.asp?utm_source=3birds&utm_medium=Web&utm_campaign=AUBURNVW_Fun+Facts+About+Memorial+Day\" target=\"_blank\">U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs\u003c/a>, it is believed that date was chosen because flowers would be blooming across the country and would make wreaths with which to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers. And, so, for decades Memorial Day on May 30 was simply a day of memorial and remembrance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, in 1971, Congress declared Memorial Day a national holiday and passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which moved a handful of holidays -- including the newly nationally-christened Memorial Day -- to the nearest Monday. Today, Memorial Day is celebrated on the last Monday in May. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The change was meant to give federal workers the day off and create a long weekend, presumably to use the extra time in acts of memorial. However, many view the creation of the three-day weekend as the end of what Memorial Day was supposed to be about and the beginning of its decline into pits of barbecue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a resolution issued by the \u003ca href=\"http://www.legion.org\" target=\"_blank\">American Legion\u003c/a> in 2010, the group bemoaned the fact that many people now use the holiday as a time to celebrate instead of commemorate. The resolution reads: \"The majority of Americans view Memorial Day as a time for relaxation and leisure recreation rather than as a solemn occasion and a time to reflect and pay tribute to the American servicemen and women who sacrificed their lives in defense of our nation.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The resolution went on to call for the holiday to return to its original date of May 30 and for all American institutions to toll their bells for one minute at 11 a.m. Before he died, Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye, a World War II veteran and Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, also annually introduced legislation calling for a shift of Memorial Day back to May 30. But, the shift in the holiday's date and focus had already taken hold of the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of the three-day weekend, the (typically) nice weather, and the end of the school year fast approaching for kids, many families prefer to take advantage of the holiday to ring in the summer. Along with 4th of July and Labor Day (which marks the unofficial end of summer), Memorial Day is \u003ca href=\"http://www.hpba.org/consumers/barbecue/grilling-facts-and-figures\" target=\"_blank\">one of the three most popular days for grilling out\u003c/a>. According to \u003ca href=\"http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/lifestyle/holidays/may_2014/64_consider_memorial_day_the_start_of_summer\" target=\"_blank\">a poll by Rasmussen Reports\u003c/a>, 64% of American adults consider Memorial Day the unofficial start of summer, which explains why so many are eager to celebrate the sun and the long weekend with grilling and swimsuits. If we build it, summer will come -- despite the fact that the actual official start of summer is June 21.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an effort, though, to remember the day's remembrances, people are asked to observe a national moment of remembrance at 3 p.m. and fly flags at half staff until noon. Then, you can get to eating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you are planning to kick-off the summer, after remembering those who have died in battle, check out the \u003ca href=\"http://www.seriouseats.com/memorial-day\" target=\"_blank\">Serious Eats Memorial Day guide to grilling all things\u003c/a> -- it includes chicken, hamburgers, veggies, pork, seafood, and cocktails. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or, just relax with your family and appreciate everything and everyone that got you to this point.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Delicious!: A Novel, by Ruth Reichl -- Marshmallow Fiction from Gourmet's Former Editor",
"title": "Delicious!: A Novel, by Ruth Reichl -- Marshmallow Fiction from Gourmet's Former Editor",
"headTitle": "Bay Area Bites | KQED Food",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82351\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 296px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/Delicious-JPG-Cover-image.jpeg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/Delicious-JPG-Cover-image.jpeg\" alt=\"Delicious! A Novel Photo: Courtesy of Ruth Reichl\" width=\"296\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82351\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Delicious! A Novel Photo: Courtesy of Ruth Reichl\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It couldn't have been easy for editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl when \u003cem>Gourmet\u003c/em>, the magazine she had run since 1999, was abruptly shuttered by parent company Conde Nast in 2009. The elegant monthly magazine had been in business since 1941, and Reichl had worked tirelessly for ten years to make it relevant in a rapidly changing gastronomic climate. As talented an editor and writer as Reichl was, however, she couldn't save \u003cem>Gourmet\u003c/em> from the publishing world's pessimistic number-crunchers. Conde Nast axed the once-glamorous \u003cem>Gourmet\u003c/em> in favor of its other food magazine, the bright, ad-generating, family-friendly \u003cem>\u003ca>Bon Appetit\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With all her insider knowledge of New York's wildly competitive, ambition-driven, gossip-riddled restaurant and food world, one would expect to see Reichl tapping out her own tell-all of that heady time. After all, she has already written three best-selling, well-received and unflinchingly truthful memoirs, starting with \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812981111/kqedorg-20\">Tender at the Bone\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, which described her childhood with a mentally disturbed, food-hording mother, followed by her freewheeling life as a hippie chef turned restaurant critic in 1970s California. \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812981626/kqedorg-20\">Comfort Me with Apples\u003c/a>\u003c/em> had her touring Europe with \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.saveur.com/\">Saveur\u003c/a>\u003c/em> editor Colman Andrews, getting a sentimental and culinary education at his side. \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0143036610/kqedorg-20\">Garlic and Sapphires\u003c/a>\u003c/em> detailed her wig-wearing, persona-creating experiments as the all-powerful restaurant reviewer at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com\">New York Times\u003c/a>. Clearly, Reichl can write, and write well, on a variety of topics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25777\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2011/03/Ruth-Reichl-Photo300.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2011/03/Ruth-Reichl-Photo300.jpg\" alt=\"Ruth Reichl. Photo: Fiona Aboud\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25777\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ruth Reichl. Photo: Fiona Aboud\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But while good novelists usually have the chops to be good memoirists, the reverse is not often true. Despite being based around a \u003cem>Gourmet\u003c/em> magazine stand-in named \u003cem>Delicious!\u003c/em>, Reichl's first foray into fiction, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400069629/kqedorg-20\">Delicious!\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, is less \u003cem>roman à clef\u003c/em> than Nancy Drew-ishly-plotted novel about an ugly duckling coming into her own in the big city. Fluffy, sweet, and wholly unbelievable, \u003cem>Delicious!\u003c/em> isn't being marketed as a young-adult book, but it might as well be, except that it's too sugary for a genre now dominated by dark, dystopian fantasies and sexed-up vampires. There's no devil wearing Prada here. Instead, everyone's gorgeous, everyone's charming, and (most unbelievable of all) everyone's friendly, eager to get instantly helpfully chummy with Reichl's frumpy little nobody of a heroine, Billie Breslin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because isn't that \u003cem>exactly\u003c/em> what life is like in the New York media world? Billie shows up, a badly dressed college dropout with dorky glasses and baggy khakis, who suffers panic attacks when asked to cook, and suddenly the editor of the city's top food magazine wants her as his assistant. On her very first day, the glad-handing owner of the best Italian deli in the city hires her on the spot for a second job that turns into a second family. Within days, she's hanging out with her new magazine pals, drinking endless glasses of wine and scarfing up plates of duck hearts at their cool chef friends' new restaurants. Oh, and at the two-month point, that silver-fox editor takes her out for expensive sushi and assigns her a long feature story about the deli where she's working. Without asking permission from her deli-owner boss, she writes it, brilliantly, in a single all-nighter. And why worry about negligible publishing salaries when dad's paying the rent on that sweet walk-up on hipster-ridden Rivington Street? Even the character's name manages to evoke both \u003ca href=\"http://thebreslin.com/\">The Breslin\u003c/a>, a hot restaurant hangout helmed by Brit-chef April Bloomfield (fictionalized here as Thursday Brown, owner of The Pig, a hardly-disguised version of \u003ca href=\"http://thespottedpig.com/\">The Spotted Pig\u003c/a>, another of Bloomfield's popular restaurants) and the Pulitzer-Prize-winning, longtime NYC journalist Jimmy Breslin. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hired to answer the phone and fetch coffee, suddenly Billie's swimming in feature assignments involving cute farmers and voluble fishermen and fun travel all around the country, because that's just how brand-new careers go in the kooky New York magazine world. See, Billie has that one-in-a-million skill, the pitch-perfect palate. She can pick out a whisper of curry leaf in a spinach-saffron-Parmesan gnocchi that Thursday pops into her mouth the minute she walks into The Pig's crowded kitchen. Oh, how she regrets that in a \"chocolate that tastes like rain,\" she can pick out only \"hyssop and maybe myrtle, and a bit of cassia\" before \"the flavors get away from\" her. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everyone treats Billie's palate like it's Barry Zito's throwing arm in its prime, but, in fact, it's not exactly a novel talent. Anyone who tastes for a living learns to cultivate sense memories and build a mental database of flavors and scents, so that faced with a dish you can say this is cardamom, this is coriander, this is fenugreek, and that is turmeric. Hardly rocket science. For any food writer or recipe developer or (presumably) chef, identifying, remembering, and recalling flavors is a basic part of the necessary skill set. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, that's the first 80 pages or so, until, as in life, \u003cem>Delicious!\u003c/em> is abruptly shuttered, leaving Billie adrift but, weirdly, still employed as a lone phone voice kept on to honor the \"Delicious! Guarantee,\" a longtime marketing gimmick that promised readers satisfaction with all the magazine's recipes or the cost of their ingredients back. The remaining two-thirds of the book becomes Scooby Doo with cell phones, as intrepid girl reporter Billie discovers, in a secret room in the magazine's long-locked library, a hidden! cache! of! nifty! letters! written by a perkily precocious girl named Lulu to none other but James Beard, who, as a gay soldier during World War II, had nothing better to do than share wartime-rationing cooking tips and canned life lessons with a chatty teenage pen pal from Akron, Ohio. One of the magazine's last librarians, obviously with too much time on his hands, has created an elaborate, yet essentially pointless, treasure hunt for the letters through the library's idiosyncratic card file, which Billie follows with breathless, Velma-worthy excitement. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If only, as readers, we could care about annoyingly chipper little Lulu, persecuted by mean teachers for her milkweed-foraging habits and fondness for pasta (enemy food, in that Axis-fearing era). Or about little Billie, who turns out to have a size-six killer bod AND fabulous fashion sense AND a trust fund on tap from The Cake Sisters, the wildly successful baking business she and her sister started as pre-teens and ran until college, when her absolutely, positively flawless older sister was run down by a speeding Jaguar as she carried the toppers for a $30,000 wedding-cupcake extravaganza across the street. (This is the perfectly perfect dead sister in whose shadow Billie has been willingly standing throughout the whole book, until Big Sis is revealed to have been snorting all her cake-baking profits up her nose, a habit proven after her death thanks to the meticulous written records kept by her coke dealer about all his clients. Because, of course, drug dealers: just like accountants that way.) \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Occasionally, there are moments when Reichl's extensive knowledge of the actual New York food world peeks through. But the howlers outnumber the real world moments by the dozens. Like Billie's devoted boyfriend, Mitch, a well-regarded architectural historian and professor who is surely a little old to be dating a woman of barely legal drinking age. Mitch comes straight from the sensitive urban-hunk division of rom-com casting as he reaches beneath his platform bed, promising \"and now for the major attraction.\" Handcuffs? Sex toys? Nope--just the ultimate foodie fantasy: an under-the-bed freezer drawer stocked with post-coital coffee ice cream, enough to make him worth at least a Ben & Jerry's-fueled booty call or two. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In interviews shortly after \u003cem>Gourmet\u003c/em> closed, Reichl implied that another memoir, this time about her life at the magazine, was on its way. If you want the full Reichl-style meal, better wait for that one. \u003cem>Delicious!\u003c/em> is all frosting and no filling. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ruth Reichl is discussing Delicious! A Novel at the following Bay Area venues this week:\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>5/20, 7 p.m.\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.paloaltojcc.org/events/2014/05/20/cultural-arts/book-signing-ruth-reichl-em-delicious-em/\" target=\"_blank\">Commonwealth Club/JCC\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2014-05-20/ruth-reichl\">More information about the event\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>5/21, 12:15 p.m.\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.bookpassage.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Book Passage\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://bookpassage.com/event/literary-lunch-ruth-reichl-delicious\">More information about the event\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>5/21, 6:30 p.m.\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://omnivorebooks.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Omnivore Books\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n3885 Cesar Chavez St., San Francisco\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.omnivorebooks.com/events.html\">More information about the event\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Ruth Reichl, best-selling memoirist and longtime food writer, pens her first novel, loosely based on her time as the editor in chief at the now-defunct Gourmet. Is it this summer's perfect foodie beach read, or too fluffy even for cupcake lovers? Stephanie Rosenbaum Klassen tastes-tests the treat. \r\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82351\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 296px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/Delicious-JPG-Cover-image.jpeg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/Delicious-JPG-Cover-image.jpeg\" alt=\"Delicious! A Novel Photo: Courtesy of Ruth Reichl\" width=\"296\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82351\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Delicious! A Novel Photo: Courtesy of Ruth Reichl\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It couldn't have been easy for editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl when \u003cem>Gourmet\u003c/em>, the magazine she had run since 1999, was abruptly shuttered by parent company Conde Nast in 2009. The elegant monthly magazine had been in business since 1941, and Reichl had worked tirelessly for ten years to make it relevant in a rapidly changing gastronomic climate. As talented an editor and writer as Reichl was, however, she couldn't save \u003cem>Gourmet\u003c/em> from the publishing world's pessimistic number-crunchers. Conde Nast axed the once-glamorous \u003cem>Gourmet\u003c/em> in favor of its other food magazine, the bright, ad-generating, family-friendly \u003cem>\u003ca>Bon Appetit\u003c/a>\u003c/em>. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With all her insider knowledge of New York's wildly competitive, ambition-driven, gossip-riddled restaurant and food world, one would expect to see Reichl tapping out her own tell-all of that heady time. After all, she has already written three best-selling, well-received and unflinchingly truthful memoirs, starting with \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812981111/kqedorg-20\">Tender at the Bone\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, which described her childhood with a mentally disturbed, food-hording mother, followed by her freewheeling life as a hippie chef turned restaurant critic in 1970s California. \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812981626/kqedorg-20\">Comfort Me with Apples\u003c/a>\u003c/em> had her touring Europe with \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.saveur.com/\">Saveur\u003c/a>\u003c/em> editor Colman Andrews, getting a sentimental and culinary education at his side. \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0143036610/kqedorg-20\">Garlic and Sapphires\u003c/a>\u003c/em> detailed her wig-wearing, persona-creating experiments as the all-powerful restaurant reviewer at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com\">New York Times\u003c/a>. Clearly, Reichl can write, and write well, on a variety of topics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25777\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2011/03/Ruth-Reichl-Photo300.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2011/03/Ruth-Reichl-Photo300.jpg\" alt=\"Ruth Reichl. Photo: Fiona Aboud\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25777\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ruth Reichl. Photo: Fiona Aboud\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But while good novelists usually have the chops to be good memoirists, the reverse is not often true. Despite being based around a \u003cem>Gourmet\u003c/em> magazine stand-in named \u003cem>Delicious!