Filippo Berio: Spray Olive Oil

Hey, they can not all be crazy new inventions, I'm not made of money

I have been looking at these in the grocery store for sometime now. Thinking, "Hmmm this is 5 bucks and filled with potentially not very good oil and I could go to Sally's Beauty Supplies buy a spray bottle for 2 bucks and fill it with my own good oil." Well I finally caved and bought it. Not so much as because I like the product but I like the idea. Sorry this is not a blog about the new thing that turns cotton candy into a weight loss beverage with the abilities and well endowments of your choice, it is about a pump spray bottle with olive oil in it.

I do not dislike PAM spray or in the case of the professional kitchen Vegelene, I use it for spraying all sorts of things. Including and if you tell anyone I will deny it and you will meet Jimmy Hoffa, lightly spraying items to be toasted or grilled quickly rather than dirtying up a cup and some brushes to coat some bread. Again...Jimmy Hoffa. I bought this for the same reason, not for non-stick purposes but to lightly coat food items. Ready for the excitement, what fantastic amazing item is Robert going to grill up for his eights of readers???

HAHA...Belgian Endive...I'm poor...sigh

So, I sprayed some Belgian Endive and sprinkled it with my favorite multi-purpose seasoning SPIKE. I also did not pay for the endive it was given to me to emphasis the fact I have no money. Now what amazing way will I cook these, sous vide? inverter microwaves? green non-stick pans? Nope, are you ready!

I did not pay for this either, I think my sister gave it to me, or I stole it. Notice the SPIKE, mmmmm.

Yes, I grilled it on a George Foreman. Shut it, they work well for adding some grill marks in a pinch. George had it right by selling these to the public, they have been around forever, in Italy, they are called panini grills, or panino if you want to get technical. Here is the proof:

Sure looked grilled to me, and they are cooked, and if you count them, they are tasty

The spray was fine enough that it covered it quickly and evenly. As you can see there was good heat transference because of the grill marks. It worked. So it is a good idea. Now here is the low down. This is a one shot deal, they rigged it so when it is empty you need to buy another one. Go to a hardware store for a large one, or a beauty store for a small one. Then go to the grocery store, you have one of those right? and buy your favorite oil that will not smoke and ignite if you are going to cook it (pure olive oils, canola, sunflower, etc), or the best tasting one if you are going to just serve it (walnut, avocado, extra virgin olive oil, or if you are rolling in the dough white truffle, then call me), finally pick up eggs, Zebra Cakes, and Diet Mountain Dew for me. Do not mix and match bottles, dedicate them, because oil leaves flavors and smells behind. Do not stop at oil; vinegars, wines, syrups, and liquors will all benefit from being finely misted on to food. Now you can say "Oh I added a essence of XO cognac to my turkey sandwich on Wonder Bread" Spritz anything, your imagination is your key.
I also can tell you that it works fantastic as a non-stick spray as well. My eggs came out beautifully for breakfast the next day...so what if it was at noon it is still breakfast. Buy your own bottles and add a touch of professionalism to your own kitchen. You can also tell your "I am opposed to chemicals" hippie friends that you did not use propellants...but secretly add MSG from my Umami Paste blog to get even and have the last laugh. Maybe next week I will have more money to talk about something more intriguing to the masses. Until then work with some basics and quit crying about it.

iSi Twist n Sparkle

What a crazy week but it ended on a high note, it was pay day and I got my tax return which was larger than I expected. So like any red blooded American with a little extra scratch I got in my car and headed to the mall. Now I live in Poughkeepsie, NY so our mall is basically a soup kitchen with a used car dealership and a Macy's attached to it oh and a Target but I am a chef so I wanted a Williams Sonoma to drop a large chunk of money at. Off to Danbury, CT, however apparently Sprint Navigation thinks that there is a store on a cul de sac in the middle of mountain range with no cellphone service and no street lights, so Sprint here is a middle finger to you. Thank you police officer of what ever unnamed town I ended up in that lead me to the mall. Cursing the whole way I get there and realize I have always wanted something like this. There are a bunch of new trends right now that have lead to this type of product being more readily available to the domestic population. Those trends are: the anti-plastic movement, the anti-high fructose corn syrup movement, the anti-soda corporation movement, the anti-letting people decide for themselves movement, and the pro-making me angry movement.
There are several varieties of these I have seen, the big one is the Soda Stream. Then there is the iSi Twist n Sparkle. I chose the iSi for several reasons even there are pros to the Soda Stream. The iSi corporation has been creating soda canisters for many years, in fact if you have ever used a soda gun it was probably iSi. It will be slightly more expensive in the long run, because the Soda Stream uses a canister that make multiple batches while the iSi only uses single shot canisters. But as with the coffee pod movement I worry that if the company goes out of business the canisters are no longer available, but the single shots are the standard generic type that I have seen. The iSi can be stored in a drawer, the Soda Stream takes up counter space. So $105.00 later, for the starter kit (1 gun, 3 cartridges, and 1 bottle), 2 additional bottles, and a 24 additional cartridges I leave Williams Sonoma, still angry with Sprint, like murderously angry. I see a Macy's, now I saw a soda machine there first, and the concentrates for them. I decide to buy the concentrates and figure out how to use them in this kit (2 1/2 Tbsp Soda Stream Concentrate to 3 cups water for the iSi). I did not tell you that you figured it out yourself and told me and I went back in time and posted that.
Here is how it works. Moved to NY and fell in love with a coffee soda. It is expensive and is just essentially carbonated sweetened coffee, I did not have any cold coffee around but will make it soon enough. I used iced tea instead.

Fill with 3 cups of liquid, use a funnel (sold separately, if you do not own a funnel hit yourself with a tack hammer)

Add 1 cartridge, this is my soda maker, there are many soda makers like it but this one is mine, without me it is nothing, without it I am nothing

Screw on cap, tightly, it will leak not great seals

Holy fizz Batman

After 1 minute, remove gun and add cap, store and drink

Look, fizzy lifting drinks! Yes, I read the instructions

Fizzy black tea, I actually like it, some lemon would be perfect

I like this, so fun, I have wanted one for a while, especially after my homemade root beer attempt which lead to brown stains on my ceiling. KABOOM! Sticky mess. Now I can make a diet one because I am a diabetic and to make carbonation the traditional way you need to use yeast and sugar, which lead to kaboom. Next on my list is to carbonate whole bottles of liquor. Mmmmm carbonated bourbon. Bring this to parties, mix up large batches of any non-pulpy drink, carbonate, and don't share. You bought it, let them buy their own, oh and tell them how good it is. I will also try to carbonate solid food in here too, specifically grapes and melon balls. Use the concentrates to make your own flavors of cola, chocolate, vanilla, lime, bacon, whatever, do it. The cost per 24 fl oz of any soda works out to be about $.90 that is not bad, and you can feel all pious as you will not be using plastic bottles and tell people how much better than them you are, then drive your hybrid, slowly, away. They also have energy drink concentrates, much lower in sugar than the ones you buy in a can but all the caffeine, use the same ratio as previously listed.
Good product, iSi, you get a cookie and a medal, they're in the back in a box go help yourself. Go spend your tax refund on this like I did, money does buy happiness, your grandmother was wrong. Fizzy drinks also make happiness. Finally, Sprint Navigation on the HTC Hero, you can take a long walk off a short pier, which is probably what your GPS system will tell you to do, I am sure there is a Home Depot at the bottom of whatever large violent body of water you walk into.