Recipes for Health: Quick One-Dish Meals, Some Cooking Required — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

This week, in response to readers’ requests on the Recipes for Health Facebook page, I focused on quick one-dish dinners. You may have a different opinion than I do about what constitutes a quick meal. There are quick meals that involve little or no cooking – paninis and sandwiches, uncomplicated omelets, scrambled eggs, and meals that combine prepared items with foods that you cook -- but I chose to focus on dishes that are made from scratch. I bought a cabbage and a generous bunch of kale at the farmers’ market, some sliced mushrooms and bagged baby spinach at Trader Joe’s, and used them in conjunction with items I had on hand in the pantry and refrigerator.

I decided to use the same rule of thumb that a close French friend uses. She refuses to spend more than a half hour on prep but always turns out spectacular dinners and lunches. My goal was to make one-dish meals that would put us at the table no more than 45 minutes after I started cooking (the soup this week went over by 5 or 10 minutes but I left it in because it is so good). For each recipe test I set the timer for 30 minutes, then let it count up once it went off. All of the meals are vegetarian and the only prepared foods I used were canned beans.

I do believe that it is healthy – and enjoyable -- to take time to prepare meals for the family (or just for yourself), even when you are juggling one child’s afterschool soccer practice and homework with another child’s dance recitals and homework. Sometimes it is hard to find that half hour, but everybody benefits when you do.

Soft Black Bean Tacos With Salsa and Cabbage

Canned black beans and lots of cabbage combine in a quick, utterly satisfying one-dish taco dinner. They can be served open-faced or folded over.

1 tablespoon canola or grape seed oil

1 teaspoon medium-hot chili powder (more to taste)

1 teaspoon ground lightly toasted cumin seeds (more to taste)

2 cans black beans, with liquid

Salt to taste

8 corn tortillas

1 cup fresh or bottled salsa*

3 ounces either queso fresco, feta, or sharp cheddar, grated or crumbled

2 cups shredded cabbage

*Make fresh salsa with 2 or 3 chopped roma tomatoes, 1 or 2 jalapeños or serrano chiles, a little chopped onion or shallot if desired, salt, a squeeze of lime juice, and chopped fresh cilantro

1. Heat the oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat and add the chili powder and ground cumin. Allow the spices to sizzle for about half a minute, until very fragrant, and stir in the black beans and 1/2 cup water. Cook, stirring and mashing the beans with the back of your spoon, for 5 to 10 minutes, until thick and fragrant. Be careful that you don’t let the beans dry out too much. If they do, add a little more water. Remove from the heat.

2. Heat the tortillas, two or three at a time, in a dry skillet over medium-high heat, or in a microwave. Top with the black beans, salsa, cheese and cabbage. Fold the filled tortillas over if desired and serve. Alternatively, one at a time, place a tortilla on a plate, top with the beans and cheese and heat through for 30 seconds to a minute in a microwave. Then top with salsa and a generous handful of cabbage, and serve.

Yield: Serves 4

Advance preparation: The refried black beans will keep for three days in the refrigerator. You will have to moisten and thin them out with water when you reheat them.

Nutritional information per serving: 398 calories; 11 grams fat; 3 grams saturated fat; 3 grams polyunsaturated fat; 4 grams monounsaturated fat; 15 milligrams cholesterol; 56 grams carbohydrates; 13 gram dietary fiber; 887 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 17 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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Gas takes biggest bite of income in 30 years

Fuel costs are taking a big bite out of household budgets, according to separate reports Monday from the Energy Department and from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The Energy Department says U.S. households spent an average of $2,912 on gasoline, or almost 4% of their pretax income, the highest percentage in 30 years.

That's despite the fact that Americans consumed less fuel in 2012 for a variety of reasons, including more efficient driving habits and higher-mileage vehicles.

PHOTOS: Best car values for fuel economy

"The effect of the higher prices in 2011 and 2012 outweighed the effect of reduced consumption," the Energy Department said.