\u003c/em>, Reichl's first foray into fiction, \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400069629/kqedorg-20\">Delicious!\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, is less \u003cem>roman à clef\u003c/em> than Nancy Drew-ishly-plotted novel about an ugly duckling coming into her own in the big city. Fluffy, sweet, and wholly unbelievable, \u003cem>Delicious!\u003c/em> isn't being marketed as a young-adult book, but it might as well be, except that it's too sugary for a genre now dominated by dark, dystopian fantasies and sexed-up vampires. There's no devil wearing Prada here. Instead, everyone's gorgeous, everyone's charming, and (most unbelievable of all) everyone's friendly, eager to get instantly helpfully chummy with Reichl's frumpy little nobody of a heroine, Billie Breslin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because isn't that \u003cem>exactly\u003c/em> what life is like in the New York media world? Billie shows up, a badly dressed college dropout with dorky glasses and baggy khakis, who suffers panic attacks when asked to cook, and suddenly the editor of the city's top food magazine wants her as his assistant. On her very first day, the glad-handing owner of the best Italian deli in the city hires her on the spot for a second job that turns into a second family. Within days, she's hanging out with her new magazine pals, drinking endless glasses of wine and scarfing up plates of duck hearts at their cool chef friends' new restaurants. Oh, and at the two-month point, that silver-fox editor takes her out for expensive sushi and assigns her a long feature story about the deli where she's working. Without asking permission from her deli-owner boss, she writes it, brilliantly, in a single all-nighter. And why worry about negligible publishing salaries when dad's paying the rent on that sweet walk-up on hipster-ridden Rivington Street? Even the character's name manages to evoke both \u003ca href=\"http://thebreslin.com/\">The Breslin\u003c/a>, a hot restaurant hangout helmed by Brit-chef April Bloomfield (fictionalized here as Thursday Brown, owner of The Pig, a hardly-disguised version of \u003ca href=\"http://thespottedpig.com/\">The Spotted Pig\u003c/a>, another of Bloomfield's popular restaurants) and the Pulitzer-Prize-winning, longtime NYC journalist Jimmy Breslin. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hired to answer the phone and fetch coffee, suddenly Billie's swimming in feature assignments involving cute farmers and voluble fishermen and fun travel all around the country, because that's just how brand-new careers go in the kooky New York magazine world. See, Billie has that one-in-a-million skill, the pitch-perfect palate. She can pick out a whisper of curry leaf in a spinach-saffron-Parmesan gnocchi that Thursday pops into her mouth the minute she walks into The Pig's crowded kitchen. Oh, how she regrets that in a \"chocolate that tastes like rain,\" she can pick out only \"hyssop and maybe myrtle, and a bit of cassia\" before \"the flavors get away from\" her. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everyone treats Billie's palate like it's Barry Zito's throwing arm in its prime, but, in fact, it's not exactly a novel talent. Anyone who tastes for a living learns to cultivate sense memories and build a mental database of flavors and scents, so that faced with a dish you can say this is cardamom, this is coriander, this is fenugreek, and that is turmeric. Hardly rocket science. For any food writer or recipe developer or (presumably) chef, identifying, remembering, and recalling flavors is a basic part of the necessary skill set. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, that's the first 80 pages or so, until, as in life, \u003cem>Delicious!\u003c/em> is abruptly shuttered, leaving Billie adrift but, weirdly, still employed as a lone phone voice kept on to honor the \"Delicious! Guarantee,\" a longtime marketing gimmick that promised readers satisfaction with all the magazine's recipes or the cost of their ingredients back. The remaining two-thirds of the book becomes Scooby Doo with cell phones, as intrepid girl reporter Billie discovers, in a secret room in the magazine's long-locked library, a hidden! cache! of! nifty! letters! written by a perkily precocious girl named Lulu to none other but James Beard, who, as a gay soldier during World War II, had nothing better to do than share wartime-rationing cooking tips and canned life lessons with a chatty teenage pen pal from Akron, Ohio. One of the magazine's last librarians, obviously with too much time on his hands, has created an elaborate, yet essentially pointless, treasure hunt for the letters through the library's idiosyncratic card file, which Billie follows with breathless, Velma-worthy excitement. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If only, as readers, we could care about annoyingly chipper little Lulu, persecuted by mean teachers for her milkweed-foraging habits and fondness for pasta (enemy food, in that Axis-fearing era). Or about little Billie, who turns out to have a size-six killer bod AND fabulous fashion sense AND a trust fund on tap from The Cake Sisters, the wildly successful baking business she and her sister started as pre-teens and ran until college, when her absolutely, positively flawless older sister was run down by a speeding Jaguar as she carried the toppers for a $30,000 wedding-cupcake extravaganza across the street. (This is the perfectly perfect dead sister in whose shadow Billie has been willingly standing throughout the whole book, until Big Sis is revealed to have been snorting all her cake-baking profits up her nose, a habit proven after her death thanks to the meticulous written records kept by her coke dealer about all his clients. Because, of course, drug dealers: just like accountants that way.) \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Occasionally, there are moments when Reichl's extensive knowledge of the actual New York food world peeks through. But the howlers outnumber the real world moments by the dozens. Like Billie's devoted boyfriend, Mitch, a well-regarded architectural historian and professor who is surely a little old to be dating a woman of barely legal drinking age. Mitch comes straight from the sensitive urban-hunk division of rom-com casting as he reaches beneath his platform bed, promising \"and now for the major attraction.\" Handcuffs? Sex toys? Nope--just the ultimate foodie fantasy: an under-the-bed freezer drawer stocked with post-coital coffee ice cream, enough to make him worth at least a Ben & Jerry's-fueled booty call or two. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In interviews shortly after \u003cem>Gourmet\u003c/em> closed, Reichl implied that another memoir, this time about her life at the magazine, was on its way. If you want the full Reichl-style meal, better wait for that one. \u003cem>Delicious!\u003c/em> is all frosting and no filling. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Ruth Reichl is discussing Delicious! A Novel at the following Bay Area venues this week:\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>5/20, 7 p.m.\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.paloaltojcc.org/events/2014/05/20/cultural-arts/book-signing-ruth-reichl-em-delicious-em/\" target=\"_blank\">Commonwealth Club/JCC\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2014-05-20/ruth-reichl\">More information about the event\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>5/21, 12:15 p.m.\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.bookpassage.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Book Passage\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://bookpassage.com/event/literary-lunch-ruth-reichl-delicious\">More information about the event\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "How Russia's Shared Kitchens Helped Shape Soviet Politics ",
"title": "How Russia's Shared Kitchens Helped Shape Soviet Politics ",
"headTitle": "Bay Area Bites | KQED Food",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82340\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1777px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/anna-854becedc3a4dfe867b56f0aa8327173adbd1d16.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/anna-854becedc3a4dfe867b56f0aa8327173adbd1d16.jpg\" alt=\"Anna Matveevna came to this communal apartment in St. Petersburg in 1931, when she was 8 years old. Photo: Courtesy of European University, St. Petersburg, Russia,Colgate University and Cornell University\" width=\"1777\" height=\"1331\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82340\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anna Matveevna came to this communal apartment in St. Petersburg in 1931, when she was 8 years old. Photo: Courtesy of European University, St. Petersburg, Russia,Colgate University and Cornell University\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/05/20/314054405/how-russias-shared-kitchens-helped-shape-soviet-politics\">Morning Edition\u003c/a> [audio src=\"http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2014/05/20140520_me_how_russias_shared_kitchens_helped_shape_soviet_politics_.mp3\"] \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Post by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/5252035/the-kitchen-sisters\" target=\"_blank\">The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/05/20/314054405/how-russias-shared-kitchens-helped-shape-soviet-politics\" target=\"_blank\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (5/20/2014)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the decades following the 1917 Russian Revolution, most people in Moscow lived in communal apartments; seven or more families crammed together where there had been one, sharing one kitchen and one bathroom. They were crowded; stove space and food were limited. Clotheslines were strewn across the kitchen, the laundry of one family dripping into the omelet of another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the Soviet Union industrialized from the 1920s to the 1950s, and millions poured into Moscow from the countryside, one of the goals of the new government was to provide housing for the workers. It started putting people into apartments that had been occupied by the rich or by aristocrats who had been driven out by the new regime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The communal apartment was like a microcosm of Soviet society,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/books/authors/223091725/anya-von-bremzen\">Anya von Bremzen\u003c/a>, author of \u003cem>Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking\u003c/em>. \"People from all walks of life, sometimes absolute class enemies, living next to each other. The expression was 'densed up.' The allotment was 9 square meters per person.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.stanford.edu/~gfreidin/\">Gregory (Grisha) Freidin,\u003c/a> professor of Russian literature at Stanford University, grew up in a communal apartment of 10 families about five blocks from the Kremlin in the 1940s. \"On one side of my room was the man who washed corpses at the local morgue.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>There were two rooms where the mother and father served in the KGB. Then there was the woman whose husband was serving a sentence for stealing bread from the bread factory where he worked.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82341\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1772px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/44b4_001_vert-2e6f07a51f0c4f4006a6f35b530acc83f3d01b36.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/44b4_001_vert-2e6f07a51f0c4f4006a6f35b530acc83f3d01b36.jpg\" alt=\"Laundry drying in a communal kitchen in Moscow. Photo: Courtesy of European University, St. Petersburg, Russia, Colgate University and Cornell University\" width=\"1772\" height=\"2362\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82341\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Laundry drying in a communal kitchen in Moscow. Photo: Courtesy of European University, St. Petersburg, Russia, Colgate University and Cornell University\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In Freidin's kitchen, every family had a small kitchen table that housed a few pots and pans. There were two four-burner stoves. Everyone cooked their own food — cabbage soup, borscht with beets, potatoes, buckwheat groats, boiled chicken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kitchens became a source of tension and conflict. \"Five different kettles, five different pots that are all marked,\" says Edward Shenderovich, venture capital investor and Russian poet. \"When relations between the neighbors were especially fierce, you could see locks on the cabinets.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Families cooked in quick, staggered shifts. \"They cooked in the kitchen but practically never ate there,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/masha-karp/23/308/509\">Masha Karp\u003c/a>, who was born in Moscow and worked as a Russian features editor for the BBC World Service from 1991 to 2009. \"They would go with their pots along their corridor and eat in their room.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Crowded Kitchens By Design\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Communal kitchen was a war zone,\" says Alexander Genis, Russian writer and radio journalist. \"During the Stalin era [1928-1953] it was the most dangerous place to be — in the kitchen.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shenderovich agrees: \"Communal kitchens were not places where you would bring your friends. I think that was one of the ideas for creating a communal kitchen. There would be a watchful eye of society over every communal apartment. People would report on each other. You would never know who would be reporting.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Anya von Bremzen remembers there was camaraderie as well. \"There was always a grandmother to take care of the kids, and share a bit of \u003cem>cutletta\u003c/em> or \u003cem>salat Olivier\u003c/em>. And when they began to disband the communal apartments, the communal kitchen was an institution that many people actually began to miss.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reason Soviet authorities considered kitchens and private apartments dangerous to the regime was because they were places people could gather to talk about politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The most important part of kitchen politics in early Soviet time was they would like to have houses without kitchens,\" says Genis. \"Because kitchen is something \u003cem>bourgeois\u003c/em>. Every family, as long as they have a kitchen, they have some part of their private life and private property.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.choices.edu/resources/scholars_Khrushchev.php\">Sergei Khrushchev\u003c/a>, retired Brown University professor and son of\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Nikita Khrushchev, the head of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, explains: \"In Stalin's time, the theoretical idea of communism declared that all people have to be equal and the women have to be free from the slavery work in the kitchen. There mustn't be a kitchen in the apartment. You will go and eat in the cafeteria.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was part of the romantic approach of the early post-revolutionary years, says Masha Karp. \"People forget what an incredible upheaval the 1917 revolution was,\" she says. \"There was a huge movement to free the country from the czarism, bring happiness to poorer classes. People thought maybe it was a good idea to relieve a housewife from her daily chores so that she could develop as a personality. She would go and play the piano, write poetry, and she would not cook and wash up. The idea to have canteens and cafeterias was a continuation of this wonderful intention.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the cafeteria idea did not pan out. After the revolution, the civil war began and they did not build any cafeterias. Also, Anya von Bremzen tells us,\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>the food in the canteens was terrible, and women continued to cook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Bolsheviks were not into food. [Vladimir] Lenin was not a foodie,\" says von Bremzen. \"They saw it as fuel; they had to feed the workers. The Bolsheviks kind of wanted to eradicate privacy. And private hearth, private stove becomes very politicized.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following the \u003ca href=\"http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/russian_civil_war1.htm\">civil war,\u003c/a> the shortages\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>and\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>the famine of the 1920s devastated whatever was left of the Russian kitchen. Stalin's industrialization program included the industrialization of food. Completely new, mass-produced food appeared — foods like canned and processed soup, fish, meat and mayonnaise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The whole of the Soviet Union, all 120 different ethnic groups were suddenly being served exactly the same stuff,\" says Grisha Freidin. \"Choices for this or that food, the tastings, took place at the politburo level. The kinds of candies that were being produced was decided in a special meeting with Stalin and [Vyacheslav] Molotov.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Cold War And The Kitchen Debate\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1953 and the ramping up of the Cold War, the Soviet Union's goal was to catch up and overtake the United States. In 1959, Nikita Khrushchev decided to have a cultural exchange of exhibitions with the United States, the first in history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Soviet Union's display in the New York Coliseum showcased progress: It featured sputnik satellites, and a model of an atomic ice-breaker and enormous statues of Soviet workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the Americans' exhibit focused on lifestyle. They built a huge pavilion in Moscow's Sokolniki Park, a futuristic geodesic dome featuring\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>American jazz, basketball, rows and rows of high-heeled shoes, abstract art, long, sleek American cars. The exhibition introduced never-before seen or tasted American products to the Soviet people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many Soviet visitors to the exhibit, Pepsi-Cola stole the show. \"Every visitor would pass the counter where Pepsi-Cola was given out in disposable paper cups,\" remembers Grisha Freidin, who was 13 years old at the time. A decade later, a historic deal was negotiated that brought Pepsi to Russia. \"Pepsi was the first American company, even before McDonald's, to get their foot in the door. Part of the deal between Pepsi-Cola and the Soviet Union was that Pepsi would be given the distribution rights for Stoli, Stolichnaya Vodka,\" says Freidin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the center of the U.S. exhibit was a \"typical American home\" with a \"typical American kitchen.