Myrtus

☼☼~ Solar Cuisine With Solar Oven Chef ~☼☼

If you don't know how much fun you can have with solar baking, most likely you haven't heard about the Solar Oven Chef yet.
And did you know there are solar cookbooks out there being sold too?
Well, neither did I till a few moments ago when I discovered Solar Oven Chef's lovely blog. 
Once there, I learned about how to make solar breakfasts, solar soups, solar cookies, solar pasta, solar falafel, sun dried tomatoes and so many more yummy recipes...and heck, I even found myself inspired to start having them Solar Meatless Mondays!

But first I'll need to get my hands on one of these Sun Ovens though:

Special note from Sun Ovens International:

SUN OVENS International is involved in solar cooking projects in deforested countries on 5 continents and relies on the domestic sales of GLOBAL SUN OVENS® to help finance these endeavors. If you would like to learn more about what we are doing around the world please visit the International section of this web site. Thank you for your support.

You can learn all about the benefits of solar cooking here, but here's a few to get you going:

• Cook for free
  Bakes, Boils or Steams Any Kind of Food with the Power of the Sun - No Fuel Needed!
• No learning curve
  Create your favorite recipes as you feast upon natural sun baked treats!
• Just like your home oven
  Reaches Temperatures of 360° to 400° F!
• Totally Safe - No Danger of Fire - Never Burn Dinner Again!
• Versatile, Easy-to-use, Portable as a Small Suitcase!

Solar Oven Chef claims that solar cooking tastes better, but be warned though, "A cloudy day is like a power outage for the SolarOvenChef".

***US residents, if you're still not sure whether solar is right for where you live, head over to Sunpluggers to see the level of sunshine in your state.

Look who's creating mischief again

In honor of Obama's presidential inauguration Mischief is encouraging people to pop into any Krispy Kreme store and get a free Americano with Obama's face on it.

The promo is for Krispy Kreme UK.

Cat Soup, Democracy, Nutrition and Power

I was reading this article about the hunt on cats being on the rise in China, because of their "elite" culinary status in Chinese culture and I'm sitting here wondering why chicken soup or beef barley is OK in most cultures, but not vegetable cat soup for instance?

Most people would probably gag at the thought of eating cat or dog meat, but apparently not in Chinese culture, where they're on the high demand list as a delicacy.

Some say this sudden demand for cats is caused by bad economic times, which doesn't make sense to me, because usually when something is in high demand the price goes up too.

Are cats and dogs spared from the butcher's knife in western culture perhaps because of their level of intelligence and the ability to fight back?  Or is it because human compassion gets in the way due to the many human-like personality traits cats and dogs possess, which other domesticated animals do not? Or could it be the level of self-esteem and hunger for power or control in a democracy vs non-democracy that people seem to be consumed with, so they take it out on animals?  Sound crazy?

Sighhh, so many questions.

I can understand hunting animals for the sake of survival out in the jungle or when you're lost somewhere way out there in the middle of nowhere, but I fail to understand the persistent need to kill another living being purely for gourmet consumption in our modern day civilization, when we have an overabundance in alternative sources for nutrition.

Ohio.com - Animal lovers protest cat soup

''The police did what they could, but there's little they can do to stop or punish those traders from shipping live animals,'' Lai said.

Zhu Huilian, a nutrition and food safety professor at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, said people usually eat cat in restaurants, not at home.

''There's a famous soup called 'Dragon, Tiger and Phoenix,' '' Zhu said. ''It involves cooking snake, cat and chicken together. In winter more people eat cats as they believe it's extra nutritious.''

Buns & Guns

Imagine having a magnum or a rocket-propelled grenade served for dinner.  Or how about a bite of Claymore or AK-47? 

Sound crazy?

Well, now you can actually enjoy a taste of your favorite weapon if you dare venture out into the Hezbollah stronghold and grab yourself a meal at Buns & Guns restaurant, where they say "a sandwich can kill you". hmm

Sure you invite me.

Sandbags cover the exterior - a grim, and perhaps inadvertent, reminder of what Lebanon's government buildings looked like during the 1975-1990 civil war - and the interior is festooned with camouflage nets, defused mortar shells, and live ammunition.

"We thought at the beginning that it was a weapons store but later we discovered that it was actually a fast food restaurant," said customer Amr Nahas as he ordered a "magnum," a grilled chicken sandwich, with a side order of "grenades" or potato wedges.

