Streak? Streak? You want streak? This stuff will probably leave a rascally mucosa-fueled lava streak in your unsuspecting toilet.
Cal Ripken Jr. and Monkton-based Roseda Beef have teamed up to bring “Ripken Gourmet Burgers” to 30 Giant Food stores in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia with plans to double the number of distribution locations soon.
Stores started selling the $9.99 boxes of four six-ounce burgers on Friday.
“We have been serving the Roseda gourmet burgers at our complex in Aberdeen for over a year and they have been a great hit with the families attending camps and tournaments there,” Ripken said in an emailed statement.
...The beef from Roseda’s cattle is processed and dry-aged for 14 days at the Baltimore facility. The dry-aging process adds taste and tenderness, Burchell said.
“Cal’s reputation obviously speaks for itself,” Burchell said. “The last thing I would want to do, having been born and raised in Baltimore my whole life, is try to interface a product with [Ripken] that somehow didn’t meet his standards of excellence.”
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Posted: May 31, 2012 at 09:07 AM |
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1. jingoist Posted: May 31, 2012 at 11:51 AM (#4144156)I recently saw Cal; he's been eating way too many of those burgers; Kelly needs to put the boy on a diet!
Cal Ripken finished his career with 90.9 BBREF WAR, but he racked up almost 80% of that total before he turned 31.
37 players have totaled at least 90 WAR in their careers, one of whom is still active (A-Rod).
There is one other active player (Pujols) who is almost certain to reach that threshold (he’s at 84 now).
After Pujols, who will be the next guy to reach the long-hallowed 90 WAR threshold?
Of the top 100 active players by WAR (which goes all the way down to Mark Kotsay), only one player is “on pace” – defined as taking their average seasonal WAR to date, and then assuming they’ll post the same average WAR until they are 40.
That player is Evan Longoria, who merely needs to average 4.5 WAR until he’s 40 to get there.
Chase Utley is next closest – but given his injuries he seems like bit of a longshot to put up another 40 WAR
Other candidates who are all off-pace, but would make it if they averaged ~5 WAR until age 40:
CC Sabathia
Ryan Braun
Miguel Cabrera
Felix Hernandez
David Wright
Adrian Beltre
Dustin Pedroia
Troy Tulowitzki
Joe Mauer
Roy Halladay
Matt Cain
And kicked a kitten on his way out of town.
Does anyone here grind their own meat? I have a machine theoretically capable of it, and I'm curious if anyone has done so.
It's really silly to spend that much money on ground beef. Like, really, really silly.
If Cal doesn't like the quality of the beef, does Kevin Costner's wife flood the infield?
Does anyone here grind their own meat? I have a machine theoretically capable of it, and I'm curious if anyone has done so.
I've never done it for home use but used to do it at work everyday. I don't really see it being practical at the home level unless you buy a lot of primal cuts for some reason.
No, and I'm as foodie as they get. I cook mostly vegetarian/fish/chicken dishes, is probably why.
Old-fashioned clamp-to-the-counter meat grinders are standard junk-shop items; I imagine there's a subgroup of foodies devoted to them.
Only when the wife isn't in the mood.
He doesn't deserve to have his named spelled right.
Right, but unless you have moral objections, why are you paying for that for hamburgers.
Basically. Your butcher is taking the scraps of his work and grinding them up to make ground beef. That isn't to say he isn't buying meat for the express purpose of grinding it but the difference is that unless you are buying a lot of cuts that have a lot of trim you'll always be buying meat just to grind it thus it will never be a cheaper option* and beyond the feel doing something yourself there is almost no payoff. Perhaps 20 to 30 years ago one could argue that by grinding your own meat one is making a better ground beef product but that doesn't hold true nowadays.
*if we are comparing like quality meats/cuts to one another.
Is your argument that taste and texture wash out a lot when you grind meat into consumer-oriented hamburgers? (I'd be willing to buy pieces of that argument)
Making my own sausage might be a more tempting course of action, given the more interesting combinations one can choose as compared to ground meat.