\" It had gleaming white refrigerators, washing machines and all the latest electric appliances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Vice President Richard Nixon arrived to open the pavilion, it was in this model Betty Crocker kitchen that he and Nikita Khrushchev made an unscheduled stop and came head to head in what is now known as \"\u003ca href=\"http://www.c-span.org/video/?110721-1/nixonkhrushchev-kitchen-debate\">The Kitchen Debate\u003c/a>.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82342\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2698px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/50475727-fd1409fee35acca7748b729b71bb0b6f8b32be7e.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/50475727-fd1409fee35acca7748b729b71bb0b6f8b32be7e.jpg\" alt=\"Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon have an impromptu and testy ideological debate in a model American kitchen in July 1959. Photo: Howard Sochurek/Time\" width=\"2698\" height=\"2024\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82342\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon have an impromptu and testy ideological debate in a model American kitchen in July 1959. Photo: Howard Sochurek/Time\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"They go to this kitchen,\" remembers Sergei Khrushchev, \"and Nixon talks about American achievement and my father talks about Soviet achievement. They argue with each other about which system is better.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While there's only a \u003ca href=\"http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/16/1959-07-24.pdf\">partial transcript\u003c/a> of the impromptu encounter, here's what the \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> reporter who covered the event in 1959 \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0724.html#article\">wrote\u003c/a>:\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\n\u003cp>\"On political problems,\" the Soviet Premier said, \"we will never agree with you. For instance, [Soviet statesman Anastas] \u003ca href=\"http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/politics-and-society/anastas-mikoyan/\">Mikoyan\u003c/a> likes very peppery soup. I do not. But this does not mean that we do not get along.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You can learn from us, and we can learn from you,\" Mr. Nixon said. \"There must be a free exchange. Let the people choose the kind of house, the kind of soup, the kind of ideas that they want.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>And so, the threat of atomic warfare, economic progress and diplomacy were all examined through the lens of the kitchen. \"Nixon and Khrushchev talked about food,\" says the Russian writer Alexander Genis, \"how people live, how people eat.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82340\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1777px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/anna-854becedc3a4dfe867b56f0aa8327173adbd1d16.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/anna-854becedc3a4dfe867b56f0aa8327173adbd1d16.jpg\" alt=\"Anna Matveevna came to this communal apartment in St. Petersburg in 1931, when she was 8 years old. Photo: Courtesy of European University, St. Petersburg, Russia,Colgate University and Cornell University\" width=\"1777\" height=\"1331\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82340\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anna Matveevna came to this communal apartment in St. Petersburg in 1931, when she was 8 years old. Photo: Courtesy of European University, St. Petersburg, Russia,Colgate University and Cornell University\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/05/20/314054405/how-russias-shared-kitchens-helped-shape-soviet-politics\">Morning Edition\u003c/a> \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Post by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/5252035/the-kitchen-sisters\" target=\"_blank\">The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/05/20/314054405/how-russias-shared-kitchens-helped-shape-soviet-politics\" target=\"_blank\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (5/20/2014)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the decades following the 1917 Russian Revolution, most people in Moscow lived in communal apartments; seven or more families crammed together where there had been one, sharing one kitchen and one bathroom. They were crowded; stove space and food were limited. Clotheslines were strewn across the kitchen, the laundry of one family dripping into the omelet of another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the Soviet Union industrialized from the 1920s to the 1950s, and millions poured into Moscow from the countryside, one of the goals of the new government was to provide housing for the workers. It started putting people into apartments that had been occupied by the rich or by aristocrats who had been driven out by the new regime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The communal apartment was like a microcosm of Soviet society,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/books/authors/223091725/anya-von-bremzen\">Anya von Bremzen\u003c/a>, author of \u003cem>Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking\u003c/em>. \"People from all walks of life, sometimes absolute class enemies, living next to each other. The expression was 'densed up.' The allotment was 9 square meters per person.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.stanford.edu/~gfreidin/\">Gregory (Grisha) Freidin,\u003c/a> professor of Russian literature at Stanford University, grew up in a communal apartment of 10 families about five blocks from the Kremlin in the 1940s. \"On one side of my room was the man who washed corpses at the local morgue.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>There were two rooms where the mother and father served in the KGB. Then there was the woman whose husband was serving a sentence for stealing bread from the bread factory where he worked.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82341\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1772px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/44b4_001_vert-2e6f07a51f0c4f4006a6f35b530acc83f3d01b36.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/44b4_001_vert-2e6f07a51f0c4f4006a6f35b530acc83f3d01b36.jpg\" alt=\"Laundry drying in a communal kitchen in Moscow. Photo: Courtesy of European University, St. Petersburg, Russia, Colgate University and Cornell University\" width=\"1772\" height=\"2362\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82341\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Laundry drying in a communal kitchen in Moscow. Photo: Courtesy of European University, St. Petersburg, Russia, Colgate University and Cornell University\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In Freidin's kitchen, every family had a small kitchen table that housed a few pots and pans. There were two four-burner stoves. Everyone cooked their own food — cabbage soup, borscht with beets, potatoes, buckwheat groats, boiled chicken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kitchens became a source of tension and conflict. \"Five different kettles, five different pots that are all marked,\" says Edward Shenderovich, venture capital investor and Russian poet. \"When relations between the neighbors were especially fierce, you could see locks on the cabinets.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Families cooked in quick, staggered shifts. \"They cooked in the kitchen but practically never ate there,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/masha-karp/23/308/509\">Masha Karp\u003c/a>, who was born in Moscow and worked as a Russian features editor for the BBC World Service from 1991 to 2009. \"They would go with their pots along their corridor and eat in their room.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Crowded Kitchens By Design\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Communal kitchen was a war zone,\" says Alexander Genis, Russian writer and radio journalist. \"During the Stalin era [1928-1953] it was the most dangerous place to be — in the kitchen.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shenderovich agrees: \"Communal kitchens were not places where you would bring your friends. I think that was one of the ideas for creating a communal kitchen. There would be a watchful eye of society over every communal apartment. People would report on each other. You would never know who would be reporting.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Anya von Bremzen remembers there was camaraderie as well. \"There was always a grandmother to take care of the kids, and share a bit of \u003cem>cutletta\u003c/em> or \u003cem>salat Olivier\u003c/em>. And when they began to disband the communal apartments, the communal kitchen was an institution that many people actually began to miss.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reason Soviet authorities considered kitchens and private apartments dangerous to the regime was because they were places people could gather to talk about politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The most important part of kitchen politics in early Soviet time was they would like to have houses without kitchens,\" says Genis. \"Because kitchen is something \u003cem>bourgeois\u003c/em>. Every family, as long as they have a kitchen, they have some part of their private life and private property.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.choices.edu/resources/scholars_Khrushchev.php\">Sergei Khrushchev\u003c/a>, retired Brown University professor and son of\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Nikita Khrushchev, the head of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, explains: \"In Stalin's time, the theoretical idea of communism declared that all people have to be equal and the women have to be free from the slavery work in the kitchen. There mustn't be a kitchen in the apartment. You will go and eat in the cafeteria.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was part of the romantic approach of the early post-revolutionary years, says Masha Karp. \"People forget what an incredible upheaval the 1917 revolution was,\" she says. \"There was a huge movement to free the country from the czarism, bring happiness to poorer classes. People thought maybe it was a good idea to relieve a housewife from her daily chores so that she could develop as a personality. She would go and play the piano, write poetry, and she would not cook and wash up. The idea to have canteens and cafeterias was a continuation of this wonderful intention.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the cafeteria idea did not pan out. After the revolution, the civil war began and they did not build any cafeterias. Also, Anya von Bremzen tells us,\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>the food in the canteens was terrible, and women continued to cook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Bolsheviks were not into food. [Vladimir] Lenin was not a foodie,\" says von Bremzen. \"They saw it as fuel; they had to feed the workers. The Bolsheviks kind of wanted to eradicate privacy. And private hearth, private stove becomes very politicized.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following the \u003ca href=\"http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/russian_civil_war1.htm\">civil war,\u003c/a> the shortages\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>and\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>the famine of the 1920s devastated whatever was left of the Russian kitchen. Stalin's industrialization program included the industrialization of food. Completely new, mass-produced food appeared — foods like canned and processed soup, fish, meat and mayonnaise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The whole of the Soviet Union, all 120 different ethnic groups were suddenly being served exactly the same stuff,\" says Grisha Freidin. \"Choices for this or that food, the tastings, took place at the politburo level. The kinds of candies that were being produced was decided in a special meeting with Stalin and [Vyacheslav] Molotov.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Cold War And The Kitchen Debate\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1953 and the ramping up of the Cold War, the Soviet Union's goal was to catch up and overtake the United States. In 1959, Nikita Khrushchev decided to have a cultural exchange of exhibitions with the United States, the first in history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Soviet Union's display in the New York Coliseum showcased progress: It featured sputnik satellites, and a model of an atomic ice-breaker and enormous statues of Soviet workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the Americans' exhibit focused on lifestyle. They built a huge pavilion in Moscow's Sokolniki Park, a futuristic geodesic dome featuring\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>American jazz, basketball, rows and rows of high-heeled shoes, abstract art, long, sleek American cars. The exhibition introduced never-before seen or tasted American products to the Soviet people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many Soviet visitors to the exhibit, Pepsi-Cola stole the show. \"Every visitor would pass the counter where Pepsi-Cola was given out in disposable paper cups,\" remembers Grisha Freidin, who was 13 years old at the time. A decade later, a historic deal was negotiated that brought Pepsi to Russia. \"Pepsi was the first American company, even before McDonald's, to get their foot in the door. Part of the deal between Pepsi-Cola and the Soviet Union was that Pepsi would be given the distribution rights for Stoli, Stolichnaya Vodka,\" says Freidin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the center of the U.S. exhibit was a \"typical American home\" with a \"typical American kitchen.\" It had gleaming white refrigerators, washing machines and all the latest electric appliances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Vice President Richard Nixon arrived to open the pavilion, it was in this model Betty Crocker kitchen that he and Nikita Khrushchev made an unscheduled stop and came head to head in what is now known as \"\u003ca href=\"http://www.c-span.org/video/?110721-1/nixonkhrushchev-kitchen-debate\">The Kitchen Debate\u003c/a>.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82342\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2698px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/50475727-fd1409fee35acca7748b729b71bb0b6f8b32be7e.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/50475727-fd1409fee35acca7748b729b71bb0b6f8b32be7e.jpg\" alt=\"Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon have an impromptu and testy ideological debate in a model American kitchen in July 1959. Photo: Howard Sochurek/Time\" width=\"2698\" height=\"2024\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82342\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon have an impromptu and testy ideological debate in a model American kitchen in July 1959. Photo: Howard Sochurek/Time\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"They go to this kitchen,\" remembers Sergei Khrushchev, \"and Nixon talks about American achievement and my father talks about Soviet achievement. They argue with each other about which system is better.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While there's only a \u003ca href=\"http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/16/1959-07-24.pdf\">partial transcript\u003c/a> of the impromptu encounter, here's what the \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em> reporter who covered the event in 1959 \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0724.html#article\">wrote\u003c/a>:\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\n\u003cp>\"On political problems,\" the Soviet Premier said, \"we will never agree with you. For instance, [Soviet statesman Anastas] \u003ca href=\"http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/politics-and-society/anastas-mikoyan/\">Mikoyan\u003c/a> likes very peppery soup. I do not. But this does not mean that we do not get along.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You can learn from us, and we can learn from you,\" Mr. Nixon said. \"There must be a free exchange. Let the people choose the kind of house, the kind of soup, the kind of ideas that they want.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>And so, the threat of atomic warfare, economic progress and diplomacy were all examined through the lens of the kitchen. \"Nixon and Khrushchev talked about food,\" says the Russian writer Alexander Genis, \"how people live, how people eat.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Turnspit Dogs: The Rise And Fall Of The Vernepator Cur",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82053\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 3930px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/463895653_master_slide-9cfdd4bccadc53f57b2cf5a8d5faae4ab4a7a0ff.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/463895653_master_slide-9cfdd4bccadc53f57b2cf5a8d5faae4ab4a7a0ff.jpg\" alt=\"A turnspit dog at work in a wooden cooking wheel in an inn at Newcastle, Carmarthen, Wales, in 1869. Photo: Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images\" width=\"3930\" height=\"2617\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82053\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A turnspit dog at work in a wooden cooking wheel in an inn at Newcastle, Carmarthen, Wales, in 1869. Photo: Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/05/13/311127237/turnspit-dogs-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-vernepator-cur\">Morning Edition\u003c/a> [audio src=\"http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2014/05/20140513_me_turnspit_dogs_the_rise_and_fall_of_the_vernepator_cur.mp3\"] \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/5252035/the-kitchen-sisters\">The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/05/13/311127237/turnspit-dogs-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-vernepator-cur\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (5/13/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an old hunting lodge on the grounds of an ancient Norman castle in Abergavenny, Wales, a small, extinct dog peers out of a handmade wooden display case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Whiskey is the last surviving specimen of a turnspit dog, albeit stuffed,\" says Sally Davis, longtime custodian at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.abergavennymuseum.co.uk/\">Abergavenny Museum\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003cem>Canis vertigus\u003c/em>, or turnspit, was an essential part of every large kitchen in Britain in the 16th century. The small cooking canine was bred to run in a wheel that turned a roasting spit in cavernous kitchen fireplaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82054\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/turnspit-dogs_whiskey_custom-b3394726e5db492151fdecd18f5dcc30a3c10f13.png\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/turnspit-dogs_whiskey_custom-b3394726e5db492151fdecd18f5dcc30a3c10f13-290x172.png\" alt='\"Whiskey,\" a taxidermied turnspit dog on display at the Abergavenny Museum in Wales. Photo: The Kitchen Sisters' width=\"290\" height=\"172\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-82054\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\"Whiskey,\" a taxidermied turnspit dog on display at the Abergavenny Museum in Wales. Photo: The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"They were referred to as the kitchen dog, the cooking dog or the vernepator cur,\" says Caira Farrell, library and collections manager at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/Kclovesdogs?rf=131976410334181\">Kennel Club\u003c/a> in London. \"The very first mention of them is in 1576 in the first book on dogs ever written.