swimming freestyle

Will It Blend?

(via Gizmodo)

The Cheese Crisis

Full of intrigue and industrial sabotage, a David and Goliath type battle is going on over the manufacture of Camembert cheese in western France.  From the Guardian UK:

Camembert, whose sharp aroma was once likened to "God's feet", was made fashionable by Napoleon III and popularised as part of rations to soldiers in the first world war. It is France's best-selling cheese after Emmental, so it is not surprising that French industrial diary giants moved in to mass-produce it, buying up small producers and delivering vast amounts of cheaper, machine-produced camembert to supermarket shelves. There are only five remaining small, traditional producers of the prized "Camembert de Normandie".

Last month, Camembert aficionados breathed a sigh of relief when, after a long public battle, cheese authorities said they would protect small producers by reserving the AOC only for Normandy Camembert made in the traditional way with raw milk.

"The camembert war is a symbol of the wider cheese crisis in France," warned Véronique Richez-Lerouge, founder of France's Regional Cheese Association.

$100 Espresso

The Guardian has a funny article on insanely expensive food items:

The $160 sandwich
Britain's most expensive sandwich was created by Scott McDonald, chef at Selfridges food hall, in August 2006. He used Japanese wagyu beef, foie gras, black truffles and salad. Selfridges catering manager, Ewan Venters, claimed: "If you are a food lover, this represents great value for money."

The $1,200 salad
The world's most expensive salad was created by chef Raymond Blanc in 2003 - the Florette Sea and Earth salad used almas and beluga caviar, langoustines, Cornish crab and Florette baby leaf salad.

The $100 espresso
Caffe Raro was created by De Longhi from two of the rarest coffee beans in the world. The first is the much sought after Jamaican Blue Mountain, but it is the second that gives this drink its special piquancy. Kupi Luwak beans come from Indonesia and are harvested by civets, the indigenous wild cat. These clever felines sniff out the choicest berries, digest the flesh, and pass out the bean in the way that nature intended.