By Jon Gabriel, Special to the Republic

Jon Gabriel: If the Code of Federal Regulations were put into one volume, it would be nearly 60 feet thick.

Products Branch of the Fruit and Vegetable Division of the Agricultural Marketing Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

It contains scintillating regulations, such as:

Sizes of whole pickles are based on the diameter and the relationship of diameter to the count per gallon.

The diameter of a whole cucumber is the shortest diameter at the greatest circumference measured at right angles to the longitudinal axis of the cucumber.

Misshapen pickles mean whole pickles that are crooked or otherwise deformed (such as nubbins). Also see the definition for crooked pickles.

Nubbin is a misshapen pickle that is not cylindrical in form, is short and stubby, or is not well developed.

I guess the USDA needs to spend its $151 billion budget on something.

There are even more of these regulations

The massive Code of Federal Regulations comprises every rule and reg ever concocted by the federal government, from soup (9 CFR 319.720) to nuts (21 CFR 164.110). And despite being incredibly important to businesses big and small, it doesn’t make for very enjoyable reading.

As of 2015, the CFR was a whopping 178,277 pages. That’s about 150 times the length of the Bible. If it was compiled into one volume, the book would be nearly 60 feet thick.

And while some of the CFR focuses on important issues like aviation and medicine, much of it covers everyday minutiae.

The first seven years of the Obama Administration added 18,731 pages to the CFR — a 12.4 percent increase. This despite his annual State of the Union promises to cut unnecessary red tape.

This is your tax dollars at work, folks

Thus, you are paying a team of bureaucrats to mandate that a “small gherkin” must be less than 2.4 cm in diameter, whereas a “large gherkin” can have a diameter of up to 2.7 cm.

Every government program has its defenders. I’m sure that the 105,000-strong staff of the USDA think they’re protecting innocent citizens from the rapacious schemes of Big Gherkin.

But remember the humble pickle when politicians insist that there is nothing left to cutfrom Washington’s gargantuan budget.

For every one of your tax dollars funding something essential, there’s a barrel full of money funding a bloated, wasteful beast. A beast that smells suspiciously like misshapen pickle nubbins.

Jon Gabriel, a Mesa resident, is editor-in-chief of Ricochet.com and a contributor to The Republic and azcentral.com. Follow him on Twitter at @exjon.

By Tommy Black   –   Alabama Newscenter

Being from Texas, Jay Short just assumed other folks loved jalapeño peppers as much as he did.

“Growing up in in the Dallas area, jalapeños were a way of life. My dad would serve them with every meal,” he says. “So I thought everybody ate them.”

These days, as the founder of Jala Jala Foods, Short is sharing his passion for peppers by bringing the enjoyable glow of fresh jalapeño salsas and jellies to customers across the Southeast.

“I moved to Huntsville to work as a manufacturing rep for an electronics company,” Short says. “I did that for a while, then went to chef’s school. I tried the restaurant world, but it wasn’t for me.”

One day, his fondness for jalapeños met a friend’s field of peppers – and a business was born. “In the summer of 2011 my friend Phil, who was also our church’s chef, came to me with a problem,” Short remembers. “He had a backyard garden full of jalapeños, and was trying to figure out what to do with them. I’d been making salsa for about 30 years, so I told him we should try that.”

As Short turned many of the jalapeños into homemade salsas, Phil created pepper jellies with the rest. “We made about 350 jars of salsas and jellies and sold them at our church,” Short says. “They were all gone by Christmas.”

The next summer the pair produced more than 1,500 jars of their handmade products – and sold out again. “So I thought maybe we should get into the food business,” Short says.

After coming up with various names for their company – “one was ‘Phil-apenos,’ but that kind of confused people as to what kind of food we were selling,” Short admits – they settled on Jala Jala (pronounced “hala hala”) Foods in 2013.

“We cooked at my home for a while, then used the church’s kitchen,” Short says. “But the business grew so much that in a couple of years we needed a bigger place. I found an industrial kitchen that had been used by a catering company, and it was perfect.”

Now, using mainly locally grown jalapeños, Short and a handful of other creative cooks turn out 12 types of salsas, jellies (flavored with blueberries, strawberries and blackberries), relishes, barbecue sauces and a chili mix.

“The mix is based on my grandfather’s 100-year-old chili recipe,” Short says. “He used to cook for crews in the Texas oil fields and they loved his chili.”

In addition to his products being sold on the company’s website, Short’s salsas and sauces are available at Whole Foods and Publix grocery stores across the South.

