Suzanne Somers in Lexington Court

Hollywood star Suzanne Somers is in Kentucky - unfortunately not to visit Keeneland or to score some beer cheese, but to testify in court.

You may remember (I don't, honestly) that back in 2006, Somers and former Kentucky governor John Y. Brown, Jr. teamed up for a restaurant called Suzanne's Kitchen. The place failed after only five months, and now one of the investors wants his money back. According to WTVQ, "John Bouchillon of Louisville is suing Somers and she's in Lexington now for the trial. Bouchillon claims he was misled into investing $400,000."

WKYT, however, is reporting that Somers had no written contract with anyone in this matter, and was only lending her face and name to the project on a good-faith verbal agreement. In court, Brown has testified that like so many restaurants, the project simply failed and they can't be held responsible; investing in any restaurant, after all, even one endorsed by a celebrity, is a shaky proposition in this economy. Caveat emptor.

Toxic Candy Is Toxic

I'm including this here because I see this candy everywhere in Kentucky stores - no doubt because its distributor is based in Indiana. Talk about truth in advertising: the prophetically-named Toxic Waste Nuclear Sludge Chew Bars have been recalled after elevated levels of lead were found in the product. It was discovered that Toxic Waste candy contains 0.24 ppm of lead, which is far above the 0.01 ppm allowed by the FDA.

I find it troubling that I can't find any mention of the recall on their website, which still continues their stupid postmodern irony shtick in its ad copy, with blurbs like "We dare you to take the Toxic Challege! [sic] Try the only sour candy officially proclaimed HAZARDOUS!" Their Twitter is not mentioning the recall either. Hey guys, when there's a candy recall, aren't you supposed to make sure as many of your customers as possible actually hear about it so they can dispose of already-purchased product?

The recall of the candy (which was not actually produced by the Indiana-based Candy Dynamics company but outsourced to Pakistan - well, at least it wasn't China this time) covers all lots and all flavors produced since 2007, according to CBC News.

The Hot Brown

It's funny - it's happened more than once that when friends from faraway places come to visit, they're puzzled that the "Hot Brown" isn't on the menu everywhere we go. "I thought everyone in Kentucky eats Hot Browns", they say. Nope, sorry. We don't all eat Derby Pie, Squambo, or squirrel brains either. (One of my houseguests was from Australia, and she demonstrated the inverse to me by pointing out that the menu at Outback Steakhouse is, as a representation of Aussie cuisine, virtually a total fiction.)

I'm actually not a fan of the Hot Brown sandwich myself; I don't care for sandwiches covered in gooey runny sauces, and I'm such a tomato snob that the tomatoes that most restaurants use simply aren't good enough for me.

Having said that, Wikipedia's photo of the Hot Brown (pictured above) shows an example from the Kurtz Restaurant in Bardstown, and I have to say it looks pretty darned good. I'd probably still pick the tomaters off, but I like how it's coated in a thick melted American cheese instead of the traditional alfredo-ish Mornay sauce. Next time I'm in Bardstown, I may stop in and check it out.

But as a cultural relic with mythic resonance, I fully appreciate the Hot Brown as part of the Brown Hotel experience - the sandwich was created there by Fred K. Schmidt in 1926. The Brown Hotel is one of Louisville' greatest treasures, and is, as you might expect, very haunted. I'm working on a project to assess the supernatural activity at the Brown Hotel, but we'll talk more about that in the near future.

Hell's Kitchen Comes to Kentucky

I forgot to blog about this, but a few weeks ago the producers of the FOX-TV reality cooking show Hell's Kitchen sent a casting crew to Louisville's Red Star Tavern to audition a long line of hopefuls. I didn't even know the casting call was going on - I just happened to be strolling out of the Hertz-Starks Building and wondered what all the crowd was lined up for.

The show stars the perenially controversial Gordon Ramsay, he of the alleged death curse. Although I have dabbled as a chef in my checkered past, I opted not to queue up for the chance to be on his show. I seriously doubt my idea of cuisine would mesh well with Ramsay's supersnob sensibilities.

Donut Cheeseburgers Coming to Kentucky

A Krispy Kreme Cheeseburger may not sound very good to you, but I'm intrigued by the concept. (Then again, I have a stainless steel stomach when it comes to "fair food", having been an early adopter of the deep-fried Twinkie and the deep-fried cheesecake.)

Well rejoice, my fellow arteriosclerotics-in-training, the Krispy Kreme Cheeseburger is coming to the Kentucky State Fair. According to Cailley Hammel at Bluegrass Moms, the creation was tried out at the Wisconsin State Fair, where a donut was cleaved lengthwise like a bagel to form the two buns for the meat. However, at Kentucky's fair, they're reportedly using an entire donut for each of the buns. Crazy, man, crazy. But I am so there.

Predictably, the media attention about the donutburger is leaning heavily on scare-tactic health warnings, as if eating a donutburger all at once is somehow much worse than eating a donut for breakfast and a burger for lunch. They did they same thing when KFC announced its Double Down Bacon Sandwich that used slabs of fried chicken instead of buns, and I don't think anyone ended up going to the emergency room over it.

Instead of counting calories or fat grams, I urge you to watch your intake of trans-fats/hydrogenated oils instead, because that's what'll kill you. (and Krispy Kreme donuts, before you ask, dear reader, are virtually trans-fat free!)

