The Fundamental Flaw in North American Food Safety Regulation

Here's a thought:

The moral ethical standard for our justice system whereby you are presumed innocent until proven guilty fails miserably when applied to food safety regulations, e.g. the American FDA's "generally regarded as safe" provision, or GRAS for short.

Rather, we should try to emulate the European and other foreign food and health regulators—that whatever additive, preservative, pesticide or any chemical destined for the food chain, be considered "guilty" until proven innocent; dangerous UNTIL proven safe for human consumption.

The former standard is one that can be described by statistical theory, or what one might call the avoidance of Type I Error. To illustrate using the metaphor of the justice system, an error of Type I is an error whereby a court or jury finds a defendant guilty when in fact they are innocent (i.e. rejecting the null hypothesis). One can see immediately how a Type II Error still yields a more desirable outcome, e.g. a guilty person goes free. In our civic society, our moral ethical standard essentially implies a preference to let 100 criminals walk free than to erroneously incarcerate even ONE innocent person.

Because a Type I Error would constitute an egregious miscarriage of justice, the standard is very high, i.e. a court or jury must find a defendant guilty BEYOND a reasonable doubt. Statistically, therefore, a low significance level is appropriate. The FDA's GRAS provision violates this principle. Not only does it violate the principle, it squarely places the onus of "disproving a compound's presumed safety" squarely on the shoulders of private, for-profit corporations; it is a VOLUNTARY system of disclosure. Yes, you read correctly.

Enjoy your processed foods and GMOs because, so far they're still considered safe for human consumption.

The Scam that is Modern Banking & Finance: QE, Bail-Outs and soon Bail-Ins

Oh yes, indeed, a scam. When banks dominate every aspect of capital formation, transfer and credit, it's no small wonder the over-the-counter (OTC) bubble in derivatives has gotten out of hand. Borrowing at virtually negative interest rates (which is what savvy financiers call "carry trades") is the culprit. Added to this is the wholesale subversion of treasuries worldwide by a cabal of private bankers.


The US Federal Reserve (which as you surely know is as federal as Federal Express, might I add) and the Bank of Canada are two examples. In the Canadian case, it is a central tenet of the Bank of Canada Act that the federal government and the nation retain its sovereignty over fiscal, monetary and socio-economic policy; that they invest in "human capital expenditures" and infrastructure to advance and support the base of Canadian society; that they and they alone retain the right and privilege to issue currency to the extent that it covers its needs and obligations, interest-free.


Click here to see what the Committee for Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER) is doing in Canada to reinstate these basic tenets with the central bank; suing the Bank of Canada for violating the Act's most fundamental principle. Check the COMER site for more info on what this non-profit is doing to address this challenge affecting millions of hard-working Canadians and entrepreneurs.


How did we go from here to borrowing from private bankers at interest, while they quantitatively ease at 0% providing hedge funds with the means to buy countries whole when the latter default on stealth credit that doesn't and never existed? Did you know a huge amount of all taxes we pay essentially filters to banks? Who is running the show? When you combine the typical tax burden with the financial burden of debt obligations of an "average" Canadian family, they're all working FOR the bank, by the BANK's fiat, and to the detriment of their living standards and wages, the future value of savings (if any) and the hypothecation of at least the next two or three generations.


Don't get me wrong: Banks do fulfill a meaningful purpose, such as intermediation, i.e. moving capital from sources of excess supply (savers) to interests with strong demand and inadequate capital (users, investors, venture, government). This is not an entirely bad thing. So long as the internal rate of return is positive, everyone wins and the bank earns a tidy, yet not immodest, profit. But intermediation (e.g. venture capital) only amounts to a fraction of 1% of the total business. The rest is to shore up decrepit balance sheets of central banks and their shareholders worldwide via Treasury finance (i.e. stealing from tax payers) and soon via bail-ins (stealing from depositors). All this "quantitative easing" doesn't end up in the hands of families, consumers or small businesses (which employ more than 80% of workers in North America). No. All that stimulus ends up on a bank's balance sheet, which then turns around and uses it to fuel gargantuan trading complexes. When they make money, the profits are diabolically out of this world. When they lose on those trillion-dollar bets, taxpayers (and soon depositors) will foot the bill. Have you heard of moral hazard? Ain't that the greatest game in town?

Another year-end music Top-Of list: Surprisingly good

Pigeons & Planes - Best Albums of 2013

The ubiquitous "Top of" list is a year-end fixture on the web, and music most certainly fits the bill. I tend to be rather annoyed with such things as they tend to be quite biased or subjective. 

