Turns out that bread made with purple flour isn’t, well, purple.
Area grocery shoppers can find out for themselves now that Orlando Baking Co. is offering Purple Wheat Raisin loaves, part of an expanded line of whole grain breads.
The family-owned bakery, known for its Italian style bread, earlier this year introduced the bread, along with Honey Wheat. They join Seed’licious, which debuted in 2011, to form Orlando’s True Grains line, a response to consumers’ increasing demand for whole grains.
Orlando is touting a new Cleveland Clinic logo on the packaging for all three breads.
The “go! healthy” logo signifies that the bread has received the Cleveland Clinic’s blessing under the Clinic’s “Go! Foods” program.
Food producers submit lists of ingredients for review by Clinic nutrition experts. If the ingredients measure up, the food producer can use the “go! healthy” logo, said Clarissa Carosielli, marketing manager for Orlando, whose 300-employee bakery is in Cleveland.
As for the color of the purple wheat bread, Carosielli concedes that Purple Wheat Raisin looks pretty much like “other raisin bread.”
Nevertheless, she said, because it’s made with purple wheat it is high in antioxidants. The bread’s label blares: “Has the same nutrients as blueberries.”
The bread, made with Canadian-grown purple wheat, does indeed look like typical brown raisin bread. With 1 gram of fat per slice, it’s advertised as “low fat.” It does have a sweet taste, as advertised, and is a bit chewier than other raisin loaves.
Orlando Baking, which began as a small bakery in Italy in 1872, re-entered the whole grain market in 2011. That’s when it introduced Seed’licious Probiotic bread, developed with Ganeden Biotech — also headquartered in Northeast Ohio.
Orlando and Ganeden Biotech have said Seed’licious was the first probiotic bread in North America. Probiotics are the so-called “friendly” or “good” bacteria.
Meanwhile, Honey Wheat, the other bread that Orlando introduced earlier this year, is touted as a source of Omega 3.
In the Akron-Canton area, the three True Grains breads are available at many Acme Fresh Market and Giant Eagle stores, as well Heinen’s, Fisher Foods, Buehler’s and Marc’s. They sell for $3.99 a loaf.
To learn more about the Go! Foods guidelines, visit, www.clevelandclinicwellness.com/food/GO-Foods.
A scary good cake
The 1982 sci-fi/horror film The Thing is a cult classic.
It also was inspiration for a grotesque — looking, not tasting — birthday cake that Vicky Knoop made for her boyfriend.
Knoop, a 2001 graduate of Wadsworth High School who now is an artist living in San Francisco, put her sculpture skills to work to create a cake that is a dead-ringer version of the split face scene from the John Carpenter movie The Thing.
The creepy creation — with the molten-looking face fashioned from fondant placed over sculpted Rice Crispy treats — received a lot of attention from various blogs and on social media. That was after Knoop posted step-by-step directions on her own blog. The cake also was featured last month in the “Food & Drink” section of the Fox News website.
Knoop said it took her about two days to make the edible homage to The Thing. She did it in the name of love. Her boyfriend, Ryan Schubert, is a big fan of ’80s horror films.
Knoop said she’d tipped off Schubert that she planned to make a cake. But he had no idea just how creative she was going to get.
When she revealed her work, “at first he was kind of stunned,” she said. “He was staring at with his mouth open and then he said, ‘Oh my God. I love you so much.’ ”
Knoop, a freelance web designer and artist, said she’s “not that skilled of a baker.” Making the chocolate cake, which served as a base for the face, or faces, was the hardest part, she said.
“I had to make two or three cakes until I got one that tasted good … ,” Knopp said. “I thought this cake has to taste amazing otherwise the whole thing is just gross.”
She said the end result “was actually super tasty.” Friends who helped celebrate Schubert’s birthday agreed.
Under the face, or faces, Knopp put a chocolate layer cake with peanut butter/butter cream frosting between the layers.
You can find her directions at http://leftmusing.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-thing-cake.html.
Restaurant to reopen
House of Hunan, 2717 W. Market St., Fairlawn, is scheduled to reopen Sunday after being closed for remodeling for several weeks, owner Cheryl Suen said. The restaurant, a fixture in the Fairlawn Town Centre, has remained open for delivery and carryout orders during the makeover.