I'm saying that home grinding meat doesn't produce a different kind of ground meat than some a business grinding meat. The equipment uses the same kind of dies and cuttters for both home and commercial use. So if you have a butcher you like and trust and you buy your meat from him and grind it up it will be no different and probably more expensive than if you simply bought ground meat from him*.
*Again, comparing like meats/cuts to one another. If for some reason you really like ground hanger steak meat then you can make the argument that doing it yourself is better than buying plain old ground beef.
Home sausage making is most definitely worthwhile. Because sausages have a recipe whereas grinding beef is simply a process.
It tasted like nothing?
Probably the best lesson I've taken away from celebrity chefs is Michael Symon's admonishment to stop using those expensive flavorless cuts of meat like filet, pork tenderloin, and boneless skinless chicken breasts.
Expensive cuts of beef are largely a waste when it doesn't really matter for your burger. Ribeye is great, for instance, but a ribeye burger is sort of a waste.
I mean, you're going to put some combo of cheese, onions, mushrooms, lettuce, tomato, bread, and spreads on the hamburger. Seems silly to spend a ton of money on meat that you don't really taste and doesn't have the right fat content.
The main advantages are:
1) You control the fat percentage
2) You control the meat mix (add lamb or pork or whatever).
3) You control when it is ground. Freshly ground beef tastes better.
4) You minimize how much the ground meat is handled, which allows you to preserve a lot of texture.
5) It's fun and makes you feel cool.
The main downsides:
1) It’s messy
2) It takes more time
3) You’ll be tempted to use higher quality cuts than chuck or random trimmings, so it usually ends up being more expensive.
1) You control the fat percentage
2) You control the meat mix (add lamb or pork or whatever).
3) You control when it is ground. Freshly ground beef tastes better.
4) You minimize how much the ground meat is handled, which allows you to preserve a lot of texture.
5) It's fun and makes you feel cool.
Those are really only advantages over big box store ubiquitous ground beef. If you are like smileyy, who it appears has access to a butcher and likes good quality meat, then home grinding doesn't really have those advantages. Well, 5 might still be an advantage but one could also aruge that having a butcher custom make your ground meat is fun and makes one feel cool as well.
Lastly, ground meat doesn't get handled a lot anyway so I'm not seeing where this is coming from.
Either way. There's very little taste difference in the first place, and most taste difference would/should be masked by condiments/toppings. How good a burger tastes to me mostly depends on whether the onions are grilled and how fresh the bun is.
Unless you literally eat a burger every day, I doubt you'd be able to tell the difference between a grass fed burger and a supermarket one.
The further away your beef-buying experience is from that (and I think most people fall in the “very different” category), the more you have to gain from buying the cuts whole and doing it yourself.
And like I said earlier you gain virtually nothing in flavor nor texture nor savings by buying your own cuts and grinding them.
The thing is is that if you don't have a butcher (and like you said most people don't) then there is little reason to trust a cut of meat at a grocery store any more than their ground meat. If you think some grocery doesn't use quality meat or take proper care of their ground meat then there is little reason to believe that they would for their other cuts of meat.
[34] That's a pretty high baseline, yeah, and I doubt many people get to that level. OTOH, ground daily and identifiably sources isn't too high of a bar. (I'm so out of touch with mainstream food, aren't I?)
There are two issues with ground beef. The first is that supermarket ground beef comes from a variety of sources, and the grinders come in contact with even more. So if any of those are contaminated, then everything is contaminated. Second, the pathogens contaminating the interior of the meat have a chance to multiply for the entire time before you cook it. If you buy a steak it is less likely to be contaminated and although your grinding may bring contamination to the interior of the meat if you cook it right away it won't have as long to grow before cooking and consumption. If you just leave it as a steak then the interior won't be contaminated at all and as long as the exterior is cooked adequately there's no real risk in having the interior medium rare.
Do people actually believe that food from the grocery store has a risk of contamination (e Coli I'm assuming)?
That ... is a little crazy. The food supply is really, really safe--and even if it weren't, you cook a hamburger.