But thanks to Facebook and my myriad like-minded and -interested friends, I was proposed a "Like" suggestion for the Pigeons & Planes site─a variety show blog of all things entertainment, trivial and current with regards to the indie and hip hop music scene─with a smart, funny, acerbic narrative compiled by a troupe of dedicated and insightful bloggers. In short, I liked the page and am happy to post its Top-30 Albums of 2013 here.

I would like to point out a few outstanding mentions on the list, namely the bands AlunaGeorge, young Brit duo Disclosure, Rhye, New Zealand indie band Lorde, French electro dubstep phenom Gesaffelstein, Poliça and (of course, my local Montreal favourite) Arcade Fire.

Enjoy and all the best for the holidays!

The Winer

The IMF Bail-out Logic Applied to a Household 101

"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws."   ─ ­­Amschel Rothschild


What follows below is a link to a video investigating the predatory tactics used by non-traditional household lenders in the United States. What fascinates me is just how remarkably similar the logic of the extreme usury is precisely that which governs the bail-out schemes being overseen by the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, to address the domino-effect of global financial failures.

The IMF is a global banking organization formed from the framework agreements and treaties resulting from the Bretton Woods, NH conference of 1944. Its 187 members include governments, their central banking authorities as well as a "club" of private banking institutions. Its purpose is to oversee global financial dealings among members and, if necessary, intervene where payment and transfer imbalances occur (i.e. when a country owing money to IMF members defaults on its debts).


To understand what the IMF has done since the financial crisis' worst phase so far began in 2006-2007 (i.e., Iceland, Ireland and now Greece, Portugal and possibly Spain), it sometimes helps to reduce to simple terms--examples and metaphors--the often complex and obtuse workings of the group.

The PBS­® video below is just such a simplification; a parable of the unethical and oft-fraudulent tactics used in America at the household finance level. But on a much larger scale, this is precisely what IMF "bail-outs" are all about; practices that border on criminal usury involving whole nations on the scale of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Consider that these financial crises imply the wholesale subversion of debtor nations which must implement socially destructive austerity programs and liquidate public assets in order to honour new foreign debts that merely came to replace old sovereign debts originally structured to fail.. The sinister element necessarily evokes the sort of surrealism, a nightmare, that only Franz Kafka could conjure. 

©2006-2011 Patrick Meguid. All rights reserved.

Inflation, Money & Credit 101

Deflation: Increasing purchasing power rather than declining.Inflation = increase in money supply, all things being equal.


This means that when the supply of money (dollars or notes) in circulation increases, the relative value of that money declines versus a fixed supply of goods. The resulting increase in the price of said goods corresponds to the decline in purchasing power of the money. Note: if money supply remains unchanged, an inflation is possible if the demand for that money decreases. I shall elaborate below.

The post-war era has been monetarily remarkable in that State and household credit finance has exploded parabolically. These days, the monetary logic implies that money = credit, insomuch that a dollar of money supply equals a dollar of credit or a loan  underwritten by a financial institution. If credit = money, borrowers must emerge to demand loans in order to avoid reducing the standard of money (i.e. inflation OR deflation). Upwards of 70% of all new US debt is being monetized or "created" by a single,  private institution: the US Federal Reserve Bank.

When one considers the yet unwound collapse of values in real estate throughout the West, especially the United States, coupled with the "unpublished" depression-level of unemployment (viz. 20-23% according to estimates), one immediately sees the intermediate-term problem with an inflationary condition. The demand-side of the ledger is very soft, if at all extant, while the supply side continues to inflate unabated. 

My colleagues practicing economics know well that an increase to money supply, according to one of the fundamental tenets of that dismal science, Marginal Utility Theory, implies an inflation (i.e. a decline in money's purchasing power versus a said quantity of goods or services). But the theory contains a flawed assumption: that the dynamical forces underlying money standards have pound-for-pound consequences irrespective of what dynamic one considers; supply or demand. The forces are obviously unequal. Test the theory the next time you ask for a raise.

In the real world, a unit of said demand X does not necessarily correspond to a unit of supply Y. The parabolic and occasionally non-linear relationship between the two are more the norm than the exception. Two examples come to mind: the price dynamics in the stock market and the real estate market.

According to marginal utility theory, a change in the demand or supply ledger of a said market for a good or service will be met by a contravening, or offsetting, adjustment on the opposite ledger, i.e. a rise in the supply of widgets implies a corresponding increase in its demand, all things equal; otherwise prices fall, and vice-versa should there be a fall in supply or a rise in demand. But there are plenty of examples of just the opposite phenomenon, e.g. stock market bubbles. 


