Today I was at Starbucks and there was a poster about the journey of coffee beans from bean to cup. Then, at the end, it said:
“One journey ends with a sip, and another begins.”
I should say so. The poster was in the bathroom.
P.S.: There should be a mystery novel set in a coffeehouse and called _Room for Scream._
Two recent poblano sightings.
The other day I stopped at Quizno’s (yes, I eat at Quizno’s) and had the Prime Rib Ranchero sandwich, which features fire-roasted poblanos. The sandwich was pretty spicy and you could totally taste the poblanos.
Then at QFC I noticed a bag of C&W frozen mixed vegetables that included corn, black beans, roasted red peppers, and, yes, poblanos. I haven’t tried it yet.
I wholly support this trend.
On the smoky horizon, a silhouette. A gunslinger. No, a pen-slinger. Wait, “pen-slinger” sounds dirty. Let me start over.
In a time when men and women slaved over dusty keyboards, crying out for clarification, there came a man. A man who reads your blog instead of doing his own work. A pedantic sort of man. And they called him…THE OMBUDSMAN. Is he good? Evil? Some sort of amoral cyber-wraith? My money is on the latter, because “amoral cyber-wraith” sounds pretty awesome.
THE OMBUDSMAN first struck on Tuesday at All You Can Eat, the blog of his Seattle Times colleague Nancy Leson:
> NOTE: After a heads-up from my exceedingly smart and talented food-writer pal, Matthew Amster-Burton, I’ve deleted some erroneous info regarding the tamarillo, which you’d be reading right here in this paragraph had I not given it the old heave-ho. I originally stated that, having consulted one of my favorite produce reference books, I learned that the tamarillo is actually a guava. [ERRRRT! Thanks for playing!]
One correction does not a trend make. Bloggers looked on with interest, the way you’d look pityingly on a guy forced into a conversation with an unthreatening but verbose street person. They did not know that THE OMBUDSMAN was already planning his next assault. Helen Rennie of [Beyond Salmon](http://beyondsalmon.blogspot.com/) didn’t believe it could happen to her. Until…
It’s ok to wash your mushrooms
> Dear Matthew,
> Thank you for bringing me out of the mushroom dark ages and dispelling the myth that getting mushrooms wet is a no-no. I am a liberated woman now. No more wiping, no more brushing, no more scrubbing to get those pesky little pieces of dirt of my fungi!
Out of which dark ages will THE OMBUDSMAN bring you? Yes, you?
(Oh, in case you’re wondering about THE OMBUDSMAN’s uniform, it has a picture of a tomato with the word “fruit” stamped on it. And tights. Wait, I need to rethink this uniform.)
Today on [Serious Eats](http://www.seriouseats.com/):
Cooking With Kids: Eat Your Veggies
> Honestly, my daughter is four now and hardly likes any vegetables, but the key to getting her to eat vegetables when she was younger was using plenty of butter, olive oil, or peanut oil. Not just because this made the vegetables taste better (this was before she developed strong taste preferences) but because fat, well, lubricates. Babies are less likely to gag on well-oiled vegetables.
> The same is true of 20-year-olds, apparently.
Be sure to read the comments, where people suggest all kinds of great-tasting vegetable dishes that Iris will probably not eat–but I will.
This month on [Culinate](http://culinate.com):
Cocoa nut: All about powdered chocolate
> As I broke off a square of Chocovic, I noticed my lone can of Hershey’s cocoa powder, and found myself wondering: Was I missing the potential of cocoa powder just because it has zero snack potential?
While writing this article, I spoke to actual people named Callebaut (Richard) and Guittard (Gary). This was totally cool. I did not speak to anyone named Hershey, Valrhona, or Dagoba.
P.S.: It was hard not to type “Gary Glitter” every time I meant “Gary Guittard.”