Brits Banning Glass Pints

When I think of going to a pub for a pint of beer, I have a few specific ideas in mind:

• beer will be good
• beer will be served at the perfect temperature
• beer will have the perfect amount of carbonation from the tap
• beer will be served in a nice and heavy pint-sized glass

If I'm going to leave my home, travel to a pub and then spend as much on a single beer as I would on a six pack at the grocery store, I want that beer to be perfect. I suspect that an awful lot of pub-goers share these opinions, especially during a global recession in which it is getting increasingly more difficult to come up with recreational spending money.

According to the BBC story in the title link, Britain has decided that pint glasses made out of actual glass are too dangerous to be tolerated and are considering banning them from pubs. The plan is to replace the traditional glass with shatter-proof plastic. Here's why:

"Official figures show 5,500 people are attacked with glasses and bottles every year in England and Wales."

At first glance, 5,500 people being attacked does sound frightening. A closer look reveals that this number includes both bottles and glasses. Of those attacks committed with glass pints, no indication is given as to how many people were actually harmed. Thus, the relevant number could be a lot less than 5,500. It sounds like a nanny state government is just blowing everything out of proportion in order to get credit for "doing something". When you weigh these 5,500 attacks against the roughly 6,552,000,000 (six point six billion) pints served annually, you end up with less than 0.00008% of the pints actually being used in attacks.

This is why I loath and detest government bans against practically any object. Bans almost always start the same way. Somebody gets harmed by a person using a particular object in an unlawful manner and makes a fuss. Law makers and bureaucrats eager to earn their keep decide to "do something" and protect people from an alleged new public menace. The object that was used for an unlawful purpose suddenly becomes "bad" or "dangerous", without regard for its usefulness and without any responsibility being assigned to the attacker who used it in an unlawful manner. The next thing you know, a ban deprives society of a useful object and the thug grabs the next closest item and uses that as a weapon and the whole process starts over again.

For the most part bans are nothing more than knee-jerk reactions foisted onto simple-minded people who lack the reasoning skills to comprehend that they won't solve societal problems. If the goal is to disarm thugs in pubs, banning glass pints won't help. Bar stools, chairs, silverware, bottles, billiard balls, pool cues, darts, loose coins in a sock and countless other objects are just as dangerous. The only way to make pubs perfectly "safe" would be to turn them into padded cells where customers are stripped naked and chained to the wall while a medical team carefully administers alcohol-free beer through a tube.

To make matters worse, the pubs are already being hit hard by the recessions, as shown by these other BBC stories:
UK 'is losing 52 pubs each week'
Pubs are closing, but who cares?
Our pub's about to shut?!?

Here we are, in the middle of the decline of an industry, and these people want to make struggling businesses spend money to replace their glass inventory with a product that is likely to annoy their customers. All so that less than one ten thousandth of one percent of the pints served each year can no longer be misused by criminals who will undoubtedly pick up something else to wield as weapons.

Emergency Preparedness and Survival

Every time our country is hit by a major disaster, be it a flood, hurricane, fire or something else, the news is filled with sad stories about woefully unprepared people being left with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Too many people falsely believe that our government and emergency services will take care of them and keep them safe. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) suggests that people keep at least a three day supply of food, water and other essentials on hand at all times for each member of their household. They strongly encourage people to expand this to a two week supply if they can afford to do so. It can easily take several days for the government to get help to disaster victims. If the disaster is not limited to a small geographic area, it could take much longer. For example, if a tsunami wipes out the eastern seaboard or if terrorists detonate suitcase nukes in several major cities, there simply may not be enough emergency workers and supplies to go around.

Imagine for a moment that a disaster hits your home or office. It could be a dam failure, fire, tornado, hurricane, flood, earthquake or even a terrorist attack. 3,000 gallons of raw sewage could erupt from your drains and toilets when city maintenance goes awry. A small plane might crash into your home without warning. Your building may be destroyed or authorities might simply deem it unsafe and force you to leave. Streets could be blocked, flooded or collapsed making it impossible for you to drive to safety. How would you fare if you have only moments to quickly grab a couple of items before you are forced to flee on foot?

Are you ready to survive in an overcrowded gymnasium or stadium for several days with nothing more than what you can carry? Will you be passably comfortable in a room packed with people when you have nothing more than a few square feet of space on the floor? Will you be like the hurricane Katrina victims that were stuck in rescue shelters and rooftops without food or water if the government is slow to deliver supplies?

