Flat Press Magazine

Editor's note: Mireille Schwartz is the founder and executive director of the Bay Area Allergy Advisory Board, an organization that promotes education and awareness, and provides no-cost medical care and medication to San Francisco Bay Area families with severely allergic children. She is the author of "The Family Food Allergy Book."

Holidays are a particularly challenging time for us food-allergic individuals with so many desserts and homemade treats, casseroles and dips laid out on the table -- largely without ingredient labels.

Food-allergic children can feel left out of the traditional festivities, many of which center around food, and allergies can present a challenge for hosts, as they frequently must tend to a wide range of preferences and needs behind the scenes.

All the excitement and good cheer makes it more difficult to be informed about the ingredients in each and every party food. There are ways, however, to reduce anxiety through the holidays while staying happy, healthy, and allergy free.

Big Brother may be watching you. But Glenn Greenwald is watching Big Brother.

That's not a bad take on how the 46-year-old constitutional-law attorney turned crusading journalist turned thorn in the side of the NSA might describe his mission.

At least in part. Greenwald is doing more than just watching. By combing through the tens of thousands of classified NSA documents leaked to him by Edward Snowden -- and publishing in newspapers around the globe report after report on the secretive agency's mass-spying activities -- he's got the whole world watching too.

Through his efforts, he's looking not only to buttress the Bill of Rights and protect the sanctity of privacy -- he also wants nothing less than to stop the Internet from being warped into what he fears would be "probably the most effective means of human control and oppression ever known" -- a technology that allows "people's every thought and word to be comprehensively chronicled" by the "surveillance state."

It isn’t just the big phone makers who are jumping into the oversized phablet market. Lesser-known companies are entering the huge screen scrum too. For example, the $299 Life View from Miami-based handset creator Blu features a large 5.7-inch LCD screen that’s bright, colorful, and engaging. The device is a handful too, in the same league as the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and HTC One Max, yet feels solid, well-crafted, and not terribly unwieldy. I also appreciate how the Life View serves up Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and a sharp 12 megapixel camera at its affordable unlocked price. Heck, the gadget even has dual SIM card slots if you’re into that kind of thing. Of course the smartphone’s off-brand processor and lack of LTE leave me cold and are serious detractors for mobile power users.

Android-based Google TV has struggled to find its footing, but the planned reboot of Google's Web-enabled television box next year could come with a familiar name.

The set-top box could be called Nexus TV, tying the Google TV redo to the company's successful line of flagship Android phones and tablets, according to a report Friday in The Information (subscription required).

Snack Taverna opens Snack EOS outpost in Hell's Kitchen; Drunken Munkey serves craft cocktails, British colonial style

Coming soon...

 Tongues were wagging — and mouths salivating — in downtown Brooklyn this week when logos went up at the long-vacant space at 345 Adams St. heralding the opening of a 10,000-square-foot Hill Country BBQ market and live music venue. The latest outpost in the excellent Hill Country chain will open by the end of the year.

New to the scene …

Popular West Village eatery Snack Taverna has opened a new branch, Snack EOS, in Hell’s Kitchen (522 Ninth Ave.). The 40-seat restaurant serves up such dishes as saganaki (fried cheese) with green tomato and pistachio ($10) and a grilled pork chop with guanciale, charred cipollini, feta and panko ($25).

The sweet dessert wines made from grapes that freeze can be a great pairing for holiday dishes.


Leaving grapes to freeze on the vine seems like a recipe for stone cold failure. But under the right conditions, the grapes that come in from the (extreme) cold can produce delicious dessert wines that are a cool favorite for holiday pairings.

What to call it? It depends on where you are. It's called eiswein in Austria and Germany, where it began; icewine, one word, in Canada, where it's become something of a signature wine; and ice wine, two words, in the United States, where vintners in New York state and few other regions are experimenting with the hard-to-make, easy-to-drink product.

Whatever you call it, interest in the wine is heating up as producers experiment with new grapes and new winemaking styles - how about some sparkling ice wine with those gingerbread men?

The flavored vodka isn’t made with the famed hot sauce, but has a lot in common with the condiment: spicy but not too hot, garlic aroma, vinegar kick and sweet finish.




Yes, a Sriracha shortage might be imminent, but there's a spicy new way to drink your sorrows away. Philips Distilling Company has debuted a new flavor in its UV Vodka line: Sriracha, which sells for $11.99 for a 750ml bottle and is touted as the ideal ingredient for Bloody Marys.

The vodka isn't made with hot sauce from Huy Fong Foods, the California-based company that was recently ordered to temporarily shut down production of its famous hot sauce because area residents were complaining of watery eyes and breathing problems.