geordie chicane: August 2012

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Food & Drink Innovation Network ? NEW BBQ RUBS FROM ...

August 8th, 2012

California Rancher has launched a new range of meal kits to enable amateur and keen BBQers to create BBQ cooking at home.

Whether it?s in the kitchen, on the BBQ or around the campfire, these kits can be used to give flavour to a meal.

The range is being sold across Wholefoods stores as well as in independents, online and also via Not on the High Street.

There are four different kits in the range, each using California Rancher?s all natural range of seasonings and sauce:

? Wild West Wings ? Sticky Lickin? Banjo Pickin? Chicken
? Santa Maria Steak ? Fearsome Wild West Steaks
? Ranchero BBQ Ribs ? Lipsmackingly Sticky, Tender and Succulent Ribs
? Trail Blazin? Burgers ? Foot-Tappingly Tasty Homemade Burgers

Friends Jon and Ben also created and run the California Rancher brand of premium BBQ rubs, BBQ meal kits, sauces and seasonings, which launch into Wholefoods this month.

Jon said:

?BBQ is a serious business. You?ve got to get it right. Flavour is paramount.?

California Rancher won Gold in the Great Taste Awards 2011 and Gold and Silver in the Taste of the West awards 2011.

Jon and Ben set up the Grillstock BBQ and music festival in 2010 and have been overwhelmed with the response to it in its three years.

Jon said: ?Bristol seems to sizzle and come to life over that weekend.

?We?ve created something we never dreamed would be so successful. Next year it?s going to be even hotter.?

NEW ONLINE FOOD COMPANY HOPES TO CHANGE HOME COOKING
DISCOVERY FOODS TO MARKET ROLLED TORTILLAS
SCRATCH LAUNCHES NEW CHRISTMAS MEAL KIT
SHARWOOD?S LAUNCHES NEW WRAP KITS
NEW FIRM LAUNCHES SCRATCH COOKERY KIT IN CENTRAL LONDON
SCHWARTZ UNVEILS NEW RECIPE INSPIRATIONS KITS
NEW PRODUCTS AND DESIGN FROM SCHWARTZ
WILD LAUNCHES STABLE FRUIT FLAVOURS FOR BAKED GOODS

Source: http://www.fdin.org.uk/2012/08/new-bbq-rubs-from-california-rancher/

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Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Thousands of fish die as Midwest streams heat up

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) ? Thousands of fish are dying in the Midwest as the hot, dry summer dries up rivers and causes water temperatures to climb in some spots to nearly 100 degrees.

About 40,000 shovelnose sturgeon were killed in Iowa last week as water temperatures reached 97 degrees. Nebraska fishery officials said they've seen thousands of dead sturgeon, catfish, carp, and other species in the Lower Platte River, including the endangered pallid sturgeon. And biologists in Illinois said the hot weather has killed tens of thousands of large- and smallmouth bass and channel catfish and is threatening the population of the greater redhorse fish, a state-endangered species.

So many fish died in one Illinois lake that the carcasses clogged an intake screen near a power plant, lowering water levels to the point that the station had to shut down one of its generators.

"It's something I've never seen in my career, and I've been here for more than 17 years," said Mark Flammang, a fisheries biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. "I think what we're mainly dealing with here are the extremely low flows and this unparalleled heat."

The fish are victims of one of the driest and warmest summers in history. The federal U.S. Drought Monitor shows nearly two-thirds of the lower 48 states are experiencing some form of drought, and the Department of Agriculture has declared more than half of the nation's counties ? nearly 1,600 in 32 states ? as natural disaster areas. More than 3,000 heat records were broken over the last month.

Iowa DNR officials said the sturgeon found dead in the Des Moines River were worth nearly $10 million, a high value based in part on their highly sought eggs, which are used for caviar. The fish are valued at more than $110 a pound.

Gavin Gibbons, a spokesman for the National Fisheries Institute, said the sturgeon kills don't appear to have reduced the supply enough to hurt regional caviar suppliers.

Flammang said weekend rain improved some of Iowa's rivers and lakes, but temperatures were rising again and straining a sturgeon population that develops health problems when water temperatures climb into the 80s.