In fact, researchers at the University of Michigan said Monday that the average fuel economy for new vehicles sold in the U.S. reached a record 24.5 mpg in January -- up 0.4 mpg from a revised figure for December.

Meanwhile, the Union of Concerned Scientists reported that most Americans "are likely to spend almost as much on gasoline over the life of their vehicle as its original cost."

“You’re basically paying for a second car every 15 years. The only thing really benefiting from your oil use is oil companies' bottom line," said Joshua Goldman, the report’s author and a policy analyst for the advocacy group.

ALSO:

Top 10 cars most likely to be collector's items

U.S. automakers enjoyed big sales gains in January

Toyota, Ford, Honda rank highest in Consumer Reports survey

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Super Bowl 2013: It's Harbaugh, Harbaugh, Harbaugh

Everybody joked that Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday should be known as the Bros Bowl, the Harbowl, the Super Bros Bowl and the Super Baugh (yes, you have to think about the pronunciation a bit on the last one) in recognition of the San Francisco 49ers' Jim Harbaugh and the Baltimore Ravens' John Harbaugh as the first brothers to meet as coaches in the NFL's championship game.

They're not twins. John is older by 15 months.

Aside from Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis playing in the final game of his storied 17-year career and the debate over which quarterbacking style -- the dual-threat play of the 49ers' Colin Kaepernick or the pro-type pocket passing of the Ravens' Joe Flacco -- will win the day, it's been mostly about the Harbaugh family in the week leading up to Super Bowl XLVII.

Well, that and 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver opening his mouth and swallowing his leg with his anti-gay remarks.

Here are some pearls of wisdom and wit from the Harbaugh family this week:

“They asked me to come on and deliver a positive message to the youth," Jim said of his appearance many years ago on the TV show Saved by the Bell. "And for that I’ve been scorned and humiliated.”

“I think even I liked Jim more than me growing up," John said. "I wouldn’t be surprised if [our parents] did.”

“If President Obama feels that way," Jim said of the president doubting whether he'd let a son play football, "then there will be a little less competition for Jack Harbaugh when he gets older. That’s the first thing that jumps into my mind."

"I have to say that most of the time I won," John said of competing against Jim. "I was older in all honesty. I won most of the battles early. He will probably refute that. We had a lot of arguments over it"

“I could make something up," Jim said when addressing the media during a round of interviews, "But I’d be making it up. What do you want me to say and we can save you some time and put it right in your story.”

On a more serious note, the Harbaugh patriarch was more reflective.

“The one thing that I do think about is after the game there’s going to be one winner and there’s going to be one that’s going to be totally disappointed,” said Jack Harbaugh. “And my thoughts go to that one [who] will not experience the thrill of victory.

Of course, it isn't all about the Harbaughs. Flacco's father, Steve, got off one of the best lines when describing his son: “Joe is dull. As dull as he is portrayed in the media, he’s that dull. He is dull.”

Here are some other non-Harbaugh nuggets:

“If you want a Super Bowl, put a retractable dome on your stadium,” said Joe Flacco, who is not a fan of playing for the NFL title in a cold-weather city like New York in 2014.

“I may have been catfished once or twice,” Lewis said when discussing the Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax.

"Now that I’m older, I do think I’m the greatest receiver to ever do it," the 49ers' Randy Moss said of his place in NFL history. "I don’t really live on numbers, I really live on impact and what you’re able to do out on the field. I really think I’m the greatest receiver to ever play this game."

ALSO:

Bill Plaschke: No one should forget about Doug Williams

Bill Parcells, six others elected to Pro Football Hall of Fame

49ers' Chris Culliver to get sensitivity training after anti-gay remarks

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Stevie Wonder headlines pre-Super Bowl concert

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Applause and approval greeted Stevie Wonder as thousands stood for hours to hear his pre-Super Bowl concert that also featured guitarist Gary Clark Jr.

