Abbreviated Pollan

For those of us (me included) who haven't read Michael Pollan's 8,000 word New York Times Magazine piece about re-thinking our food culture, Michael Ruhlman has heroically cut it down to it's essentials here. Some of my favorite proposals include:

• Provide cities grants with which to build structures for year-round farmers markets.
• Require federal institutions that prepare food (school lunches, prisons, military bases, etc.) to buy a minimum percentage of that food locally.
• Food stamp debit cards should double in value when swiped at a framers’ market.

Eating China Food

The lovely and talented friend of To Be or Not To Beet, Emily Murphy, has decamped for a year to teach American culture to University students in Hong Kong. As a devoted eater, she's posting her witty musings and lovely photos of her food adventures on her travel blog. I'm jealous of her access to every Hong Kong movie-goers favorite treat, noodles in a bag, which sounds a hell of a lot better than stale popcorn with coconut oil "butter" topping, no?

School of Cheese

Fidel Gastro, AKA the Big Queso, isn't the only one out there who wants in on the world of lactose-tinged delights. If you've got $500 burning a hole in your pocket (even after the great market plunge of 2008), check out Murray's Cheese Boot Camp. 3 days, lots of cheese and a chance to show off at your next caseophile cocktail party.

Mozzarella, take two

The learning curve is steep. My hands are burned (seriously). I blew it once again. This time, I got the curds to set, but when I got to the heating and kneading process, my hands just couldn't take the heat, so I followed the advice of Ludacris (among others) and got out of the kitchen, leaving another blob that would not behave as promised. Lame.