More proof that bottled water is a pre-packaged LIE

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) commissioned a study of the quality of 10 domestic brands of bottled water. The ten brands were purchased from eight different states and the District of Columbia, then sent to the University of Iowa's Hygienic Laboratory for analysis. Samples were also sent to the University of Missouri for further analysis. You can read about the methodology of the tests here.

Municipalities are required to test for contaminants every year and then to make the results of those tests available to the public. Check the website of your municipality to find out what's in your tap water. The bottled water industry has no such requirement.

The EWP's study concluded:

Altogether, the analyses conducted by the University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory of these 10 brands of bottled water revealed a wide range of pollutants, including not only disinfection byproducts, but also common urban wastewater pollutants like caffeine and pharmaceuticals (Tylenol); heavy metals and minerals including arsenic and radioactive isotopes; fertilizer residue (nitrate and ammonia); and a broad range of other, tentatively identified industrial chemicals used as solvents, plasticizers, viscosity decreasing agents, and propellants.

Read the study. Stop buying and using bottled water. Today.

What a friend we have in cheeses

I think cheese is the ultimate food. Honestly, I could live on a diet of nothing but the stuff, the stronger and stinkier the better. 

The kids over at Apartment Therapy have a resident cheese monger, and she's always brimming with great ideas and hints on how to better enjoy that most wonderful of foods, cheese. Anyhow, she ran a list of ten rules on how to store and expand the shelf life of various cheeses. I'm reprinting it without shame or any of my editing and I credit her fully and completely. Here's her original column. As much as I don't want to think about it, the holidays are around the corner and if your anything like me, you'll have a fridge filled with exotic cheeses for the next couple of months at least. Here's to the better enjoyment of cheese!

The top ten rules of storage and shelf life:

1. There's good bad-smelling cheese and bad bad-smelling cheese. Smell your cheese when you purchase it (which is actually a key factor in enjoying the taste of your cheese, as well) and evaluate whether the current scent is just slightly more offensive or if it sends shivers of disgust down your spine. Trust your sensory instincts.

2. Taste it. If you can't figure it out by the smell, try a bite. If it doesn't taste bad, it hasn't gone bad.

3. Fresh, soft cheeses have a shorter shelf life than aged, hard cheeses. Young cheeses like ricotta, mozzarella, and fresh goat normally have a shelf life of 7-10 days, depending on when you purchased them. Generally speaking, the viability of this family of cheese is the easiest to decipher. If the specimen has a taste or scent reminiscent of that milk in the back of your fridge, your best bet is to toss it. Along with the milk.

4. Bloomy rinded cheeses like brie and Camembert will last longer than a fresh cheese but still have a high enough moisture content to spoil. Again, depending on the age of the cheese at date of purchase, this cheese style will generally last from three to six weeks. If the rind starts to develop a slimy, pinkish-reddish mold, consider it toast. Don't necessarily be afraid of ammonia-like smells. Ammonia is a natural by-product of cheese aging. Try taste testing in this case.

5. Washed rind cheeses like taleggio, limburger, and epoisses are best eaten straight from the cheese shop. These are the smelly cheeses, and the stink will only proliferate in the small confines of your refrigerator. Their rinds (and, in turn, the inner paste) will dry out and crack, which is nothing short of a death sentence for the bacteria living on the rind that makes this style of cheese distinctive. Washed-rinds will last two to four weeks, but try not to see them past their first week home.

6. Lightly aged, natural rinded goat cheeses, often individual in format and French in origin like aged crottin, chevrot, or chabichou du poitou are virtually indestructible. The nature of the cheese will change: it'll dry out and harden with age and the flavor will become assertive, but they won't turn. Try shaving an old dried up drum over a salad for an alternative to the ubiquitous sheet of parm or pecorino.

7. Aged cheeses like cheddar, gruyere, gouda, Parmigiano Reggiano, and fontina have been aged to an extent that ensures their durability. With such low moisture content, there's not much need to worry about these guys. In some cases, age can actually heighten the experience of these cheeses; more often the flavor will wan with exposure to air. If greenish-blue mold develops like in the picture at the beginning of this post, not to worry, just scrape it off.

8. Blue cheeses become more and more biting with age. You'll know by tasting whether or not it's become too strong for your taste. An old blue cheese will never hurt your health, only your taste buds. Blues with an especially high moisture content will go downhill more quickly. Wrap blues in tin foil to lock in their moisture.

9. The best way to store cheese is with cheese paper, which has an outer paper layer and an inner waxy layer. The next best thing is to wrap your cheese in parchment with a layer of plastic wrap over that. This way the cheese won’t dry out and you'll create a protective layer of humidity in the area between the plastic wrap and parchment. NEVER wrap your cheese in plastic wrap alone! Plastic wrap has a definite flavor and your cheese will taste of it.

