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Serious mountain climbers know the problem all too well: Packing chocolate in your rucksack only ends in frustration when you reach the summit. If you're walking in freezing cold temperatures, the chocolate bar becomes a rock-hard block that's impossible to bite into without breaking your teeth. But, then again, if the sun is beating down, it won't take long before the chocolate melts into a gooey mess. In the worst-case scenario, you reach the mountain top, finally at your destination, and it's completely liquified. And even if the temperature is just right, there's still the problem of weight gain. As most of us have finally realized, chocolate is not one of the staple foods of the skinny minnie. But one Zurich-based chocolate manufacturer thinks it has a solution that could make these problems a thing of the past. Barry Callebaut (BARN.MU), whose annual output of over 1.1 million tons of cocoa and chocolate products makes it the world's largest producer of chocolate, has developed a type of chocolate with completely new properties. According to the company's head developer, Hans Vriens, the chocolate has up to 90 percent fewer calories than regular chocolate.  What's more, high temperatures can't touch it—unless, by chance, they soar higher than 55 degrees Celsius (131 degrees Fahrenheit). Depending on its composition, traditional chocolate starts to melt at around 30 degrees Celsius. And that's the inspiration behind the tentative name its developers have given the new product: "Vulcano."
The bar's creators want to use it to tackle a growing problem: In Western Europe and North America, chocolate consumption has leveled off and, in some cases, begun to decline. In the past year, consumers in the eight largest western European countries consumed 2 percent less chocolate. In the US, consumption decreased by 8 percent. Under these circumstances, manufacturers are forced to rely on emerging markets for future profits. The calorie-reduced "Vulcano" will be made available in both bar and cookie form. In this stagnant market, Callebaut hopes that it will raise widespread interest, especially in diet-obsessed America. Thanks to its ability to withstand high temperatures, "Vulcano" has a realistic chance of making a dent in the market in warmer parts of the world, as well. As things currently stand, marketing a heat-sensitive product in such regions without setting up expensive "cold chains," as temperature-controlled supply chains are known, is almost impossible. A chocolate product that could withstand high temperatures would solve this problem. According to Vriens, the company wants to start by targeting India, China and southern Europe. "The idea sounds intriguing" says Daniel Bürki, a financial analyst at the Zurich Cantonal Bank. But he's still not fully convinced about the chocolate's chances of success. "Past experience has shown that melt-proof chocolate cannot compete with traditional products when it comes to taste," he adds. In his opinion, the special product is more important for the draw it has on investors. "They love these kinds of stories," Bürki says. But if Barry Callebaut really has solved the problem of flavor, he adds, "Vulcano" could become a huge success. "In the warm emerging markets, particularly China, there is a growing middle class, which can afford to buy chocolate—and wants to," Bürki says. Previous Attempts  The German-made chocolate on the left is my current favorite. Moser-Roth: $1.89 for 4.4 oz. (125 g.)
Barry Callebaut is not the first chocolate manufacturer to try to create a melt-proof chocolate. The first one was produced by Hershey's (HSY) for the US Army during World War II. The army's product requirements were relatively simple: The chocolate must be as nutritious as possible, be able to withstand temperatures of up to 60 degrees Celsius and weigh four ounces (113 grams).
Hershey's production machines were designed to pour liquid chocolate into moulds. But because it was lacking a lot of the cocoa butter that goes into regular chocolate, the heat-resistant chocolate was too solid to be produced using the machines. As a result, Hershey's had to make every single bar by hand. The results were rock-hard, rectangular bars that could only be broken with considerable effort and strength. In the following decades, Hershey's continually improved the chocolate's taste and consistency—but none of the heat-proof chocolate bars ever made it into commercial production. And that includes the "Desert Bar" given to soldiers in Iraq.
 “Pão de queijo” is typical Brazilian and it’s a delicious snack. I made them today (that's my photo at right) and they were quite tasty, if I do say so myself. I simply followed the recipe, as follows...
Ingredients:
1 cup of water
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of oil
1 teaspoon of salt
1 pack of tapioca starch (450 g)
2 to 3 eggs
200 g of grated parmesan cheese
Preparation:
1. Bring to boil in a big pan the water, the milk, the oil and the salt.
2. Remove the pan from the heat and add the tapioca starch. Mix well with a wooden spoon and let it cool down.
3. Put the mixture in a bowl, add the eggs and knead well.
4. Add the grated cheese and keep kneading until the dough is smooth.
5. Roll 1 tablespoon of mixture into small balls. Tip: Grease your hands with oil before making the balls. Wash your hands once in a while if necessary.