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The turnspit was bred especially to run on a wheel that turned meat so it would cook evenly. And that's how the turnspit got its other name: vernepator cur, Latin for \"the dog that turns the wheel.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in the 16th century, many people preferred to cook meat over an open fire. Open-fire roasting required constant attention from the cook and constant turning of the spit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Since medieval times, the British have delighted in eating roast beef, roast pork, roast turkey,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Jan-Bondeson/e/B001H6V88Y\">Jan Bondeson\u003c/a>, author of \u003cem>Amazing Dogs, a Cabinet of Canine Curiosities, \u003c/em>the book that first led us to the turnspit dog\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\"They sneered at the idea of roasting meat in an oven. For a true Briton, the proper way was to spit roast it in front of an open fire, using a turnspit dog.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When any meat was to be roasted, one of these dogs was hoisted into a wooden wheel mounted on the wall near the fireplace. The wheel was attached to a chain, which ran down to the spit. As the dog ran, like a hamster in a cage, the spit turned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Turnspit dogs were viewed as kitchen utensils, as pieces of machinery rather than as dogs,\" says Bondeson. \"The roar of the fire. The clanking of the spit. The patter from the little dog's feet. The wheels were put up quite high on the wall, far from the fire in order for the dogs not to overheat and faint.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To train the dog to run faster, a glowing coal was thrown into the wheel, Bondeson adds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82055\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 4507px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/113438731_master-1e069962cccd41fe2f5e33c25de9b9c52f398aaf.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/113438731_master-1e069962cccd41fe2f5e33c25de9b9c52f398aaf.jpg\" alt=\"In 1750 there were turnspits everywhere. By 1850 they had become scarce, and by 1900 they had disappeared. Image: Universal History Archive/Getty Images\" width=\"4507\" height=\"3376\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82055\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In 1750 there were turnspits everywhere. By 1850 they had become scarce, and by 1900 they had disappeared. Image: Universal History Archive/Getty Images\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Descriptions of the dogs paint a rather mutty picture: small, low-bodied, short, crooked front legs, with a heavy head and drooping ears. Some had gray and white fur; others were black or reddish brown. The dogs were strong and sturdy, capable of working for hours, and over time they evolved into a distinct breed. It was the zoologist Carl Linnaeus who named them C\u003cem>anis vertigus,\u003c/em> Latin for \"dizzy dog,\" because the dogs were turning all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the dogs, the fireplace spit was turned by the lowliest person in the kitchen staff, usually a small boy who stood behind a bale of wet hay for protection from the heat, turning the iron spit for hours and hours. The boys' hands used to blister. But in the 16th century, the boys gave way to dogs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shakespeare mentions them in his play \u003cem>The\u003c/em> \u003cem>Comedy of Errors\u003c/em>. He describes somebody as being a \"curtailed dog fit only to run in a wheel.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Curtailed means they've got their tails cut off,\" Sally Davis, of the Abergavenny Museum, says. \"It was a way they used to differentiate between the dogs of the nobility and the dogs belonging to ordinary people. These little curtailed mongrels were the ones put into the wheels.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.lucyworsley.com/\">Lucy Worsley\u003c/a>, chief curator of the Historic Royal Palaces of London, at Hampton Court Palace, the home of Henry VIII, where a fire is roaring in the huge, old kitchen. \"Charles Darwin commented on the dogs as an example of genetic engineering,\" she tells us. \"Darwin said, 'Look at the spit dog. That's an example of how people can breed animals to suit particular needs.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82056\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/turnspit-dog_lucy-481e71690ddfb74f6c00ac627a948158b1080360.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/turnspit-dog_lucy-481e71690ddfb74f6c00ac627a948158b1080360-290x217.jpg\" alt=\"Lucy Worsley, chief curator at the Historic Royal Palaces in London, attempted to roast on a spit powered by a dog in a wheel at the George Inn. Coco didn't fare too well in the wheel. Photo: The Kitchen Sisters\" width=\"290\" height=\"217\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-82056\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lucy Worsley, chief curator at the Historic Royal Palaces in London, attempted to roast on a spit powered by a dog in a wheel at the George Inn. Coco didn't fare too well in the wheel. Photo: The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Sunday, the turnspit dog often had a day off. The dogs were allowed to go with the family to church. \"Not because of any concern for their spiritual education,\" says Bondeson, \"but because the dogs were useful as foot warmers.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are actually a few records of turnspits being employed in America. Hannah Penn, the wife of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, wrote to England requesting that the dog wheel for her turnspits be sent. Elsewhere in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin's \u003cem>Pennsylvania Gazette\u003c/em> had advertisements for turnspit dogs and wheels for sale. And historians say a turnspit was active in the kitchen of the Statehouse Inn in Philadelphia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The Statehouse Inn was where all the old political cronies hung out for their slice of beef and their ale,\" author and food historian \u003ca href=\"http://www.williamwoysweaver.com/\">William Woys Weaver\u003c/a> tells us. \"In 1745, the owner of the Statehouse Inn advertised that he had turnspit dogs for sale. Evidently he was also breeding them.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dogs were used in large hotel kitchens in America to turn spits. \"In the 1850s, the founder of the [Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] was appalled by the way the turnspit dogs were treated in the hotels of Manhattan,\" says Weaver. \"This bad treatment of dogs eventually led to the founding of the SPCA.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1750 there were turnspits everywhere in Great Britain. But by 1850 they had become scarce, and by 1900 they had disappeared. The availability of cheap spit-turning machines, called clock jacks, brought about the demise of the turnspit dog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It became a stigma of poverty to have a turnspit dog,\" says author Bondeson. \"They were ugly little dogs with a quite morose disposition, so nobody wanted to keep them as pets. The turnspit dogs became extinct.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82057\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 459px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/turnspit-dog_dogwheel-at-st.-briarvel-s-castle-b120831c1f737bdf8308da7362cd9441428a1d81.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/turnspit-dog_dogwheel-at-st.-briarvel-s-castle-b120831c1f737bdf8308da7362cd9441428a1d81.jpg\" alt=\"The dog wheel circa 1890, drawn in E.F. King's Ten Thousand Wonderful Things. Image: Courtesy of Jan Bondeson\" width=\"459\" height=\"344\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82057\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The dog wheel circa 1890, drawn in E.F. King's Ten Thousand Wonderful Things. Image: Courtesy of Jan Bondeson\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Back at Abergavenny Museum, Whiskey, the last remaining turnspit, is a permanent fixture. Sally Davis thinks the blue painted background and spray of artificial flowers in the case are a sign that someone really cared for her. \"But the way she's posed,\" Sally says, \"the taxidermy ... I think possibly it was their first go at it, I don't know.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What kind of dog today is the closest to a turnspit dog? Bondeson thinks possibly it's the Queen of England's favorite dog, the Welsh corgi. \"The downtrodden, lumpen, proletariat turnspit cooking dogs may well be related to the queen's pampered royal pooches.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>About The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/series/91851784/hidden-kitchens-the-kitchen-sisters\">\u003cem>The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, \u003cem>Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, are Peabody Award-winning producers who create radio and multimedia stories for NPR and public broadcast. Their Hidden Kitchen Series travels the world, exploring little known kitchen rituals and traditions that explore how communities come together, from modern-day Sicily to medieval England, the Australian Outback and cool California.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Additional features, photos, recipes and music can be found at \u003ca href=\"http://kitchensisters.org\">kitchensisters.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/5252035/the-kitchen-sisters\">The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/05/13/311127237/turnspit-dogs-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-vernepator-cur\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (5/13/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an old hunting lodge on the grounds of an ancient Norman castle in Abergavenny, Wales, a small, extinct dog peers out of a handmade wooden display case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Whiskey is the last surviving specimen of a turnspit dog, albeit stuffed,\" says Sally Davis, longtime custodian at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.abergavennymuseum.co.uk/\">Abergavenny Museum\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003cem>Canis vertigus\u003c/em>, or turnspit, was an essential part of every large kitchen in Britain in the 16th century. The small cooking canine was bred to run in a wheel that turned a roasting spit in cavernous kitchen fireplaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82054\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/turnspit-dogs_whiskey_custom-b3394726e5db492151fdecd18f5dcc30a3c10f13.png\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/turnspit-dogs_whiskey_custom-b3394726e5db492151fdecd18f5dcc30a3c10f13-290x172.png\" alt='\"Whiskey,\" a taxidermied turnspit dog on display at the Abergavenny Museum in Wales. Photo: The Kitchen Sisters' width=\"290\" height=\"172\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-82054\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\"Whiskey,\" a taxidermied turnspit dog on display at the Abergavenny Museum in Wales. Photo: The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"They were referred to as the kitchen dog, the cooking dog or the vernepator cur,\" says Caira Farrell, library and collections manager at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/Kclovesdogs?rf=131976410334181\">Kennel Club\u003c/a> in London. \"The very first mention of them is in 1576 in the first book on dogs ever written.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The turnspit was bred especially to run on a wheel that turned meat so it would cook evenly. And that's how the turnspit got its other name: vernepator cur, Latin for \"the dog that turns the wheel.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in the 16th century, many people preferred to cook meat over an open fire. Open-fire roasting required constant attention from the cook and constant turning of the spit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Since medieval times, the British have delighted in eating roast beef, roast pork, roast turkey,\" says \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Jan-Bondeson/e/B001H6V88Y\">Jan Bondeson\u003c/a>, author of \u003cem>Amazing Dogs, a Cabinet of Canine Curiosities, \u003c/em>the book that first led us to the turnspit dog\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\"They sneered at the idea of roasting meat in an oven. For a true Briton, the proper way was to spit roast it in front of an open fire, using a turnspit dog.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When any meat was to be roasted, one of these dogs was hoisted into a wooden wheel mounted on the wall near the fireplace. The wheel was attached to a chain, which ran down to the spit. As the dog ran, like a hamster in a cage, the spit turned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Turnspit dogs were viewed as kitchen utensils, as pieces of machinery rather than as dogs,\" says Bondeson. \"The roar of the fire. The clanking of the spit. The patter from the little dog's feet. The wheels were put up quite high on the wall, far from the fire in order for the dogs not to overheat and faint.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To train the dog to run faster, a glowing coal was thrown into the wheel, Bondeson adds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82055\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 4507px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/113438731_master-1e069962cccd41fe2f5e33c25de9b9c52f398aaf.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/113438731_master-1e069962cccd41fe2f5e33c25de9b9c52f398aaf.jpg\" alt=\"In 1750 there were turnspits everywhere. By 1850 they had become scarce, and by 1900 they had disappeared. Image: Universal History Archive/Getty Images\" width=\"4507\" height=\"3376\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82055\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In 1750 there were turnspits everywhere. By 1850 they had become scarce, and by 1900 they had disappeared. Image: Universal History Archive/Getty Images\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Descriptions of the dogs paint a rather mutty picture: small, low-bodied, short, crooked front legs, with a heavy head and drooping ears. Some had gray and white fur; others were black or reddish brown. The dogs were strong and sturdy, capable of working for hours, and over time they evolved into a distinct breed. It was the zoologist Carl Linnaeus who named them C\u003cem>anis vertigus,\u003c/em> Latin for \"dizzy dog,\" because the dogs were turning all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before the dogs, the fireplace spit was turned by the lowliest person in the kitchen staff, usually a small boy who stood behind a bale of wet hay for protection from the heat, turning the iron spit for hours and hours. The boys' hands used to blister. But in the 16th century, the boys gave way to dogs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shakespeare mentions them in his play \u003cem>The\u003c/em> \u003cem>Comedy of Errors\u003c/em>. He describes somebody as being a \"curtailed dog fit only to run in a wheel.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Curtailed means they've got their tails cut off,\" Sally Davis, of the Abergavenny Museum, says. \"It was a way they used to differentiate between the dogs of the nobility and the dogs belonging to ordinary people. These little curtailed mongrels were the ones put into the wheels.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.lucyworsley.com/\">Lucy Worsley\u003c/a>, chief curator of the Historic Royal Palaces of London, at Hampton Court Palace, the home of Henry VIII, where a fire is roaring in the huge, old kitchen. \"Charles Darwin commented on the dogs as an example of genetic engineering,\" she tells us. \"Darwin said, 'Look at the spit dog. That's an example of how people can breed animals to suit particular needs.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82056\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 290px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/turnspit-dog_lucy-481e71690ddfb74f6c00ac627a948158b1080360.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/turnspit-dog_lucy-481e71690ddfb74f6c00ac627a948158b1080360-290x217.jpg\" alt=\"Lucy Worsley, chief curator at the Historic Royal Palaces in London, attempted to roast on a spit powered by a dog in a wheel at the George Inn. Coco didn't fare too well in the wheel. Photo: The Kitchen Sisters\" width=\"290\" height=\"217\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-82056\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lucy Worsley, chief curator at the Historic Royal Palaces in London, attempted to roast on a spit powered by a dog in a wheel at the George Inn. Coco didn't fare too well in the wheel. Photo: The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On Sunday, the turnspit dog often had a day off. The dogs were allowed to go with the family to church. \"Not because of any concern for their spiritual education,\" says Bondeson, \"but because the dogs were useful as foot warmers.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are actually a few records of turnspits being employed in America. Hannah Penn, the wife of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, wrote to England requesting that the dog wheel for her turnspits be sent. Elsewhere in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin's \u003cem>Pennsylvania Gazette\u003c/em> had advertisements for turnspit dogs and wheels for sale. And historians say a turnspit was active in the kitchen of the Statehouse Inn in Philadelphia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The Statehouse Inn was where all the old political cronies hung out for their slice of beef and their ale,\" author and food historian \u003ca href=\"http://www.williamwoysweaver.com/\">William Woys Weaver\u003c/a> tells us. \"In 1745, the owner of the Statehouse Inn advertised that he had turnspit dogs for sale. Evidently he was also breeding them.