All of the gear in the world is of little use if you don't have it packed into a portable and quickly accessible package when you need it. You might not have two hours to dig through piles of camping gear to find what you need when your house is about to slide down a cliff. Unless you are a die-hard backpacker, chances are good that most of your recreational outdoor equipment will be too bulky and heavy for you to carry very far if roads are blocked and vehicles can't be used.

For around $150 and an hour or two of effort you can easily put together a good emergency kit that will help you and a loved one survive for a few days without running water, electricity or help from others. Hunger, thirst, cold, wet, minor injuries and boredom need not overly trouble you if you are adequately prepared.

The ability to create fire, construct shelters, patch up injuries and plan for a variety of adversities helps distinguish humans from less intelligent animals. Please take a moment to look over your emergency kit and make sure that it is complete, accessible and in good condition. If you don't have a kit, get one. Here are a couple of links that may help:

The Disaster Preparedness and Survival Gear section of my Amazon store

The FEMA "Are You Ready?" page (tips, checklists and guides from the US government)

Once you get the basic survival gear together, consider adding these additional items to your pack:

• Underwear and Socks in a zip-lock bag: Dry socks are especially important as they help keep your feet healthy so that blisters, infections, fungus and other things don't prevent you from trekking to safety
  
  
• Paperback novel and a deck of cards in a zip-lock bag: Survival can be surprisingly boring. These can keep you sane if you get stuck in a shelter for days and can even be used as kindling.
  
  
• Batteries for radios, cell phones, flash lights, GPS devices, etc.
  
  
• Prescription medications for yourself, family and pets
  
  
• Feminine hygiene products (tampons, pads, etc.)
  
  
• Powder: It can prevent heat rashes, dry wet feet to prevent blisters, help sweaty hands grip slippery objects and partially deodorize clothing.
  

'Anti-Stab' Knife On Sale in UK

New Point Knives in the U.K. is offering kitchen knives that are designed to minimize the risk of accidental and fatal stabbings while maintaining more or less their full functionality as food preparation tools. Many blogs and web sites are already overflowing with scornful comments about these products, with phrases like "knives don't kill people; people kill people" and other such rhetoric. Although I am about as pro-weapon and anti-nanny state as it gets, I decided to give this product the benefit of the doubt.
I am a somewhat serious amateur gourmet and am picky about my kitchen knives. They must each go into the proper slot in the cutlery block, be kept razor sharp, and must be washed by hand and put away the moment they are not in use. In spite of my fussiness about knives, I was hard pressed to come up with legitimate criticism for the concept of these new products. There really aren't that many uses for an endlessly long point on some larger types of kitchen knives. The New Point knives that I have seen so far do indeed have points, but the points are protected by a smooth rounded curve that would make it more difficult to thrust the blade deeply into something. Enough of the point is exposed to easily split the skin on fruit and even slice most food items. Granted, this sort of design would be impractical for various tasks such as boning, filleting and paring, but New Point doesn't appear to be offering those kinds of knives.

If the New Point knives are well balanced, sharp, comfortable and of high quality steel, I see no harm in their use and there are a few situations in which they could be quite helpful. For example, when teaching cooking in a home economics class, these knives might slightly reduce the risk of accidental stabbings in a room crowded with uncoordinated students. People with repetitive motion issues and nerve problems might find such a knife comforting as it would be less likely to stake a foot to the floor if it slipped out of a hand.

In short, I think it silly for someone to get angry about these products, especially if the person claims to believe in liberty and personal choice. Although I have no interest in owning one, I see no reason to grumble about them being on the market. To be honest, I think such grumblings just portray the pro-weapon and anti-nanny state people as unreasonable and makes it easier to dismiss their opinions on more serious issues. As long as nobody mandates their usage or tries to ban traditional knives, they aren't hurting anyone and could even be useful in certain situations (if they are of decent quality). I do, however, hope that people are not so foolish as to think that these are magically safe knives that can be treated carelessly or that all knives should use this design. They still have an edge and presumably can remove fingers and open arteries. Nonetheless, they may slightly reduce the frequency of some of the more serious accidental kitchen injuries that are commonly treated by emergency room staff.