Customers enter the restaurant under a sign bearing the restaurant's name - in English - and motto, "a sandwich can kill you," a reference to the large portions. Employees in military uniforms serve meals to the taped sounds of gunfire as "background music."

The glossy camouflaged menus feature burgers with names like "the mortar" and "the 155 mm howitzer," while grilled chicken sandwiches can be a "magnum" or a "rocket-propelled grenade."

Go to yalibnan.com for more.

Delicious Cross-Cultural Appreciation

Next month in Morocco ...

Some 5,000 visitors are expected in Rabat to sample a vast number of different dishes to be served on a 300-m buffet - possibly the world’s largest!

Themed "together to bring our peoples closer through our cultures", this event will gather the most popular dishes of some twenty countries in a "festival of taste and fondness of good food" is also meant to bring peoples closer through presenting their cultures (gastronomy, folklore and musical heritage) and offers the opportunity to participants to share the friendship.

In addition to world dishes, this event will also feature artistic events (paintings, sculpture and traditional arts) of the participating countries, as musical and dancing bands will come from the four corners of the world to perform in the Moroccan capital.

Pig farming boom in Morocco

Who would have thought...

Middle East Online

Shunned by most Muslim countries where pork consumption is a religious taboo, pig farming is blooming in Morocco thanks to a growing tourist industry and pragmatic breeders like 39-year-old Said Samouk.

"If there's tourism, it would be better to have pigs," said Samouk, who raises 250 pigs at his farm 28 kilometres (17 miles) from the seaside town of Agadir.

After being battered by a wave of bird flu, the Moroccan farmer launched a pig operation 20 years ago in partnership with an elderly French man.

Today, Samouk spins dreams of doubling his production within three years to help meet the demands of some 10 million tourists expected to visit Morocco in 2010 - up from 7.5 million who flocked to the north African country in 2007.

"I'm a practising Muslim. I don't eat pork and I don't drink alcohol but it's just a breeding operation like any other and no Imam has ever reprimanded me for it," he said of raising pigs - whose consumption is prohibited in both Islam and Judaism.

Outlawed in Algeria, Mauritania and Libya, pig farming is nonetheless authorised in Tunisia as in Morocco, to cater to the flocks of European and other non-Muslim tourists who head to north Africa's spectacular beaches and deserts.

"Our clientele is 98 percent European. They want bacon for breakfast, ham for lunch and pork chops for dinner," said Ahmad Bartoul, a buyer for a large Agadir hotel. Signs are posted on buffet tables to avoid any confusion about the meat's origin.

Morocco's swine industry comprises some 5,000 pigs raised on seven farms located near Agadir, Casablanca and the north-central city of Taza. The breeders include a Christian, two Jews and four Muslims.

In contrast, take a look at the latest news from Algeria......who would have thought...

Middle East Online

ALGIERS - Algeria has ordered the closure of 13 Protestant churches, the head of the denomination said Monday, amid anger over allegations that Evangelist Christians are trying to convert Muslims.

The churches have been told to close their doors until they are issued the permit which non-Muslim groups in theory must have if they want to pursue organised worship, Pastor Mustapha Krim said.

"Thirteen chapels, including 11 in Tizi Ouzou, one in Bejaia and one in Bouira have been closed on the orders of local officials," said Krim, who is the leader of the Protestant Church in Algeria.

"No reason has been given for this decision," he said, adding that he had made a formal request for explanation from the Algerian state's representative in the Tizi Ouzou region.

A scientific look at fruitcake

Why do people make fun of fruitcake?

Forbidden fruit(cake)

Fruitcake is food for thought.

And, with a handful of large U.S. bakers alone selling more than 6 million pounds of the stuff during the holidays, there's a lot to go around.

Some receivers revel in the fare while others use the cakes as doorstops, toss them in the garbage or regift them.

However, this butt of holiday jokes can be viewed as a veritable brick of plenty for sciences including metallurgy, geology, composite materials and psychology (read on...)

Sooo, do YOU like fruitcake?

I do, I'm not ashamed to admit it. I happen to like fruitcake, especially the Italian kind. :P

Halal Detector

BNR Nieuwsradio - Maleisiërs vinden 'halaldetector' uit

Two Malaysian professors have invented a method that can determine whether food is halal or not within an hour.  They've introduced their test kit at the inventors and innovation convention in Brussels this week.

Dik Dik

Makes me hungry.