Brush Valley Brewer

Balsamic vinegars fall into two categories: Artisan-Made and Commercial

Artisan-Made is aged for 12 or 25 years and is more a liqueur and sauce than a vinegar. Syrupy and glossy sable in color, this is the only true balsamic vinegar. By law and tradition it can be produced solely in the provinces of Modena and Reggio in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. Artisan-made balsamic vinegar’s heritage reaches back over a thousand years. These vinegars are usually family-made today, and always were in the past.

Made from boiled-down grape must, artisan balsamic can legally contain no wine vinegar and must be aged by passing the must through a series of progressively smaller wooden barrels which are located in airy attics. The barrels have large holes in their tops to encourage evaporation and concentration of flavors, as well as the enzyme reactions yielding the often incredibly complex liquid. Bottled by two consortiums only after approval in blind tastings, the key word to look for on the label is “tradizionale”… With Modena’s vinegars, “Vecchio” indicates a 12-year-old vinegar; “Extra Vecchio” a 25-year-old. In Reggio, tradizionale is in three levels of quality: red label, silver and gold. Remember, without the word “tradizionale” on the bottle, the vinegar is not true artisan-made balsamic no matter what a label may claim about age and quality…

Using: Tradizionale is a concentrated syrupy sauce, not a vinegar for salad dressings and marinades. Drizzle small amounts over finished dishes — simple pastas, risotti, roasted and grilled vegetables, meat, seafood, and flans. Sprinkle it over fruit and pour over vanilla ice cream and rich creamy desserts. There are no substitutes…

Commercial Balsamic Vinegar has no regulations governing its origins and production. Any statement of age on the bottle is not controlled by any regulations. A manufacturer can say anything on the label. At its best, commercial balsamic is a blend of young artisan-made balsamic or boiled grape must and good wine vinegar. Lesser commercial balsamics are inferior wine vinegar colored and flavored with caramel. They can possess all the goodness of paint remover. Price does not indicate quality.

Using: For salads, marinades, simmering into sauces, and for drizzling over finished dishes. One Modena cook enriches store-bought commercial balsamic with a generous pinch of dark brown sugar for each tablespoon of vinegar. Restaurant chefs in America boil [down] commercial balsamic to a syrup as a stand-in for “tradizionale.” Although not approaching artisan balsamic’s finesse, the syrup is good on composed salads and the like.

Balsamic Vinegar Information and Picks from Lynne

Assuming no previous knowledge on your part, I will be using colored and easy-to-follow diagrams as well as simple step-by-step instructions to help you on your way to become a real master at tying ties in no time. That way, learning how to tie a tie will be fun and about as easy as coloring by numbers!

All I ask of you, my friend, is an open mind and a few minutes of your time to practice today. It would now be helpful if you had a tie at hand and a mirror nearby so that we can “dig right on in.”

Learn How to Tie a Tie

When state Fish and Wildlife agents recently found a black bear passed out on the lawn of Baker Lake Resort, there were some clues scattered nearby — dozens of empty cans of Rainier Beer.

The bear apparently got into campers’ coolers and used his claws and teeth to puncture the cans. And not just any cans.

“He drank the Rainier and wouldn’t drink the Busch beer,” said Lisa Broxson, bookkeeper at the campground and cabins resort east of Mount Baker.

Fish and Wildlife enforcement Sgt. Bill Heinck said the bear did try one can of Busch, but ignored the rest.

“He didn’t like that (Busch) and consumed, as near as we can tell, about 36 cans of Rainier.”

Bear Drinks 36 Beers and Passes Out

I� now live in a parallel universe.

In this universe, people eat at bars, not drink. You have trouble getting a place or a seat at a bar to drink.

Everyone is eating, elbow to elbow, one long table, menus, wineglasses, knives and forks, bread baskets and butter plates, entrees, salads and desserts, like a commissary from hell. Drinkers are second-class citizens, forming an obedient second tier, a peanut gallery, balancing their cocktail glasses carefully for the mountainous trip over the shoulders of diners, locked together like the Rockies, through the hazardous passes of talking heads and moving arms, back and forth to the bar.

Bartender, There’s an Olive in My Soup

Modifying the consumption of different food-groups may keep body weight from creeping up over time, new research suggests.

The six-year study found that adults who boosted their intake of fruit during the research period put on less weight and body fat than those whose fruit consumption dipped. The same benefit was seen among men and women who started drinking more skim or low-fat milk, or who cut back on fatty foods.

Although high-fat, Atkins-style diets have been advocated for weight loss, the new study provides evidence that over the long-term, relatively high fat intake promotes weight gain, according to lead author Vicky Drapeau.

The findings support the standard public health recommendation that adults eat more fruits and vegetables and limit fat intake, noted Drapeau, a researcher at Laval University in Quebec, Canada.

In addition, she told Reuters Health, the results suggest that low-fat milk, and possibly other calcium-rich foods, are important in weight control.

Cutting Fat, Boosting Fruit May Fight Weight Gain

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Professor Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo Imperial University was thinking about the taste of food: “There is a taste which is common to asparagus, tomatoes, cheese and meat but which is not one of the four well-known tastes of sweet, sour, bitter and salty.”

It was in 1907 that Professor Ikeda started his experiments to identify what the source of this distinctive taste was. He knew that it was present in the “broth” made from kombu (a type of seaweed) found in traditional Japanese cuisine. Starting with a tremendous quantity of kombu broth, he succeeded in extracting crystals of glutamic acid (or glutamate). Glutamate is an amino acid, and is a building block of protein. Professor Ikeda found that glutamate had a distinctive taste, different from sweet, sour, bitter and salty, and he named it “umami.” 100 grams of dried kombu contain about 1 gram of glutamate.

The Discovery of Umami

Inside a packed ballroom at a Holiday Inn, 13 government-appointed scientists sat regally around a table, debating servings of fish.

“What do we want to recommend for children? Fish twice a week?” asked chairwoman Janet King.

“Small fish,” said another panel member.

“Children are advised to eat smaller portions of fish than adults?”

“Can we defer a vote on that?” pleaded another.

The panel of nutrition researchers had been talking this way for 45 minutes. The ballroom was filled with listeners scribbling away on notepads — some looking a little haggard. Those in the audience already had witnessed exhaustive discussions on protein, sugar, fat, grains, breakfast, exercise and a record-breaking 2½-hour standoff on vitamin D.

“Mind-numbing isn’t the half of it,” said a woman in line for the restroom. “I want to strangle them.”

After a year’s work, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee is in the final stages of overhauling the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which are to be formally adopted next year.

Hashing out diet guidelines isn’t as easy as it sounds