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The dogs were used in large hotel kitchens in America to turn spits. \"In the 1850s, the founder of the [Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] was appalled by the way the turnspit dogs were treated in the hotels of Manhattan,\" says Weaver. \"This bad treatment of dogs eventually led to the founding of the SPCA.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1750 there were turnspits everywhere in Great Britain. But by 1850 they had become scarce, and by 1900 they had disappeared. The availability of cheap spit-turning machines, called clock jacks, brought about the demise of the turnspit dog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It became a stigma of poverty to have a turnspit dog,\" says author Bondeson. \"They were ugly little dogs with a quite morose disposition, so nobody wanted to keep them as pets. The turnspit dogs became extinct.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_82057\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 459px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/turnspit-dog_dogwheel-at-st.-briarvel-s-castle-b120831c1f737bdf8308da7362cd9441428a1d81.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/turnspit-dog_dogwheel-at-st.-briarvel-s-castle-b120831c1f737bdf8308da7362cd9441428a1d81.jpg\" alt=\"The dog wheel circa 1890, drawn in E.F. King's Ten Thousand Wonderful Things. Image: Courtesy of Jan Bondeson\" width=\"459\" height=\"344\" class=\"size-full wp-image-82057\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The dog wheel circa 1890, drawn in E.F. King's Ten Thousand Wonderful Things. Image: Courtesy of Jan Bondeson\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Back at Abergavenny Museum, Whiskey, the last remaining turnspit, is a permanent fixture. Sally Davis thinks the blue painted background and spray of artificial flowers in the case are a sign that someone really cared for her. \"But the way she's posed,\" Sally says, \"the taxidermy ... I think possibly it was their first go at it, I don't know.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What kind of dog today is the closest to a turnspit dog? Bondeson thinks possibly it's the Queen of England's favorite dog, the Welsh corgi. \"The downtrodden, lumpen, proletariat turnspit cooking dogs may well be related to the queen's pampered royal pooches.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>About The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/series/91851784/hidden-kitchens-the-kitchen-sisters\">\u003cem>The Kitchen Sisters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, \u003cem>Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, are Peabody Award-winning producers who create radio and multimedia stories for NPR and public broadcast. Their Hidden Kitchen Series travels the world, exploring little known kitchen rituals and traditions that explore how communities come together, from modern-day Sicily to medieval England, the Australian Outback and cool California.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Additional features, photos, recipes and music can be found at \u003ca href=\"http://kitchensisters.org\">kitchensisters.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "I Killed Audrey Hepburn",
"title": "I Killed Audrey Hepburn",
"headTitle": "Bay Area Bites | KQED Food",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/Poison-Crush.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/Poison-Crush.jpg\" alt=\"Poison crush. Photo: Michael Procopio\" width=\"400\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-81256\">\u003c/a>It’s true that travel can broaden the mind but, in rare cases, it can also lead to an international celebrity killing spree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize for mine here and now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It started so innocently. I was sixteen years old and on my first trip to Europe. I sat next to an auburn-haired 14 year-old, who did her best to impress me with her general nonchalance regarding celebrity. Her father, it turned out, was a popular Emmy-winning actor on a hit television show. She mentioned that Peter Sellers occasionally slept on the family couch as casually as another 14 year-old girl might mention she occasionally had pudding for breakfast. Knowing she may have seen Inspector Clouseau in his pajamas, I was under the impression that no one famous could cause her to lose her poise and was therefore rightly impressed. I wasn’t much older than she and was already guilty of nearly wetting myself with excitement upon witnessing \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFnqhefkQJw\" target=\"_blank\">Ann Miller\u003c/a> allowing her dog to defecate on my aunt and uncle’s front lawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But her cool, Hollywood attitude was destroyed on that flight to London. Restless after hours of sitting, my new friend decided to stretch her legs. Her preferred method of calisthenics included climbing up the spiral staircase of our Pan Am jet which led directly to the first class cabin. I admired her nerve but wondered how long it would take for her to be ejected by a rabidly class-conscious flight attendant. She was gone for what seemed like ages, and when she reappeared somewhere over the North Atlantic, stopped half-way down the steps and stared at me. Or quite possibly through me. Flushed and shaking, she returned to her seat next and whispered, “Cary. Grant.” she halted, “is on this plane. Cary Grant is up \u003cem>there\u003c/em>.” I followed her look upward with my own and we stared at the ceiling as one would stare up at heaven, because Paradise to us at that moment was a first class cabin paved not with clouds, but with red carpet, and populated by a single, silver-haired, cleft-chinned angel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We spent the remainder of the flight more or less silent. We were fortunate enough to be near the front of the plane and so were the first from cattle class to disembark. We spotted the object of our adoration and ran up behind him, then slowed to keep ourselves a few respectful paces behind; our heads tilted in awe at the back of his head. We continued to worship him in this manner for a few minutes until he disappeared behind a door. Quite possibly the men’s room. And just like that, the spell was broken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He died four months later. I was saddened by his death but felt no guilt. I was too young to know that I may have been the cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On another excursion six years later, I met my brother at Charles de Gaulle airport to fly back home to California. After catching up on our separate adventures, we checked in for our flight home. Doug thought he might try charming the woman behind the counter to see if he could wrangle a ticket upgrade. My French has never been very good, but I somehow understood the most important part of their conversation: “I’d love to help you sir, however our First and Business Classes are full. But I’ll let you in on a little secret… Audrey Hepburn is on your flight today! And so is Julia Roberts!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Telling two gay men that Audrey Hepburn is on their flight might be considered an extreme breach of security today, but everything was much more relaxed in the 1990s. Except for the two of us, thanks to this important piece of information. I’d planned to grab a drink somewhere before boarding, but that was now out of the question. I was intoxicated enough at the thought of sharing the same cabin-filtered air as my favorite film star in the Hollywood firmament. But our excitement turned to extreme anxiety when we saw Miss Hepburn being escorted onto the plane in a wheelchair, much thinner and frail-looking than usual. For the second time in my life, I was rendered silent by a celebrity over the Atlantic Ocean, but this time it wasn’t from excitement, it was from worry. The eleven-hour flight felt like eleven years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Four months later, I learned of her death from cancer. I nearly cancelled my card night with friends, but decided against it, thinking it might help crowd out the sad news from my mind for a few hours, but the evening ended with my feeling worse that I did before. “Did you guys hear Audrey Hepburn died today?” my friend Itay asked without a hint of emotion. But then again, we were playing poker. I shared with the room what I’d seen of her on my flight home from Paris and told them about the coincidence of Cary Grant, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Well clearly you’re to blame for both of their deaths,” he said. His face was obscured behind his cards. “Remind me never to fly with you– you’re like some time-release killer or something.” As the only gay man in the room, I found both his lack of emotion and the general absence of sympathy for either Miss Hepburn or– more importantly– for me around that table deeply upsetting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why couldn’t it have been Julia Roberts?” I asked to no one and to everyone. I’d wanted to yell it, but held myself back, so the words came out in a sort of dry squeak, which made me sound exceptionally pathetic. After a moment or two of uncomfortable silence, Itay spoke up. “Just keep an eye on the obituaries. Maybe it’ll turn out you killed her, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And with that, the poker game continued more or less interrupted, but I left feeling dirty and diseased. I didn’t speak of this coincidence again for a long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wouldn’t be the last time I’d be called toxic by another human being, but was I really that lethal? How many other lives had I claimed by simply breathing the same recirculated air? I was tired of feeling responsible for the earthly exits of these two people adored by the entire film-going world. For years, every time I entered the cabin of an airplane, I would scan the first class seats for the elderly famous, hoping to warn them to flee while there was still time. I could no longer bear the weight of my guilty burden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I decided to rid myself of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There had to be another reason for their deaths. But what sort of connection could two extremely famous and beloved actors from Hollywood’s Golden Age possibly have other than myself? After extensive research, I discovered that Hepburn and Grant had, in fact, met before. They made a film together in 1963 entitled \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMkeqjacvAU\" target=\"_blank\">Charade\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I watched the film over and over, searching for clues– anything that might exonerate myself and free me from my own unintentionally-criminal pain. Did they eat both something that might have spoiled on the set during production, which may have ultimately lead to their deaths 23 and 30 years later? No, they did not. Hepburn only eats in front of Walter Matthau– a chicken sandwich as he speaks with his mouth full of liverwurst. A French onion soup is ordered, but pushed away in favor of cigarettes. Endless amounts of what seem to be breath mints are consumed, but only by her. The one time the two stars sit down together for a meal, they do not touch it, but chose to talk in veiled terms about intercourse instead. There was a double ice cream cone Hepburn manages to get a lick or two from, but the rest winds up on Grant’s lapel. I was near the end of my emotional tether, about to give up on my search, when I suddenly hit upon the key to my own innocence: \u003cstrong>An orange.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/Orange.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/Orange.jpg\" alt=\"Orange with poison. Photo: Michael Procopio\" width=\"500\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-81255\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fruity object of an innocent but sexually suggestive game may very well have been the agent of their slow deaths. I was certain of it. In one particular scene, the Master of Ceremonies at Le Black Sheep Club has patrons line up to pass an orange from one player’s neck to the other’s without the benefit of their hands. All of the actors who came in contact with the offending citrus are now dead: Hepburn. Grant. Ned Glass, the villain to whom Hepburn passes the orange before fleeing was the first to die in 1984. And what of the ample-fronted woman who starts the game? Her career, at the very least, is dead. It became clear to me that someone– most likely a psychotic prop master or vengeance-seeking wardrobe mistress– had poisoned that orange. I briefly wondered what the motive behind this act of horror could have been, but realized that such things are often a waste of time when dealing with the emotionally deranged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[youtube //www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAcZZtZyfMs]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I looked up various slow-acting poisons which might have been used. Hemlock? No evidence of paralysis present in any of the victims. Dimethylmercury? Possible, but difficult do disguise. Tetrodotoxin? Doubtful. Too fast-acting and difficult to come by unless one has ready access to puffer fish. Cyanide? Too much discoloration. Which leaves but one obvious answer: arsenic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would be a simple matter to coat an orange with arsenic and let it sit until some of the poison absorbs into the skin of the fruit. The prolonged contact with human flesh– endless takes for what looks like a difficult scene to perfect– would be all the murderer needed to get the contamination ball rolling. But how did he or she continue this deadly scheme and keep the victims’ arsenic levels at a steady but still-undetectable level? In two ways, I have decided: 1) by gifting his victims annual holiday citrus baskets and 2) consistently providing oranges for all major airline carriers with clearly marked instructions which read “For Celebrity Cocktails Only.” It was a brilliant plan. And I felt equally brilliant for uncovering it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before I start popping the champagne to celebrate my freedom from a self-inflicted manslaughter rap, I must remind myself that this is only a theory. And one which has not been thoroughly tested at that. All I can really do is wait and see. So I shall wait for Julia Roberts* to get a few more years on her, book the same flight as she, offer her a cocktail with a slice of innocent-looking orange muddled in it, and keep a close eye on the obituaries for the next four months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_81254\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 560px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/Old-Fashioned.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/Old-Fashioned.jpg\" alt=\"Slow-Acting Old Fashioned Cocktail. Photo: Michael Procopio\" width=\"560\" class=\"size-full wp-image-81254\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Slow-Acting Old Fashioned Cocktail. Photo: Michael Procopio\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Slow-Acting Old Fashioned Cocktail\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>I have no evidence that Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant ever shared a round of these beverages together, but I can guarantee that the combination of alcohol, tainted orange, and recycled airplane oxygen makes for a deadly delicious drink.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Makes \u003cstrong>one\u003c/strong> generous cocktail suitable for your favorite old fashioned movie star.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cstrong>Ingredients:\u003c/strong>\n\u003cli>1 Valencia orange\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1/2 cup powdered arsenic (organic)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>2 maraschino or Amarena cherries: 1 for muddling and the other for garnish\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>2 sugar cubes\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>About four dashes of Angostura bitters\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>2 airline bottles of whiskey\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A splash of club soda\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Ice\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Preparation:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1. Thoroughly wash and drip-dry the orange to remove any pesticides. With gloved hands, dump the arsenic powder onto a small plate and roll the citrus around in it until it is fully coated. Let sit for up to three days. When you are ready to make this cocktail, wipe the skin of the orange clean so that no white powder is noticeable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>2. When you are ready to serve your drink, roll the orange on a generously-fronted German woman until the juice cells of the fruit are sufficiently loosened. Cut a 1/4″ inch slice from the from the orange and then cut that slice in half. Place one half in the bottom of an old fashioned glass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>3. Add your 2 sugar cubes, 1 cherry, and 4 dashes of bitters to the glass, then show no mercy as you pummel the ingredients until they are more or less unrecognizable. Remove the orange. It has done it’s work. Or leave it in for extra oomph.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>4. Pour in the splash of club soda and stir until the ingredients are sufficiently mingled. Add ice, then fill the glass to the top with whiskey. Garnish with the second cherry and the other half of orange slice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>5. Serve to any remaining stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, like Olivia de Havilland or \u003cdel datetime=\"2014-05-02T23:34:53+00:00\">Mickey Rooney\u003c/del>. Or even Eli Wallach. There aren’t many left to choose from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Repeat every four months until the desired effect has been achieved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>* I must apologize to Miss Roberts, who will more than likely never read this post. I have nothing against this actress in the least and, in fact, find her rather likable.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Michael Procopio shares a story about adolescent innocence, travel, synchronicity, and Hollywood stars. A recipe for a Slow-Acting Old Fashioned Cocktail is included.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/Poison-Crush.