BITES : Grandmothers’ Secrets

When her grandmother imparted the secret of making tender pie to her, casting director Mindy Marin had an inspiration: a book of grandmothers’ cooking secrets, intended as a “valentine to the grandmothers of the world.” The book is going to be called “The Secret to Tender Pie,” of course, and she’s eager to hear from grandmothers who want to share their precious recipes.

Send your recipe with a current photo, basic information about yourself (date and place of birth, how many children and grandchildren), how you got the recipe and what makes it special to Mindy Marin, Blue Water Ranch Entertainment, 609 Broadway, Santa Monica, Calif. 90401. If she uses your recipe, you’ll get a free copy of the book.

City of the Air

Los Angeles restaurateurs Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken, of Border Grill and City fame, debut a weekly FM radio program April 7. “Good Food” will feature new foods, what’s fresh at the markets, a recipe of the week and foodie guests. The first two weeks’ guests will be chef-entrepreneur Wolfgang Puck and Julia Child. “We’ll probably ask Wolf how it feels to move into fast food,” says Milliken.

“Susan and I really love teaching,” she adds. “Our original idea with the show was to get a better feel about how people were eating, and how we could guide them. Once in a while we may do a call-in show.” In lieu of that, you’ll be able to leave them phone messages and send e-mail.

The program will be broadcast from 2 to 2:30 p.m. on KCRW, which can be heard in L.A. and Orange counties at 89.9 FM, at 89.1 in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties and at 89.3 in the greater Palm Springs area.

A Tempest in a Cocktail Shaker

Beverage giant Heublein has filed suit in a New York federal district court against fellow beverage giants E&J; Gallo and Seagram’s for selling “margarita-flavored” coolers. Heublein claims public opinion polls show that people think “margarita-flavored” means that there is tequila in the drink. The alcohol in the Gallo and Seagram’s coolers, of course, comes from wine or fermented malt.

K-Boom!

It’s like an arms race, this chile-head’s quest for the hottest pepper. Now a company called International Hot Foods has brought out the H-bomb of hotness: a two-ounce bottle of industrial capsaicin extract rated at 500,000 Scoville, or about 100 times as hot as a jalapeno. The Pure Cap label sports the words “cooking additive only” . . . and a skull and crossbones.

Commercial sauce makers know how much to put in a thousand gallons. How much should a home cook use? To address this question, Newsbites Laboratories tried dissolving a drop in a quart of water. (Not cold water, of course; capsaicin is totally insoluble in cold water.) It just sat there on the surface, spreading slowly like a sinister, iodine-colored oil slick.

Capsaicin dissolves readily in alcohol, so we stirred a drop into some 124-proof whiskey and mixed that into hot water, with mixed success--part of the chemical came out of solution and floated to the surface. Even so, a scientific sample taken from below the surface with a turkey baster showed that one drop of Pure Cap can easily spice a quart of water medium-hot.

International Hot Foods emphasizes that this stuff should only be used in cooking--if it’s used at all (the company confesses that it’s basically a novelty). Before buying it, you have to sign a legal document that includes phrases like, “I hereby disclaim, release and relinquish any and all claims, actions and/or lawsuits that I, or any of my dependents, heirs or family members may have relating to any damage and/or injury that results, or is alleged to have resulted, from the use, consumption, ingestion and/or contact of any bodily part or organ with Pure Cap.”

It comes in a bottle with a childproof eye dropper, enclosed in a plastic medicine jar with a childproof cap, and it would still be a very good idea to keep it away from little hands.

Pure Cap is not widely available. (“I won’t stock it,” says Monica Lopez of the Pasadena hot sauce boutique Hot Hot Hot. “It’s not a sauce.”) But you can get it at the retail store of B.B. King’s Blues Club at Universal Citywalk, Universal City, or from International Hot Foods, (800) 505-9999.