Random Tastes of 4 Fast-Food Fried Chicken

This is some random, unscientific survey of fried chicken from 4 popular chain restaurants: KFC, Chick-fil-A, Church's, and Popeyes. Here's what they found:

All in all, if you want excellent fried chicken, your best bet is Popeyes or Church's. If you're willing to sacrifice a true, on-the-bone experience, Chick-fil-A's strips are your best bet. But don't bother with KFC.

This is why Popeyes chicken, with the spicy version accompanied by their Cajun rice, is my most favorite guilty pleasure. However, I do think that they used to be "spicier" a while back, and the spicy version seems to have been toned down a bit now.

Still, it's my #1 most favorite chicken from a chain restaurant.

Zz.

Breakfast

Having the Moroccan eggs are leaf kitchen in Iowa city. Yum!

Jack Fruit

So last weekend, I had a small backyard party, and I decided to buy a whole Jack fruit and open it to serve as a dessert. Well, it didn't go as well as I planned.

I am quite familiar with the fruit. I grew up eating it, and it even grew in a parents' garden. But I've never bought a whole fruit before while living in the States, since one doesn't come across it that often. So it was a bit of a surprise when I saw it in one of our local grocery stores. I bought the whole fruit and brought it home, saved it for a few days, and then opened it in the middle of the party.

It turned out that the fruit is not that fresh. The inside was a dried out, causing the actual fruit itself, the yellow flesh, to be dry and hard to pry out. The individual fruit was also rather small, smaller than I was familiar with.

It was quite a chore to pull out the individual fruit because everything was dry and stuck together.

I've bought Jack fruit before, but only the actual edible flesh. Maybe next time, I'll buy that again, rather than the whole fruit. But then again, it is just a wow thing to buy the whole fruit and cut it open. Maybe if I can find one fresher than this one, probably at an Asian or Indian grocery store, I might try it again.

Zz.

Food - Delicious Science

The Public Broadcasting Station has started a serious on the physics, chemistry, and biology of the food we eat. Titled Food - Delicious Science, it premiered on May 17, 2017. You are able to view previous episodes of the series.

So far, it has been quite informative.

Zz.

Are People Getting "Avocado Hands?"

OK, I didn't realize that this is such an issue. It appears that people have been getting injured during the process of  preparing an avocado, especially with slicing their hands, so much so that the medical profession is calling this "avocado hands"!

"Avocado hand," as doctors call it, has prompted the British Association of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons to warn people about the practice. Improper slicing could lead to nerve and tendon damage. Not even three-time Academy Award-winning actress Meryl Streep is immune to "avocado hand." 

"People do not anticipate that the avocados they buy can be very ripe and there is minimal understanding of how to handle them," Simon Eccles, a former Royal Society of Medicine president of plastic surgery told The Times of London. Eccles added that his hospital endures a Saturday "post-brunch surge" of such injuries, and he sees four patients each week due to the practice. 

Now, let's be clear, folks. Slicing ANYTHING while holding it in your hand is never a good idea! And with an avocado where you can have quite a variation in the texture of the flesh from fruit to fruit, this makes it even more dangerous.

So how should you prepare an avocado? I always have it on a cutting board. Then I slice it along the pole around the pit, i.e. I slice the knife down from the top of the fruit until I get to the pit. Then I turn the fruit, letting the knife goes around the pit, until I have gone all the way around.

After that, all I need to do is twist the two halves and they will separate. The pit will be stuck on one half, and you can use a spoon to scoop it out. Or do what I do. Place the half with the pit on the cutting board with the pit sticking up, and give a slight whack with the knife onto the pit just enough that the knife blade is slightly embedded into the pit. Then twist the knife, and the pit should become loosen from the avocado half.

To remove the avocado from the skin, use a large dinner spoon and scoop around the fruit in between the soft flesh and the skin, and the avocado should separate from the skin. And voila, you have an avocado half ready to be used!

Zz.

Birthplace Of Pepsi Cola

While we were on vacation in North Carolina, we passed by the store that is the birthplace of Pepsi Cola. This is a store in New Bern, North Carolina.

We didn't stop or go on, since we were on our place to somewhere else. But I must admit, before this, I didn't know that this was where Pepsi originated. I knew that Coca Cola was in Atlanta, but never knew anything about Pepsi.

Zz.

Had A Whole Fish For Dinner

Went to our favorite Mexican restaurant last night. Los Compadres was as good as ever. I ordered the Huachinango Frito (fried whole red snapper). Haven't had this in a while, and it didn't disappoint.

I ate through everything that was edible, even around the head. Yum!

I think this picture might be a candidate for my new "Fish Are Food, Not Friends" t-shirt.

Zz.