6. Place the balls on a baking tray greased with oil or lined with baking paper.
7. Bake the cheese rolls in hot oven (350 degrees) for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.
8. Put the cheese rolls in a basket and serve them warm.
Remarks:
- This recipe makes about 70 small cheese rolls.
- Tapioca starch can be found in Asian grocery stores. The one I bought was from Thailand ("Cock" brand) and came in a standard pack of 400 grams.
- Brazilians usually knead the dough by hand. It’s really hard work. I am thinking about buying a mixer for next time. Really messy!
- “Pão de queijo” can be frozen and baked directly from the freezer.
The steady stream of good news about green tea is getting so hard to ignore that even java junkies are beginning to sip mugs of the deceptively delicate brew. You'd think the daily dose of disease-fighting, inflammation-squelching antioxidants--long linked with heart protection--would be enough incentive, but wait, there's more! Lots more. CUT YOUR CANCER RISK
Several polyphenols - the potent antioxidants green tea's famous for - seem to help keep cancer cells from gaining a foothold in the body, by discouraging their growth and then squelching the creation of new blood vessels that tumors need to thrive. Study after study has found that people who regularly drink green tea reduce their risk of breast, stomach, esophagus, colon, and/or prostate cancer. SOOTHE YOUR SKIN
Got a cut, scrape, or bite, and a little leftover green tea? Soak a cotton pad in it. The tea is a natural antiseptic that relieves itching and swelling. Try it on inflamed breakouts and blemishes, sunburns, even puffy eyelids. And that's not all. In the lab, green tea helps block sun-triggered skin cancer, whether you drink it or apply it directly to the skin - which is why you're seeing green tea in more and more sunscreens and moisturizers. STEADY YOUR BLOOD PRESSURE
Having healthy blood pressure - meaning below 120/80 - is one thing. Keeping it that way is quite another. But people who sip just half a cup a day are almost 50 percent less likely to wind up with hypertension than non-drinkers. Credit goes to the polyphenols again (especially one known as ECGC). They help keep blood vessels from contracting and raising blood pressure.  PROTECT YOUR MEMORY, OR YOUR MOM'S
Green tea may also keep the brain from turning fuzzy. Getting-up-there adults who drink at least two cups a day are half as likely to develop cognitive problems as those who drink less. Why? It appears that the tea's big dose of antioxidants fights the free-radical damage to brain nerves seen in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
STAY YOUNG
The younger and healthier your arteries are, the younger and healthier you are. So fight plaque build-up in your blood vessels, which ups the risk of heart disease and stroke, adds years to your biological age (or RealAge), and saps your energy too. How much green tea does this vital job take? About 10 ounces a day, which also deters your body from absorbing artery-clogging fat and cholesterol. LOSE WEIGHT
Oh yeah, one more thing. Turns out that green tea speeds up your body's calorie-burning process. In the every-little-bit-counts department, this is good news! ~Yahoo Food, Feb. 20, 2008  东方既白, or Dong Fang Ji Bai.... is it a poem by Song dynasty poet Su Shi? Yes, but it is also one of the latest trends happening in the China restaurant industry. It's a fast-food outlet in a Shanghai shopping mall and, though it looks like a Chinese company, East Dawning, as the Chinese translates into English, is owned and operated by Yum Brands, the same company that owns KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut. I have never been to one, but have read about them, most recently in TIME magazine.
This is a recent trend called "glocalization," which takes the benefits of globalization and adapts to the local market tastes. So a Kentucky fast-food company sells Chinese food in China, and the results so far seem promising. One gets the same grab-and-go service of a KFC, but instead of deep fried calorie mountains, they are served items like sweet-and-sour pork ribs (19 yuan), crispy wok-fried chicken (19 yuan), fried eel (20 yuan), or spicy beef with noodles. Instead of a Coke to wash it all down, why not try a doujiang (bean milk), which is sooooo much healthier? So what's the attraction? Well, even though the restaurants (and there are now 8 of them around Shanghai) do not offer typical American fare, the Chinese consumers are attracted to the quality and service that is associated with an American brand. In other words, relatively cheap food served in bright, cheerful surroundings, not to mention powerful air conditioners and clean bathrooms. I like the business model, and hope it succeeds. It is less arrogant, less culturally insensitive and, most importantly, represents a model that does not feed the excessive fat of an American diet to the healthy eating Chinese population. And it is certainly a far cry from the shameless concept of having a Starbucks located in the Forbidden City. I hope to try one of these places when I arrive in Shanghai   
For China's Newly Affluent, Imported Wine Is De Rigueur
By Maureen Fan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 28, 2007
BEIJING -- Cocooned in a wood-paneled, members-only bar on the 50th floor of a private business club, Yao Yi, a corporate lawyer in Beijing, hunched over her glass, swirling and sipping a 2003 merlot from Washington state.
