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Sunday, August 31, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
A Cup of....Ugh...
It's Aug. 26th and brisk, chilly day in the city. I need a jacket. Preferably a classy trench.
So I decided to get coffee on the way to work. I stopped at Chock Full o' Nuts Cafe inside Madame Taussaud's Wax Museum. I know..weird..but it's still a bonafide coffee shop. or so I thought. Chock Full o' Nuts supermarket coffee has pretty good reviews and I thought the coffee from the cafe should be good. I was wrong.
Which brings me to one of my pet peeves: bad coffee. Bad, muddy tasting, weak, burnt, cold, disgusting coffee; that cannot be saved by any amount of creamer or sugar. What makes me mad is that in a great food city such as New York (or so it's known to be, I don't exctly agree), anyone can sell coffee. And 99.9 percent of the time it's bad coffee. If I was a lawyer, I'd sue them for bad coffee and shut down these places for passing their stuff off as "coffee".
And then there's the size. My two choices were medium or large. Medium being a whopping 15 ounces. I wouldn't even want 15 oz of coffee, even if it was good coffee. It's just over the top. I don't care if it's a better deal or I'm saving money. Stop supersizing me against my will. Is it any surprise that the a growing number of people in this country are defined as obese?
For those coffee fans out there, I highly recommend making you coffee at home, for so many reasons.
1. It costs pennies, as opposed to nearly $2+ it costs to get a cup of coffee these days.
2. It tastes MUCH better and is much fresher,
A few tips from Cook' Illustrated:
-- Drip coffee makers, the machines most people have in their kitchen, are useless. The water doesn't get hot enough to be at the optimal temperature for a good cup of joe. Opt for a french press and bring the water to a good boil before pouring it over the coffee. Let steep for a full four minutes.
-- Purchase whole beans and grind at home. The best coffee flavor is released by grinding coffee right before using it. When you buy pre-ground coffee, it is vacuum packed, so it still remains fresh when you open it for the first time. But once you open that package, it loses it's flavor over the course of just a few days.
Oh and when you make your fresh cup of coffee, remember to invite me over to share it with you.
Sameera
So I decided to get coffee on the way to work. I stopped at Chock Full o' Nuts Cafe inside Madame Taussaud's Wax Museum. I know..weird..but it's still a bonafide coffee shop. or so I thought. Chock Full o' Nuts supermarket coffee has pretty good reviews and I thought the coffee from the cafe should be good. I was wrong.
Which brings me to one of my pet peeves: bad coffee. Bad, muddy tasting, weak, burnt, cold, disgusting coffee; that cannot be saved by any amount of creamer or sugar. What makes me mad is that in a great food city such as New York (or so it's known to be, I don't exctly agree), anyone can sell coffee. And 99.9 percent of the time it's bad coffee. If I was a lawyer, I'd sue them for bad coffee and shut down these places for passing their stuff off as "coffee".
And then there's the size. My two choices were medium or large. Medium being a whopping 15 ounces. I wouldn't even want 15 oz of coffee, even if it was good coffee. It's just over the top. I don't care if it's a better deal or I'm saving money. Stop supersizing me against my will. Is it any surprise that the a growing number of people in this country are defined as obese?
For those coffee fans out there, I highly recommend making you coffee at home, for so many reasons.
1. It costs pennies, as opposed to nearly $2+ it costs to get a cup of coffee these days.
2. It tastes MUCH better and is much fresher,
A few tips from Cook' Illustrated:
-- Drip coffee makers, the machines most people have in their kitchen, are useless. The water doesn't get hot enough to be at the optimal temperature for a good cup of joe. Opt for a french press and bring the water to a good boil before pouring it over the coffee. Let steep for a full four minutes.
-- Purchase whole beans and grind at home. The best coffee flavor is released by grinding coffee right before using it. When you buy pre-ground coffee, it is vacuum packed, so it still remains fresh when you open it for the first time. But once you open that package, it loses it's flavor over the course of just a few days.
Oh and when you make your fresh cup of coffee, remember to invite me over to share it with you.
Sameera
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Me vs. Corn Syrup
(this is a repeat blog from my own blog)
Salaam ladies,
So lately everyone around me is dieting..which I consider to be impractical, unreasonable and unrealistic (for me). Hence is is forbidden in my dictionary.
You can guess how I feel about dieting. But why is it so hard to eat healthy and moderately? I ate some sushi for lunch, which felt pretty good about it; I wanted to eat something else since I had a small serving. So I went to the cafeteria at work and against every fiber of my being walked past the (awesome) onion rings.
I wasn't feeling salad. I know salad is really good for you, but it's cold, and light, and I never feel like it can be my meal. I wanted something hot but nothing was appealing, so I though...great, cereal. Grains and dairy. Wrong. Every cereal, Total, Special K, raisin Bran, and even healthy Start had high fructose corn syrup in it. What a shocker! These are the healthy cereals, or so I would think to put all those on that list.
What's my beef with corn syrup:
Read this. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/does-fructose-make-you-fatter/
It's just one of thousands of articles on the Internet about corn syrup.
And then start looking at labels; there's almost nothing (and I mean NOTHING) you can find without corn syrup. It's surprising some of the things it's in.
And my other beef with corn syrup is it's so secretive and most people don't know the truth about it but take in obscene amounts of it in every day foods, under their very own nose. It's completely unhealthy, unnatural and does not exist in nature!
on another note; most diets are based on avoiding foods high in preservatives, corn syrup and unrefined flours. These are things that are highly bad for you. But that's exactly why diets are so hard. There are very, very , very few foods that do not have these ingredients. Just pick up something as simple as a loaf of bread and read the ingredient list. How many of the ingredients do you recognize?
What are some foods you can recommend as easy healthy eats? What are some things I should watch out for?
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