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David's Cookies, which refers to itself as "a bite above the rest", offers a variety of delicious cookies, cookie dough, and other pastries that make great tasting gifts.

Gevalia Coffee & Tea, striving to produce the perfect cup of coffee since 1853, offers world class coffees, teas, and gifts sure to please even the most discriminating on your gift list.

GiftBaskets.com, as one can tell from their name, offers a variety of food and other gift baskets. A nicely put together food gift basket is always a hit.

Godiva Chocolatier, well known for their premium chocolates offered in their boutique mall stores and in departments within other stores, now offers their delicious chocolates online.

Harry and David for Royal Riviera Pears and other fruit gifts as well as other gourmet food gifts

Harry and David, best known for their Royal Riviera Pears grown in the "South of Oregon", offers a wide variety of fruit gift options as well as other goumet food gifts and gift baskets.

Hickory Farms for Food Gifts including meat, cheese, fruit, seafood, nuts, and desserts

Hickory Farms, well known for their mall stores, offers a variety of food gifts including meat, cheese, fruit, seafood, nuts, and desserts.

Legal Sea Foods out of Boston is well known for their quality sea food products including live lobsters and their famous clam chowder.

Mrs. Fields cookies make great gifts that are always appreciated. Mrs. Fields online now also offers gift baskets, flowers, and chocolates.

Omaha Steaks manufactures and sells a wide variety of premium steaks, red meats and other gourmet foods online including steaks, poultry, sausages, kosher, and more.

StarbucksStore offers the high quality coffees you are accustomed to purchasing at your local Starbucks coffee shop. Coffee is available ground, in pods, and as whole beans.

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iFoodGifts.com Is For Sale
Sunday, July 29, 2007

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9:10 AM 0 comments

One of The Most Popular Foods In Africa
Friday, January 05, 2007

Ugali is among the most popular food not only in Kenya but the entire east African region where the cake-like cuisine is enjoyed frequently because it is cheap and easy to prepare and rather tasty in its’ own way.

The ingredients includes water, maize floor and salt and is usually served with beef stew
or with vegetables including cabbage, spinach or kale. It can even be eaten with chicken cooked in all sorts of manner.

To begin with, water is boiled and the flour is added with salt and stirred for about ten minutes until the solution turns viscous before its turned over several times until it turns solid.

When it assumes a completely solid structure it is removed and left to cool prior to being served with the above mentioned foods, which depends on the economic status of those preparing it.

In the east African states, the rich usually consume it with beef since the commodity is expensive as a kilo of beef meat goes for about three dollars which is expensive considering that majority of people in the three states survive on less than a dollar a day.

Due to poverty levels in Africa, majority of the citizens usually eat the ugali with kale which is the cheapest and most widely available vegetable but the combination is also tasty as long as it is well prepared.
Kale is boiled for about five minutes and the water is drained before its fried with onions and tomatoes for five minutes and then served along with red chilies and other locally available spices.

The meal is wholesome and solid to the extent that if one partakes too much of it he is bound to feel sleepy and immobilized as the effect is as if you have consumed cement.
Ugali is consumed by almost all communities living in the region with those close to the lake preferring to take it with fried fish which makes it a most nutritious combination that takes time to be digested and if taken in the morning, lunch is unnecessary as you will be still full at 2 pm.

However, ugali is considered to be the poor mans diet as maize is considered to be the cheapest food available but the rich also consume it though in relatively small doses and occasionally.

Ugali on its own when eaten will be tasteless but there are those who will partake it that way not by choice but because they cannot afford anything else.Left overs can be consumed with tea the following morning and it is popular with school going children as it will keep them full for the better part of the day.

Ugali does not have to be made from maize meal alone as millet and sorghum floor can also do the trick and is infact considered to be tastier and more nutritious than maize meal.

It is not known who first prepared this staple diet that has made the three east African countries dependent on maize for decades but the Kenyans insist that it was their discovery and Uganda and Tanzania simply copied their invention.

During festive seasons like Christmas ugali is consumed by almost all as also the high and the mighty feel it’s the best combination to go with roasted beef and goat meat and is washed down with several mugs of beer or soft drinks for the teetotalers.

Ugali has also become popular with tourists who visit Kenya and expatriates working there and some are known to like it so much that they have employed local cooks to prepare it for them or go out of their way to look for local eateries which prepare the dish to their liking.

These foreigners are known to enjoy the local dish served with roasted or fried meat but don’t eat it frequently due to the highly nutritious value of the combination which can cause serious health problems like gout and obesity if consumed too often.

A one time American ambassador to Kenya, the late Smith Hempstone was popularly known as the “nyama choma ambassador” meaning roasted meat ambassador due to his frequent escapades to local eateries to partake roasted meat and ugali with local opposition leaders who were his good friends.

Surprisingly, the top diplomat preferred to enjoy his meal in the tough neighbourhood of Eastlands where crime was and is still rampant but he found the taste of ugali in the area irresistible.

