Terminological inexactitude, affinity fraud, and indifferent slop

Okay, so I may have stretched the truth a bit when I promised a quick review of BakeWise rather than copping out and using it as reference material for a food science column. The review is still planned, but I've also added Jacques Pépin's Complete Techniques to the pile, and one or two more may follow.

Anyway, I've not done much of interest lately -- my dish known as "indifferent slop on mashed potato patties" was a hit (turkey, leftover green beans, and mirepoix from stuffing the turkey, all sloshed into gravy and served with the aforementioned fried mashed potatoes), but there's not much likelihood of anyone having the sort of leftovers that we did from Thanksgiving. Oddly enough no one else got the "indifferent slop" vibe from the finished product, which was essentially an inverted turkey cottage pie when you get right down to it.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I don't know who's been following the Agriprocessors/Rubashkin family fiasco out in Iowa, but I know a lot of past kosher turkeys from Trader Joe's came from them, and their product (Aaron's Best kosher turkeys) received high marks in Cooks Illustrated. I'm pretty sure TJs got their turkeys from Empire this year; they produce a pretty good product overall, and if you can justify the cost I highly recommend their frozen chicken. But the Rubashkin fiasco is a real crisis of conscience, not only for Orthodox Jews, but for anyone, Jewish or goyish, who has come to accept a kosher cert as a sign of quality and humane treatment. When you get right down to it, the Rubashkins are no different from any other robber baron -- muscle out the competition, run up the prices, and do whatever you can get away with to cut corners. In Agriprocessors' case, this included rampant animal cruelty, Microsoft-like price fixing and supply arrangements, worker abuse (mostly of illegals who were too inconvenient to complain), and for the extra affinity fraud icing on the cake a veneer of faith that would make Benny Hinn proud. I loved our kosher turkey this year, and would like to have one again next year. But not if it means paying into the pockets of a faith-based crook.

Stuffed pumpkin show on Google Video by Monday, and hopefully on TV by Christmas Eve.