More Bad Reviews for Anaheim White House

It looks like I should have done my research more thoroughly. Although I had heard good things and read some positive reviews before we chose the Anaheim White House, I just did another search and found many negative reviews of this restaurant. Here are some links to other reviews and excerpts:

by socaldi on DineSite.com:

the service was terrible… it was impossible for us to enjoy our overcooked, long awaited, mediocre meal. I don't know how this restaurant recieved [sic] a good rating

by cym8 on DineSite.com:

Not worth the $$'s. Service was good food very average.

by siniquezette on DineSite.com:

Orange County has much more to offer than this place. Entrees have no flavor to them at all. Very bland and much lack of creativity in all dishes.

by ekschuller at CitySearch.com:

…they fed me what appeared to be little quiches from a box bought at Costco together with wilted endive for ONLY 16 bucks a person!!! ...I will thus not ever return here and I recommend to anyone that asks never, ever to go there…

by ymy72579 on CitySearch.com:

…my wife ordered; well, it was sooo awful that i don't even remember. Chicken tasted like over nuked microwave mcnugget w/o meat juice. The portion was soo small, It only took me a sec to lick it off the plate. Enviorment [sic] feels like haunted house in southern part of mississippi from horror movie

by jamizban on CitySearch.com:

From the time we sat (and they messed up our reservation, btw) until the time we finally got our souffle, which took almost an hour to produce after we ordered it, it was 3 1/2 hours! ... the kitchen needs to desperately get their stuff together. Won't go here again.

by thenewbombs on CitySearch.com:

It took 30 minutes to get a menu, another 45 minutes to get cold appetizers and more than an hour to get our main courses. The souffle that we ordered at the beginning of the odyssey was still not ready THREE HOURS LATER! Do NOT come here...

by epop on evite.com:

...service was terrible, the place smelled, and the food was only so-so. It was very overpriced...

on restaurants.com:

My experience at the The White House was terrible. I would not suggest anyone going Anaheim White House. Terrible FOOD...

Judging from all of these negative reviews, it sounds like this place either used to be good and fell apart or is just utterly unreliable. Oh well, live and learn. Eventually this post will show up on search engines when people look for "Anaheim White House" and will hopefully save others from a similarly bad experience.

Anaheim White House of Flies

Last weekend my wife and I went out to celebrate a special occasion. We were looking for a place with gourmet food and good ambience and decided to give the Anaheim White House (www.anaheimwhitehouse.com) a try. Big mistake.

When we arrived, we were greeted by a valet who charged $3 +tip for the service of parking my car in their empty lot 30 feet away from the front door, a feat I could have easily managed myself.

Once inside, we discovered that the restaurant had lost the reservations under my name. After a brief discussion they seated us anyway.

The waiter came out to take our drink order and I asked to see the wine list, which he didn't have. After my wife and I each made additional requests, we finally obtained their extensive wine list. The Maitre d' or manager then came over and gave us a colorful and enthusiastic explanation of the specials and even recommended an excellent wine to go with my meal.

As we waited for our appetizer, we were plagued by a black house fly that buzzed around us incessantly. While the ravioli appetizer was fantastic, it also attracted more flies. Our uninvited table guests began to irritate us and after a while we killed a few.

When the main course came out, we were treated to excellent presentations of perfectly cooked mixed vegetables and angel hair pasta as the accompaniments to our entrees. My wife had the 'Gauthier Maine Lobster', which was supposedly poached in champagne sauce. In reality, I think the chef drank the champagne and cooked the lobster in a ceramics kiln because it came out dry and flavorless with an anodized shell that could not be breached by our table implements. Unfortunately, the restaurant didn't have crackers or picks and we were left at the mercy of the chef's failed attempt to split the shell prior to serving.

My meal was supposedly a critically acclaimed award winning special that included Filet Mignon and Maine Lobster. My lobster was also overcooked and lacked the customary Maine Lobster sweetness. The steak was unremarkable for a filet mignon (I've often prepared better and have had its equal at casual places like Marie Callenders and The Outback).

As my wife and I gnawed on our leathery lobster, more flies began to arrive. Eventually the five black corpses we left smashed on our window convinced the swarm to leave us in favor of attacking other diners. While we celebrated our victory the couple at the table next to us asked the waiter for better lobster cracking hardware and complained of the lobster being overcooked. Since the restaurant had no cracking tools for the diners, the waiter took the offending crustacean back to the kitchen where they presumably used the jaws of life to crack open the shell.