The past generation or so has witnessed price conditions indicating greater investor appetite (i.e. demand) with higher share prices. With a fixed supply of common shares outstanding in the marketplace,  economic theory implies that demand should decline. But the expectations (and increasing confidence) for higher prices in the future attracts a swelling mass of investors who bid up share prices further still, providing a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. The ultimate terminal condition is a bubble whose extreme "off-the-chart" valuations lead to a crash whose decline often takes prices even below the point where the trend began.


The real estate markets in the West are a good example too. There ought to be little doubt  that the past couple of decades witnessed a bubble in housing values with some regions particularly hotter than others (e.g., United States, UK, Spain, Ireland, Australia, etc.). Coupled with deflationary money policies at the outset of the 2000s in order to stem the global stock market collapse, housing values shifted into overdrive and another, far larger, bubble emerged. Since the market peaked in 2006, some regions have seen housing values drop like dead weight. For example, Las Vegas, San Francisco and some Miami counties have seen median home values decline by more than 80%, and dropping. Where are the  buyers? Where is the offsetting demand to stabilize prices? 

Therein lies the problem: a potential for a deflationary crash. As with price bubbles where rampant speculation and greed drive prices higher, and higher prices beget more buyers and speculators, deflationary crashes are driven by a similar dynamic. Unfortunately, given the broader condition defining most, if not all, Western economies today, the destructive forces of price bubbles may remain preferable to a deflation. At least with inflation, debts lose relative value as the purchasing power of the underlying money declines. In a deflation, debt values actually increase. Given the unprecedented explosion of debt and the global credit crisis--especially within the US which also represents the world reserve currency--it's easy to see why one might lose  sleep at night. 

Today, virtually all levels of Western government (the US particularly) are tapped out and can no longer sustain their gargantuan debts; most are in chronically deficitary positions that are often prohibited by legislation. The only two remedies--both unpopular--would be to either raise taxes or cut spending. Raising taxes is seldom a desirable policy to pursue, especially in the US where a deepening recession one year ahead of presidential elections is looming. Spending cuts seem more politically palatable, at least in the very short-term, but cutting government spending and entitlements would only serve to dampen aggregate  demand further. To be sure, American governments are caught between a rock and a hard place. Any solution to the country's fiscal woes is liable to alienate and anger a number of crucial constituencies. The near-term political future of the current POTUS and his hopes for re-election in 2012 are far from secure.

Moreover, when one considers the precarious balance sheets of millions of households and the corporate sector, the case for an optimistic turnaround anytime soon--let alone this decade--becomes untenable. Inflation, it would seem is a desirable prognosis when all factors are pointing to a deflation. This is the reason why central governments throughout the Western world have their feet firmly pressed heavily on the throttle with zero-interest rate policies; they are pressing to create an artificial inflation. But this is where a majority of text-book trained economists are categorically wrong. A physician does not pump syringe after syringe of adrenalin into a human body whose vital signs all point to high blood metabolism, heart rate and other critical bodily function; a doctor pumps adrenalin into a decaying, near-comatose body whose vital signs are weaning. When I hear economists proffer all this nonsense about inflation and that deflation is the foolish prognosis, I can't help but laugh. I laugh at the contradictions so painfully obvious in such a loopy prognosis. Economists, like bad physicians, are confusing the artificially high vital function with natural function and are ignoring the adrenalin of a hyper-counter deflationary policy. The heart is racing BECAUSE of the adrenalin; stop feeding adrenalin lest you destroy the body!!

In keeping with the biological metaphor, consider the economic "vital signs" that are being confused for inflation: Trillions of dollars of assets are currently near or at their all-time peak "bubble" values (i.e. bonds, dollar-based commodities, common shares, derivative notional principal) that the next major event is more likely than not a decline in prices across the board rather than a persistent increase. These vital signs didn't emerge of their own volition or dynamical price mechanism; they are totally artificial, and as such, temporary. The world is being gagged with a force-fed dollar devaluation by means of an inflation via historically low interest rates and money creation at the U.S. Treasury level.

This will end soon because contrary to Dr. Alan Greenspan's recent outlandish remarks on Meet the Press, the United States CANNOT print all the dollars it wants and avoid defaulting on its debts. A default by any other name is still a default--whether the US merely refuses to pay its debts nominally or adopts an orgiastic printing press policy, it's a default no matter how one looks at it.

Prognosis: Deflationary crash.


Joblessness is high and/or on the rise in most Western regions; asset bubbles in real estate and financial assets have tapped out most owners and have squeezed future, potential buyers from the marketplace; further price declines must be on the docket in order to re-establish a semblance of equilibrium between buyers and sellers. Western governments are cutting spending to the tune of trillions of dollars annually, another engine for decline in aggregate demand. So-called growth tiger states like the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are already showing signs of tempering growth and now reversing course. Dollar-based commodities are now at historical bubble peaks and will only likely reverse course in an equally violent manner; like a pendulum, it will overshoot on the decline as it has overshot on the rise.