"Those fish have been in these rivers for thousands of thousands of years, and they're accustomed to all sorts of weather conditions," he said. "But sometimes, you have conditions occur that are outside their realm of tolerance."

In Illinois, heat and lack of rain has dried up a large swath of Aux Sable Creek, the state's largest habitat for the endangered greater redhorse, a large bottom-feeding fish, said Dan Stephenson, a biologist with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

"We're talking hundreds of thousands (killed), maybe millions by now," Stephenson said. "If you're only talking about game fish, it's probably in the thousands. But for all fish, it's probably in the millions if you look statewide."

Stephenson said fish kills happen most summers in small private ponds and streams, but the hot weather this year has made the situation much worse.

"This year has been really, really bad ? disproportionately bad, compared to our other years," he said.

Stephenson said a large number of dead fish were sucked into an intake screen near Powerton Lake in central Illinois, lowering water levels and forcing a temporary shutdown at a nearby power plant. A spokesman for Edison International, which runs the coal-fired plant, said workers shut down one of its two generators for several hours two weeks ago because of extreme heat and low water levels at the lake, which is used for cooling.

In Nebraska, a stretch of the Platte River from Kearney in the central part of the state to Columbus in the east has gone dry and killed a "significant number" of sturgeon, catfish and minnows, said fisheries program manager Daryl Bauer. Bauer said the warm, shallow water has also killed an unknown number of endangered pallid sturgeon.

"It's a lot of miles of river, and a lot of fish," Bauer said. "Most of those fish are barely identifiable. In this heat, they decay really fast."

Bauer said a single dry year usually isn't enough to hurt the fish population. But he worries dry conditions in Nebraska could continue, repeating a stretch in the mid-2000s that weakened fish populations.

Kansas also has seen declining water levels that pulled younger, smaller game fish away from the vegetation-rich shore lines and forced them to cluster, making them easier targets for predators, said fisheries chief Doug Nygren of the Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism.

Nygren said he expects a drop in adult walleye populations in the state's shallower, wind-swept lakes in southern Kansas. But he said other species, such as large-mouth bass, can tolerate the heat and may multiply faster without competition from walleye.

"These last two years are the hottest we've ever seen," Nygren said. "That really can play a role in changing populations, shifting it in favor of some species over others. The walleye won't benefit from these high-water temperatures, but other species that are more tolerant may take advantage of their declining population."

Geno Adams, a fisheries program administrator in South Dakota, said there have been reports of isolated fish kills in its manmade lakes on the Missouri River and others in the eastern part of the state. But it's unclear how much of a role the heat played in the deaths.

One large batch of carp at Lewis and Clark Lake in the state's southeast corner had lesions, a sign they were suffering from a bacterial infection. Adams said the fish are more prone to sickness with low water levels and extreme heat. But he added that other fish habitat have seen a record number this year thanks to the 2011 floods.

"When we're in a drought, there's a struggle for water and it's going in all different directions," Adams said. "Keeping it in the reservoir for recreational fisheries is not at the top of the priority list."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/thousands-fish-die-midwest-streams-heat-183228110.html

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Saturday, August 4, 2012

NCAA moves closer to sweeping penalties overhaul

NCAA President Mark Emmert gestures during a news conference in Indianapolis, Monday, July 23, 2012. The NCAA has slammed Penn State with an unprecedented series of penalties, including a $60 million fine and the loss of all coach Joe Paterno's victories from 1998-2011, in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. ?(AP Photo/Michael Conroy

NCAA President Mark Emmert, left, announces penalties against Penn State as Ed Ray, NCAA Executive Committee chair and Oregon State University president, looks on at right, during a news conference in Indianapolis, Monday, July 23, 2012. The NCAA has slammed Penn State with an unprecedented series of penalties, including a $60 million fine and the loss of all coach Joe Paterno's victories from 1998-2011, in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. ?(AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) ? Nearly a year after promising to impose harsher sanctions on the most egregious rule-breakers, NCAA leaders endorsed a proposal Thursday that would make schools subject to the same crippling penalties just handed to Penn State.

