THE GURGLING COD

Consumer Advisory

Women hoping to become pregnant may want to start drinking Coors Light instead of milk.*

*Ladies, please consult a qualified physician before switching to the Silver Bullet. It's been a long time since I took any science classes. Link via #1HS.

Marketing Challenge

It may just be a product of dusting off The Best of  Ian Dury over the weekend, but shouldn't there be a way to re-brand a restaurant called Burgers and Cupcakes so that it had a name that did not sound like Cockney rhyming slang?

Austin, we do not have a problem for once

I have expended my fair share of energy here and there in this space criticizing Whole Foods and its patrons. I stand by those sentiments, and wish heartily that this grocery chain had not pushed the association of health and luxury so hard, because that train leaves a lot of poor folks on the platform when it pulls out of the station.

But. A tip of the fin is due, and I swear they have not been feeding me the special Kool-Aid sweetened with Demerara sugar and flavored with natural fruit essences collected from sustainable trees by cheerful workers. A new Whole Foods opened in the Upstate, and within a week of opening they had at least three very local products in the store: Split Creek chevre, Happy Cow milk and butter, and Clemson blue cheese.  Bi-Lo, the regional grocery chain with an outlet closeset to Clemson,  all of about 2.3 food miles from where they make this cheese, changed its usual red and black livery for Clemson's orange and purple for this location, (carts, jerseys over the aisles, etc) , but can't be arsed to carry the cheese, except for occasionally the pre-pack Krumbles and the (nasty) premade dressing. It impresses me that a chain as big as WF is able to be agile enough to deal with small vendors like this, and when the excitement of the Upstate's second-ever olive bar dies down, I look forward to returning.

I don't recall the same involvement with local producers at other WFs, so I'd be interested to hear how your local grocers WF or otherwise are doing with local producers.

Ricotta Park

If reading about how the structure of our language makes it impossible to eat well seems a little dark for a Friday morning in May, I suggest you read about new blogger Ricotta Park's bad P'eatZZa dream instead.

It's not easy being green

If you want to sell healthy food, you don't want to be too elitist, but you also do not want to sell organic stuff  to just anyone.  Obviously, the whole point of an Op-Ed piece is to demonstrate that The Times does not speak with one voice, but juxtaposing the Powell op-ed, and the recent handwringing about Mall-Wart going organic does a) raise the question of just how to improve what Americans eat and b) how intensely connected healthy food and class remain.* What's alarming, too, is how malleable the term "organic" is. In a narrow, scientific sense, the term seems clear:

Originally: relating to or designating compounds which exist naturally as constituents of living organisms or are formed from such substances (all of which contain carbon and hydrogen). Later: of, relating to, or designating any compounds of carbon (other than certain simple compounds such as oxides, carbides, carbonates, etc.), whether of biological or non-biological origin. (OED, sv "Organic" def #7.)

In the sense we use it today when we talk about food, the usage dates stems from Rodale's 1942 opus, Organic Farming and Gardening (thanks to Max):

Of a method of farming or gardening: using no chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or other artificial chemicals. Also designating a farmer or gardener utilizing such a method, or a farm on which the method is employed. (OED, sv "Organic, def # 8b)

Here's where the fun begins. "Chemical"  and  "artificial" are value-laden terms, in this context, and subject to negotiation--as a result, as a consumer label, "organic" is pulled in one direction or another, either constricted to delimit a particularly righteous mode of food production, or expanded to cover something dubious.

So  you have Whole Foods working to bring the legal definition of "organic" in line with what their focus groups tell them their customers think it means (scroll down a few grafs). And you have howlers like organic sea salt. Even if it is harvested by home-schooled dolphins using solar-powered fans made from renewable trees,  salt  is  sodium chloride, and as, such, as inorganic as Rosie, pictured at right. Ultimately, the issue seems to have a significant linguistic component--"organic" refers to substances, and the concerns eaters have have as much do with processes as with products. One could, for instance, market organic sugar produced by near-slaves working in inhuman conditions, just like regular sugar is made, while an orchard using a low impact IPM system, and offers health coverage to its workers, must be labeled "conventional."

*Fearless prediction--in the not-too-distant future, having pre-teen daughters who are still flat-chested will be a sign of status, because it suggests that you could afford to feed them BGH-free milk.

The (Global) Omnivore's Dilemma

An discussion at Salon, excerpted  here, adds a wrinkle to the "eat local" argument. Not sure if I'm buying it.:

But now we have the opposite take. Globalization of the food supply allows third-world farmers to produce things they're good at, like inexpensive food, while Americans will have to move onto things we're good at, like building airplanes.

When I was in graduate school, we called that "uneven development," and I seem to recall it was a bad thing.  Also, if you want to assert your point of view in a global conversation, people seem to pay more attention to airplanes than they do to lobbed spuds.

Idle speculation encouraged

Interested to know how Ms. Powell figured in Jeopardy!, myself,  but also willing to entertain guesses here in the comments.

Hardrock Hallelujah!!

I am still working on ideas for what to cook and serve for National Day of Slayer, but I do know that this video for  Finland's entry in the Eurovision song contest is a good way to start warming up. Zombie cheerleaders, and a drummer who models himself after Predator--what's not to like? You would hardly guess these guys share a passport with Eero Saarinen.
Through the good offices of Unfogged.

Rats!

From the folks at Eater, Rat (not) descending a staircase.

1) Tue May 16 2006 1:32 pm / updated 5:14 pm
Eater Philly: Stephen Starr Has Rats (Update: maybe)

 2) Tue May 16 2006 5:34 pm:
Morimotogate: No Rats! (Or: Who is trying to take down Steven Starr?)

3) Tue May 16 2006 6:53 pm:
Morimotogate: Who is Trying to Take Down Stephen Starr?

There were a few other iterations, but that may have been due to the vagaries of Bloglines. Also, if you read back from the most recent post, you have an uncanny sense of rats being conjured where there were (evidently) none. I was I admit reminded of the climactic scene in The Paper, where publisher Glenn Close prevents editor Robert Duvall (I think) from stopping the presses, shouting over the roar in the printing plant, "We only have to be right for 24 hours" or words to that effect.

As Nostradamus predicted

The Anti-Christ, aka P'EatZZa™, now available at 7-11.*

And don't miss the 7-11 home page with the  little girl drinking the Slurpee the size of her torso:
Image cycles--hit refesh if you don't succed at first.
Bet she'll be a handful on the ride home! And, very soon, enormous.
* Through the good offices of Mr. Catchdubs.