But first, we suffer the inflationary squeeze in those dollar-denominated commodities as the US dollar implodes to a fraction of current value. Patience is a virtue.

PM




© 2006-2011 Patrick E. Meguid. All rights reserved.

A must, must, must see film

Tetro  (Click for Official movie trailer)
Francis Ford Coppola has made yet another film about father-son tensions – but this one is a self-indulgent mess

A puzzle ... Alden Ehrenreich and Vincent Gallo in Tetro.
Francis Ford Coppola's latest film, which he has both written and directed, is not badly acted – not at all. But it is laboured, massively implausible, excruciatingly self-important and really quite staggeringly boring in the way only a deeply personal film from a deeply important film-maker can be. It's an Oedipal-lite fantasy, brooding on the nature of art, fatherhood and creation. Its message could be: those who resent the stultifying influence of a celebrated father-figure can exercise the Freudian prerogative of parricide, but they may then have to shoulder the terrible, fatal burden of patriarchy themselves.


In its opening act, Tetro has the feel of something by Tennessee Williams, and in fact it looks like the live TV transmission of a stage play. Bennie is a teenager, working on a cruise ship, who one hot summer night shows up at the ramshackle Buenos Aires apartment belonging to his long-lost, deeply beloved older half-brother Tetro, who ran out on him years earlier. Tetro was a promising writer once, who suffered a breakdown and whose talent was apparently consumed by bitterness and unspoken family secrets; he is now living with Miranda, the beautiful woman who nursed him back to health.


The mercurial, charismatic Tetro is deeply nettled and suspicious at Bennie's reappearance, and his resentment and rage grow when the young sibling goes through his private papers and reads the unfinished play he has secretly written about their overbearing father, an egomaniacal musician and conductor who did something awful to Tetro long ago. Bennie takes things further, forcing a psychological and existential crisis by actually writing an ending for the play and putting on a performance as a way of getting at the truth about Tetro's disappearance, and inducing his brother to confront his responsibilities and exorcise his demons. Bennie is played by newcomer Alden Ehrenreich, looking like a young DiCaprio, Maribel Verdú plays Miranda and Vincent Gallo is a relatively restrained presence as Tetro himself. Their maestro father, Carlo, is played in flashback by Klaus Maria Brandauer.


What might itself have made an interestingly old-fashioned, well-made play is opened up by the contrivance of having Tetro's lost masterpiece entered for a deeply unlikely literary festival in Patagonia, presided over by a critic and impresario who wears dark glasses indoors and is known only by her enigmatic pen-name "Alone", played by Carmen Maura. This bizarre, contrived character really is very odd, taking the movie away from realism into some stylised alternative universe of its own. "Alone" might appear to represent an arrogant literary establishment, infatuated with prizes and prestige but indifferent to real genius. And yet when "Alone" praises Bennie's play to the skies, we are clearly supposed to take that very seriously, and Tetro even has an awkward, dead-straight line to "Alone", saying how he has always respected her. So it is a puzzle.


Bennie, Tetro and Miranda travel to the Patagonia festival along with some other attractive female company members, there to provide a sexual awakening for Bennie. The main actors and technicians have presumably gone on ahead for a last-minute rehearsal and technical run-through; if the play is indeed to be performed there, although this is not quite clear, and Coppola's idea of this "festival" is perhaps governed by his experience of film festivals.


It is certainly a strangely conceived event where, incidentally, some product placement lands with a thud. The festival's trophy happens to be designed by the jeweller Swarovski. And it is here that the final revelatory twist is unveiled, a twist that is actually less interesting than what had gone before. Entering a "competition" is a pretty hokey plot device, one more associated with urban dance movies, but this movie's bigger problem is being weighed down with what it evidently considers to be its sheer mythic potency, but is frankly overwrought, baffling and unexciting. The flashbacks to their father, are in colour, whereas the rest of the movie is in monochrome, but the switch is not particularly effective. Very disconcertingly, Carlo's fatter, bespectacled brother Alfie is also played by Brandauer, and yet it is not clear that Alfie is Carlo's twin. The effect is almost like Alec Guinness playing different D'Ascoyne family members in Kind Hearts and Coronets.