4:31 AM 0 comments

Talent vs. Training
Sunday, December 24, 2006

I feel so embarrassed. I completely missed the entire cooking phenomenon that is Rachael Ray. I am not totally surprised since I rarely watch cooking shows and talk shows were banned from by viewing list long ago. By chance, I learned of Rachael Ray and the impact she has made on the television and cookbook scene. While her shows are extremely popular, they are also the subject of intense criticism in culinary circles. Apparently, many think Ms. Ray does not have the culinary expertise nor the training to justify her enormous success. Since she is criticized for being a self taught cook, and I am a self taught cook, her story interested me. I decided to do a little research and find out why this particular food show host inspires such strident criticism of her success and her recipes.

If you are as oblivious to Rachael Ray as I was, I will briefly fill you in on her background. Ms. Rays' family owned restaurants in the Cape Cod area and her mother managed restaurants in upstate New York. She literally grew up in restaurants. Ms. Ray followed her families' footsteps and found employment in restaurant management and food buying. She was instrumental in helping start up Agata and Valentina, a gourmet marketplace in New York City. Later, Ms. Ray helped manage pubs and restaurants at the Sagamore Resort in her home town, Lake George. She became the food buyer and chef at the gourmet market, Cowan and Lobel, in Albany, New York. It was during her tenure at Cowan and Lobel that her television career began.

While serving as food buyer and chef for Cowan and Lobel, Ms. Ray began teaching cooking classes entitled " 30 Minute Meals". A local television station began to air these cooking classes and by 2001, Ms. Ray was on the Food Network. She hosts four shows for the Food Network including; 30 Minute Meals, $ 40 a Day, Inside Dish and Rachael Ray's Tasty Travels. She has published numerous best selling cookbooks and her popularity has inspired a talk show backed by Harpo Productions.

It would appear to be the " local girl done good" story Americans love. Why then does Ms. Ray command such strong criticism from the culinary community. She is a bit girlish and casual about her recipes. She laughs, uses nicknames for sandwiches, and describes ingredient amounts in terms of "pinch". Her presentation skills may not serve for the culinary crowd but if her popularity is any indication, it sells to the public. In the land of television, it is the public that really matters. Her style does not appeal to me but I do not watch cooking shows any longer. Emeril and his ilk present their egos along with their recipes and I've had my fill of stuffed ego. Iron Chef is t0o odd though their final product was normally interesting. On the whole I would rather cook than watch cooking shows.

Ms. Rays' background seems to be a source of criticism. It is claimed she does not have the culinary training nor the quality of recipes for a cooking show. I find this criticism absurd. She may not have a degree from a culinary institute, but she has real life experience not only as a chef but also in restaurant management and gourmet food purchasing. Skills such as bulk food preparation, quality food assessment , economy of scale and delivery of a finished product are all taught in real restaurant work. She may have even picked up a cooking skill or two. Actual restaurant work teaches you that even good restaurants cut corners. The green beans on your plate may be fresh or they may be frozen and ready to heat and serve. The baked goods may be outsourced or made in house. The chicken may be purchased already cut and the French fries may come in a bag. The key to effective restaurant management is deciding where to cut corners and where to spend more time. Of course all of these efforts are focused on creating a delicious meal that can be put before your patron in a reasonable time; Say, thirty minutes. These are lessons professional cooks, or should I call them chefs, learn in real restaurants serving real clients and Ms. Ray has spent time in the trenches learning these lessons.

So the final criticism of Ms. Ray appears to be her recipes. A quick review of the lastest recipes on the Food Network website reveal easy to make interesting dishes. I guess the culinary crowd is really addressing the level of her cooking and the level of restaurants where she learned her trade. To focus on this level of criticism, I need to digress from Ms. Ray and focus on the world of Fine Dining, or what I will call " Haute cuisine".

Haute cuisine is not merely gourmet cooking. Gourmet cooking means different things to different people and I have eaten at the table of more than one gourmet cook and not had a fine dining experience. I am talking about professional chefs who cater to the fine dining crowd; this is haute cuisine.

It may surprise many who have private chefs and only dine in the best restaurants that they have rarefied taste. Haute cuisine is an acquired taste as is fine wine and aged scotch. Many of the dishes created by renowned chefs do not appeal to the tastes of your average American. Sophisticated food combinations and unusual ingredients require an exposure to fine dining to appreciate. Love of fine dining takes time and exposure to haute cuisine to develop. Five star restaurants, or those resturants seeking five stars, are where most of us develop a taste for interesting food, but due to the cost and the availability of these restaurants few Americans can pursue this hobby. Creating the food at home is another option, but haute cuisine is not inexpensive to prepare even at home and a certain level of culinary skill is needed to create the dish as it is meant to be.