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/Poison-Crush.jpg\" alt=\"Poison crush. Photo: Michael Procopio\" width=\"400\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-81256\">\u003c/a>It’s true that travel can broaden the mind but, in rare cases, it can also lead to an international celebrity killing spree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize for mine here and now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It started so innocently. I was sixteen years old and on my first trip to Europe. I sat next to an auburn-haired 14 year-old, who did her best to impress me with her general nonchalance regarding celebrity. Her father, it turned out, was a popular Emmy-winning actor on a hit television show. She mentioned that Peter Sellers occasionally slept on the family couch as casually as another 14 year-old girl might mention she occasionally had pudding for breakfast. Knowing she may have seen Inspector Clouseau in his pajamas, I was under the impression that no one famous could cause her to lose her poise and was therefore rightly impressed. I wasn’t much older than she and was already guilty of nearly wetting myself with excitement upon witnessing \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFnqhefkQJw\" target=\"_blank\">Ann Miller\u003c/a> allowing her dog to defecate on my aunt and uncle’s front lawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But her cool, Hollywood attitude was destroyed on that flight to London. Restless after hours of sitting, my new friend decided to stretch her legs. Her preferred method of calisthenics included climbing up the spiral staircase of our Pan Am jet which led directly to the first class cabin. I admired her nerve but wondered how long it would take for her to be ejected by a rabidly class-conscious flight attendant. She was gone for what seemed like ages, and when she reappeared somewhere over the North Atlantic, stopped half-way down the steps and stared at me. Or quite possibly through me. Flushed and shaking, she returned to her seat next and whispered, “Cary. Grant.” she halted, “is on this plane. Cary Grant is up \u003cem>there\u003c/em>.” I followed her look upward with my own and we stared at the ceiling as one would stare up at heaven, because Paradise to us at that moment was a first class cabin paved not with clouds, but with red carpet, and populated by a single, silver-haired, cleft-chinned angel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We spent the remainder of the flight more or less silent. We were fortunate enough to be near the front of the plane and so were the first from cattle class to disembark. We spotted the object of our adoration and ran up behind him, then slowed to keep ourselves a few respectful paces behind; our heads tilted in awe at the back of his head. We continued to worship him in this manner for a few minutes until he disappeared behind a door. Quite possibly the men’s room. And just like that, the spell was broken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He died four months later. I was saddened by his death but felt no guilt. I was too young to know that I may have been the cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On another excursion six years later, I met my brother at Charles de Gaulle airport to fly back home to California. After catching up on our separate adventures, we checked in for our flight home. Doug thought he might try charming the woman behind the counter to see if he could wrangle a ticket upgrade. My French has never been very good, but I somehow understood the most important part of their conversation: “I’d love to help you sir, however our First and Business Classes are full. But I’ll let you in on a little secret… Audrey Hepburn is on your flight today! And so is Julia Roberts!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Telling two gay men that Audrey Hepburn is on their flight might be considered an extreme breach of security today, but everything was much more relaxed in the 1990s. Except for the two of us, thanks to this important piece of information. I’d planned to grab a drink somewhere before boarding, but that was now out of the question. I was intoxicated enough at the thought of sharing the same cabin-filtered air as my favorite film star in the Hollywood firmament. But our excitement turned to extreme anxiety when we saw Miss Hepburn being escorted onto the plane in a wheelchair, much thinner and frail-looking than usual. For the second time in my life, I was rendered silent by a celebrity over the Atlantic Ocean, but this time it wasn’t from excitement, it was from worry. The eleven-hour flight felt like eleven years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Four months later, I learned of her death from cancer. I nearly cancelled my card night with friends, but decided against it, thinking it might help crowd out the sad news from my mind for a few hours, but the evening ended with my feeling worse that I did before. “Did you guys hear Audrey Hepburn died today?” my friend Itay asked without a hint of emotion. But then again, we were playing poker. I shared with the room what I’d seen of her on my flight home from Paris and told them about the coincidence of Cary Grant, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Well clearly you’re to blame for both of their deaths,” he said. His face was obscured behind his cards. “Remind me never to fly with you– you’re like some time-release killer or something.” As the only gay man in the room, I found both his lack of emotion and the general absence of sympathy for either Miss Hepburn or– more importantly– for me around that table deeply upsetting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why couldn’t it have been Julia Roberts?” I asked to no one and to everyone. I’d wanted to yell it, but held myself back, so the words came out in a sort of dry squeak, which made me sound exceptionally pathetic. After a moment or two of uncomfortable silence, Itay spoke up. “Just keep an eye on the obituaries. Maybe it’ll turn out you killed her, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And with that, the poker game continued more or less interrupted, but I left feeling dirty and diseased. I didn’t speak of this coincidence again for a long time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wouldn’t be the last time I’d be called toxic by another human being, but was I really that lethal? How many other lives had I claimed by simply breathing the same recirculated air? I was tired of feeling responsible for the earthly exits of these two people adored by the entire film-going world. For years, every time I entered the cabin of an airplane, I would scan the first class seats for the elderly famous, hoping to warn them to flee while there was still time. I could no longer bear the weight of my guilty burden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I decided to rid myself of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There had to be another reason for their deaths. But what sort of connection could two extremely famous and beloved actors from Hollywood’s Golden Age possibly have other than myself? After extensive research, I discovered that Hepburn and Grant had, in fact, met before. They made a film together in 1963 entitled \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMkeqjacvAU\" target=\"_blank\">Charade\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I watched the film over and over, searching for clues– anything that might exonerate myself and free me from my own unintentionally-criminal pain. Did they eat both something that might have spoiled on the set during production, which may have ultimately lead to their deaths 23 and 30 years later? No, they did not. Hepburn only eats in front of Walter Matthau– a chicken sandwich as he speaks with his mouth full of liverwurst. A French onion soup is ordered, but pushed away in favor of cigarettes. Endless amounts of what seem to be breath mints are consumed, but only by her. The one time the two stars sit down together for a meal, they do not touch it, but chose to talk in veiled terms about intercourse instead. There was a double ice cream cone Hepburn manages to get a lick or two from, but the rest winds up on Grant’s lapel. I was near the end of my emotional tether, about to give up on my search, when I suddenly hit upon the key to my own innocence: \u003cstrong>An orange.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/Orange.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/Orange.jpg\" alt=\"Orange with poison. Photo: Michael Procopio\" width=\"500\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-81255\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fruity object of an innocent but sexually suggestive game may very well have been the agent of their slow deaths. I was certain of it. In one particular scene, the Master of Ceremonies at Le Black Sheep Club has patrons line up to pass an orange from one player’s neck to the other’s without the benefit of their hands. All of the actors who came in contact with the offending citrus are now dead: Hepburn. Grant. Ned Glass, the villain to whom Hepburn passes the orange before fleeing was the first to die in 1984. And what of the ample-fronted woman who starts the game? Her career, at the very least, is dead. It became clear to me that someone– most likely a psychotic prop master or vengeance-seeking wardrobe mistress– had poisoned that orange. I briefly wondered what the motive behind this act of horror could have been, but realized that such things are often a waste of time when dealing with the emotionally deranged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/pAcZZtZyfMs'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/pAcZZtZyfMs'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I looked up various slow-acting poisons which might have been used. Hemlock? No evidence of paralysis present in any of the victims. Dimethylmercury? Possible, but difficult do disguise. Tetrodotoxin? Doubtful. Too fast-acting and difficult to come by unless one has ready access to puffer fish. Cyanide? Too much discoloration. Which leaves but one obvious answer: arsenic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would be a simple matter to coat an orange with arsenic and let it sit until some of the poison absorbs into the skin of the fruit. The prolonged contact with human flesh– endless takes for what looks like a difficult scene to perfect– would be all the murderer needed to get the contamination ball rolling. But how did he or she continue this deadly scheme and keep the victims’ arsenic levels at a steady but still-undetectable level? In two ways, I have decided: 1) by gifting his victims annual holiday citrus baskets and 2) consistently providing oranges for all major airline carriers with clearly marked instructions which read “For Celebrity Cocktails Only.” It was a brilliant plan. And I felt equally brilliant for uncovering it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before I start popping the champagne to celebrate my freedom from a self-inflicted manslaughter rap, I must remind myself that this is only a theory. And one which has not been thoroughly tested at that. All I can really do is wait and see. So I shall wait for Julia Roberts* to get a few more years on her, book the same flight as she, offer her a cocktail with a slice of innocent-looking orange muddled in it, and keep a close eye on the obituaries for the next four months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_81254\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 560px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/Old-Fashioned.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/05/Old-Fashioned.jpg\" alt=\"Slow-Acting Old Fashioned Cocktail. Photo: Michael Procopio\" width=\"560\" class=\"size-full wp-image-81254\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Slow-Acting Old Fashioned Cocktail. Photo: Michael Procopio\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Slow-Acting Old Fashioned Cocktail\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>I have no evidence that Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant ever shared a round of these beverages together, but I can guarantee that the combination of alcohol, tainted orange, and recycled airplane oxygen makes for a deadly delicious drink.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Makes \u003cstrong>one\u003c/strong> generous cocktail suitable for your favorite old fashioned movie star.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cstrong>Ingredients:\u003c/strong>\n\u003cli>1 Valencia orange\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1/2 cup powdered arsenic (organic)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>2 maraschino or Amarena cherries: 1 for muddling and the other for garnish\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>2 sugar cubes\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>About four dashes of Angostura bitters\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>2 airline bottles of whiskey\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>A splash of club soda\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Ice\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Preparation:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1. Thoroughly wash and drip-dry the orange to remove any pesticides. With gloved hands, dump the arsenic powder onto a small plate and roll the citrus around in it until it is fully coated. Let sit for up to three days. When you are ready to make this cocktail, wipe the skin of the orange clean so that no white powder is noticeable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>2. When you are ready to serve your drink, roll the orange on a generously-fronted German woman until the juice cells of the fruit are sufficiently loosened. Cut a 1/4″ inch slice from the from the orange and then cut that slice in half. Place one half in the bottom of an old fashioned glass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>3. Add your 2 sugar cubes, 1 cherry, and 4 dashes of bitters to the glass, then show no mercy as you pummel the ingredients until they are more or less unrecognizable. Remove the orange. It has done it’s work. Or leave it in for extra oomph.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>4. Pour in the splash of club soda and stir until the ingredients are sufficiently mingled. Add ice, then fill the glass to the top with whiskey. Garnish with the second cherry and the other half of orange slice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>5. Serve to any remaining stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, like Olivia de Havilland or \u003cdel datetime=\"2014-05-02T23:34:53+00:00\">Mickey Rooney\u003c/del>. Or even Eli Wallach. There aren’t many left to choose from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Repeat every four months until the desired effect has been achieved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>* I must apologize to Miss Roberts, who will more than likely never read this post. I have nothing against this actress in the least and, in fact, find her rather likable.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "The Patron Saint of TV Dinners",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_81032\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1448px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/TV-Dinner.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/TV-Dinner.jpg\" alt=\"TV Dinner. Photo: Michael Procopio\" width=\"1448\" height=\"1086\" class=\"size-full wp-image-81032\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">TV Dinner. Photo: Michael Procopio\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I can’t remember how old I was when I first saw her standing on top of my neighbor’s television set, but I do remember the feeling of not being able to look away. She was tiny– no more than five inches tall– but her presence was large enough to pull my focus away from the action on the screen to her absolute stillness above it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I asked my friend’s mother why there was a little statue of The Virgin Mary on top of their Sylvania, she corrected me in a tone which faintly suggested that her family were better Catholics than mine would ever be. “Oh, Honey, that isn’t the Virgin Mary. That’s \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clare_of_Assisi\">\u003cstrong>St. Clare of Assisi\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>– she’s the patron saint of television.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I approached the plastic idol with what I hoped was a reverential pace to examine her more closely. She held one hand upward in a gesture of blessing and her face looked up to the heavens. Or perhaps she was simply keeping an eye on the antenna which was fastened to the roof directly above. It was impossible to tell. I tried to pick her up, but discovered that she wouldn’t budge from her place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d heard of people having their eyes glued to their television sets, but never their feet. It was a day of firsts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I came home, I took my usual place at dinner– the seat farthest from my mom. It was the lowest position in the family pecking order, but it also happened to be the only chair at the table which afforded a clear view of the family room and the television in it, which was always miraculously turned on and which I always (just as miraculously) got away with watching. I could now tune out the conversation of my older siblings and tune in to early evening network programming knowing there was a new saint in my life who was watching over me as I ate in silence, just like (as I would learn many years later) the sisters of the Franciscan Order founded by her, The Poor Clares.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I felt doubly protected by Saint Clare on the evenings my working mother was too tired to cook dinner and resorted to the convenience of pre-packaged meals. Eating a Swanson’s TV Dinner by the distant glow of our television set now seemed like a holy act, as I experienced the agony of eating reheated peas and carrots without complaint– a supreme expression of childhood piety– so that I might move on to the ecstasy of dessert which nested between the mashed potato and vegetable compartments of the aluminum serving tray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But such rapture was never to be found at the end of a tv dinner. The sweet portion of the meal was clearly an afterthought on the part of its creator. Frequently under baked and always flavorless, it was consumed without joy. I suffered from a rare type of frozen dinner amnesia which lead to a near-perpetual state of disappointment in this matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I never thought to ask her to intercede on my behalf to the Swanson’s Frozen Food Company because I wasn’t certain that was her department, so I would pray to no one in particular that there was ice cream to be had in the freezer instead\u003cstrong>*\u003c/strong>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I saved my prayers to St. Clare for the really important stuff, like making sure The Muppet Show would never, ever be cancelled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_81031\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1086px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/Roman-Apple-Cake.