10. Store your cheese in the warmest part of your refrigerator. In most cases, this would be the vegetable, cheese, or butter compartment. Even better, store all of your cheese together in a sizable Tupperware container. As mentioned before, cheese is alive, and cold temperatures limit important bacterial activity.

Nice things to say about composite counters

So I left off on Saturday with a rant about composite counters. Just to re-iterate my point, there is nothing natural about "natural quartz" counters. They are a whole different thing from natural stone and they are not a substitute for natural stone. With that said, I still specify them regularly and people who end up with them are always enthusiastic about how they look and wear.

Composite counters are essentially terrazzo and they look best when they are allowed to be that --something contemporary and calm. I think they look terrible when they are pretending to be stone.

Here's what I mean by my statement that they are not stone and are not a substitute for stone. There is nothing wrong with the color swatches above, I think they're kind of cool-looking as a matter of fact. But I would never use them in a traditional kitchen because I think that this product is out of place in a setting like that.

I think the kitchens in the photos above would have been much better served with a real stone counter. Contrast them with these shots from Caesarstone.

Here are some detail shots from the composite counter material I specify above all others, Caesarstone. Caesarstone markets itself more responsibly than the other brands that have an impact on the US market and it's not available in home centers. That's a home run in my book. Caesarstone also embraces the essential nature of composite and pushes it as far as it can. They have really adventurous colors and have lately been getting into interesting textures for their product. Hail Caesarstone!

I mean, check this out. The pebble-y pattern of this counter is a good touch. This pattern adds some interest without being distracting.

Composite counters are a good call but again, they are not a stone substitute. They cost as much if not more than a stone counter and they take you to a whole other place aesthetically. And even with all of that said and despite the truthiness of the industry that backs this material, I would still use it in my own kitchen. For me, that's the test anything I recommend has to pass.

Sunday literary supplement

I've been on an early 20th century American Lit. kick for the last couple of years. Two years in fact. I say that because two years ago I picked up John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath for the first time since I was in High School. Man, to read that masterpiece as a 40-something who's reading it because he wants to instead of reading it as a 17-year-old who has to puts a whole new spin on that novel, let me tell you. Reading it with a couple of years under my belt and with a far more practiced understanding of what loss means enhances it further. If you haven't read it in a while or if you've never read it, do yourself a favor and pick up that book.

Anyhow, from Grapes of Wrath I moved onto East of Eden, another masterpiece.

From there the rest of Steinbeck's life work filled my nightstand and overflowed onto the floor. I spent the next year-and-a-half reading everything the man ever wrote. I seemed to have stumbled upon a mid-life literary project and I finished his last book, Travels with Charlie over the summer. I feel like I know the man John Steinbeck as much as I know his work now. That feels good. 

A highlight of that whole exercise was taking Once There Was A War with me to Italy last spring. John Steinbeck was a war correspondent during World War II and he accompanied The Allies' invasion of Italy. To read about his experiences on the Isle of Capri while I was actually on the Isle of Capri still makes the hair on my arms stand up. I made it a point to seek out the places along the Bay of Naples and the Amalfi Coast he mentioned. There aren't any markers but Steinbeck did a great job of describing where he was and it was pretty, pretty cool to retrace the path of one of the greatest literary minds this country's ever produced.

I took this photo from the balcony of the hotel where Steinbeck and a bunch of soldiers were housed on Capri in 1943.

Anyhow, finishing up his work left a pretty big hole and I've been searching for a new literary pursuit. I think I found it in Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt, from 1922. Despite my previous incarnation as an English Major, I'd never read it before. I'm glad I picked it up. In an election season where passions are running high and the economy's tanking, it's interesting to read a novel set in 1920 when there was an election approaching, passions were running high and the economy was tanking.  Babbitt could have been written yesterday. George Will from the Washington Post mentioned Babbitt in one of his columns a couple of weeks ago and I bought the book based on his column. I don't find myself agreeing with Mr. Will very often, but I always respect his mind. At least so far as reading material goes, Mr. Will knows what he's talking about.

Lewis introduces his archetypal main character on the first page:

His name was George F. Babbitt. He was forty-six years old now, in April, 1920, and he made nothing in particular, neither butter nor shoes nor poetry, but he was nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay.

Like I said, it could have been written yesterday. So it looks like I'm on a Sinclair Lewis kick 'til further notice. Next up? Elmer Gantry of course.

Read this woman's blog

Kelly Morisseau is a Northern California-based CMKBD (Certified Master Kitchen and Bath Designer) and CID (Certified Interior Designer) and she writes a blog Kitchen Sync. I've been reading for the last couple of weeks. Kelly's been in the business for 25 years and she has quite a bit to say. Her blog is chock full of great advice, good humor and her valuable, expert opinion. Give it a peruse. She even answers her readers' design questions. Well, I would too except that no one ever asks me any...

Find Kelly's blog here.