Fer Food Friday

***Fer Food Friday is a weekly post sharing an internet photo find or a special shot we recently created. We want you to share too! Please feel free to send in your funny food photos or internet finds!

Root Beer Taste Test-Third Installment

Here it is! This has been a long time coming! We have been trying some more root beers to add to our collection of taste tests. Some of the brands were recommendations from you-our FF readers. Thank you for your recommendations. Keep them coming because all we want to do is try more root beer!

-Fer

Fitz's: We did it. We ordered this micro-brewed root beer from St. Louis MO. It might of been my expectations as I was greatly anticipating the delivery. The root beer was a bit of a disappointment. It quits early. Low carbonation, sugar cane sweetened but low on flavor. Not much to it really. Not a favorite.

Jones Pure Cane Soda Root Beer: It has a thin foundation. Very fizzy almost distracting. I had hope since it used pure cane sugar-which is great but when it came to a root beer flavor this one bottoms out. There just wasn't much to it. Very weak on the flavor. I kept taking drinks hoping to find it but it simply wasn't there.It is sharp and edgy but not any strong characteristics. This is one of our least favorites.

Sarsaparilla's (Health Valley): Nice taste. Strong mint flavor, more syrupy than others tasted due to the fructose content, tones of anise, not too sweet. It is bright and very fuzzy making it refreshing. The taste hangs on your palate doesn't leave quickly like Fitz's.

Boylan's Root Beer: Not too fizzy as not to distract from the other flavors; Heavy vanilla tones-reminded of Nilla Wafers, Soft and warm palette. I have been looking for this root beer for a while. It has been recommended to us from a few readers. I was anxious to try it. It is a solid root beer with a good overall Fer Food stamp of approval!

Sea Dog Root Beer (Portland, Maine): This one is a great surprise! It is now part of our inner circle of favorites (along side Virgil's and Gale's). This brand once again demonstartes how sweetening with pure cane sugar preserves character and taste without being syrupy! We feel one of the most important attributes of root beer is the after taste. Sea Dog has a nice, clean finish and leaves you with the goodness of sasperilla root and not the medicine taste of the lesser brands. It has a malty taste that doesn't hit you right away but gives the root beer more gravity. It's light and fresh with just the right fizz. It is a good solid root beer. A special thank you to Kellie and Michael for sharing it with us!

**If you want to check out our other root beer taste tests read the 1st installment here. Or the second installment here.

Wood in my Lemonade?

"glycerol ester of wood rosin"....huh? What is that?

I have been into really meticulously reading labels lately. I love this sparkling pink lemonade from Trader Joe's. I had never read the ingredients until over the weekend. That is when I read "glycerol ester of wood rosin". I looked it up on the internet. I couldn't find much except this:

"The glycerol ester of wood rosin is used as a stabilizer for flavoring oils in selected fruit-flavored beverages. This stabilizer weighs down the oils and keeps them in solution. The actual content of the glycerol ester of wood oil in our finished product is at no more than 100 parts per million. This concentration meets FDA (Food & Drug Administration) regulations. According to our flavor supplier, glycerol ester of wood rosin is one of the most natural of the approved FDA ingredients to perform as stabilizers in fruit-flavored beverages".

Read directly from source here.

This concentration meets FDA regulations and it does say that it is the most natural (it's wood!) of the FDA ingredients to use as a stabilizer. But-what does any of this really tell me? I find it really frustrating when I am reading the ingredients in my food to find I have no idea what one is. I actually do my best to only eat what food I can read and understand all of its ingredients. It's interesting how I missed this and I am sure I won't be drinking my favorite pink lemonade anymore.

How many of you read the ingredients of the foods you buy? Are you surprised, shocked or do you not really consider it to be an issue?

-Fer

Fer Food Failure! (Smile)

Hi! Well-I have been pretty out of pocket lately. No excuses just work...and a lot of it.

