Friday Faves No. 147

our favorite finds from the front lines of food

If you're going to watch a cooking show, it should be this funny: Patti LaBelle cooking show highlights: branzini is a “bougie fish” and "These are so good, honey, I could slap myself” about her crab cakes. The video after the link is well worth the three minutes. (Gawker)

As the number of golfers declines, a Chicago-area country club gets into the hyperlocal food game by raising their own veggies, chickens and honeybees — and they're starting a trend (Crains Chicago Business via Specialty Food)

The devil is always in the details! After 100 years, Alabama's first legally distilled whisky comes to market (AL.com)

Move over craft beer — it's time for single estate spirits. "These distilleries represent an emerging category that focuses on provenance, a concept traditionally associated with wine. 'We treat our potatoes in the same way winemakers treat their grapes, noting the aspects of each variety and the vintage,' says David Stirling, brand director at Arbikie Highland Estate. Historically, consumers didn’t really care about where their spirits came from, but the good food craze has prompted people to question the origins of these products.'" (Guardian)

How people not driving is good for business: Here's evidence that more of you are reaching for that second bottle of wine, thanks to Uber. (LA Times)

Friday Faves No. 93

Honey Bees get wired: Australian Researchers Attach Tiny Sensors to Honey Bees to Track Their Movements (Laughing Squid)

A Change in the Kitchen discusses the rise of women in US restaurant kitchens and says that in many leading kitchens a full third of the cooks are women. It's been a long time coming. Now if we can only speed up their track to media coverage and broaden the popular imagination of who chefs are... (New York Times)

Big in Japan: Farming Via Webcam It could be a great way for city-based restaurants and the farms they buy from to connect. (Modern Farmer)

Attention Food Nerds: Classic Southern Cookbooks Now in the Public Domain Fancy a recipe for antebellum pineapple beer or turn-of-the-century succotash? (Garden & Gun)

Wealthy foreigners buy up swaths of UK farmland and country estates Estate agents report rising interest from China, Middle East and Scandinavia with sporting estates 'top of Christmas wish lists' "It's a tangible asset – people can live on it and walk on it," he said. "It's a popular product and we're not making more of it." Ouch.  And: "The agents said buyers are also attracted by the increasing array of money-making opportunities from land ownership, which now extends to rent from wind turbines and fracking as well as traditional farming activities." It won't stay lovely with fracking. (Guardian)

You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love a Kosher Prison Meal "Airplane passengers, for instance, have been known to order kosher meals, even if they are not Jewish, in the hope of getting a fresher, tastier, more tolerable tray of food. It turns out that prison inmates are no different." (New York Times)

Small-Batch Distilleries Ride The Craft Liquor Wave "Wherever you live, you're probably not too far from a local microbrewery making beer. Now, the latest trend is the spread of what you might call "micro-boozeries." Craft liquor distilleries are springing up around the country like little wellheads spouting gin, whiskey and rum." (NPR)