We also complained about the quality of the lobster to the waiter who merely gave us an "Oh, that's too bad" dismissal and scurried away. My wife then complained to the Maitre d', who gave us a sincere sounding apology. Although by this time we were both thoroughly annoyed, we decided to wait for dessert (a Grand Marnier soufflé that we had ordered at the beginning of the meal since it takes a long time to prepare).

The waiter brought out a top notch soufflé along with chocolate sauce, whipped cream and two glasses of champagne, all of which were free of charge in the hopes of making up for the lobster and to help us celebrate our special occasion.

Feeling somewhat mollified, we proceeded to enjoy our dessert until the bill arrived. Boy, were we in for a shock.

• Ravioli Appetizer: $25 ($12.50/person rather than for the table)
• Dinner Salad: $8
• 2 glasses of wine: $21
• Gauthier Maine Lobster: $59 (listed as “Market Price”)
• Weekly Special Steak and Lobster: $75 (no price was volunteered by the waiter at the time it was described and while we thought it would be expensive, we didn’t expect it to cost more than double the most expensive entree on the menu)

Our bad lobster, lost reservations, black house flies and valet parking would have cost us a whopping $201 +tax +tip had they not taken off the $10 desert.

Looking back on it, we should have raised hell and demanded a bigger discount. At the time we just wanted to celebrate our special occasion and have a pleasant evening so we didn’t make much of a fuss other than complain a couple of times and leave a negative comment card topped with several dead flies as testament to our bad experience.

Let this be a warning to those of you who are considering dining at the Anaheim White House. Unless you have money to burn and like bad seafood and house flies, I suggest you dine elsewhere.

Brewing Mead

For quite some time I’ve wanted to try brewing an alcoholic beverage at home. After doing some research, I found a place in my area that has all of the brewing equipment and ingredients and makes a business out of helping people brew their own beers and sodas at their facility. Thus, rather than buy all of the equipment and go through the extensive sterilization process, I decided to take advantage of their service and do it there.

I decided to brew mead, mostly because mead is fairly uncommon compared to beer. I can buy countless varieties of beer almost anywhere, but I’ve only found half a dozen varieties of mead in my local stores. Also, mead is a bit more versatile than beer as there a number of different ways you can serve it (see below).

I took the brewery’s standard mead recipe (2.5 gallons of honey, 7 gallons of water, 1tbsp Irish Moss and 2 tubes of Champagne yeast) and modified it a bit (I’m one of those people who can’t follow a recipe without adding my own flourishes). I added one quart of light malt in the hopes of giving it a subtle malty accent. This should theoretically be quite pleasant, though it isn’t nearly enough malt to transform the brew into the traditional mead/ale hybrid known as “braggot”. Unfortunately, it will take a couple of months for my batch to ferment before I can bottle it and taste it for the first time.

For those of you not familiar with mead, here are some interesting facts about it:

• it’s believed to be the oldest alcoholic beverage brewed by man (5,000BC or before) and variations were brewed by most ancient civilizations all over the world
• it’s usually about 10-15% alcohol (mine is predicted to be 13%)
• it’s believed by many to be the source of the word “honeymoon”, as Celtic, Scandinavian, Babylonian various other newlyweds would drink this honey wine for a month or “moon” after the wedding (some cultures thought this enhanced fertility or increased the chances of conceiving a male child)
• depending on recipe and yeast type, it can range from a very dry ale or wine-like beverage to an extremely sweet dessert wine (I’m trying for moderately dry)
• both dry and sweet variants will have a honey-like flavor, and the type of honey used strongly affects the flavor of the beverage
• mead can be flat like wine, or sparkling like champagne (I’m trying for sparkling)
• the are many ways to serve mead, ranging from drinking it chilled like beer to mixing it with fruit juice on the rocks or heating it with mulling spices like mulled wine
• it is easily brewed without sulfites, and is less likely to cause headaches than wines made with sulfites
  

I’ve read that a tasty liquor can be created by freezing mead in a large-mouth container (like a bucket) over night, and then removing and discarding the block of ice from the remaining liquid. This removes a significant portion of water as well as some impurities that get trapped in the ice. The result is a higher concentration of alcohol and a more pure tasting beverage that can be served as a cordial. This might go nicely as a Drambuie substitute in a Rusty Nail, one of my favorite mixed drinks.

If you’d like to learn more about mead, try these links:
AllAboutBeer.com
GotMead.com
MeadMadeComplicated.org
OldestBrew.com

Wish me luck in the outcome of my first batch. If this works, I will probably get the equipment and try making it at home on my own next time.