Famously, Coppola has done better with father-son and quasi-father-son relationships in the past. Compare the dullness and pedantry of the characterisation in Tetro with Vito and Michael Corleone in the Godfather movies or Willard and Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. The very redundancy of the motif points to an evasive fictional rendering of the director's own issues, a kind of public family therapy, and it is frankly uncomfortable to notice that the second-unit director here is Coppola's son, Roman, a talented film-maker whose feature film CQ made a real impression at Cannes almost 10 years ago, but has not been very prominent since then. The way ahead could be for Coppola père et fils to stay away from personal themes. Family isn't everything.




Tetro
Production year: 2009
Countries: Italy, Rest of the world, Spain, USA
Cert (UK): 15
Runtime: 127min mins
Directors: Francis Ford Coppola
Cast: Alden Ehrenreich, Carmen Maura, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Maribel Verdu, Maribel Verdú, Vincent Gallo
More on this film




guardian.co.uk, Peter Bradshaw © Guardian News and Media Limited 2011

The US: Technically a Banana Republic without the Bananas

When one considers the total of US debts (which includes those of the individual states and municipalities plus unfunded liabilities less private household or corporate debt), the amount owed as a ratio to GDP exceeds a factor of 5x.


Outside of the privileged status of the United States being the country of origin of a fiat money which also serves as the global reserve currency, its status has deteriorated in nightmarish fashion since 1970. Then the world's largest creditor nation now owes more than all other nations combined to US taxpayers and foreign banking groups. 


What is happening to Greece today has more to do with global banking politics than sound financial economics; anyone who tells you otherwise is a crackpot. But make no mistake, the IMF will soon be taking over the US central bank if current trends do not reverse immediately. The recent "debt ceiling relief" compromise deal is but a tiny step in the right direction but DOES NOTHING to address the most pressing concerns of the US: it is descending to the status of a second-rate has-been nation, and doing so VERY quickly. 


Wikipedia® defines a Banana Republic as a politically unstable country dependent upon limited primary productions (e.g. bananas), and ruled by a small, self-elected, wealthy, corrupt politico-economic plutocracy or oligarchy.


Watch the video below to learn more. Be careful to weave through the narrative rhetoric (i.e. bullshit) of CNBC reporter Maria Bartiromo and focus on the guest speaker, David Walker. He is the former head of the Government Accountability Office and Comptroller General of the United States.


PM

Summer Wine par excellence

Part of the reason why I enjoy wine so much is that it allows me to travel the world, so-to-speak. I love wine from all over but admit to preferring the dual giants from the Old Continent: Italy and, of course, France.


But the Spaniards, Californians, Aussies and South Africans have come a long way since the 1980s. Now a host of so-called new world wines have been wowing aficionados: Chileans, Argentinians, Kiwis and even Canadians (Niagara Valley) are raising eyebrows.


My favorite Italians tend to be Tuscan and so-called Super Tuscan. But with deeper pockets, the Piedmont varieties can indeed be sublime. I once had a 1997 Riserva di Barolo from Gaja which had cost me over CAD $400  and that was nearly 10 years ago! But yes, a Chianti Classico never fails, as well as the non-ultimate DOC types of Barbera d'Alba and Barbera d'Asti  the latter having hint of effervescence. These wines represent great value for the money as opposed to the more prestigious DOCG varieties. These  great summer wines pair beautifully with pasta, sausages, aged cheese and all manner of grilled meats  especially veal, pork and lamb.


There's one white wine I discovered that will blow your mind, and pair very well with the hot, humid summer days. It's a southern French Roussilon called Muscat de Rivesaltes at proximity to the mighty (and relatively pricey) Banyuls, which itself is not far from the southern-most city in France: postcard picturesque Perpignan.


For under CAD$20, it's an exquisite dessert wine value, to be served very chilled. What a bouquet, like burying one's nose in a bed of pink roses and orchids; the mouth is only slightly acidic and betrays a hint of vanilla and lychee fruit and a clean mineral finish, a testament to its clay and calcium-rich soil. If you can find a Muscat de Rivesaltes by Cazes Frères, buy two cases.


Another Muscat de Rivesaltes which won awards comes from the Dom Brial domaine and is also exquisite. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I told you my ex- and I went through at least 30 bottles in 2009-10.

Seven of Nature's Best Foods

AVOCADO

The avocado is high in fat, but most of the fat is the heart-healthy monounsaturated kind. We know the avocado tastes great, but outside of an occasional guacamole dip, few of us reach for this high-fiber food for salads or as a great side dish.

You’ll also get protein, a good dose of vitamins A and E, some B vitamins, lots of potassium and a dollop of copper. The rich and creamy avocado has been called the “chocolate” of fruits.

SWEET POTATO

At Thanksgiving, we dash for sweet potatoes as if they’re available just once a year. But you can bake or microwave these tubers anytime for a super dose of vitamin A — five times the daily value (DV) the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends.