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/Roman-Apple-Cake.jpg\" alt=\"Roman (Catholic) Apple Cake. Photo: Michael Procopio\" width=\"1086\" height=\"1448\" class=\"size-full wp-image-81031\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Roman (Catholic) Apple Cake. Photo: Michael Procopio\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Roman (Catholic) Apple Cake\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>It’s clear to me that St. Clare of Assisi wields a true heavenly power, for there is no other explanation for three seasons of \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnhgpVb-u5s\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>The Flying Nun\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In life, St. Clare of Assisi was an early follower of St. Francis, also of Assisi. She was a daughter of noble parents who shed her earthy riches to take a vow of extreme poverty, ultimately founding a religious order (The Poor Clares) who still follow her example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>St. Clare was given the job of watching over the world’s television sets in 1958 by Pope Pius XII, who based his decision on the story that, when Clare was too ill to attend Mass in person, The Holy Spirit projected the proceedings onto her bedroom wall so that she might both see and hear it happen, which gives weight to the idea that flat screen tvs are truly a godsend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for her divine help in creating a decent tv dinner dessert, that remains to be seen. I have what I once thought was a solid childhood memory of one of these “treats” being labeled “Roman apple cake”, but I can find nothing to confirm this as fact. My sister Lori doesn’t remember such a thing, but then again, she doesn’t remember seeing \u003ca href=\"http://foodforthethoughtless.com/2011/07/john-wayne-meatball-recipe/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>John Wayne’s testicles\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> either, so there’s that. It has been a true test of my faith.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that name didn’t appear out of the blue. There is such a dessert, but it is not the one from my memory. The recipe below is simply one I made up. But I’m afraid to take sole credit for its creation because it may very well be the result of St. Clare’s gentle, guiding hand coming to my aid after all these years. God’s helpers move in mysterious ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is a simple dessert, but one which requires a smidgen of straightforward, honest labor, which the Poor Clares tend to look upon favorably. It is not terribly sweet, but the reward of making it with your own hands instead of pulling it out of a cardboard box to thaw may very well bring you an inch or two closer to God.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Serves: Enough.\u003c/strong> You should thank the Lord you’re getting any dessert at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cstrong>Ingredients:\u003c/strong>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>For the batter:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cli>1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 cup of white sugar\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1/2 teaspoon of salt\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1/4 teaspoon of baking powder\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 teaspoon of baking soda\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1/2 cup of milk\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 cup of vegetable oil\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 teaspoon of vanilla extract\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 egg\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>2 cups of thinly sliced (peeled and cored) apples (2 apples suffice. I use Pink Ladies.)\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cstrong>For the Frangipane:\u003c/strong>\n\u003cli>3 ounces of almond paste\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>3 tablespoons of butter at room temperature\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>2 tablespoon of flour\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 egg\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cstrong>For the Crumble Topping:\u003c/strong>\n\u003cli>1 cup all purpose flour\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1/2 cup white sugar\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1/2 cup light brown sugar\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 cup slivered almonds\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 teaspoon vanilla extract\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>8 tablespoons of butter, melted but cooled\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>a heavy pinch of salt\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Preparation:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1. Make the crumble topping first by combining all of its ingredients together and mixing it with your (clean) hands, because this method is both effective and feels wonderful. Place the topping in the freezer to chill, which facilitates clumping, which is a highly desirable feature in this particular case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>2. Pre-heat your oven to 350°F. Butter the inside of an 8×8-inch baking dish and set aside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>3. To make the frangipane, combine all of its ingredients together and mix until they are in complete harmony. Set aside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>4. To make the cake batter, combine all of the dry ingredients together and stir. Then combine the oil, egg, milk, and vanilla extract and beat until unified. Add these wet ingredients gradually to the dry and mix until thoroughly one. \u003cstrong>There should be no apples in the batter at this point. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>5. Spread about 1/3 of batter into your baking dish to form a solid foundation for the cake. Next, generously dot the surface of this layer with frangipane. You will have plenty of frangipane left over which you may then give to the poor, thus gaining Clare’s good favor and ensuring that your cake will be a success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>6. Add the sliced apples to the remaining batter, thoroughly coating them. Pour all of it over your frangipane dots and gently smooth out the top to a more-or-less even layer. Place a generous coating of crumble topping where it belongs– on top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>7. Bake on the center rack of your oven for about 1 hour and pray that it rises like a nun’s Holy Bridegroom. Should you find yourself cursed with uncertainty, check it every so often and poke at its center with your finger \u003ca href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Incredulity_of_Saint_Thomas_by_Caravaggio.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>like a doubting St. Thomas\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> until your faith is restored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>8. Remove from the oven when the center of the cake springs lightly to the touch and the topping is golden brown. Let both your passions and this dessert cool completely before consuming. In fact, wait even longer, if you can– this cake is better on the second day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Serve it alone or with lightly sweetened whipped cream. Serve to your loved ones as you watch your favorite (family-friendly) television program. Serve it to the poor. Serve it up to God, if that pleases you. Just please do something with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, as you’re serving it, should any of this cake fall onto your silk tie, your lovely table linen, or your nun’s habit, you can still keep on praying to St. Clare. She just so happens to double as the patron saint of laundry\u003cstrong>**\u003c/strong>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>* \u003c/strong>Sadly, there is no patron saint of ice cream. As yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>**\u003c/strong> This is completely true.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Michael Procopio shares a childhood story of spirituality, TV dinners and dessert disappointment. He makes up for Swanson’s flawed sweets with a recipe for Roman (Catholic) Apple Cake.",
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"description": "Michael Procopio shares a childhood story of spirituality, TV dinners and dessert disappointment. He makes up for Swanson’s flawed sweets with a recipe for Roman (Catholic) Apple Cake.",
"title": "The Patron Saint of TV Dinners | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_81032\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1448px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/TV-Dinner.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/TV-Dinner.jpg\" alt=\"TV Dinner. Photo: Michael Procopio\" width=\"1448\" height=\"1086\" class=\"size-full wp-image-81032\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">TV Dinner. Photo: Michael Procopio\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>I can’t remember how old I was when I first saw her standing on top of my neighbor’s television set, but I do remember the feeling of not being able to look away. She was tiny– no more than five inches tall– but her presence was large enough to pull my focus away from the action on the screen to her absolute stillness above it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I asked my friend’s mother why there was a little statue of The Virgin Mary on top of their Sylvania, she corrected me in a tone which faintly suggested that her family were better Catholics than mine would ever be. “Oh, Honey, that isn’t the Virgin Mary. That’s \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clare_of_Assisi\">\u003cstrong>St. Clare of Assisi\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>– she’s the patron saint of television.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I approached the plastic idol with what I hoped was a reverential pace to examine her more closely. She held one hand upward in a gesture of blessing and her face looked up to the heavens. Or perhaps she was simply keeping an eye on the antenna which was fastened to the roof directly above. It was impossible to tell. I tried to pick her up, but discovered that she wouldn’t budge from her place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d heard of people having their eyes glued to their television sets, but never their feet. It was a day of firsts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I came home, I took my usual place at dinner– the seat farthest from my mom. It was the lowest position in the family pecking order, but it also happened to be the only chair at the table which afforded a clear view of the family room and the television in it, which was always miraculously turned on and which I always (just as miraculously) got away with watching. I could now tune out the conversation of my older siblings and tune in to early evening network programming knowing there was a new saint in my life who was watching over me as I ate in silence, just like (as I would learn many years later) the sisters of the Franciscan Order founded by her, The Poor Clares.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I felt doubly protected by Saint Clare on the evenings my working mother was too tired to cook dinner and resorted to the convenience of pre-packaged meals. Eating a Swanson’s TV Dinner by the distant glow of our television set now seemed like a holy act, as I experienced the agony of eating reheated peas and carrots without complaint– a supreme expression of childhood piety– so that I might move on to the ecstasy of dessert which nested between the mashed potato and vegetable compartments of the aluminum serving tray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But such rapture was never to be found at the end of a tv dinner. The sweet portion of the meal was clearly an afterthought on the part of its creator. Frequently under baked and always flavorless, it was consumed without joy. I suffered from a rare type of frozen dinner amnesia which lead to a near-perpetual state of disappointment in this matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I never thought to ask her to intercede on my behalf to the Swanson’s Frozen Food Company because I wasn’t certain that was her department, so I would pray to no one in particular that there was ice cream to be had in the freezer instead\u003cstrong>*\u003c/strong>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I saved my prayers to St. Clare for the really important stuff, like making sure The Muppet Show would never, ever be cancelled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_81031\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1086px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/Roman-Apple-Cake.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/Roman-Apple-Cake.jpg\" alt=\"Roman (Catholic) Apple Cake. Photo: Michael Procopio\" width=\"1086\" height=\"1448\" class=\"size-full wp-image-81031\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Roman (Catholic) Apple Cake. Photo: Michael Procopio\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Roman (Catholic) Apple Cake\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>It’s clear to me that St. Clare of Assisi wields a true heavenly power, for there is no other explanation for three seasons of \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnhgpVb-u5s\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>The Flying Nun\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In life, St. Clare of Assisi was an early follower of St. Francis, also of Assisi. She was a daughter of noble parents who shed her earthy riches to take a vow of extreme poverty, ultimately founding a religious order (The Poor Clares) who still follow her example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>St. Clare was given the job of watching over the world’s television sets in 1958 by Pope Pius XII, who based his decision on the story that, when Clare was too ill to attend Mass in person, The Holy Spirit projected the proceedings onto her bedroom wall so that she might both see and hear it happen, which gives weight to the idea that flat screen tvs are truly a godsend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for her divine help in creating a decent tv dinner dessert, that remains to be seen. I have what I once thought was a solid childhood memory of one of these “treats” being labeled “Roman apple cake”, but I can find nothing to confirm this as fact. My sister Lori doesn’t remember such a thing, but then again, she doesn’t remember seeing \u003ca href=\"http://foodforthethoughtless.com/2011/07/john-wayne-meatball-recipe/\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>John Wayne’s testicles\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> either, so there’s that. It has been a true test of my faith.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that name didn’t appear out of the blue. There is such a dessert, but it is not the one from my memory. The recipe below is simply one I made up. But I’m afraid to take sole credit for its creation because it may very well be the result of St. Clare’s gentle, guiding hand coming to my aid after all these years. God’s helpers move in mysterious ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is a simple dessert, but one which requires a smidgen of straightforward, honest labor, which the Poor Clares tend to look upon favorably. It is not terribly sweet, but the reward of making it with your own hands instead of pulling it out of a cardboard box to thaw may very well bring you an inch or two closer to God.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Serves: Enough.\u003c/strong> You should thank the Lord you’re getting any dessert at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cstrong>Ingredients:\u003c/strong>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>For the batter:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cli>1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 cup of white sugar\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1/2 teaspoon of salt\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1/4 teaspoon of baking powder\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 teaspoon of baking soda\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1/2 cup of milk\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 cup of vegetable oil\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 teaspoon of vanilla extract\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 egg\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>2 cups of thinly sliced (peeled and cored) apples (2 apples suffice. I use Pink Ladies.)\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cstrong>For the Frangipane:\u003c/strong>\n\u003cli>3 ounces of almond paste\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>3 tablespoons of butter at room temperature\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>2 tablespoon of flour\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 egg\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cstrong>For the Crumble Topping:\u003c/strong>\n\u003cli>1 cup all purpose flour\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1/2 cup white sugar\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1/2 cup light brown sugar\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 cup slivered almonds\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>1 teaspoon vanilla extract\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>8 tablespoons of butter, melted but cooled\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>a heavy pinch of salt\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Preparation:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>1. Make the crumble topping first by combining all of its ingredients together and mixing it with your (clean) hands, because this method is both effective and feels wonderful. Place the topping in the freezer to chill, which facilitates clumping, which is a highly desirable feature in this particular case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>2. Pre-heat your oven to 350°F. Butter the inside of an 8×8-inch baking dish and set aside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>3. To make the frangipane, combine all of its ingredients together and mix until they are in complete harmony. Set aside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>4. To make the cake batter, combine all of the dry ingredients together and stir. Then combine the oil, egg, milk, and vanilla extract and beat until unified. Add these wet ingredients gradually to the dry and mix until thoroughly one. \u003cstrong>There should be no apples in the batter at this point. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>5. Spread about 1/3 of batter into your baking dish to form a solid foundation for the cake. Next, generously dot the surface of this layer with frangipane. You will have plenty of frangipane left over which you may then give to the poor, thus gaining Clare’s good favor and ensuring that your cake will be a success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>6. Add the sliced apples to the remaining batter, thoroughly coating them. Pour all of it over your frangipane dots and gently smooth out the top to a more-or-less even layer. Place a generous coating of crumble topping where it belongs– on top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>7. Bake on the center rack of your oven for about 1 hour and pray that it rises like a nun’s Holy Bridegroom. Should you find yourself cursed with uncertainty, check it every so often and poke at its center with your finger \u003ca href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Incredulity_of_Saint_Thomas_by_Caravaggio.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">\u003cstrong>like a doubting St. Thomas\u003c/strong>\u003c/a> until your faith is restored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>8. Remove from the oven when the center of the cake springs lightly to the touch and the topping is golden brown. Let both your passions and this dessert cool completely before consuming. In fact, wait even longer, if you can– this cake is better on the second day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Serve it alone or with lightly sweetened whipped cream. Serve to your loved ones as you watch your favorite (family-friendly) television program. Serve it to the poor. Serve it up to God, if that pleases you. Just please do something with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, as you’re serving it, should any of this cake fall onto your silk tie, your lovely table linen, or your nun’s habit, you can still keep on praying to St. Clare. She just so happens to double as the patron saint of laundry\u003cstrong>**\u003c/strong>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>* \u003c/strong>Sadly, there is no patron saint of ice cream. As yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "Obama Gets A Taste Of Jiro's 'Dream' Sushi In Name Of Diplomacy",