Almost every single grocery store I have ever been to grinds their own meats within their store and they do it daily. That isn't to say they aren't going to sell you a day old package of ground beef but ground beef doesn't sit on the shelf for a week in a grocery and if it does shame on you for buying it and eating it.
As I have said several times now if you compare like levels of meat/cuts to like products you'll see no difference and really no difference in possible danger of getting sick. Only when you compare inferior product to superior product will you see a difference and quite obviously that debate is pointless.
No one in this conversation should be making the argument that some 4 day old grey piece of product shipped in from some plant in Boise at 99 cents a pound is just as good as freshly grinding grass fed black angus sirloin. But going to a butcher and buying grass fed black angus ground meat is going to produce virtually the exact same product (and at a cheaper price) that you will get if you were to buy grass fed black angus sirloin and grind it yourself.
The only insufferable ones are the ones who insist on telling you about it. Fortunately for you (and people like me), I'm an introverted foodie.
They may disagree but they do not disprove. Home cooking/preparation is not safe either. It is generally as unsafe if not unsafer than having professionals do it. The difference has largely to do with reporting of the problems.
Very few people call the health department because the potato salad they made from scratch went bad and they ate it anyway while they won't hesitate to call the health department when a store has the gall to do it.
I'm with you on the ground-fresh-today stuff, but that stuff scares the crap out of me. And it grossed me out to see that used in making a giant burger on some "creepy record breaking food" show. FFS, if you're making a 300lb burger, grind your own beef.
That's my understanding. It's not really the remoteness of the grinder that bothers me, though. Perfectly good partly-processed poultry and seafood can come from very far away. It's the opaqueness of the package. If you are buying "fresh," or at least unthawed, food, you really do want a look at it.
I think the opaqueness of the process bothers me more. The thing that says "Bob's Tube o' Meat" on it most likely did not come to the supermarket from "Bob's Tube o' Meat Co.", but rather a meat processing plant that Bob contracted the work to, possibly never really involving Bob much in the process at all.
I guess I don't get why this matters. Meat in this country is incredibly safe--safer than any meat has been in history. You can go into any grocery store, pick up some meat and have 99.99% confidence that it will not make you sick.
Most incidences of food poisoning happen when you either cook or store food improperly at your own house.
When I want burgers, I grind my own meat, and I grind it through a larger die, which gives thicker strands of meat, and I only grind it once. I haven't done side by side taste tests or anything, and the difference is probably small. But for curious cooks it might be worth a shot to experiment a bit.
If you do it at home you also have the chance to play with the bind (how loose/mushy the burger is). This insane recipe addresses that point, among other things.
Of course if you can get a butcher to do these things for you, doing it at home won't make a damn difference. I would be nervous about using a food processor ... the meat is in real danger of binding, which will make it bouncy like a sausage.
His recipe:
1. Choose a blend of well marbled meats and chill the meat deeply. The authors likes short rib, aged rib eye, and hanger the best. They want a burger with 25% fat or better known as 75% lean.
2. Chill grinder to just above 32 degrees.
3. Cut away any large chunks of fat from the meat and cut into cubes that are about 3/4 inch on a side. Chill meat to 30 degrees. Do not salt.
4. Grind the cubes. Don't force the meat through. Let the grinder do the work. The meat should be ground using a grinding plate with an aperture size between 1/8 to 3/16.
5. Collect the extruded meat in a cylindrical mold cut in half and lined with plastic wrap. Keep the strands as long as possible. Building up layers as the meat is extruded.
6. Repeat with a second mold and then combine the two molds.
7. Use the wrap to pull the meat out of the mold. Tighten the wrap to gently to compress the cylinder of meat.
8. Using a sharp knife cut the cylinder into desired thickness for patties. The tube can be frozen for later use but will have to be sawed into patties.
9. Cook, season, and garnish. Note that at no time in this process do you add salt and other flavorings. You do that after the cooking is done. Adding salts or other binders will make the burger rubbery. But if you want you can do it after you made the patties and if you are cooking them right away.
This is interesting. I thought you salted when it was in the pan to help with the crust thingy. Have I been doing this wrong the whole time?
