I Say It’s Flank Steak and I Say the Heck With It

For those who don’t like the flavor of flank steak, try this handy hint: Marinate three days in tamari soy and a little balsamic vinegar. It ends up tasting remarkably like liver!

The Newest Mediterranean Cuisine

Cuisine Baladi (from the Arabic word for “country”) is the fusion cuisine of modern Israel, combining local ingredients and Arab dishes with the influences brought by Jewish immigrants--notably from Yemen, Morocco and India. Greater Galilee Olive Oil Co., which wants to make us Baladi-conscious, imports a luscious varietal olive oil entirely made from the Souri olive, various flavored olive oils, bottled olives and a number of interesting sauces. Among them are a well-made tahineh, an unusual orange chutney, several oil-less sauces (including a curry-like hot and sour garlic sauce) and tart, appetizing sauces made from the Arab thyme and sumac mixture zaatar. Available in Los Angeles at gourmet and health food stores such as Bristol Farms, Erewhon, Mrs. Gooch’s; for mail order or Cuisine Baladi recipes, call (310) 459-9120 or (800) 290-1391.

Safe Sponge

Now it dawns on us. Yes, the Estracell II dish sponge (Newsbites, Nov. 18, 1993) retards the growth of fungus and bacteria, but this doesn’t mean, as we thought, that it contains a bacteriocide. The polyester material that Estracell II is made from just washes several times cleaner (and dries faster) than cellulose, so it doesn’t give the bugs so much chance to grow in the first place.

Pocket Pepper Pump

The Bonny Portable Pepper Mill is a pepper grinder that looks like, well, a white lipstick six inches long. The idea is that you put it in your purse or pocket and then whip it out at will for fresh pepper, without becoming obligated to a waiter for coming out and grinding some for you on one of those big mills. The cool part is that it works by pump action; it’s all in the thumb. At supermarkets and cookwares stores.

What’s It All About, Algae?

Omega-3 fatty acids, found in the richer ocean fish, are thought to be good for your circulatory system. So biotechnologists are planning on harvesting omega-3 from algae and then enriching poultry feed with it in order to produce high-omega-3 chicken, turkey or even (gasp!) eggs. Why use poultry as a middleman? That’s obvious: Nobody wants to eat algae. But why harvest omega-3 from algae in the first place? Because that’s where it comes from; that’s where fish get it, for instance.

I Need a Good Yak Wine

You tell WineSelect for Windows what you’re going to serve, and the computer program suggests wines to serve with it, even generating a wine “shopping list.” Understandably, the focus is mostly French, but hidden away in its several databases (which include a wine appreciation course) is a lot of international information, including how to say a votre sante in a surprising number of languages, including Mongol ( tanai eruul mendiin toloo ). It’s $39.95 plus shipping from SkillMaster Software, (800) 949-6112. Requires three megabytes disk space and Windows 3.1 or higher.