Sweet potatoes also offer some vitamin C and a significant helping of important minerals, including calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and iron. And this tasty fat-free combo of nutrients brightens your plate.

SOYBEANS

The FDA recently added soy to the list of foods that can make health claims because of its value in reducing the risk of heart disease. Soy is high in protein — one cup of beans can fill 40 percent of the DV for protein — and the bean also serves up generous helpings of fiber, calcium, potassium, iron, phosphorus and magnesium. How you eat this versatile food is up to you — cooked and mixed in salads or casseroles, roasted for snacks, or in tofu, tempeh or soy milk. Soy has some fat, but very little saturated fat.

The use of soy products to treat symptoms of menopause is controversial. While it may improve symptoms for some women, the phytoestrogens (plant estrogens) that may help relieve hot flashes may also increase the risk of breast cancer.

DRIED FIGS

Tasty as Fig Newton cookies are, figs stand on their own. They provide high-fiber, topped with some B vitamins and iron, finished off with abundant potassium and calcium. Five figs give you as much calcium as half a glass of milk.

What to do with a fig? Pop a few in your mouth, sneak them into casseroles or replace raisins with them in a salad.

LENTILS

We never think of this legume unless it’s in our soup. But putlentils in rice or casseroles and you’ve added one of the highest-protein and highest-fiber foods around.

A cup of lentils supplies about 40 percent of the DV for protein and about 65 percent of the DV for fiber. The lentil is high in potassium, calcium and iron, and a good source of B vitamins, phosphorus and copper. The fat content? Zero.

KALE

Dark, leafy green vegetables are an acquired taste. Maybe now’s the time to see if your taste buds have matured to accommodate this no-fat, low-calorie, super-high-vitamin-A food.

One cup of kale (boiled, but not overcooked) gives you double the DV for vitamin A. You’ll also get some vitamin C, a small amount of B vitamins and a generous amount of calcium. Look for kale’s healthy but ignored cousins: Swiss chard, mustard greens and collards.

BARLEY

Here’s another soup secret we tend to forget despite its claim to protein, fiber, potassium, phosphorus and iron. One cup supplies 25 percent of the DV for fiber.

Eat pearled barley as a side dish instead of rice, use it for a hearty casserole, or boil it to create a unique base for a stir-fry meal. And look at the high nutritional content of some other forgotten but powerful grains, like quinoa and amaranth.

Mushrooms! I'm doing a little happy dance in my head just thinking about them. When I was a boy I begged for mushroom soup. These days I think I could easily go through a pound of sautéed mushrooms in one sitting. They're great with steak, still good in a quesadilla, terrific over polenta, or just on their own.

A terrific trick with cooking most mushrooms is to dry sauté them first.

A mycologist friend of mine taught me this trick years ago, with the chanterelles and porcini we had foraged. Sauté the mushrooms first, just on their own, with no added liquid or fat, in a hot pan. The mushrooms will release their water, which will then boil away, concentrating the mushroom flavor. Then you add the fat, and whatever seasonings you want.

In this recipe we are sautéing button or cremini mushrooms first dry, then with butter, then adding thyme, and some Marsala wine. You could easily use olive oil instead of the butter, and fresh shiitake, porcini, or chanterelles instead of (or in addition to) the button mushrooms. The Marsala is there for the flavor, you could use chicken stock, or white wine, or red wine, or add some sesame oil and mirin for an Asian twist. Instead of the pinch of thyme you could use Herbes de Provence, or Italian seasoning, or finely chopped tarragon.

Do you have a favorite way of preparing mushrooms as a side? If so, please let me know about it in the comments.

Marsala Glazed Mushrooms Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 454 g fresh button or cremini mushrooms, cut into thick slices
• Fleur de sel or kosher salt
• 4 tbsp regular butter
• 125ml Marsala wine
• 3-4 sprigs fresh thyme (or a pinch of dry thyme)

METHOD

1 To dry sauté the mushrooms, heat a large sauté pan over high heat. Put all the mushrooms in the hot pan and stir the mushrooms. Reduce the heat to medium-high. Stir often. You may hear the mushrooms squeak. Just when you think the mushrooms may start burning, they will begin to give up their moisture. Water will seem to just seep out of the mushrooms. Stir so that the mushrooms are coated with their own sauce, and sprinkle salt over them.

2 Cook until most of the liquid has boiled away, then add the butter to the pan and stir to combine. Add a pinch of thyme. Sauté the mushrooms in the butter on medium high heat until they begin to brown, about 4-6 minutes.

