review -

by Emily

Miniature Wine at a Miniature Price

Just when I think I’ve experienced all the wonders wine has to offer, it continues to astound and excite me. Enter: Copa Wine. I was at my local grocery store, grabbing some cheap-ish white wine to use in a recipe (actually, in the Sage Butter Chowder I shared recently) when I noticed a very intriguing new display in the booze section:

Copa Di Vino, or wine by the glass, is the brilliantly simple idea of bottling premium wine directly into a glass. Wine lovers can now drink delicious, quality wine from an attractive, eco-friendly, single-serving container. Just peel back the lid and enjoy!

I was a bit suspicious of these claims at first. Even though the display board proudly screamed that it “Tastes Great!” how good can a mini-bottle (or… cup?) of wine be if it only costs $2.99? Especially if it boasts a peel-back aluminum lid? “Really, though,” I thought, “who am I to judge?” And with that, I tossed a Copa Cabernet Sauvignon into my cart, determined to get to the bottom of this new and exhilarating product.

Kahlua in a Can?

While at a swaggy party sponsored by a couple booze distributors as well as Nissan (cars plus alcohol..always good thing to market together, yeah?) I came upon a very intriguing new beverage:

Kahlua…in a can?! What is this sorcery? It looks just like any other on-the-go cappuccino type of thing, but no! It’s 5% alcohol! Plus caffeine. So portable. Just imagine the possibilities. (Okay, I guess it’s kind of the same idea as Sparks, but it’s apparently 100% Arabica Coffee, plus “spices!”) Sadly, here’s the downside: it just doesn’t taste that good! Seriously, even Starbucks Doubleshots taste way better than these things. I hate to be saying this. I really wanted to like it. Usually coffee and booze is a match made in heaven. This one, though… you’d be better off mixing your own coffee and Bailey’s or something. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

by Emily

New Halloween Candy Alert!

It’s almost Halloween, and while we are looking forward to scoring some of the classic candy we all know and love (and unfortunately receiving the same duds as usual), there are a couple new tricks and treats to be on the lookout for. Two candy classics, Cadbury’s and Mike & Ike, have released new Halloween versions this year, and I’m here to tell you about them.

I’m not sure where the advertising has been regarding this first treat, but I didn’t know it came out this year until I was at a random convenience store the other day, picking up some Diet Coke to smuggle into the movie theater (come on, I’m not paying $8 for a fountain soda). At the checkout counter I noticed something very interesting:

What? Yes! Thankfully Cadbury realized that the world could not wait until Easter for their delicious filled chocolate eggs and released Cadbury Screme Eggs (we see what you did there, Cadbury) for Halloween. This is a huge development in the world of novelty candy.

Obviously I bought one and rushed home to try it:

PlanEat: An Education in Our Food Choices

PLANEAT.co.uk Trailer from planeat.co.uk on Vimeo.

Ed. Note: More from our resident evolutionary biologist Ph.D., EvoDiva.

The AFI Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland presented a special viewing of “PlanEat,” a documentary that broadly examines how the food choices we make affect everything around us. The title leads you to believe that it’s all about the planet, but it’s that and so much more.

We were lucky to have the young British filmmaker Shelley Lee Davis introduce her first film to us via Skype. Three years ago, she used to argue with her vegetarian boss over his dietary choice. But the more she discovered, the more urgent it seemed to get her newfound message to the masses. She quit her job and co-produced this film (with Or Shlomi) with no start-up money and no budget for marketing. Given all this, the film itself is impressive.

Of course it’s not about the killer special effects though – it’s about the content. We’ve heard morsels of much of this stuff before. The filmmakers interviewed scientists who study the relationship between food production and its impact on the environment. The wastewater from America’s breadbasket factory farms flows down the Mississippi River and creates a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico the size of New Jersey. The most striking (and frankly depressing) finding was that ovo-lacto vegetarians tend to have a worse impact on the environment than poultry eaters. This was based on the assumption that ovo-lacto vegetarians consume LOTS of cheese, and those cows really drain our resources.

Meanwhile, for those of you out there who can’t afford a new hybrid, you don’t have to get your tree-hugger card taken away: simply maintain a plant-based diet and you can have over 30% more of an impact than your flesh-eating, hybrid-driving friends.

As an evolutionary biologist and anatomy geek, I was most fascinated by the undeniable findings on the impact of animal protein on human health.