"title": "Obama Gets A Taste Of Jiro's 'Dream' Sushi In Name Of Diplomacy",
"headTitle": "Bay Area Bites | KQED Food",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_80810\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1673px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/486220565_wide-5d6890de921ef640b887e2a9968bb4d20d97fc99.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/486220565_wide-5d6890de921ef640b887e2a9968bb4d20d97fc99.jpg\" alt=\"President Obama shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe before a private dinner at Sukiyabashi Jiro restaurant in Tokyo on Wednesday. At Sukiyabashi Jiro, people pay a minimum $300 for 20 pieces of sushi chosen by the patron, Jiro Ono. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images\" width=\"1673\" height=\"941\" class=\"size-full wp-image-80810\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Obama shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe before a private dinner at Sukiyabashi Jiro restaurant in Tokyo on Wednesday. At Sukiyabashi Jiro, people pay a minimum $300 for 20 pieces of sushi chosen by the patron, Jiro Ono. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/04/23/306227740/obama-gets-a-taste-of-jiros-dream-sushi-in-name-of-diplomacy\">All Things Considered\u003c/a> [audio src=\"http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/atc/2014/04/20140423_atc_obama_visits_jiro_to_try_sushi_diplomacy_in_japan.mp3\"] \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/125167196/npr-staff/archive\">NPR Staff\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/04/23/306227740/obama-gets-a-taste-of-jiros-dream-sushi-in-name-of-diplomacy\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (4/23/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Obama kicked off the first leg of his tour of Asia Wednesday with some sushi diplomacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He dined with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo at a revered and tiny temple of sushi in Tokyo called \u003ca href=\"http://www.sushi-jiro.jp/eng-index.html\">Sukiyabashi Jiro\u003c/a>. The subterranean restaurant, with just 10 seats at the counter, was made famous by the 2011 documentary, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2012/03/16/148737187/cameras-follow-worlds-greatest-sushi-chef\">Jiro Dreams of Sushi\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obama emerged with a thumbs-up review. \"That's some good sushi right there,\" he said. \"It was terrific, thank you so much.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_80818\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/sushi-jiro-ono.jpeg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/sushi-jiro-ono.jpeg\" alt=\"Master sushi chef Jiro Ono shows off his famously soft hands, one of the secrets to his renowned sushi, in front of Ono's sushi restaurant, Sukiyabashi Jiro, in Tokyo, Japan. Located in the drab basement of an old Tokyo office building, Sukiyabashi Jiro is considered the best sushi shop in the world by major food critics. Photo: Everett Kennedy Brown/epa/Corbis\" width=\"300\" class=\"size-full wp-image-80818\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Master sushi chef Jiro Ono shows off his famously soft hands, one of the secrets to his renowned sushi, in front of Ono's sushi restaurant, Sukiyabashi Jiro, in Tokyo, Japan. Located in the drab basement of an old Tokyo office building, Sukiyabashi Jiro is considered the best sushi shop in the world by major food critics. Photo: Everett Kennedy Brown/epa/Corbis\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If you've ever seen the documentary, you know why: The sushi Obama had was carefully crafted by 89-year-old sushi master Jiro Ono.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"His sushi is the best in the world,\" says David Gelb, who directed the film. \"For someone who has a taste for true, pure Japanese sushi, I mean it's a place you kind of have to go to.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for the many of us who haven't been lucky enough to grab one those 10 prized seats, Gelb joined \u003cem>All Things Considered's\u003c/em> Melissa Block, to talk about what it's like to dine at such a iconic place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For starters, the restaurant is hidden in the basement of an office building and offers only one item on its menu — the \u003cem>omakase\u003c/em> course — which can cost between $300 and $400 per person. It consists of 20 pieces of sushi, prepared and served one at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"There are no appetizers, no rolls of any kind,\" Gelb says. \"It's purely his style of sushi, which is kind of the classic Tokyo style, which is basically just fish and rice and seasoning, maybe a soy sauce or \u003cem>a nikiri\u003c/em>, which is a kind of sweetened soy sauce.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if you're fortunate enough to be one of Ono's costumers, don't even think about ordering off the menu – even if you are the president of the United States. \"The Jiro that I know would not change his sushi for anyone,\" Gelb says, adding that \"he just gives you what he feels is the best of the day.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Ono really means the best. Every day, for instance, Ono massages the octopus he's planning to serve for an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The octopuses that he gets are trolling the seafloor, eating clams and other delicious shellfish,\" Gelb says. \"And so he's getting the octopus that has the best diet and then he massages it – or has his apprentices massage it, because he's getting on in the years – to bring out the best flavors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_80811\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/sushi-9272dbec8b51d3c42014f22f2255754bc4991454.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/sushi-9272dbec8b51d3c42014f22f2255754bc4991454.jpg\" alt=\"Sashimi from Sukiyabashi Jiro restaurant in Tokyo. Photo: Leon Brocard/Flickr\" width=\"300\" class=\"size-full wp-image-80811\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sashimi from Sukiyabashi Jiro restaurant in Tokyo. Photo: Leon Brocard/Flickr\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That's because to Ono, making sushi is more than just a job; it's an art form, an obsession, even. In the film, he tells Gelb that he'd wake up in the middle of the night and dreams that he'd have visions of sushi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"His philosophy of work, where it's about finding a routine and mastering that craft, it applies to any kind of art,\" he adds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So you can imagine, eating in front of such a meticulous artist can get a bit intimidating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The first time that I ate there, I was very nervous,\" Gelb tells Block. \"I mean the man is a living legend, and he watches, and he observes the customers very closely, and it so it can be a nerve-wracking experience.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, he says, the sushi is so good that the tension melts away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The restaurant is very quiet; there's no music or anything,\" Gelb adds. \"There's just the sound of the fountain and you kind of got into this sushi trance, and it's quite an amazing experience.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "President Barack Obama stopped by the iconic sushi restaurant featured in the 2012 documentary \"Jiro Dreams of Sushi.\" Director David Gelb says eating there is both an amazing and nerve-wracking experience.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_80810\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1673px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/486220565_wide-5d6890de921ef640b887e2a9968bb4d20d97fc99.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/486220565_wide-5d6890de921ef640b887e2a9968bb4d20d97fc99.jpg\" alt=\"President Obama shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe before a private dinner at Sukiyabashi Jiro restaurant in Tokyo on Wednesday. At Sukiyabashi Jiro, people pay a minimum $300 for 20 pieces of sushi chosen by the patron, Jiro Ono. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images\" width=\"1673\" height=\"941\" class=\"size-full wp-image-80810\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Obama shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe before a private dinner at Sukiyabashi Jiro restaurant in Tokyo on Wednesday. At Sukiyabashi Jiro, people pay a minimum $300 for 20 pieces of sushi chosen by the patron, Jiro Ono. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story\u003c/strong> on \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/04/23/306227740/obama-gets-a-taste-of-jiros-dream-sushi-in-name-of-diplomacy\">All Things Considered\u003c/a> \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>by \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/people/125167196/npr-staff/archive\">NPR Staff\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/04/23/306227740/obama-gets-a-taste-of-jiros-dream-sushi-in-name-of-diplomacy\">The Salt at NPR Food\u003c/a> (4/23/14)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Obama kicked off the first leg of his tour of Asia Wednesday with some sushi diplomacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He dined with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo at a revered and tiny temple of sushi in Tokyo called \u003ca href=\"http://www.sushi-jiro.jp/eng-index.html\">Sukiyabashi Jiro\u003c/a>. The subterranean restaurant, with just 10 seats at the counter, was made famous by the 2011 documentary, \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2012/03/16/148737187/cameras-follow-worlds-greatest-sushi-chef\">Jiro Dreams of Sushi\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obama emerged with a thumbs-up review. \"That's some good sushi right there,\" he said. \"It was terrific, thank you so much.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_80818\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/sushi-jiro-ono.jpeg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/sushi-jiro-ono.jpeg\" alt=\"Master sushi chef Jiro Ono shows off his famously soft hands, one of the secrets to his renowned sushi, in front of Ono's sushi restaurant, Sukiyabashi Jiro, in Tokyo, Japan. Located in the drab basement of an old Tokyo office building, Sukiyabashi Jiro is considered the best sushi shop in the world by major food critics. Photo: Everett Kennedy Brown/epa/Corbis\" width=\"300\" class=\"size-full wp-image-80818\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Master sushi chef Jiro Ono shows off his famously soft hands, one of the secrets to his renowned sushi, in front of Ono's sushi restaurant, Sukiyabashi Jiro, in Tokyo, Japan. Located in the drab basement of an old Tokyo office building, Sukiyabashi Jiro is considered the best sushi shop in the world by major food critics. Photo: Everett Kennedy Brown/epa/Corbis\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If you've ever seen the documentary, you know why: The sushi Obama had was carefully crafted by 89-year-old sushi master Jiro Ono.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"His sushi is the best in the world,\" says David Gelb, who directed the film. \"For someone who has a taste for true, pure Japanese sushi, I mean it's a place you kind of have to go to.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for the many of us who haven't been lucky enough to grab one those 10 prized seats, Gelb joined \u003cem>All Things Considered's\u003c/em> Melissa Block, to talk about what it's like to dine at such a iconic place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For starters, the restaurant is hidden in the basement of an office building and offers only one item on its menu — the \u003cem>omakase\u003c/em> course — which can cost between $300 and $400 per person. It consists of 20 pieces of sushi, prepared and served one at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"There are no appetizers, no rolls of any kind,\" Gelb says. \"It's purely his style of sushi, which is kind of the classic Tokyo style, which is basically just fish and rice and seasoning, maybe a soy sauce or \u003cem>a nikiri\u003c/em>, which is a kind of sweetened soy sauce.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if you're fortunate enough to be one of Ono's costumers, don't even think about ordering off the menu – even if you are the president of the United States. \"The Jiro that I know would not change his sushi for anyone,\" Gelb says, adding that \"he just gives you what he feels is the best of the day.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Ono really means the best. Every day, for instance, Ono massages the octopus he's planning to serve for an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The octopuses that he gets are trolling the seafloor, eating clams and other delicious shellfish,\" Gelb says. \"And so he's getting the octopus that has the best diet and then he massages it – or has his apprentices massage it, because he's getting on in the years – to bring out the best flavors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_80811\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/sushi-9272dbec8b51d3c42014f22f2255754bc4991454.jpg\">\u003cimg src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2014/04/sushi-9272dbec8b51d3c42014f22f2255754bc4991454.jpg\" alt=\"Sashimi from Sukiyabashi Jiro restaurant in Tokyo. Photo: Leon Brocard/Flickr\" width=\"300\" class=\"size-full wp-image-80811\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sashimi from Sukiyabashi Jiro restaurant in Tokyo. Photo: Leon Brocard/Flickr\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That's because to Ono, making sushi is more than just a job; it's an art form, an obsession, even. In the film, he tells Gelb that he'd wake up in the middle of the night and dreams that he'd have visions of sushi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"His philosophy of work, where it's about finding a routine and mastering that craft, it applies to any kind of art,\" he adds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So you can imagine, eating in front of such a meticulous artist can get a bit intimidating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The first time that I ate there, I was very nervous,\" Gelb tells Block. \"I mean the man is a living legend, and he watches, and he observes the customers very closely, and it so it can be a nerve-wracking experience.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, he says, the sushi is so good that the tension melts away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The restaurant is very quiet; there's no music or anything,\" Gelb adds. \"There's just the sound of the fountain and you kind of got into this sushi trance, and it's quite an amazing experience.\" \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Copyright 2014 \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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},
"city-arts": {
"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.cityarts.net/",
"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
"subscribe": {
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/City-Arts-and-Lectures-p692/",
"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
"title": "Close All Tabs",
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"info": "Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
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"order": 1
},
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"id": "code-switch-life-kit",
"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"meta": {
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnByLm9yZy9yc3MvcG9kY2FzdC5waHA_aWQ9NTEwMzEy",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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},
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"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"id": "freakonomics-radio",
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"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/4s8b",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
"rss": "https://feeds.feedburner.com/freakonomicsradio"
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},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
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"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/381444908/podcast.xml"
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
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},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain",
"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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},
"how-i-built-this": {
"id": "how-i-built-this",
"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510313/podcast.xml"
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},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
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"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC2275451163"
}
},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1492194549",
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}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"
}
},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "pbs"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
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