Outbreak of Botulism Associated with Castleberry's Canned Chili

Public health officials in Indiana, Texas, and at CDC are investigating an outbreak of botulism associated with canned hot dog chili sauce manufactured by Castleberry's Food Company.

http://www.castleberrys.... (for all products)
http://www.fda.gov/opaco... (for FDA-regulated products)
http://www.fsis.usda.gov... (for UDSA-regulated products)

Funny if you look at these lists, canned chili and pet food are on there. One product sounds almost edilble to eat, "Eatables for Dogs Chinese Take Out With Sauce With Vegetables and Chicken."

How many dogs order take out?

Zachary's Pizza

Zachary's Pizza Oakland
5801 College Ave.
Oakland, California 94618

Guess: Is it pepperoni or spinach and mushroom?

Pepperoni Pizza
Spinach and Mushroom Pizza

I did not actually eat at the restaurant, but I took two half-baked (not what you are thinking; no green involved) pizzas. I had heard a great many things about this pizza and If I have not said this enough, am from Chicago where deep dish pizza was invented. I so wanted to fall in love with this pizza to have an excuse to drive to the Bay area.

I have been to Chicago Fire in Folsom and think that is a pretty good pizza. It is on my list to go to Zelda in Sacramento. Since I am more of a carnivore I baked the pepperoni pizza first. It looks pretty thick and heavy for its size. So I take my first bite and I start to chew and the first thing I taste is salt. Lots and lots of salt. It is like someone poured a teaspoon where I took a first bite. I am the type of person who really likes salty foods too, but this was too much. Luckily the rest of the pizza was not so bad, but the first bite kind of ruined it for me.

I froze the spinach-mushroom (which they do not recommend). So what I did was to cook it on a cast iron griddle (instead of a pizza stone) at 475 F for 10 minutes to crisp up the crust and then turned the heat down to 350F for an additional 30-35 minutes to cook the insides. It turned out perfect. A nice crispy crust with a little chewiness and the inside of the pizza nice and melted. There was a nice amount of spinach and mushroom taste, the cheese binding everything together. and the crust was providing the crisp background.

Now I am happy.

That first pizza must have been an anomaly. I want to get another pepperoni pizza to gain a better experience.

What if Fridays

If you had to repeat any single year of your life to date, without changing a thing, which year would you relive?

This is really a tough one, I feel lucky; I had had a few good years. I would have to say October 1997 to September 1998. That was the year I met my soon to be wife, living in Chicago and still a student with very few responsibilities.

Yes, they say people from Chicago never shut up about Chicago even though they are living somewhere else, but it is great town.

So many memories, so few pictures. C'est la vie.