The good news is....I am still eating! Hmmm. What have I been eating? I have really been into smoothies lately. I think because it is becoming so hot here that it is a nice refreshing treat. I also find that they are a good "inbetween". Something to eat when you aren't starving but you need a little something to get you through!

This weekend I am working on an update for the root beer taste test. Found a few more!

Happy Friday Everyone!

-Fer

p.s. I love this week's photo! (see below)





***Fer Food Friday is a weekly post sharing an internet photo find or a special shot we recently created. We want you to share too! Please feel free to send in your funny food photos or internet finds!

Fer Food Friday!

***Fer Food Friday is a weekly post sharing an internet photo find or a special shot we recently created. We want you to share too! Please feel free to send in your funny food photos or internet finds!

Microwave Popcorn Can Stink...

Seattle looks to possibly ban microwave popcorn.

Zakoosky

I spent the weekend with a Russian friend of mine named Anna. We went through some of her cook books after a discussion about how Russians like to prepare vegetables. Anna explained to me that "Zakoosky" (the Russian word for appetizers) are usually some style of vegetables preferrably root vegetables. Anna had made some delicious minced carrots and I wanted to learn more!

I spent a few minutes reading a cook book that she has had for over 40 years. You cannot read this book by its cover because the cover has long been gone. I loved turning the frayed pages of this old loved book. I read the Zakoosky section and found parts of it hilarious and wanted to share a portion of it with you.

"There is no definite rule as to what you may or may not serve as zakoosky You serve anything which tastes good, and the more of it the better...While partaking of zakoosky, Russians drink vodka. The correct way to drink Vodka is to gulp it down in one swallow; never sip it. Vodka is usually served in small tumble-type glasses and it tastes best when it is thoroughly chilled. Ladies hardly ever drink more than one or two glasses unless they like to lose control of their behavior. Men naturally drink much more, but either sex makes good use of zakoosky before and immediately after each swallow of vodka".

-Fer

Fer Food Friday

Is this the happiest little food picture you have ever seen? Happy Friday!





***Fer Food Fridays are a weekly post sharing an internet photo find or a special shot we recently created. We want you to share too! Please feel free to send in your funny food photos or internet finds!

My Collection

I have never been much of a collector. Once I realized this, I decided I wanted to start collecting at least one thing. Over the past 10 years, I have been collecting single serving creamers. The moment I saw one for the first time I knew right away I wanted to start collecting them!

One thing I have found is they are hard to find! I have bought one off of Ebay but that just seemed too easy. I like the hunt. It has been fun over the years to find one a bit different from the next and add to the collection. I have about thirty now. Most of them were used to serve cream at diners. I actually haven't done much reserach on them. I just like the way they look. I do use them on occassion when a need a single serving of cream or I have found that they make a nice bud vase depending on the size of the bud.

I find it fascinating that someone decided that they would start to serve cream in an individual serving and designed a creamer for this purpose. I don't think I have ever seen anyone serve cream like this. I think we should go back to it. It was a lovely thing!

-Fer

Our 200th Post

Can you believe it is June? I am one of those people that can never quite get a grip about time. Time moves so fast that often I just stand in amazement of it. I was just sitting down to organize and prep for our week here at Fer Food when I was reminded that this next post is number 200! I felt that a celebration needed to be called!

We are working towards making our own website. Our one year anniversary is coming in August-so stay tuned! We really appreciate all of your emails and comments. It has been so much fun this year getting to know all of you.

Is there a story you would like us to cover? Are there items on websites that you just die over? Is it important to you that we evetually offer a podcast? Videos? Tell us! We would love to know!

So-here is to #200! Thanks for reading!

-Fer

Fer Food Friday

Happy Friday! Sorry-I have been absent this week. I will be back next week! Take a look at this package design that we found:



Is this for real?

-Fer

***Fer Food Fridays are a weekly post sharing an internet photo find or a special shot we recently created. We want you to share too! Please feel free to send in your funny food photos or internet finds!