This is not to say the typical American does not love good food. Americans love good food and their definition of what qualifies as delicious expands every day. However the following example, involving chocolate cake, will serve to illustrate my point. Most people actually enjoy a cake made from a boxed mix and decorated with store bought icing. There are good cake mixes, but nothing compares to a homemade chocolate cake, made with real chocolate and butter. I have found that even if you make the effort to make a chocolate decadence cake, only the chocolate connoisseur in the crowd will appreciate it. Most individuals will find the cake too rich or too challenging for their tastes. They have not spent the time developing an appreciation for chocolate, this cake does not spark familiar responses in their brain. A good boxed cake would appeal to a greater percentage of the crowd and result in a pleasurable rather than learning experience for the greater number of people. It makes sense to make the boxed cake mix unless you know your audience is filled with chocolate connoisseurs.

The haute cuisine crowd has forgotten how rarefied their world really is. It is because Rachael Ray has not forgotton how normal people really cook and live, that she is so popular. I enjoy fine dining and quite frankly Ms. Rays' shows would not appeal to me even if I was inspired to watch a cooking show. I am interested in haute cuisine and how to create a fine dining experience in my home. To accomplish this I really must experiment in my own kitchen and be prepared to fail. I have attended classes before but never made even one of the items presented nor ever used the cookbook I dutifully bought. The cooking class made me more aware of what I could not do rather then what I can do. I have learned what I can do, and creating haute cuisine in my own kitchen is something I can do without a degree.

Ms. Ray provides that inspiration to her viewers. Her recipes are not plain but neither are they too fancy. They bring an interesting touch to America's kitchens. I think the criticism of Ms. Ray is without merit. She may not make the culinary crowd happy but she makes a lot of Americans happy. It may be time the culinary crowd remembers they are an acquired taste and ostrich ( a culinary crowd favorite for awhile) has never really taken off in this country. But who am I? To them I am merely another cooking wannabe who can only strive to make delicious food but without their training will be unable to do so. An untelevised Rachael Ray. I guess they do not want an invitation to dinner.

8:21 AM 0 comments

Proper Food Handling
Saturday, December 23, 2006

Food contamination is the basic problem encountered by those who are cooking. This is because of the less knowledge we have in proper handling the food. In preparing food we must consider cleanliness, food contamination and keeping the food at safe temperature. In this holiday season, we prepare food way beyond time of serving them due to volume and we do not consider the time spend by the food in the open. This can be dangerous since food can spoil overtime. It can even lost the freshness and the taste of the food in too much heat exposure. To prevent the risks of even having food poisoning or other food contamination of that in the end we suffer, we must take in proper procedures in serving the food.

Wash hands before any preparation done in the kitchen. Give at least 20 minutes in just cleaning the hands with soap and water. Remove the ring, bracelets or anything that might be not of use in preparing the food. Wash hands in different situation. Do not do cleaning while preparing the food at the same time or taking the garbage and returning to food preparation. If inevitable that you are sneezing or coughing, make sure you wash your hands or the germs will spread over the food. It is better to keep your hair in place so that to prevent you from touching your hair while preparing the food. Make sure that the utensils used are also clean and the work area properly managed. For injured hands, use gloves to prevent contamination from wound to the food.

During the preparation, while tasting the food always separate the tasting spoon and the food being tasted not directly to the pan itself. Do not use your finger in tasting the food and always handle the stem of the spoon and not to the scoop itself. Make that the utensils you are using during the preparation are not used for tasting. Do not return the tasted food into the prepared food after tasting them. Be cautious where you place the utensils you use rather than placing them anywhere in the table. When the food needs to be laid into the surface for decorative purposes, make sure that the surface is clean.

To prevent cross contamination, always separate the cutting board of meat, poultry and fish from vegetables. Make sure that the cutting boards are clean before using as well as the knife. To keep the boards clean, use 1 tablespoon of bleach to sanitize the board while for wooden cutting boards, grain vinegar is enough to clean the surface. Do not over use cutting boards, the longer the usage the more it is prone to contamination due to old stains stacked in the surface. When using sponges and dishcloths in cleaning the boards, make sure that the sponges are also clean.

Separate the utensils used in cutting or preparing the meat from the raw foods. After preparation, clean the utensils before using it in the prepared food. The kitchen counters must be kept dry after the cooking is finished. Do not let pets to crawl of the tabletop.

Consider the room temperature and temperature after handling the food. Bacteria grow in temperatures between 40 to 140 degrees. In this temperature, the food can hold bacteria the doubles its number every 20 minutes though it cannot affect the taste, appearance and even the smell however it can cause food borne illnesses.

To prevent this always refrigerate the food to prevent bacteria from developing in the food. Prevent overloading the refrigerator since it will not be effective in chilling the food completely and might spoil the food. Keep the refrigerator closed if possible at all times to prevent reduction of coldness. Do not place milk at the door of the refrigerator. Check the food in the refrigerator in terms of expiration dates to prevent from ever using it.

To cool the food faster is placing them in metal containers since it has greater conduction than that of plastics. Other method is placing them in an ice bath in a container that will speed up the cooling. To defrost the frozen food safely, make sure the meat is inside a leak proof bag instead of opening in the water. Place it in water filled container and occasionally change the water every 30 minutes. It is better to cook the food before refreezing them.

2:31 AM 0 comments

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