This spring, he traveled back to Texas to show off his goods at nine Central Market grocery stores. “It’s like going home, because that’s where it all started,” he says. “Texas is where I learned to love the taste of jalapeños. When prepared correctly, they’re delicious. That’s why our motto is ‘know the glow.’”

“With jalapeños it’s all about flavor, not heat,” Short says. “You get this glowing feeling when you eat them. And that’s what I want to share – that glow.”

The Product: Jalapeño salsas, pepper jellies, relishes, barbecue sauces and rubs, as well as Texas Red Chili Mix.

Take Home: A jar of Texacan Salsa (with a medium amount of jalapeño glow) $7.59.

Jala Jala Foods Inc., P.O. Box 14417, Huntsville AL 35815

www.jalajalafoods.com 256-880-0663

BY SHAY SPENCE•  @CHEZSPENCE • People.com

blob:http://people.com/eaf7a99f-3761-4142-9d87-453130570ca4

Take 5 is a PEOPLE Food series with a mission: Get a star-worthy meal (or dessert or cocktail) on your table in either 5 minutes or using only 5 ingredients. Each recipe has been bravely tested, tasted and approved by our food editors for your eating pleasure. If you’re hungry for more recipes, we’ve got you covered.

Look, we are not opposed to boxed mac and cheese. It’s cheap, easy, and you are lying to yourself if you say it doesn’t taste good.

All we’re saying is it’s actually just as easy to make it from scratch. Contrary to what most recipes call for, you actually don’t even have to make a béchamel sauce (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Using this one-skillet method, you actually cook the pasta directly in milk. As the noodles cook, they release their starches, creating a creamy sauce. For good measure, we added some jalapeños and bacon here, because we just can’t help ourselves.

Watch the video above to see how we did it, then follow the recipe below to make it yourself at home.

RELATED: John Whaite’s Taleggio Mac ’n’ Cheese with Sausage

Skillet Jalapeño Bacon Mac ‘n’ Cheese

Serves 4
4 bacon slices, chopped
1 lb. pasta shells
3 ½ cups whole milk
3 ½ cups sharp cheddar cheese
2 jalapeños, sliced

1. Add bacon in a large skillet over medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until crispy, about 7 minutes. Transfer to a plate lined with a paper towel, reserving some fat in the skillet.

2. In the same skillet with the bacon fat, add the pasta and toss to coat. Pour in the milk, 2 cups water, salt and pepper, then bring to a boil. Cover and reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the pasta is cooked, about 10 minutes.

3. Remove from heat and stir in the cheese. Add reserved bacon and sliced jalapeños and serve.

By Zeke MacCormack   –   San Antonio Express-News

Construction is nearing completion on the San Antonio Food Bank’s first branch location, a $6.1 million facility in New Braunfels that should allow the agency to help more people with expanded programs and improved logistical capabilities in the rapidly growing area.

To be called the New Braunfels Food Bank, the new facility also will enhance services the San Antonio nonprofit has offered there since 2010 at The Kitchen Table, a food pantry whose staff will relocate to the new digs from its current site in The Marketplace Shopping Center.

“Over the last number of years, community leaders in Comal County and New Braunfels have identified gaps in services for individuals in need of human and social services,” said Susan Filyk, San Antonio Food Bank spokeswoman. “One of the top priorities identified was access to food, particularly healthy food.”

The new branch, set to open in August, is being built entirely with donated funds, she said, including $1 million each from the McKenna Foundation of New Braunfels and the Harvey E. Najim Family Foundation and Kronkosky Foundation, both of San Antonio. About $500,000 has yet to be raised.

“We believe the San Antonio Food Bank is one of the best food banks in the country and we’re really excited about the new construction in New Braunfels,” said Dennis Noll, a trustee of the John L. Santikos Charitable Foundation, which donated $500,000. “While we traditionally don’t think of hunger being part of our rural communities, poverty and hunger do exist in significant ways in rural Texas.”

Beyond a commercial kitchen, food preparation area and large coolers, the new 34,000 square-foot structure at 1620 So. Seguin Ave. will include work rooms, classrooms an outdoor events area and more, all designed by CGM Architects.

“We’re looking forward to getting them up and running,” said Greg Vaughn of the F.A. Nunley Co., general contractor. “They do so much work in the area, and have proven to be an extremely efficient charitable organization.”

