Double Dipping

A recent New York Times article noted that lots of dip gets consumed during the Superbowl. And a lot of dips do the consuming, some of whom double-dip. Personally, I think it's disgusting to put the same food item that was already in your mouth back into a communal food bowl. (Yet using chopsticks to pick food out of communal food dishes in Chinese restaurants doesn't bother me. Perhaps my brain considers it a "when in Rome" situation.) I'll do it when I'm sharing a dip-type food with my husband (Mr Minx and I have already shared plenty of bacteria over the years), but never when non-husband dippers are involved. It's as much not wanting to experience the germs of others as not feeling the need to share mine.

Some folks don't think it's a big deal. I'm pretty sure I have seen a certain someone commit the heinous deed in the past, and I made sure to avoid that particular diplike substance for the rest of the party (both the foodstuff and the double-dipper).

From the NY Times article:

The team of nine students instructed volunteers to take a bite of a wheat cracker and dip the cracker for three seconds into about a tablespoon of a test dip. They then repeated the process with new crackers, for a total of either three or six double dips per dip sample. The team then analyzed the remaining dip and counted the number of aerobic bacteria in it. They didn’t determine whether any of the bacteria were harmful, and didn’t count anaerobic bacteria, which are harder to culture, or viruses.

There were six test dips: sterile water with three different degrees of acidity, a commercial salsa, a cheese dip and chocolate syrup.

On average, the students found that three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from the eater’s mouth to the remaining dip.

Each cracker picked up between one and two grams of dip. That means that sporadic double dipping in a cup of dip would transfer at least 50 to 100 bacteria from one mouth to another with every bite.

The kind of dip made a difference in a couple of ways. The more acidic water samples had somewhat fewer bacteria, and the numbers of bacteria declined with time. But the acidic salsa picked up higher initial numbers of bacteria than the cheese or chocolate, because it was runny. The thicker the dip, the more stuck to the chip, and so the fewer bacteria were left behind in the bowl.

Professor Dawson said that Timmy was essentially correct. “The way I would put it is, before you have some dip at a party, look around and ask yourself, would I be willing to kiss everyone here? Because you don’t know who might be double dipping, and those who do are sharing their saliva with you.”

So there you go. Unless you want to share saliva with everyone in the room, just say no to double dipping.

Aromatherapy

moar funny pictures

Not as Bad as it Sounds

I got home from work last evening to the smell of cooking bell peppers. Neither Mr Minx nor I particularly like bell peppers, as they tend to overwhelm just about anything they are cooked with. But they are an integral part of both sausage and peppers and gumbo, so we do allow them in the house from time to time.

"What are we having for dinner tonight?" I asked, as Mr Minx helped me off with my coat. His hands smelled of fresh cilantro.

"Mexican Vomit Soup," he replied. To my look of horror, he added, "I tasted it; it's pretty good."

I went to the kitchen and tentatively opened the lid to the soup pot. Peering in, I saw a pale orange substance, chunky and opaque, and understood Mr Minx's name for the dish. But it smelled pleasantly of cumin and cilantro, and I was hungry, so sat at table with my spoon ready.

The soup was rich and flavorful. There were large chunks of tomato and celery, corn kernels, and bits of pork.

"Did you use the rest of the pork tenderloin in this?"

"Yes. And the leftover pasta sauce." Mr Minx had made sauce last week, using both sundried tomato chicken sausage and meatballs.

The flavor of the soup was not unlike tortilla soup. It was delicious, and I devoured it with gusto, pleased that there was enough left over that I could take some for lunch during the week.

"Bet you didn't notice I put the leftover polenta in it," Mr Minx said later. A-ha! No wonder there wasn't the usual rice/pasta/potato starch addition.

What a great way to use up leftovers - make soup! Mr Minx has done this before, creating a very flavorful dish out of a combination of weird leftovers. He has a knack for it, you might say, whereas I am a little afraid of turning out something nightmarish.

What's the weirdest concoction you've ever created with leftovers?

ETA: Based on Amy's comment...I'd like to change my question to "what's the weirdest EDIBLE* concoction you've ever created with leftovers?"
*meaning it tastes like food and not garbage.

Sushi + Kids = Noisy

It's been quite a while since Mr Minx and I went out for sushi. The last time we had it was in September, when we were in Albuquerque. Before that, it was July's Morimoto excursion. I had to go to the mall to pick up my new glasses today, so I left work early, did just that, then we went to our favorite local emporium of raw fish, Yamato Sushi. It was 5:30 and only two tables were taken. By the time we left, less than an hour later, it was standing room only. The place is pretty small, only about 12 tables plus the sushi bar, and I counted 11 children, 9 of which were under the age of 8. They were squirming and yelling and crying and rolling on the floor. I'm not a big fan of Rugrattus Americanus, and so many of them in an environment not a daycare center or school (which of course I would never set foot in) made me itchy.

I was shocked to see that sushi restaurants (at least this one) seem to have become the new family restaurant. What I want to know is: what the hell do kids eat in a sushi restaurant? I've been an adventurous eater since birth, pretty much, but there's no way I would have touched raw fish. These kids were so busy squirming and whining, being admonished by parents to "sit please," I'm sure they didn't eat much at all.

Do your beasts children eat sushi?