The measure includes postseason bans of up to four years, fines that could stretch into the millions and suspensions for head coaches. A final vote on the sweeping overhaul will not occur before the board of directors' October meeting.

"Coaches come to me and say, 'I feel like a chump. I'm trying to do things the right way and I have peers who laugh at me because I don't play the game and bend the rules the way they do,'" board chairman Ed Ray said in a statement released by the NCAA. "That's got to stop ... Most coaches are terrific people who love their student-athletes, try to do it the right way, try to have the right values and succeed. They're very frustrated. This has got to stop. I think most coaches are saying it's about time. We want a level playing field."

The plan calls for changing the current two-tiered penalty structure of major and secondary violations to a four-tiered concept, increasing the size of the infractions committee from 10 up to 24 in an effort to speed up the enforcement process and holding coaches individually accountable for any violations that occur in their program.

But it's the penalties that will make school leaders take notice.

A program found to have made a "serious breach of conduct" with aggravating circumstances could face postseason bans of two to four years. In addition, the program may have to return money from specific events or a series of events or the amount of gross revenue generated by the sport during the years in which sanctions occurred ? fines that could cost a school millions of dollars.

If this sounds familiar, it should. After the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal at Penn State, the NCAA barred Penn State from playing in a bowl game or the college football playoff until after the 2016 season and levied a $60 million fine ? the rough equivalent to a year of gross revenue from the football program.

Coaches, too, would face new guidelines. They would be presumed responsible for any violations committed by their staffs. If they cannot prove they were unaware, the head coach could be suspended from 10 percent of the season to the full season.

The board also approved a provision that would publicly identify individuals responsible for the violations if there is a finding of lack of institutional control or failure to monitor.

The changes are the next step for university leaders nearly a year after they met with NCAA President Mark Emmert at a two-day retreat in Indianapolis. Afterward, presidents said they unanimously supported stronger sanctions and promised to make significant changes over the next 12 to 18 months.

Ray, the Oregon State president, and former Penn State President Graham Spanier were two of the leaders who spoke after the meeting. Also in attendance was University of Miami President Donna Shalala, whose football and basketball programs were accused of major violations just a few weeks later. The Miami investigation is ongoing.

With so many major scandals over the past 20 months, NCAA leaders not only wanted to put teeth in the sanctions ? they want them in place before the end of this year.

"Our intention is to make this real in October," Ray said. "We want the membership to have a final review. We will listen to compelling arguments for additional changes, but this is the recommendation with all the feedback we've gathered since our first report in January and second detailed report in April."

Ray's committee also approved a measure that will allow BCS officials to expand the bowl limit so they can create a four-team playoff. That measure was expected to be a formality after the BCS voted to expand the playoff system.

And the board approved a new selection process for bowl games if conferences with bowl tie-ins do not have enough bowl-eligible teams to fill all the spots.

Under the new measure, if a bowl cannot be filled by the conference affiliations, the open spots would be filled through a six-tier tiebreaking process that will consider wins versus Football Championship Subdivision teams, teams with seven losses, teams making the move to the FBS that go 6-6 and any 5-7 team with a top-five score on the Academic Progress Rate.

The board also reiterated its support to provide athletes an annual stipend of up to $2,000 to cover the so-called full cost of attendance but did not vote on the measure. The stipend originally was approved last fall, but was halted in December because too many schools were opposed to it.

In other actions, the board:

? Chose Wake Forest President Nathan Hatch as the new chairman of the board and Michigan State President Lou Anna Simon new chairwoman of the Executive Committee.

? Voted to support a change in constitutional language that would allow schools from outside the U.S. to join the NCAA. The move virtually assures that Simon Fraser University of Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, will become the first non-U.S. member when the Division II Presidents Council votes next week.

? Heard a proposal to rewrite the massive rulebook manual. No vote will occur until at least January.

___

Online:

http://ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/ncaa/pdfs/2012/ewg+penalty+guidelines

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-08-02-NCAA-Board%20Of%20Directors/id-117fdafc12e54b93b08d1fc9cc9b5295

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