With ground beef at least, there is actually a non-trivial amount of contamination out there, and there are recalls of meat products regularly, and the recalls are just ones they can prove. There are likely many more tainted meats that cause illness that never get reported or can't be traced back along the supply chain to a specific distributor or processor or farm. Fortunately, even if the beef is tainted in some way, the cooking process usually renders it safe to eat, depending on the organism involved. But cook your burgers all the way through!
What McCoy said is right. With that said, I've always salted burgers (and most meats) immediately before they hit the pan. I don't know the science behind this part of it, but raw meat seems to absorb salt better than cooked meat does.
But the important thing is to not salt the meat before you grind it or form it into patties. Salt accelerates the binding process. Briefly, ground meat gets sticky when you mix it or otherwise manipulate it. Binding is essential for sausages, but it's terrible for burgers. Bound meat is bouncy, rubbery, gummy. You want burgers to be mushy.
For those of you grinding at home, I use a 3/16 plate when I make burgers.
Except the Blumenthal salts the meat for 6 hours before grinding it.
As for salting the meat, as long as you immediately cook it we're not talking a big deal.
Raw meat most certainly absorbs salt better than cooked meat and that is largely to do with the fact that a raw piece of meat has far moisture on its surface than cooked meat so the salt is absorbed much faster and is better able to do its business.
But only a third of it, and then takes great care to not mix the meat at all before cutting patties. Weird recipe.
I worked at Alaska Stands on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland in college and we considered our burgers the best around. I will say that they were well-seasoned; so much so that the pepper would sometimes choke me if I happened to be downwind of the griddle.
In the Spring time, the owner would get sides of beef into his big store downtown on Wicomico Street and grind the burgers himself because the demand was low enough to keep up. I have to say I did notice a jucier, more tender burger from those than the frozen Sysco patties that we got during the Summer season. There's probably a lot more operating to establish that difference than I've accounted for, though.
McCoy may have other suggestions, but if I were to recommend one book for the science behind food, it would be On Food And Cooking by Harold McGee. It's nothing but the science in a readable format. Personally, I can pick that book up, open to any page, and happily lose an hour. Everything is covered, from the Maillard reaction that McCoy mentioned to how yeast works in bread making to alcohol distillery to sauce making to the native sources of various foods (e.g., the macadamia nut is one of the only food plants Australia has contributed to the world). It's got it all. And any retail bookstore will have it, so you can check it out to see if you'll actually enjoy owning it.
Edit: The information in that book does translate to practical use since understanding the science has value when cooking or baking. Well understood, and you're no longer just following recipe steps, but instead you know why bread needs to be needed longer or how the fundamentals of emulsions provide the basis for making a vinaigrette. Etc., etc.
CDC estimates 70,000 or so cases of E. Coli per year in the U.S. It can certainly be found in all sorts of places, but beef does tend to account for the largest share of cases of any single food.
Not that it's a huge problem, though. Burgers are awesome. I just work with too many health statistics to enjoy things.
It does, though it doesn't apply to diet sodas, milkshakes or fruit drinks. And you can order as many 16 oz drinks as you want at the same time. I don't think it applies to the size of bottled drinks in retail stores, but I'm not 100% sure about this. (Right now I'm relying on memory, not google.)
This is one of those laws that makes a certain amount of sense from a public health POV, but is so politically obtuse that it's hard to know where to begin. The truth is that while if the spirit of the law were followed**, it would (marginally) improve public health, the law itself is going to be seen specifically as an insult to every lardbelly in New York***. And because its effect will be felt directly by consumers, there's going to be no escaping the backlash. I have no idea whether this law would ever stand up in court, but I'm sure glad that Bloomberg is at least a nominal Republican.
**Meaning if enough people decided not to buy the second or third 16 oz drink, which is the apparent point of the law---to get people to "take a timeout" after finishing their first 16 ounces.
***And that's not even considering the anti-nanny state case to be made for not wanting a bureaucracy to micro-manage your meals.
I'd have to think that if you had a grinder, you could do better by buying regular meat and grinding it yourself.