Escorted on stage late Saturday by his daughter and backup singer Aisha Morris, Wonder performed several of his hits, including his opening song, “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You).”

That was followed by “Master Blaster,” Michael Jackson‘s “The Way You Make Me Feel,” and Wonder‘s own “Higher Ground.”

The 62-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member headlined the event outdoor event held near the Wyndham Riverfront Hotel on the eve of Sunday’s game between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers.

Thousands packed a tent set up on a parking lot across the street from the hotel to hear Wonder, Clark, R&B artist Janelle Monae and DJ Martin Solveig.

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Never too early to plan for college expenses

Look at your cute baby, and imagine the little tyke wearing a high school cap and gown about 17 years from now.

Picturing the child holding a diploma, when he or she can't even hold a rattle yet, is probably next to impossible. But that day will come. And if you are like most parents, as you watch junior walk across the stage to pick up a diploma, you will be vacillating between feelings of pride and utter fear. At that point, your child will be headed to college, and the price tag will be so shocking you'll be tossing and turning at night.

If college prices continue to climb as they have the past few years, by the time today's newborns go to college, the sticker price will be about $37,700 for one year of tuition, room and board at a state university and $98,200 at a private college, said Kalman Chany, a college financial aid consultant and author of "Paying for College Without Going Broke." For a four-year education, it will be about $161,500 at a university in your state or $426,400 at a private college, he estimates. To put that into perspective, many public colleges now run about $20,000 a year, and some private colleges are more than $55,000.

So maybe at this point you figure you will stick a bat or ball in the little tyke's hands the moment he or she can hold it in hopes they are on the road toward winning an athletic scholarship. But let's face it: That's a remote possibility. Should you despair? 

Remember, you don't need the entire sum saved for college the day junior moves into a dormitory room. And during the next 17 years, your salary probably will rise along with college costs, so the numbers won't look as shocking as they do today. In addition, low- and middle-income families don't have to pay the full sticker price if they are smart about college choices.

But if you want to make paying for college as painless as possible, you are going to have to start planning now. For the next 17 years, you will have to keep your eye on the calendar. Before children are old enough to get braces, some savvy parents start helping them build the type of resumes that will win scholarships.

Still, don't count on scholarships to do all the heavy lifting. No matter how polished your child turns out to be in high school, the chances are you will have to come up with a good sum of money yourself. So start now by saving as much as you can. Anything is better than nothing. If you start saving $100 a month for college and invest it in a balanced mutual fund that's roughly divided half and half in stocks and bonds, you should have about $40,000 by the time you pack up the car with junior's belongings and head to college.

But also make sure you have your priorities right. Too many parents — especially those laden with their own college loans — want to spare their children college debt. So they plop money into a college savings account for their children, while neglecting to save for their own retirement. This is upside-down planning.

I've heard from many parents who can't retire because they put their child's education ahead of their own savings, and their child ends up finished with college, enjoying a Wall Street or a law firm salary, and is debt-free.

The rule of thumb for saving enough money for retirement is: Start saving 10 percent of pay in a 401(k), IRA or both, beginning in your 20s. If you wait until your 30s, it's 12 to 15 percent. If you happen to have an employer that offers the typical 3 percent matching money for a 401(k), you can stash away 7 percent of your own pay and — with the free money from your employer — you will hit the 10 percent mark.

For college savings, you can make investing easy and the most profitable if you keep Uncle Sam away from taxing your savings. Plop either the $2,000 limit a year into a Coverdell college savings account, or if you can manage to save more, skip the Coverdell and use a 529 college savings plan offered by a state government. Anything you save in these accounts will be tax-free for you and your child if it goes to pay for college. Tell grandparents and other relatives about the child's 529 plan, so they can send birthday and other gifts into the college fund.

Elementary school

Maybe you've been saving diligently since you helped the little tyke blow out the candle on that first birthday cake. If you were making life easy on yourself, you evaluated 529 plans, chose one with low fees and solid performance, and you've been letting the investment experts at the plan invest your money in the manner that typically is appropriate for your child's age.