Each week the San Antonio Food Bank serves 58,000 individuals, with its fleet of 37 trucks delivering goods to 530 agencies it supports in 16 counties, then picking up donations of food — often left over, approaching its expiration date or mislabeled — from retailers who provide critical support.

While eliminating hunger is its first priority, Filyk said the agency also helps clients access local resources to stabilize their lives, including nutrition, health and wellness classes, demonstrations on healthy cooking and courses on exercise, diabetes prevention and management and gardening,.

Comal County Commissioner Donna Eccleston, who has volunteered to teach cooking classes at the Kitchen Table, called the new food bank “a really big deal.”

“I really don’t like the idea of anybody in our country going hungry,” she said Friday. “We have quite a few food pantries in Comal County… and we are incredibly fortunate that we partner with the San Antonio Food Bank to make the most of the resources.”

“With the New Braunfels Food Bank, it’s going to be far more effective in distributing food to Guadalupe and Comal counties and all the surrounding communities,” she said.

The Spirit of Sharing Food Bank in New Braunfels is one of the local pantries that relies on the San Antonio Food Bank to assist its monthly clientele of about 50 lower-income residents.

“It’s going to be very helpful (having the branch there) because we get a lot of our dry goods and other foods from the San Antonio Food Bank,” said Michael Ziegler, an SOS staffer. “There should be a lot more synergy, and it should be a lot easier to order food and to get it.”

Joemichael Hernandez, who was picking up food there Friday, has relied on its help for the past year due to problems making ends meet for his family of four doing construction work.

“I’m kind of struggling right now, so I’m just trying to help my family,” said Hernandez, 26. “They give us enough to get through the week. They help people out like us who are struggling. God is here for us.”

Chris Snider, owner of Texas Titos Inc., a food manufacturer specializing in pickles and peppers, said he began donating goods to the San Antonio Food Bank after hearing its chief executive, Eric Cooper, address members of the Texas Food Processors Association.

“I was really impressed with their logistical capabilities. They’re able to distribute a large quantity of food across a large region,” said Snider, who also volunteers at The Kitchen Table.

“A lot of the recipients are elderly, people who have been laid off, and people with low paying jobs,” said Snider, who joined the New Braunfels Food Bank Advisory Committee just as work on the new building was commencing a year ago.

“The food bank is getting closer to the client base it serves here,” he said. “They’re a major distributor, so at some point they’re going to achieve improved logistical efficiency by having more than one location. This will be both a collection and distribution point.”

zeke@express-news.net

 

By Shannon Evans   –    Romper

It’s the quintessential pregnancy stereotype, is it not? And yet you just can’t quit with the pickles. There is no shortage of myths that predict the sex of your baby based on what foods you’re craving, but there isn’t much scientific proof of the reliability of those claims. So what does it mean if you crave pickles while pregnant? It means your female body is rockin’ this thing.

Pregnancy, and in particular the second and third trimesters, is like one long wild rumpus for your taste buds as every flavor is heightened for better or for worse. Yet despite the depiction in movies and television of pregnant women going ballistic with cravings, not every gestating woman will experience them at all, according to OB-GYN and author Sherry Ross of Santa Monica.

In an exclusive interview with Romper, Ross says that food cravings are believed to be caused by the hormonal and psychological changes a woman is undergoing during pregnancy, in addition to her changing nutritional needs. The most widely seen pregnancy food cravings within the medical community, she reports, are ice, spicy foods, pickles, potato chips, fruit, and ice cream. Ross tells Romper that pickles in particular seem popular because they appeal to several different cravings: vinegar, saltiness, and “crunch.”

Research conducted by the University of Connecticut in Storrs, and reported in Parents Magazine, showed an increased preference for sour and salty flavors in pregnancy develops later, and an increased perception of bitterness manifests in the first trimester. It is believed that the appeal of sour foods in the last half of pregnancy helps ensure the woman gets a balanced diet and enough calories, while the craving for salt means that her increased sodium needs will be met to support her increased blood volume.

When it comes to gender prediction, keep in mind that unsubstantiated claims are really only accurate 50 percent of the time. But if you want to have fun with it anyway, Ross says the myth is that women who are carrying girls crave sweet foods, while women carrying boys crave sour and salty. So while you’re stocking up on newborn diapers, it might not hurt to pick out some boy names.

UPDATE: Since publishing this article some of our followers have requested more information on foods to eat and cravings during pregnancy.  Here’s a good article from The Babble Out that’s not even about pickles or jalapenos.  Enjoy!