Talk about a trend gone amuck… The Dial Corporation has taken food to a place it doesn’t belong, the bathroom…

There’s the new Dial Cranberry body wash with anti-oxidants (see video), and then there ‘s the new line of yogurt and honey body wash…

It isn’t really clear to me how you benefit from washing yourself with food as opposed to eating it, but as we all know there’s a push to have food be more than just than tasty..

But someone still needs to explain the benefits of washing with cranberries…

Leave your thoughts in the comments section…

If you haven’t noticed, cupcakes are all the rage… Just back from Los Angels where on a Sunday night at 5:30 a good 50 people (see photo) were waiting in line to plop down $4 for a cupcake… I don’t have a problem with it, I’m glad to see folks out spending a few dollars in pursuit of a small piece of happiness…

We all know the big players in the cupcake business, and if you don’t they would be: Sprinkles, Magnolia Bakery and Kara’s…

The LA Time this past weekend even published a map and directions for a cupcake crawl… The list includes addresses, phone numbers and links to all the shops…

I can tell you having just returned from the City of Angels, nothing beats Vanilla Bake Shop in Santa Monica…

There’s even a top ten list of best cupcakes in Los Angeles…

Another website has suggested the cupcake business might even be recession proof…

I know everyone doesn’t live in LA or San Francisco for that matter, so we here at Screaming Fresh would love to hear about the great cupcake shops out there… Send us the info and a photo and we’ll give them the plug they deserve…

While searching for the next big trend, my sources tell me butter sales are on the rise… More requests not only for traditional butter, but for more exotic types including goat milk butter and ghee, aka clarified butter…

My guess is it has something to do with the return of comfort foods which in my experience always go heavy on the butter…

I have to be honest, until today I had never heard of goat milk butter, but a little research turned up more than a few makers of the stuff…

So why goats milk?

According to several sites it not a problem for those with lactose issues, contains 13% more calcium than cow’s milk, 47% more vitamin A, 134% more potassium, 350% more niacin and never contains BGH…

Have a favorite butter, a fan of goat milk or some insight into where this is all headed, let us know in the comments section….

In this week’s effort to find something new a the market I picked up Trader Joe’s Valencia Peanut Butter with Roasted Flaxseed… The label mentions it contains 320mg ALA Omega-3 per serving, so it must be good for you…

Like most peanut butter it’s not light on calories or fat, but has a very different flavor…

Slightly sweeter than peanut butter, clearly tastes of flaxseed with a salty finish… It’s not the best peanut butter I’ve ever, but it’s a nice change… Keeps with the new trend of jamming as much nutrition into your food as possible…

Some ideas just seem bad on the surface… But if airlines giving away free booze is the start of a new trend, no better occasion than Valentines Day…

Southwest Airlines has announced that in conjunction with Finlandia Vodka they’ll be giving away free Finlandia and juice cocktails on February 14th… Because what really says I love you like a free cocktail at 8 AM….

But better yet, on St. Patrick’s Day it’s complimentary beer day…

The insert in my Southwest seat pocket read…

“At Southwest Airlines we enjoy spending the holidays with you. When you’re onboard during festivals, enjoy one of our spirited selects on the house.”

For the first time in a long time it appears I was on the cutting edge of a food trend… Many years ago I lived in the South of France in a very small apartment without a fridge… It wasn’t by choice, but now it appears the fridge free live style is what a very few of us are doing to reduce our carbon footprint…

One of the fridge free livers told the NY Times they were surprised how,” easy it’s been.”

Here’s the NY Times’ version of events…

By Steve Kurutz
For the last two years, Rachel Muston, a 32-year-old information-technology worker for the Canadian government in Ottawa, has been taking steps to reduce her carbon
footprint — composting, line-drying clothes, installing an efficient furnace in her three-story house downtown.

About a year ago, though, she decided to “go big” in her effort to be more environmentally responsible, she said. After mulling the idea over for several weeks, she and her husband, Scott Young, did something many would find unthinkable: they unplugged their refrigerator. For good.

“It’s been a while, and we’re pretty happy,” Ms. Muston said recently. “We’re surprised at how easy it’s been.”

As drastic as the move might seem, a small segment of the green movement has come to regard the refrigerator as an unacceptable drain on energy, and is choosing to live without it. In spite of its ubiquity — 99.5 percent of American homes have one — these advocates say the refrigerator is unnecessary, as long as one is careful about shopping choices and food storage.

Ms. Muston estimated that her own fridge, which was in the house when they bought it five years ago and most likely dates back much longer, used 1,300 kilowatt-hours per year, or produced roughly 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide — the same amount from burning 105 gallons of gasoline. And even a newer, more efficient model, which could have cut that figure in half, would have used too much energy in her view.

Click here for the complete story

It goes without saying that my favorite magazine issue of any magazine is the Saveur top 100… It comes out every January and suggests their 100 food related ideas… This year on their list of suggests places to visit was the Berkeley Bowl in Berkeley, California… An amazing grocery story, just to crowded for me to shop there this weekend if I actually wanted to get out of there within an hour… but what I did find was this unique food item (see photo)…

Please help! I have no idea what it is… there was no sign, and the place was to busy to ask for help… while it does look like a jumbo celery stalk I can assure you it’s not… it was at least two feet long and fairly light… Anyone know what it is?
You’ll have to excuse the photo quality, I took it with my phone.

This past week I was invited to a party sponsored by Whole Foods… As we all left the party we were all given gift bags with samples of a new food products… The most confusing thing in the bag was something called Organic Mashups (Mashups are describe as squeezable fruit) from Revolution Foods.

I was pretty excited when I first was the saw it… Figuring it was grape juice I jumped right in… The problem was I couldn’t get the top off, and it turned out not to be grape juice…

After a few minutes of trying to open the container, I had to convince myself I wasn’t the only one of earth who couldn’t get the thing open, so I asked around. I found others equally confused…

For a test I sent it to school with my kid… It returned unopened… He told me he wasn’t able to open, nor was the teacher he asked for help…

So now I’m looking for food packaging you could open, or is this the only one?

Let us know in the comments section.

Last year it was all about pomegranates. You couldn’t and still can’t go into a grocery store without seeing row after row of new products containing pomegranate juice.

This year it seems from the folks I’ve spoken with, cheese is the new pomegranate juice.

Consider the following anecdotal evidence…


I spoke with numerous checkers over the past few weeks from three different grocery chains who reported cheese flying off the shelves… And keep in mind checkers are pretty numb to what passes by them… It takes a lot to catch their eye…

The launch of Culture magazine… A magazine devote to cheese…

Several of the major food makers are expecting huge jumps in the sales of mac and cheese this year…

Cheese shops I spoke with tell me there has been no drop in cheese sales, higher end cheeses are selling still selling well and there has been a big increase in folks asking about American Artisan Cheeses.

Then there’s the predicted trend of a return to comfort foods… Which includes mac & cheese as well as cheese burgers.

We would love to hear your thoughts on the trend, or if you have a favorite cheese use the comments section to promote it…

And if you just find you can’t get enough cheese stories, I found this video by Jeffrey Roberts, author of The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese…

I find the three biggest influences over my selection of a wine are the picture on the label, the price and the little I can remember reading in various wine magazines. But over the weekend I found one sage piece of advice I’m pretty sure will hold up for all of us… It comes from Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, well known well reviewers.

“When it comes to less expensive wines, we’d avoid wines where cute animals seem to be the main point of the wine.”

No mincing words there…