Are you satisfied with the 529 plan you chose, and the investments you've chosen within the plan? You are allowed to make changes once a year — selecting a plan in another state if you want, or different investments in the plan. Remember, you don't have to stick with the plan in your state, although many states give you an extra tax break if you do. And you can save money if you go to a state 529 plan directly rather than using a financial adviser. According to Morningstar, the average cost if you do this on your own is about 0.60 percent, but with an adviser it's 1.5 percent — a much higher amount that will detract from the amount you amass.

Say your child received $2,000 from grandma at birth. In the cheap 0.60 fund, the savings would become about $6,680 by college if the investments earned 8 percent. The same investments in the 1.50 fund would be $5,720. Try this calculator: tinyurl.com/seccalc.

To identify funds Morningstar thinks are best, go to tinyurl.com/bestfunds. Also check out savingforcollege.com.

As you evaluate the investments, keep in mind what "age-based" means. With that approach, the plan typically invests for you based on the child's age. Up to 4 years old, the money was probably invested about 80 percent in stocks and 20 percent in bonds. Between 5 and 10, it was probably 65 percent in stocks and 35 percent in bonds. The idea is to increase the money as much as possible when the child is young by using a significant amount of stocks. Then the closer the child gets to college, the more conservative the investing becomes so there's less chance of a loss when the first tuition bill rolls around.

You can lose money in 529 plan investments when the stock market goes down, but if investments turn more conservative along the way, you generally have time to recover by college. Many plans offer conservative investments if you can't stomach stocks. But remember the trade-offs. If you select a money market fund or CDs paying 2 percent interest, your $100 in savings a month would total less than $25,000 by the time a newborn makes it to college.

If you have been getting raises every year, consider increasing your contributions to the 529 plan — maybe setting up your account to move money automatically each payday. Also make sure you tell grandma and grandpa not to open any UGMA or UTMA account in the child's name. If your child is going to qualify for financial aid when he or she goes to college, a UGMA or UTMA will poison his chances.

Want to know if you are likely to get financial aid? For a ballpark idea, try the "estimated family contribution" calculator at the college you think your child might attend or: tinyurl.com/finaidest.

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$1 million lottery jackpot waits to be claimed

SPRINGFIELD ——

Last St. Patrick's Day, four $1 million lottery tickets were drawn in Illinois, but so far only three of the buyers have claimed their pots o' gold.

The luck of the Irish will run out March 17, the anniversary of the sale, if nobody turns in the fourth ticket that was bought at a gas station in west suburban Wood Dale.

It's far from unusual that somebody buys a winning ticket and fails to collect. Illinois amasses tens of millions of dollars in unclaimed lottery prizes each year. But winners usually cash in early rather than risk misplacing the ticket before the anniversary — and losing their windfall along with it.

Jim Batson, owner of the Marathon station on Irving Park Road where the unclaimed ticket was sold, hopes the buyer will claim the Millionaire Raffle prize before it's too late.

"We tell everybody who comes in to check between their couches and anywhere else," Batson said. "Sure feels like someone lost it."

Lottery agents have even put up a flier alerting customers to the prize and deadline.

The Millionaire Raffle is exactly what it sounds like, with 500,000 individually numbered tickets sold at $20 a pop. A computerized drawing spits out four winning tickets, each worth $1 million. The odds of capturing the top prize are 1 in 125,000.

After the drawing last year, winning tickets were turned in from convenience stores in Pocahontas, near St. Louis, and Robinson, in southern Illinois near the Indiana border. In an odd coincidence, the other winning ticket was bought less than four miles from Batson's store, at another Marathon station on Busse Road in Elk Grove Village.

The Millionaire Raffle prize is not even the largest one unclaimed and still valid. Someone bought a $6.5 million Lotto ticket at a Road Ranger truck stop in Roscoe, near the Wisconsin border, in August, but no one has turned in the winning ticket. The largest unclaimed prize in Illinois history was a $14 million Lotto ticket sold in Frankfort in January 2004. No one ever collected.