’Tis the season
A sure sign of spring in the area: The Ladies Philoptochos Society at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Akron announces its Spring Bake Sale.
The sale will be from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 9 and 10 at the church hall, 129 S. Union St., adjacent to the University of Akron campus.
There will be Greek pastries and Easter bread for sale both days, and on Thursday the church also will hold its weekly gyro lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. All of the traditional favorites will be sold, including Easter bread (braided sweet bread), baklava, galaktoboureko (phyllo filled with custard) and kourambiethes (butter cookie covered in powdered sugar), as well as Greek spinach and cheese pies (unbaked and frozen, to be baked at home later.)
To place an order or for information, call 330-434-0000.
Whalen featured speaker
Chef Rocco Whalen, who appeared in the 2012 Food Network Fat Chef series and is owner of the popular Fahrenheit restaurant in the Tremont area of Cleveland, will give this year’s Schwebel Lecture at Kent State University.
The talk, at 4 p.m. April 17 is free and open to the public. It will be in the Ritchie Hall Theater on the KSU campus. The speech is sponsored by the Schwebel Baking Co.
Whalen will have no shortage of things to talk about. In addition to Fahrenheit, he has eateries at Quicken Loans Arena, FirstEnergy Stadium and at the Hard Rock Casino in Cleveland. Earlier this year, he opened up a Fahrenheit in Charlotte, N.C.
Ritchie Hall is at 225 Terrace Drive in Kent. For more information on Rocco’s talk, call 330-672-2012.
According to an ABC Nightline report in March, Whalen weighed 407 pounds at his heaviest. While he has lost weight, he is not yet at his goal weight of 240 pounds, according to the report.
A wild plant cook-off
Garlic mustard, the invasive plant that forces out native species, will be the central ingredient in a cook-off at 11 a.m. on Earth Day, April 12, at the Wilderness Center in southwest Stark County.
Participants must register by Friday .
The event — the nonprofit Wilderness Center’s first-ever mustard garlic cook off, is part of series of activities, including a bird walk and a clean-up, at the facility.
Garlic mustard must be harvested from the Wilderness Center, and participants must call the Wilderness Center and schedule a time between April 8 and April 11 to pick up their supply of the garlic mustard.
Complete rules are available at www.wildernesscenter.org/education/upcoming-events/earth-day. Scroll down to Garlic Mustard Cook-Off.
To register and for more information, call Barb at 330-359-5235 or emailbarb@wildernesscenter.org.
The Wilderness Center is at 9877 Alabama Ave. S.W. near Wilmot, on the Stark-Wayne county line.
Linda Vaccaro
Angelina “Linda” Vaccaro, matriarch of the area’s Vaccaro restaurant family, died March 25.
Mrs. Vaccaro died after a “courageous struggle with Alzheimer’s disease,” according to her obituary. She was 78.
Mrs. Vaccaro and her husband, Frank, who died in 2011, built a successful restaurant business, the family noted in the obituary in the Beacon Journal.
“Customers were drawn by Linda’s sauce and pizza dough recipes,” the obituary said. “Linda was happiest in the kitchen, creating her incredible Italian feasts and beautiful table-scapes of which so many have fond, enduring memories.”
Here is a portion of a memory left for Vacarro’s children on the www.legacy.com website: “The first ever pizza for me was made by your mom at the small 3 booth shop [sic] on Arlington Rd. [in Akron]. Your dad right beside her.”
Mrs. Vaccaro was born in Italy and immigrated to the United States when she was 14. She was married to Frank for 53 years.
Mrs. Vaccaro’s son Raphael operates Vaccaro’s Trattoria on Ghent Road in Bath Township.
Food, music and more
The Tri-County Restaurant Association will host the 22nd annual Celebrity Cuisine from 5:30 to 8 p.m. April 29 at the Canton Memorial Civic Center. The event benefits Community Harvest. Tickets are $30. The evening will feature appetizers galore, entrée samples, beer, wine and desserts, live music and a silent auction. Tickets are available from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Tri-County Restaurant Association, 6959 Promway Ave. NW, in Jackson Township and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday at Community Harvest, 4915 Fulton Drive NW, in Jackson Township.
Send local food news to Katie Byard at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com.