SMORGASBORD: Can you say beer? . . . Latke lift . . . Wash those grocery bags

Can you say beer?

Do you have a beer drinker with a birthday coming up?

An impressive number of books about the world’s most wonderful beverage have come out in recent months. Here are a couple of them.

— “Brewed Awakening: Behind the Beers and Brewers Leading the World’s Craft Brewing Revolution,” $24.95, by Joshua Bernstein. This is a how-to guide for the beginning hipster beer nerd. Extra cool points for the book jacket, which unfolds into a beer map of sorts and shows the relationship among various styles and offers suggestions for the best of each.

— “Chicago by the Pint: A Craft Beer History of the Windy City,” $19.99, by Denese Neu If interested in Chicago’s beer history long before Daisy Cutter, this is the book for you. Each chapter begins with a brief synopsis of a present-day brewery, followed by a passage about the city’s brewing history.

Latke lift

Those fried-in-oil potato pancakes called latkes are a traditional, crispy-delicious Hanukkah treat. And it’s not too early to think about next year.

Serve latkes in style with this stainless steel potato pancake turner with “LATKE” laser cut into its base. A terrific gift for the cook in the house or a holiday host, it’s dishwasher-safe.

The latke server is $6.95 and may be purchased at the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies’ gift shop or online at spertusshop.org.

Wash those grocery bags!

Reusable grocery bags may be good for the environment, but they could be making you sick.

A new study has found that intestinal bacteria like E. coli flourish in unwashed reusable bags.

The study, published in a recent issue of the International Association for Food Protection’s Food Protection Trends magazine, tested 87 reusable bags obtained at random from shoppers in California and Arizona. It found that 8 percent contained E. coli, among other harmful food-borne pathogens.

Putting bags through the wash eliminates almost 100 percent of the bacteria.

Other precautions include packing raw meats separately from fruits and vegetables to avoid cross-contamination and not storing reusable bags in the trunk of the car, where high temperatures increase bacteria growth.

Tags: updates, food, smorgasbord