The state sold nearly $2.7 billion worth of tickets in the budget year that ended June 30, but unclaimed totals for that period are still being tallied. The previous year, the unclaimed prize winnings hit $32.4 million. The vast majority of that unclaimed cash goes into the common school fund, according to the lottery.

Most states have a similar approach with unclaimed prizes, said David Gale, executive director of the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries. But some states throw unclaimed winnings back into future jackpots, and others use the money for different funds, such as helping to support programs to battle gambling addictions.

There's still a chance someone will turn in that outstanding ticket from Wood Dale as time ticks down to the expiration date. In 2011, for example, a South Side man claimed a $9 million Lotto prize just days before the winning ticket expired.

"Most people don't typically wait the full year," said Mike Lang, lottery spokesman. "But once in a while, we do get one."

Batson holds out hope for his patrons. "It would be nice if one of my regulars had won it," he said.

Whether or not the prize is claimed, Batson already has collected a lucky reward. He received the standard 1 percent commission for selling a winning ticket — a payday worth $10,000.

raguerrero2@tribune.com

Twitter @ChiTribCloutSt

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Apple TV Is Running Late

So, Apple‘s big plan to talk cable companies into making the iPod of the television industry thus far involves getting Time Warner to let it put HBO Go on its box (if you buy a cable subscription!), something other similar boxes already do. How very unexciting. It’s surprising that Apple TV doesn’t already offer HBO Go, since its biggest competitors Roku and Xbox 360 have had it for over a year. And it’s not like Apple has spent that time coming up with some innovative arrangement that would that would excite the cord-cutter (and cord-never) set. No, per Bloomberg’s   Edmund Lee and Adam Satariano, by mid-2013, Apple TV owners who also subscribe to cable or satellite TV can watch the premium channel through their TVs via Apple’s box. Yes, if you have an Apple TV, you can watch HBO either on it or through your cable box. The choice is yours!

RELATED: Apple Won’t Be Revolutionizing TV Anytime Soon if Cable Has Their Say

HBO Go is a modest improvement over the HBO On Demand offerings because it offers HBO’s entire library of shows, not just a select few. HBO also puts brand new episodes up right after they air, which is nice for people who forget to set or have a too-full DVR. But, cable subscribers already have access to HBO Go—on their computers. The improvement here is that existing subscribers now have another way to get those shows onto their TV screens.

RELATED: HBO Is Finally OK with Cord Cutting (In Scandinavia)

This too-late move to get Time Warner on its box surfaces a larger problem: Apple TV has very few apps so far, as AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka points out. HBO Go will bring its total outside app count up to 10, a ton fewer than Xbox and Roku. And yet, many have talked about Apple TV as the gadget that will change everything. Perhaps techies overlooked the deficit because the company has been in secret talks with cable companies to supposedly revolutionize TV for years. It’s coming, the Apple rumors promised, fending off any doubts that Apple would deliver something great. But, nothing exceptional has arrived yet, certainly nothing that sounds like the Apple TV code Steve Jobs claimed to have cracked shortly before his death. Rather, this sounds like something Apple should have done years ago. Apple, if anything, is playing catch-up. 

RELATED: Apple Might Be Making Apple TV Content Deals

But maybe Apple isn’t the place to look for the future of television. Elsewhere in TV land, something new, different, and possibly revolutionary is happening. Netflix, an entity that does not require a cable subscription, will release its first big-budget TV drama today. Unlike Apple, Netflix is trying to operate outside of the traditional cable-bundle structure in order to create an alternative for people who don’t want to pay into the old system. Instead of playing by HBO’s rules and selling its shows on its strict terms, Netflix wants to be the HBO of streaming TV, by creating premium shows that will draw people to Netflix for a premium price. Also in an attempt to do things differently, Netflix has released all the episodes at once, to appeal to our binge watching sensibilities. The experiment might not work. But at least, unlike Apple, Netflix is trying. 

