Vidalia Vanquishes Vandal

A Florida resident named Izzie Rotterman finds ordinary onions hard on his digestion, so he always brings a sweet onion with him when he goes to a restaurant, as a snatch thief discovered Feb. 7.

Rotterman and business partner Gloria Lepcio were on their way into Gianni’s Italian Restaurant in Pompano Beach when a man jumped out of a car and grabbed Lepcio’s purse. Rotterman pulled his Vidalia onion from its plastic bag and started hitting the mugger on the head with it. The onion-battered thief gave up and drove away.

Rotterman and Lepcio continued into the restaurant, where the manager called police and gave the couple some wine for their trouble. Then Rotterman sliced up his defensive vegetable and ate it on a lettuce salad.

Lots of Mussels

Claude’s Restaurant in Pasadena serves mussel soup. It serves five mussel appetizers. Two-thirds of its entrees contain mussels, including steamed mussels with Roquefort cheese or carrots and candied ginger, mussels with basil and salmon, mussels with pesto, mussel couscous with mint and flaming mussel shish kebab with sauce au poivre.

Either somebody’s been paying attention to the news the mussels may be better for your circulatory system than omega-3 fish oil or there are more mussel-heads out there than anybody supposed.

Chewless

To mark the 500th anniversary of whisky-making in Scotland, Justerini & Brooks has bottled a blend of 128 Scotch whiskies. J&B; Ultima includes whiskies from all 96 distilleries in production in Scotland and 32 that no longer exist.

J&B; master blender Jim Milne started on the project of putting “all Scotland in a dram” in 1986. “In this,” says J&B; Regional Director Kim Darton, “he couldn’t let the other companies know what he was doing or the doors would have clanged shut. So there was a veil of secrecy over the project. Almost illicit meetings were held in dark pubs on windy nights.”

In addition to 116 single-malts--the highly flavored whiskies that are the source of the traditional peaty, smoky flavor of Scotch and are often savored on their own--Ultima contains 12 grain whiskies. “We know what the public like,” Darton says. “Scotland is something of a graveyard of vatted malt blends. A blend of malts would be quite a tough chew.” And at $160 a bottle, even the most patriotic Scot might not feel like chewing.