!!! The same is true for me. Honestly, I've had spurts of what I'd call inadvertent vegetarianism. It's not that I'm avoiding meat entirely (though I do try to eat a Michael Pollan-friendly diet), but rather that it just doesn't come across my plate as often anymore. What makes this strange is that most of my social and professional life revolves around the food culture and restaurant business, and every event I've been to has meat - delicious, lovingly prepared meat - at the centerpiece.
@63/Andy (can I call you that?)
If the insular world of Barbri lecture class is any indication, this ban is not very popular at all. The protest is mostly over the nanny statism, and reminders of the cigarette ban (which remains pretty deeply unpopular even amongst my largely nicotine-free patch of friends.)
It does not. Easy way to figure out if it applies is if a food and drink serving license is required for the establishment.
This hard lefty will absolutely agree that proposed ban is ####### ridiculous.
If the insular world of Barbri lecture class is any indication, this ban is not very popular at all. The protest is mostly over the nanny statism, and reminders of the cigarette ban (which remains pretty deeply unpopular even amongst my largely nicotine-free patch of friends.)
Yeah, it's not always clear where the line gets drawn between sensible public health measures and a nanny state mentality, but the reaction to this one seems to say that it's viewed as pretty clearly over the limit. If the law's proponents are looking for a canary in a birdcage, they might note that the Times has already editorialized against it.
And then there's this telling quote, from an article in the Times about the local reaction:
Born into a third generation restaurant family. Worked in the family restaurant since I was 10. Went off to the CIA after high school. Worked in Dallas, Philly, NY, DC, and WI. Managed several kitchens including a Mobil rated 4 star restaurant but now am out of the kitchen and working in a hotel.
Lowry's suggestion of McGee's book is quite good but it might be a little daunting for those not heavily invested in cooking. There is a beginner book by a woman that I'll have to look for that might be a bit better for those not all the way into it just yet.
When Bloomberg's lost the Times, he's lost the city. I just don't see how a sugar (or any other food tax) tax will ever get a footing in the current climate. NYC in particular is awash in foodie-ism, and I can imagine that sort of ban going over as well as Chicago's foie gras chicanery. On the upside, loads more juicy Anthony Bourdain quotes.
Consuming more plastic and paper can't be a good thing, right?
And Jon Stewart has indeed weighed in...
"This is legal ... UNTIL IT MELTS!"
It would also make more sense if it didn't exclude diet sodas. Not only are there the questions about how safe the artificial sweeteners are there's also the fact that they may #### up your metabolism and do little to help you lose weight compared to drinking sugary sodas.
Eh. As a diabetic, I've had to use artificial sweeteners for almost thirty years now, and much of the hysteria over them lacks really compelling proof. I've been hearing MELTS YOUR BRAIN for that long about aspartame, but... where's the data?
Based on your comments of late, Lassus, I'm beginning to worry... ;-)
At last, the real reason BP imploded.
Yeah, I agree. The whole point is to stop a 16 oz Coke from seeming like a medium size.
I don't love the ban--it was always going to have a poor reaction and only have questionable utility. However, it does follow a lot of research about portion sizes being key to reducing obesity. It might actually be fairly effective given a long enough time frame. It would have been better if Bloomberg used a system of incentives to get restaurants to go along without all the attendant publicity of a ban.
I think the point of the ban is that it's "leaky." If you want to drink 32oz of Sprite, you can. You just have to think about it. This should not be viewed as a ringing endorsement of the policy.
*Well, not really. But everyone besides restaurants that this does apply to is way way smaller than a blip.
??? Have to say that I don't get this one. Do you mean drinks from a grocery store? I don't think (although I could be wrong), that soda is sold in bulk in sizes above 16oz.
Or does the law not apply at movie theaters or gas stations or something? Not really sure.
Again, not a huge fan of the law. I just feel like people are being a bit harsh with it.
Uh... grocery stores are the one place where you buy soda (or beer) in bulk. Its where you buy your 12 pack, 24 pack, 1 liter, or 2 liter of soda on sale. I notice that this ban doesn't apply to alcohol, despite the well known fact that beer WILL LITERALLY MAKE YOU DRUNK.