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Amazon unveils exclusive ‘Downton Abbey’ deal with PBS

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc said on Friday that it struck an exclusive deal to distribute seasons of the hit TV show “Downton Abbey” to members of its subscription-based video streaming service.

Beginning June 18, Amazon‘s Prime Instant Video service will be the exclusive subscription service for streaming Season 3 of “Downton Abbey,” as part of a new content licensing agreement with PBS Distribution, a unit of The Public Broadcasting Service.

The online retailer said that later this year, no digital subscription service other than Prime Instant Video will offer any seasons of “Downton Abbey.”

The phenomenally successful British period drama, now in its third season, has become both a critical success and a cult favorite among its many U.S. fans.

Written by Oscar-winning scriptwriter Julian Fellowes, the series follows the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants at an impressive country estate in the early 1900s.

Prime Instant Video will continue to be the exclusive subscription home through Season 4 and, if produced, Season 5 of the show, the company added.

The deal is the latest effort by Amazon, the world’s largest Internet retailer, to expand in digital content and take on Netflix Inc, the leading online video subscription service in the United States.

Amazon is spending heavily on licensing deals for movies and TV shows to attract more viewers to Prime Instant Video. The service is offered free to subscribers of Amazon Prime, the company’s broader online shopping subscription program, which costs $ 79 a year for two-day shipping in the United States.

Netflix and rival Hulu Plus, owned by Comcast Corp, News Corp and Walt Disney Co, currently offer some seasons of “Downton Abbey.”

As of July 1, no “Downton Abbey” seasons will be available on Netflix, according to a person familiar with the agreement between Amazon and PBS.

By obtaining exclusive rights later this year to stream “Downton Abbey” on Prime Instant Video, Amazon is hoping more people will sign up for its broader Prime service. When that happens, shoppers often spend more on Amazon.com, analysts say.

Amazon’s choice of “Downton Abbey” was likely driven by an analysis of buying behavior by existing customers, a strength of Amazon’s.

The company noted that Seasons 1 and 2 of the series are the most-watched TV seasons of all time on the Prime Instant Video service already.

“Our Prime customers have spoken,” Brad Beale, director of digital video content acquisition for Amazon, said in a statement. “The series is consistently in our top most watched TV shows each week.”

(Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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Ferrol Sams, Doctor Turned Novelist, Dies at 90

Ferrol Sams, a country doctor who started writing fiction in his late 50s and went on to win critical praise and a devoted readership for his humorous and perceptive novels and stories that drew on his medical practice and his rural Southern roots, died on Tuesday at his home in Lafayette, Ga. He was 90.

The cause, said his son Ferrol Sams III, also a doctor, was that he was “slap wore out.”

“He lived a full life,” his son said. “He didn’t leave anything in the tank.”

Dr. Sams grew up on a farm in the rural Piedmont area of Georgia, seven mud-road miles from the nearest town. He was a boy during the Depression; books meant escape and discovery. He read “Robinson Crusoe,” then Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. One of his English professors at Mercer University, in Macon, suggested he consider a career in writing, but he chose another route to examining the human condition: medical school.

When he was 58 — after he had served in World War II, started a medical practice with his wife, raised his four children and stopped devoting so much of his mornings to preparing lessons for Sunday school at the Methodist church — he began writing “Run With the Horsemen,” a novel based on his youth. It was published in 1982.

“In the beginning was the land,” the book begins. “Shortly thereafter was the father.”

In The New York Times Book Review, the novelist Robert Miner wrote, “Mr. Sams’s approach to his hero’s experiences is nicely signaled in these two opening sentences.”

He added: “I couldn’t help associating the gentility, good-humored common sense and pace of this novel with my image of a country doctor spinning yarns. The writing is elegant, reflective and amused. Mr. Sams is a storyteller sure of his audience, in no particular hurry, and gifted with perfect timing.”

