Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 63

weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

  • Chickens are keeping their mess to themselves, fashionably, with chicken diapers (right). "'Chickens are a symbol of urban nirvana,' The New York Times wrote last year, 'their coops backyard shrines to a locavore movement that has city dwellers moving ever closer to their food.'" We expect the ironic, 80's-inspired, hipster chicken diaper line any day now.
  • A sensible and delicious solution to low meal-cost school lunches: ditch the industrial meat. A New York City school goes meatless. “This is so good,” said 9-year-old Marian Satti of a black bean and cheddar cheese quesadilla served at Tuesday’s lunch, the Daily News said. 'I’m enjoying that it didn’t have a lot of salt in it.'”  
  • Culinary students at CIA protested what they feel are weakened standards. “There are students here who understand the work and the discipline...but there are also some who just want to coast and get on reality shows, and we see them getting away with it.”
  • A small town in Scotland has launched its own signature menu as a way to support regional cuisine and identity. Huntly, a town of only 4,000 people, has stepped out with this vision. How about "Huntly tattie soup (made with locally-grown veg and short rib or plate beef); Deveron cure trout and mayonnaise made with rapeseed oil; Highland kedgeree (using Moray-smoked haddock, free-range eggs and Fairtrade rice); and Gordon barley risotto with Moray langoustine, mushrooms or rabbit, dotted with Douglas Fir pine oil."