"It's quite young. So, not France. There's no Australian option here. Maybe we can choose New Zealand, it's close," Yao said, laughing during a blind wine-tasting quiz at Beijing's Capital Club.
In the end, Yao and her friends guessed that it was an American wine. They also got the vintage right, scoring five points for the team and more credibility for increasingly educated Chinese wine consumers.
Yao's interest in imported wine began five years ago. Now, critic Robert Parker's wine scores roll off her tongue as she compares the best of Napa Valley with wine from Australia's Barossa Valley. Over New Year's she spent more than $2,100 on 14 bottles of French Bordeaux.
It wasn't always this way. In fact, many Chinese consumers still treat wine as a ceremonial prop for toasting, sometimes downing an entire glass as if it were a popular Chinese grain alcohol known as baijiu. Selection of wine by the glass is still very limited in most Chinese restaurants. And wine is expensive, compared with beer and other alcohol.
But these days, the cost is part of the charm.
"More and more Chinese drink wines, because it's fashionable and a kind of social status," said Zhou Ning, market strategy manager of a Beijing-based real estate company whose ads often feature young couples drinking wine or beautiful women lounging with a glass of wine. "We include wine in our ads because we want to tell potential customers that people living in our apartments are elegant and cultivated, and they pay attention to quality of life."
This country has a growing urban middle class; experts estimate that roughly 500,000 Chinese earn as much as $64,000 a year, though exact figures are hard to come by. Meanwhile, the tastes of the newly affluent in Beijing and Shanghai have driven sales of a wide variety of luxury items.
Citing data from China's customs bureau, the Shanghai Daily newspaper recently reported that wine imports surged by 91 percent in the first nine months of 2006. According to industry experts at a conference in Beijing this month, consumption of wine rose 13 percent between 2004 and 2005, to about 564 million bottles.
The surge in imports is largely the result of an increase in bulk wine being sent from Australia, Chile and elsewhere in 6,000-gallon bags. That wine is then combined with local ingredients and sold as Chinese bottled wine, often with names such as Dynasty or Great Wall, experts said.
"It's all part of the luxury goods thing that's going on, why the men are buying Zegna suits and the ladies are buying Louis Vuitton bags. They've been traveling the world," said Don St. Pierre Sr., co-founder and chairman of ASC Fine Wines, the largest wine importer and distributor in China. "It's really starting with the new emerging middle class, and moving up to the richest people."
As wine becomes the latest fashion accessory, MBA students are learning about wine appreciation, executives are asking how to build private wine cellars and tastings have graduated from paper cups to glasses, attracting sell-out crowds.
Chinese restaurants such as the high-end Tian Di Yi Jia, just off Tiananmen Square, offer wines that are "full flavored, rich in oak" and often sipped in private VIP rooms. Owner Robert Cho can recommend what goes best with marinated fresh abalone, hairy crab leg or yam with preserved plums.
When a secretary called from Shanghai earlier this month to make a reservation for her boss, an executive in the financial industry, Cho suggested the Chateau Chambeau Lussac St. Emilion, or, alternatively, the Chateau Gruaud-Larose Sarget de Gruaud-Larose St. Julien, which at $126 is the cheapest bottle on the menu. The most expensive is a Pomerol, a 1994 Petrus that sells for $2,154 a bottle.
"Half our Chinese guests don't know much about wine," Cho said. "They know Chateau Lafite, Chateau Margaux, but they don't know California or Australian wines. People know Lafite as a benchmark, like Rolls-Royce or Dior. . . . They buy wines like they buy watches and cars."
The other half are familiar with imported wines, Cho said, because "they study abroad, have a good position and know that wine is part of Western food culture."
Most bottled wine in China sells for less than $5 a bottle, a category that grew by about 19 percent between 2001 and 2005, according to recent figures from the organizers of the French-based wine trade show Vinexpo. Wine priced at more than $5 a bottle grew by 86 percent over the same period, while bottles that sold for more than $10 grew by 110 percent.
The role wine plays in enhancing people's status has made it a tool in the endless dinners that are an essential part of doing business in China.