Edit: A common sale for soda in a grocery store would be 3 or 4 12 ounce soda cans for 10 bucks, or 5 two liter soda for 5 dollars, plus CRV and tax.
It's a huge deal. For starters the people have virtually no say in the matter. Secondly it is not applied evenly to all businesses selling beverages. You can go into a 7-11 and buy a big gulp but you can buy a 20oz soda from a food cart. That isn't right. Thirdly a lot places are going to simply create a workaround or it will mean virtually nothing to them. For instance this won't mean anything to most sit down restaurants and places like Burger King and McD's have fountain machines so it just means people will take a few more trips to the fountain before they leave. Movie theaters will do the same thing, hell, they already are giving out free refills. Arenas and stadiums will simply have 16oz bottles instead of 20oz bottles. So congrats Bloomberg you got the Yankees to reduce the amount of soda they'll sell you in one bottle but they aren't going to be dropping the price I can assure you of that.
I remember the good old days of being able to get a 24 pack for $5 and I also remember that after the New Coke fiasco Coke would sell two liters of New Coke for 99 cents. Of course Andy will inform us all that back in his day he was able to buy 5 gallon buckets of Grapico for two bees and an leek, but waddya gonna do?
Oh, okay, right. The 12 packs and such would seem to fall under the "you can buy two 16 oz cups" portion of the rule. 1 and 2 liters have a presumption of not being single servings, while BigGulps and the like do have the presumption of being a single serving.
Well, I would say that to all of your objections, the law is working as intended.
1. Bloomberg doesn't want people to have a say. He knows it's unpopular. The smoking ban was also unpopular.
2. I think the attempt of the law is to define normal. If you have to go out of your way to obtain a larger sized drink, that's okay by Bloomberg.
3. Portion size controls consumption. Again, I don't think Bloomberg cares if you get up multiple times.
The whole point of the law is that super-size beverages make people more likely to drink more sugary liquids that are bad for them. The goal of the law is to reduce that effect only. The goal is not to prevent determined people from drinking as much soda as they like. Again, I'm not a huge fan of the law, mostly because I feel like the approach is so ham-handed as to make it ineffective. I think that working with the largest chains on a national level would have a better effect.
Well, congrats to the law.
while BigGulps and the like do have the presumption of being a single serving
And wouldn't be banned under the law.
The goal is not to prevent determined people from drinking as much soda as they like.
The thing is the law will create a huge population of "determined" people. Again, under the law I can walk into a 7-11 and buy a 72oz Big Gulp and a crappy fat laden frozen burrito to eat. But if there is a food cart on the street right next to the 7-11 that food cart cannot sell anything larger than a 16oz drink. How is that the law working as intended or even logical in its application?
As I said before the majority of soft drinks consumed would not be impacted by this ban. All it is doing is placing another hardship on a few select businesses and getting Bloomberg's name in the paper again.
Oh, okay. I wasn't sure what you meant earlier (I think there was a typo). Yeah, this is sort of silly, I guess. I imagine it's due to a lack of authority rather than a lack of will. I can't imagine that they forgot about BigGulps.
Well, I don't think the law's goal is to eliminate soft drink consumption. The law's goal is to minimally decrease it with minimal impact to the consumer.
Bloomberg is doing this through the city Health Board which only has power over X businesses. The state regulates Y businesses and grocery stores and convenience stores like 7-11 fall under Y businesses.
The law's goal is to minimally decrease it with minimal impact to the consumer.
I think the goal of the law is to get Bloomberg publicity.
Nobody elected by the people or beholden to them have to pass this law. The law is being voted on by the Health Board, all of whom were put into place by Bloomberg.
The change was that the toy was now given to patrons in exchange for an extra 10 cents donation to Ronald McDonald House charities. However, you could no longer pay to (now donate in order to) get the toy without first buying a Happy Meal.
The calorie posting and toy ban seemed to have at least gotten McDonalds to include apple slices with the Happy Meal and make bottled water an option instead of soda.
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