3 Add the Marsala wine to the pan and increase the heat to high. Toss to coat the mushrooms well. Boil this down vigorously until the Marsala is nearly gone. What you will see remaining is the butter in the pan.

Turn off the heat and serve at once.

Serves 4 as a side.

The Best Winter Holiday Comfort Food

The holiday season for Canadians and most Europeans is a time for celebration that attends snowy winter conditions and rather cold temperatures. It's no wonder our culinary tastes tend toward "comfort food" categories like cakes, rich creams, starchy foods and "gratins." Baking becomes a more frequent mode of preparing food from roasts to pot pies to hearty soups. One of my favorite dishes for this time of the year is the inimitable onion soup, or as the proper Dauphiné would say: Soupe à l'oignon.

In case you're wondering, the Région dauphinoise, or more properly Le Dauphiné, is that part of lower-central France that lines the western slopes of the Alps. When one thinks of warm fireplace-heated cabins or villas peppering snowy valleys among the majestic Alpine mountains, this is the essence of le Dauphiné. It is no wonder that some of the most delectable winter recipes originate from this area--a region with a long cheese tradition, pastries, baking and gratins (i.e. dishes that are baked and layered with cheese, like Gruyère, Émmenthal or Suisse). Onion soup is so rich, and so aptly-Alpine, that it can easily substitute for an entire meal. The calorie count in a single hearty serving will provide ample energy for a skier spending an entire day on the slopes.

See below for my recipe for prepping a most excellent and savory onion soup. You will need a deep sauce pan and at least four (4) ceramic oven-ready bowls for the final presentation. But first, here are the ingredients (serves four).

Ingredients:

• Olive oil (2 tbsp or 30ml)
• Butter (unsweetened, 1 tbsp or 15ml)
• Nutmeg (1 tsp)
• Bay leaves (2-3, crushed)
• Thyme (3-4 fresh thyme sprigs)
• Peppercorn (ground finely, 5-10 twists of a pepper mill)
• Sea salt or preferably Fleur de sel (1-2 tbsp, or 15-30ml*)
• Onion (yellow, 3 medium or 2 large, sliced not diced)
• Garlic (2-3 cloves, crushed or thinly diced)
• Beef broth (800-1000ml of fresh broth is preferable--chicken broth is good too)
• Cheese - 150g (I prefer Gruyère or Émmenthal, but Suisse and Quebec Comptois will do)
• Bread (half of a French baguette, or 125g into half-inch slices, oven-dried for 10 minutes)
• White wine (125 ml, or a half-cup of Chardonnay, Riesling, Champagne or Gewürztraminer)

* If the broth already contains more than 500mg of sodium per 125 ml, be careful NOT to add too much sea salt (or Fleur de sel) at this point. We want this dish to be hearty, not unhealthy.

Recipe:

At medium-high heat in a deep sauce pan, melt butter and olive oil. Add onions and simmer with bay leaves, nutmeg, sprigs of thyme, pepper and sea salt.

When onions become transparent, add garlic. Let simmer 1-2 minutes then add wine. Reduce by half. Once reduced, lower heat to medium and add (preferably) beef broth or chicken broth. Preheat your oven to broil (450-500F or 260-270C).

Slice eight (8) half-inch or 1-cm thick pieces of bread from your baguette. Place in an aluminum oven-ready pan or skillet and place in the oven until dry or toasted. DO NOT BURN.

Once the soup comes to a boil, turn off stove heat.

Grate the cheese to a rough grain. When the bread is toasted or dry, place two pieces directly into one of four oven-ready ceramic soup bowls. With a ladle or large spoon, pour even amounts of the soup onto the toasted baguette. Cover evenly with a nice layer of grated cheese. When oven is ready, place bowls directly on middle oven rack and broil for five minutes or until the cheese begins to brown.

CAREFUL: VERY HOT!!!

When cheese has browned, remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes. Be careful to use oven mitts or some other heat-resistant glove to manipulate your soup bowls. After five-minute settling time, serve soup bowls directly to family or friends on a wooden base or ceramic plate. The surface of the soup bowls will likely remain blistering hot for a time still.

Wine pairing: With rich soups like this, it is best to opt for "rounder" white wines and not those that are particularly dry. Sweeter, fruitier and more acidic undertones will go a long way to marry well with the fats and salt of the cheese and broth; the sugars of caramelized onions and the bread will provide a bridge for a sweeter wine's flavor base. I would opt for a "youngish" Riesling or Gewürztraminer although a young Chablis or other Chardonnay varietal will do just fine. Simply avoid dry white wines.

Bon appétit!