"Face is important in China. Wine is part of the show," said Alex Remy, manager of the Beijing office for Sopexa, which promotes French food and agricultural products worldwide. "Lots of people buy wine for the status, not only what it brings to a person but also to the person you give it to."
In 2002, when Zhao Fan, a wine critic, first started hosting private tastings for friends and acquaintances, only seven people showed up. Now they're so popular that he has to limit attendance.
"Four years ago, people were from different walks of life, like electronic equipment companies, French insurance companies or media, and they all knew about wines. They earned about 7,000 to 8,000 yuan [$897 to $1,026] a month, which was quite a large amount at that time," said Zhao, who also teaches a popular wine appreciation course at China Agricultural University in Beijing.
"Now, more people come to tasting parties, but not all of them know that much about wine. Some just hold the bowl of the wine glass instead of the stem. They are from state-owned enterprises or they are university teachers or students."
While there are exceptions, many of China's hundreds of new wineries are not yet producing wine at a standard recognized in the West, according to Stephen Reiss, an Aspen-based wine educator who a decade ago was a member of the first U.S. wine delegation to China since 1949.
Since then, Chinese wine has become more expensive, but still has a long way to go. "The packaging and presentation elevates the price point, which further alienates the wine from its peers. It is not good at $5, so it is really not good at $20," Reiss said.
"On the political side, there is very little incentive to create quality over quantity. On the social side, criticism is hard to deliver, and harder to take, it seems," said Reiss, who is paid to critique Chinese wines. After delivering one report, he recalled, the Western liaison he was working with said: "I don't know how I will be able to use this. Could you rewrite it so it is not so critical?"
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Today I decided to head for the kitchen after my abbreviated frozen walk in the woods. It had been a long time since I made waffles, and I have fond recollections of a really good recipe for them, so I decided why not? I plugged in the trusty waffle iron, and prepared the batter... two egg yolks, flour, vegetable oil, salt, baking powder, milk... and beat it until smooth. Then I carefully folded in the two egg whites which I had beaten to a stiff consistency.
The batter was ready, the waffle iron was hot, so I poured it on and waited for the familiar aroma which tells me it is time to harvest the first crop... surprise -- they stuck to the iron... I had to peel this mess from the non-stick surface and give the hot iron a good scrubbing (with a medium hard dry brush -- as soap, water and anything more durable might have damaged the elements...) Although a little scruffy, the waffles looked edible, so I applied the requisite butter and syrup, and dove in. AWFUL! They were terrible, and I had to spit them out like a small child who is being fed for the first time something he has no hankering for.
I sprayed a little butter-flavored Pam® on the heating surfaces, and poured the batter in for the second attempt. Five minutes later -- success!!! Delicious, light, crispy, and just like I remembered making them many years earlier. Moral of the story? Throw the first batch of waffles away, no matter how tasty they might look. They are not worth it. Remain patient and eat the second batch, and you will save yourself the hassle of a botched attempt.
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"No matter how fancy the food is or how nice the surroundings are, food only tastes really good when you're with someone you love."
~Jun'ichi Watanabe, A Lost Paradise (a novel I am reading.)
What kind of rice do I eat at home, you ask? Well, here it is. Indian basmati rice from the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains. It is mighty tasty, too... the best I have ever had. How about you? Can you share your rice brand with me?
Well, there seems to be a new fad here in a America... or maybe it is not new and I have had my head in the sandbox all too long. But the other day I went to have a burger at a local eatery (as a card-carrying American citizen, I crave a good gourmet burger about once a month), and much to my surprise one of the menu offerings was "MINIBURGERS." Yup, for about the same price as my huge Black & Bleu Burger (black peppercorn and bleu cheese), I could have ordered four miniburgers -- or were they called babyburgers?
Sound like a curious alternative? Well, I thought so, too. I mean, why order four miniature versions of what I was inhaling as a hand and mouthful feeding frenzy orgy? So I did a little Internet research on the subject. Here is what I came up with...
What used to be called "slyders" at the White Castle burger chain (which dates back to 1921 and is pretty hard to find in some cities today) are now known universally as miniburgers today. The A Hamburger Today (AHT) website critic comments as follows: "For better or worse, the salty, steamy, pickle-and-onion-heavy (White Castle) burgerettes remain the standard by which this reporter judges all tiny hamburgers."
Anyway, I will seek out miniburgers soon, and will report back with my opinions with all due haste. Should be easy to find, as they are reportedly ubiquitous on menus thoughout the Washington, DC area now.
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