Dr. Sams modeled the lead character in “Run With the Horsemen,” Porter Osborne Jr., on himself, and featured him in two more novels, “The Whisper of the River” and “When All the World Was Young,” which followed him into World War II.

Dr. Sams also wrote thinly disguised stories about his life as a physician. In “Epiphany,” he captures the friendship that develops between a literary-minded doctor frustrated by bureaucracy and a patient angry over past racism and injustice.

Ferrol Sams Jr. was born Sept. 26, 1922, in Woolsey, Ga. He received a bachelor’s degree from Mercer in 1942 and his medical degree from Emory University in 1949. In his addition to his namesake, survivors include his wife, Dr. Helen Fletcher Sams; his sons Jim and Fletcher; a daughter, Ellen Nichol; eight grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

Some critics tired of what they called the “folksiness” in Dr. Sams’s books. But he did not write for the critics, he said. In an interview with the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, Dr. Sams was asked what audience he wrote for. Himself, he said.

“If you lose your sense of awe, or if you lose your sense of the ridiculous, you’ve fallen into a terrible pit,” he added. “The only thing that’s worse is never to have had either.”

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Chicago beer firm Crown Imports is caught in antitrust fight

An antitrust brouhaha in Washington has thrown the future of Crown Imports, a Chicago-based beer importer, into question.

The company, which ranks third in U.S. beer sales volume, is a joint venture between New York-based Constellation Brands Inc. and Mexico's Grupo Modelo, which makes Corona Extra, the leading imported beer in the U.S., and other brands. Crown sells Modelo brands as well as China's Tsingtao.

As part of its proposed sale to Anheuser-Busch InBev, Grupo Modelo agreed to sell its 50 percent stake in Crown to Constellation Brands for $1.85 billion. The separate transaction was meant to ease possible antitrust concerns that the merger would eliminate Crown Imports as a competitor.

But on Thursday the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against AB InBev to block its acquisition of Grupo Modelo. Antitrust officials said the merger would further increase the concentration of the U.S. beer market, leading to higher prices for American consumers.

The lawsuit said the sale of Modelo's interest in Crown Imports to its partner would only create "a facade of competition" between AB InBev and the importer.

"In reality, Defendants' proposed 'remedy' eliminates from the market Modelo — a particularly aggressive competitor — and replaces it with an entity wholly dependent on ABI," the Justice Department said in the lawsuit.

The suits cites as evidence part of an internal memo that Crown's chief executive, Bill Hackett, wrote to employees after the transactions were announced in June. According to the suit, Hackett wrote, "Our #1 competitor will now be our supplier ... it is not currently or will not, going forward, be 'business as usual.'"

Under the terms of the proposed merger with Modelo, AB InBev also had the option to terminate its agreement with Crown Imports after 10 years, giving it full control of Corona distribution.

Constellation Brands on Friday attacked the Justice Department, saying in a statement that the suit "demonstrates its incomplete understanding" of the proposed merger. Constellation and AB InBev have indicated that they plan to challenge the suit.

In a detailed defense, Constellation said its full control of Crown would improve competition, not harm it. According to the lawsuit, Modelo controls about 7 percent of U.S. beer sales, far behind AB InBev's market-leading 39 percent.

Constellation attempted to ease concerns that AB InBev's merger with Modelo would lead to higher prices. Hackett said in a statement: "Our Crown team independently develops, implements and refines pricing, promotional and sales strategies for each of our brands in the U.S."

The proposed beer merger had reduced uncertainty hanging over Crown Imports because the Modelo-Constellation joint venture was set to expire at the end of 2016. The Justice Department action creates a new level of uncertainty, said Benj Steinman, president of Beer Marketer's Insights, a beer industry trade publication.

"Crown's fate is hanging in the balance," Steinman said.

asachdev@tribune.com

Twitter@ameetsachdev

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