http://shanemhale.com/blog » Food

TED Talks: Jamie Oliver

Shane Hale — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:47:59 +0000

When I get the chance I love watching TED Talks. They truly ideas worth spreading. Jamie Oliver, more commonly known as the Naked Chef won the 2010 TED Award for his stance on obesity.

At the heart of Oliver’s work is an assault on the obesity epidemic: The CDC states that one in four Americans are considered obese. It is estimated that 43 percent of Americans, or 103 million people, will be obese by 2018. The cost of this epidemic is anticipated to reach $344 billion per year. It currently accounts for almost 10 percent of the yearly US health care costs, and that rate will rise to 21 percent by 2018. WHO’s latest projections indicate that, globally in 2005, approximately 1.6 billion adults were overweight and projects that by 2015, that figure will rise to 2.3 billion.

TED Prize winner announced!

This is one of the best TED talks I’ve seen to date. I recommend you watch it, preach it and spread it through all the social media networks you can. The TV show, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, will debut March 26th.

and on that note…. time for a diet.

Web 1.0 Web Design Lives on

Shane Hale — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:35:16 +0000

Surprised I didn't see a blink code

Since creating my first website in 1996 on AOL and Geocities, website technology has evolved, bringing about new web design styles, techniques, and limitations have been resolved away. 14 years later what was once impossible is easily accomplished with CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, AJAX, Flash and of course CSS. It has made the web a better and more aesthetically pleasing place. The old school Web 1.0 have been mostly weeded out. Yahoo killed Geocities a few months back, killing 80% of the bad Web 1.0 design left on the web.

But every once in a while… you come across a relic from the 90′s era of web design. Heading out to one of my favorite San Diego Restaurants, I encountered another. Pomegranate Russian-Georgian Restaurant‘s website is just horrible! First of all its a HomeStead page, which means someone’s continuing to pay for this thing. You would home the owner would of purchased the domain name by now. But back to the design. This site uses all the old school techniques, including an animated gif and visitor counter. Having dined at Pomegranate before I knew the food was quality and headed out for dinner a few moments later. However I feel bad for all the people that discover this website and don’t make a reservation and go somewhere else.

If you are the owner of Pomegranate Russian-Georgian Restaurant let work out a trade. I will redo this site for you and bring it up to date for a couple of dinners at your restaurant. Please email me and we can work something out.

Secret Menu Items

Shane Hale — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:59:51 +0000

Chipotle, Starbucks & Jamba Juice Secret Menu Items

So the secret menu at In-n-Out isn’t so secret anymore, after all it is on their website if you know where to look. Ordering your Double Double ‘Animal Style’ doesn’t impress anyone any more. But there are other food joints that also have secret menu’s that you can order off of, if you know the special words. Jamba Juice Secret Menu consists of more deserts to tease the taste buds. Starbucks blends up some unique combination of coffees and offers a more economical size. Chipotle Secret Menu isn’t secret, just over looked and remains the healthiest secret menu around.

Chipotle Secret Menu

This healthy fast food restaurant will (with in reason) make anything for you if they have the ingredients for it. They don’t attempt to hide this, infact its printed on their to-go menus. Starting with quality ingredients these by far are the healthiest of the bunch. Here are three favorites:

Chipotle Nachos	Start with a Bowl of Chips, and pile on the meats, salsas, beans, sour cream and guac. This meal can get messy real quick so grab a fork and napkin.
Chipotle Quesadilla	The Mexican food’s grilled cheese. Burrito Tortilla filled with cheese for a simple and cheap treat. If your looking for a little more throw in the grilled chicken and salsa. I’d avoid beans or barbacoa beef on this one.

Starbucks Secret Menu

Biscotti Frapuccino:	Have a biscotti blended into your favorite flavor of frapaccino. The result is blend of cookie crumbs in a tasty frozen coffee.
Short Drink	You always thought the Tall, Grande and Venti sizes were the equivalent of a Small, Medium and Large, but really they are medium, large, and extra large. You can order any drink in the ‘short’ size, which is the equivalent of a small. Leaving this menu item ensures you buy a larger and more expensive drink.
Red Eye	Standard Coffee + 1 shot of Espresso
Black Eye	Standard Coffee + 2 shots of Espresso
Green Eye	Standard Coffee + 3 shots of Espresso

Jamba Juice

This place comes off as a healthy smoothie joint, until you know what else they can blend up for you. These smoothies throw healthy out the window, leaving out or limiting the fruit and sicking with the fruit juices and sherbets. Give some of these a try and let me know how they went.

Blue Gummi Bear
Chocolate Gummi Bear
Green Gummi Bear
Pink Gummi Bear
Red Gummi Bear
White Gummi Bear
Andres’ Surprise
Apple Pie
Berry Depressing
Blue-Topia
Butterfingers
Chocolate covered Strawberries
Dirty Orgasm
Fruity Pebbles
White Fruity Pebbles
Pink Fruity Pebbles
Hello Jesus
Reese pieces
San Diego
Skittles
Sourpatch Kid
Starburst [aka Pink Star]
Lemonade Lightnin’
Strawberries Dreamin’
Strawberries Lightnin’
Strawberry Shortcake
Sunny Delight
Thank You Jesus
Tootsie Roll
Tropical Tango
Melonade wave
Now and Later
Orange Dream Machine
Pacific Passion
Peanut Butter and Jelly
Penis Shooter
Pineapple Dreamin’
Rainbow Sherbert
Raspberry Dreamin’