Science Meets the Art of Cooking

Any well-heeled chef will tell you that a true understanding of cuisine implies a rather extensive, albeit anecdotal, understanding of chemistry, biology and physics. To be sure, thanks in part to the increased popularity of TV networks catering to a growing food & wine-loving audience, so-called "molecular gastronomy" has taken off.

Among the earlier adopters exploring new avenues in molecular gastronomy is Heston Blumenthal, whose now defunct television show In Search of Perfection was featured on the Food Network, introducing audiences to this exciting new world. However, a functional understanding of the basic science and chemistry of food doesn't begin at the molecular level, at least not for mere mortals like you and I. All one needs is basic knowledge of maths, proportions, sequences and geometry with an eye towards time management and duration.

For example, a functional cook--let alone chef--must be familiarized with a rather vast array of measurement and calibrating elements before even gathering the ingredients--a stage often referred to in French as the mise-en-place. Ergo the near-impossibility for a would-be chef to develop quickly should this practical knowledge be lacking. Consider the age-old Oriental art of making noodles. This knowledge seems to have been borrowed from sword smiths who discovered that beating and plying iron many, many times would produce a virtually unbreakable and surgically sharp blade. Quickly, if I wanted 4096 strands of firm yet slender hair-like noodles, how many times must I fold a kneaded thread of dough? Click here for cool video demonstrating this rather fine art of prepping noodles.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't take out a pocket calculator or scale to measure ingredient inputs and volumes. A good eye and an understanding of proportions usually go a long way to prepare tasty and nuanced dishes. But it's still a matter of intuitive science in knowing to adjust the amount of seasoning to add to a wine/broth reduction; knowing full well that the simmering concoction will ultimately lose more than half of its liquid to evaporation (essentially water and alcohol) before it is finally ready to be saved in the ice box.

Other sciences, or measures, come to us in the form of time-tested traditions. Many are now guidelines for what constitutes the "best" method to produce a tasty vinaigrette. For example, the basic guideline is a ratio of 3-to-1 for oil versus vinegar (or citrus). Does this mean one cannot adjust that ratio based on personal flavor? Of course not. But the 3-to-1 rule of thumb is a guideline applied by most sauciers and trained salad chefs.

Another mathematical rule of thumb is to compare desired cooking times with the thickness of a cut of meat (or weight in the case of larger cuts). The guidelines are set according to the desired grades of cooking (i.e. bleue, rare, medium-rare, medium, well-done). And now with rather inexpensive digital thermometers, chefs can be more confident attaining perfect cooking grades since these devices are typically calibrated to alert of a desired grade at temperatures lower than would normally be indicated in a cook book. Because food continues to cook even after removal from a heat source (proteins are especially sensitive), such a calibration eliminates the risk of overshooting and wasting a perfectly good and often expensive cut of beef or game.

In other words, there are some Basic rules of thumb when cooking meats to desired grade that tend to vary but will cluster around widely-applied figures and temperatures. For example: For a medium-rare steak measuring one inch in thickness (i.e. 2.5 cm), cook for 2-2.5 minutes per side at medium-high heat; allow 5 minutes of rest before serving. Here's an extensive meat cooking chart for reference. Unfortunately, it provides temperatures in degrees Fahrenheit so you may have to use my conversion tables from the link above to determine degrees Celsius.

In the end, cooking is an art and a science. No doubt, what constitutes good flavor may find its expression in molecules, chemical reactions and physical properties. But science is integral to the cooking process and matters less to the palate of those enjoying a sublime meal. Nonetheless, what might not find expression in terms of acidity, volume, physical properties like boiling points or viscosity, are now becoming more important in the kitchen. And even if one is not so inclined to pursue the path of Heston Blumenthal and would rather preserve the more artistic, intuitive and creative dimensions of cooking, it won't hurt to know a bit of math or chemistry.

Bon appétit!

10 Skills Every Cook Should Know

When my eyes were opened to the wonderful joys of cooking over a decade ago, I must admit that I was less-than-jubilant when it came to the nuts and bolts of mise-en-place, chopping, dicing, slicing, the sous-vide method, de-glazing, preparing a mirepoix and other "basic" kitchen skills.

The idea of a dish the end-game of a particular cuisine was certainly a great source of excitement, fueling my curiosity and creativity. It was the more tactical (and often tedious) steps required in getting started or preparing ingredients for cooking that slowed my learning curve, or dampened my enthusiasm.

However, I must say that patience is a virtue. Anyone wishing to hone or perfect an artistic or creative skill must patiently develop the basics. What decent pianist cannot owe his or her pedigree to having had to spend countless hours doing basic chords on the keyboard? SFGate.com has a nifty guide to the ten basic skills every cuisine aficionado should master. Only then can one elevate their performance level in the culinary arts.