Uno

While driving through Hart County, you might spot this cryptic road sign for Uno, Kentucky,

Supposedly its name is intended to mean "You Know" which, further supposedly, refers to the area's once-booming illicit moonshine industry. According to Wikipedia, another name for the town is Clearpoint, which supposedly really means "clear pint", as in moonshine. (I am deeply skeptical, however, of all fanciful local-lore retconned explanations of the name origins of small towns, which rarely turn out to be true.)

One thing we do know for sure is that the famous Smith's Country Hams got its start in Uno. Though that original store no longer exists, their Cave City location is still going strong.

Is Manchester Too Fat?

Clay County seems to be getting quite the bad rap lately, what with the Kentucky State Police Cockfighting Scandal earlier this year and the mysterious death of Bill Sparkman last year. Now there's a study that, according to The Atlantic, says the population of Manchester, KY is twice as obese as the national average.

Twice as obese. Twice as obese. How is that possible? Is that possible?

The Washington Post puts an especially sinister-sounding spin on it all, almost begging for a creepy soundtrack music cue and the gravelly-voiced guy on City Confidential:

The residents of this town of 2,100 -- 95 miles southeast of Lexington and deep in the Appalachian foothills -- indeed appear to celebrate the joys of community closeness. The bake sales, the volunteering. But it's what goes uncelebrated, and even ignored, here that has become Manchester's defining feature: In an increasingly unhealthy country, it is one of the unhealthiest places of all.

When I read these reports, I started racking my brains of everyone I know in Manchester - and I have to say, they're not morbidly obese by any stretch of the imagination. Is the statistic flat-out wrong, or are there just hordes of unseen fat people hiding in the bushes, out of sight like "the Others" in Lost?

The piece quote a local resident, Charles Rawlins, as saying: "The kids around here, they'll eat cornbread and taters for lunch. They'll get a 20-piece chicken meal. It's killing them."

I'm not so sure about that. My people back in Estill County are still in great health despite being born and raised on chicken, cornbread and taters.

I blame the processed junk they put in goods nowadays, like high fructose corn syrup, MSG, Nutrasweet, Splenda, partially hydrogenated oils, and genetically modified crap. I also blame cable, internet and especially video games turning America into a bunch of sedentary monitor-watching insensate food tubes who can't spell, can't talk, can't socialize, can't communicate coherently, and can't find their own ass on a map if their lives depended on it.

Monsanto Wins Supreme Court Victory

The constantly controversial Monsanto (the company that brought you Agent Orange, Nutrasweet, and DDT) has won a surprising victory in the U.S. Supreme Court: an injuction has been lifted that had been a stumbling block for Monsanto's plan to sell genetically modified alfalfa seeds without having completed safety tests on them. A lower court had previously barred the sale of their modified alfalfa seeds as scientists warned of the potential danger of the "Frankenfood" plants cross-pollinating with other neighboring crops.

Monsanto was charged a few months ago in France for blatantly lying about the safety of their best-selling weed-killer, Roundup. Glyphosate, Roundup's main ingredient, is classed as "dangerous for the environment" by the European Union. (A Monsanto shill actually stated that Roundup is "safer than table salt" - I'd love to see him consume some of the stuff, then.)

According to a recent Associated Press article, Monsanto's patented genes are inserted into roughly 95 percent of all soybeans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the United States. In other words, it's nearly impossible to avoid Monsanto products. This is disturbing enough on its own merits, but even more so when you consider studies that suggest that Monsanto corn is dangerous to your health.

There are more horror stories about Monsanto than I would have the patience to relay here, or you would have to patience to read. However, I strongly recommend you check out the documentaries Food, Inc. and The World According to Monsanto which is viewable on YouTube.

More relevant to this blog, however, is that we haven't forgotten the case of Kentucky farmer David Chaney who made worldwide headlines when busted by Monsanto's "gene cops". His crime? Saving his own soybeans for the purpose of replanting.

You see, Monsanto wants farmers to purchase new seeds from them every year, and they believe they have the right to stop anyone from planting seeds containing Monsanto's genetic markers. They're calling it 'seed piracy' even though there's no real similarity to other so-called "pirating" like home taping - seems logical enough to me that if you purchase seeds, you unequivocally own the plants that grow from them, and in turn you own whatever your plants produce. But Monsanto doesn't see it that way, and to the astonishment of many observers, the U.S. Government and the law have often come down on Monsanto's side, allowing them to patent life forms as "intellectual property".

But despite the Supreme Court ruling, this victory isn't quite the one Monsanto was hoping for. The ban on their alfalfa is technically still in place, and will remain so for a least a year pending USDA deregulation, which may or may not take place. The Center for Food Safety notes:

Generally speaking, Monsanto asked the Supreme Court to rule on three main issues: (1) to lift the injunction on GMO alfalfa; (2) to allow the planting and sale of GMO alfalfa; (3) to rule that contamination from GMO crops not be considered irreparable harm. In fact, the court only ruled on the first request which it did affirm by stating that the injunction was overly broad and should be overturned; however, the Court ruled in CFS’s favor on the other two issues, which in many ways are more important as the fact remains that the planting and sale of GMO alfalfa remains illegal.

I was a bit surprised to find that Monsanto has an official blog filled with self-serving disinformation, and that they're heckling the Center for Food Safety in a rather unprofessional, snarky, and downright bitchy manner:

According to CFS, they are “celebrating” today the victory of a 7-1 ruling against them. I guess maybe CFS runs with a glass half-full mentality.

We had a reporter call and ask if CFS mistakenly issued the wrong statement. Go figure.