Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 70

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

 

• A new European regulation on laser marking technologies has been adopted by the EU commission and seeks to replace sticky labels on fruit (like above). "Because production of adhesive stickers requires natural resources (wood for paper, energy, water, etc…) as well as chemical substances (glue & ink production), the project proposes a sustainable solution for food labeling. In addition, the process reduces energy consumption and GHG emissions, while guaranteeing full information about origin and production conditions."

• The economy in Europe is forcing Spanish companies to sharpen up and look to exports: "Spain must reinvent itself as an export-oriented, high-value-added economy, says Fernando Casado, director of the Business Council for Competitiveness, a group of big companies." We hope more delicious products are on their way to North America.

• Food production has a long history of labor abuse, which is still going strong in the global food system, according to a report last week from the US State Department on human trafficking. "This year's report looks at things like the fishing industry — and actually raises a question that I think all of us should be asking, which is: How much of my life is impacting modern-day slavery? Do I know where the shrimp is being caught or processed that is on my plate?"

• With Silver Bells and Oyster Shells (and So Their Gardens Grow) "The oyster industry has grown nearly 20 percent yearly in states like Rhode Island, Virginia, and Massachusetts, over the past decade, and owning a restaurant in which to sell the product is becoming a more common business model for oyster farmers."

• The trend that's cropping up all over — seaweed. It's everywhere, from the musing of a seaweed foragers on Scotland's Isle of Bute, to getting fried as chips in San Francisco to seaweed butter in Nashville. 

• And speaking of Nashville, there seems to be great things happening on that food scene every time we look.

• Eat this: local Houston restaurant Underbelly debuts a "Cease and Desist" burger in response to trademark infringement threats from the In-N-Out chain. And now, through the power of snarky humor, they've gotten a ton of press for it.

• More than the smell of fries will be wafting from McDonald's. In a wacky cultural mash-up, McDonald's Singapore is offering a Durian Crunch McFlurry based on a fruit so stinky, it's been banned from being eaten in public in several countries. 

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 69

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

• "When words just aren't enough, say it with bacon..." urges this jewelry-spoof commercial (above). "All you have to do is listen, and bacon will show you the way."

• NPR gave a little positive attention for the concept of multi-trophic aquaculture, the growing of companion species in the same area for a healthier ecosystem.

• You don't have to eat threatened species to be enabling their trade. The Dutch have said "No" by blocking the transfer of whale meat from Iceland in the Port of Rotterdam. "The State Secretary’s announcement sends a clear message to the whalers that they cannot expect it to be business as usual in Europe. The Netherlands’ initiative to launch a code of conduct could be decisive in closing down Europe to the transfer of carcassess of these endangered majestic creatures."

• Good news: the young folk don't want to eat anonymous junk. The Millenials are spending differently and restaurant chains are trying to woo the younger generation. "Between the proliferation of artisanal food trucks and items like cupcakes made of Valrhona and Callebaut chocolates and topped with a fondant daisy for $2.75 at Georgetown Cupcake, or Fresh Direct’s offering of “heritage” pork from the Flying Pigs Farm in upstate New York, millennials tend to spend their dining dollars sparingly and in a more calculated way."

• France might make industrial cooking establishments call themselves what they are: "In a fight back against a rising tide of boil-in-a-bag meals and other gastronomic horrors, France is to consider a law change that would limit use of the word “restaurant” to establishments that use proper ingredients prepared on the premises."

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 68

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

 

• Newcastle Libraries has posted a cache of UK historical images, like the fishing photos above, to Flickr. Pictured above: At left, a studio portrait of a Fisherman from Cullercoats taken c.1890. The man is wearing a waterproof coat souwester and cork life-jacket. At right, an 1897 studio portrait of Maggie Brown a Fishwife from Cullercoats. Maggie Brown is wearing her 'best' clothes which include a printed cotton or silk blouse with matching apron. A silk square is worn to fill the neckline of her blouse.
  

• Drink trends: beet cocktails like the Beet Me in St. Louis with beet-infused gin, honey and tarragon, and growing US enthusiasm for port, especially aged tawnies.

• Some forgotten foods of the UK (from cookies to sheep) are making a come back with help from Slow Food UK's Chefs Alliance. Says Carina Contini, of Centotre in Edinburgh: “The special ingredient is always the story. Understanding where ingredients come from and how they got there allows us to connect with our environment and food chain and we love sharing this knowledge with our customers.” 

• On U.S. farms, women are taking the reins says a new report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. Many are career-changers looking for a different kind of life and a way to make a difference. “We are seeing more beginning farmers coming in and I think the trend is going to continue. Women are [already] outnumbering men in owning smaller farms.”

• The romance version of farming spreads further into pop culture with a boom in farm-lit. "Thanks to the economy, picket fences and scruffy farm hands have replaced stilettos and cute i-bankers in literature aimed at women....And in this era of Brooklyn backyard chickens, farmer's markets-as-social events, Anthropologie aprons and hipsters baking homemade bread, what's more aspirational than running away to a farm?"

• Breaking News from Financial Times summit: rich people still super rich, keep trying to sell them expensive stuff "The good news is that the people who buy the products you make are doing much better than everyone else by a very big margin and nothing in the crisis has changed that,” said Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator on the Financial Times.

• When trademark law goes bad: First Chick-fil-a sued those nice Vermont kale enthusiasts, now the Economic Development Department of the State of New York is suing a New York coffee shop over a  riff on it's I ♥ NY logo. Apparently, local pride is going to cost you.

• We've all been hearing about colony collapse disorder and the crisis of dying bees. In China now it’s gotten so bad they are hand-pollinating blossoms in orchards. A new film called More Than Honey explores the issue (click for trailer).

• Food waste — one of the most persistent issues in our ability to feed the world and husband resources. Worldwide, nearly one quarter of all calories produced are going uneaten (infographic), either from spoilage at production on later. One San Francisco-area teen has taken matters into his own hands and founded the tech platform Waste No Food, which help restaurants make timely donations of their surplus food. Leading area restaurants like Manresa have joined in.

• Detroit's Urban Agriculture Ordinance that passed on April 15 has opened the city for urban aquaponics. Two new facilities are underway for tilapia, catfish and blue gill — although the finer points of regulation still have to be worked out. "The city is in the process of coming up with a process,” for approving fish farms, says Kathryn Underwood of the City Planning Commission. “We don't even have all of the forms quite in place yet for all of things that need to happen. We're riding a bike and building it at the same time.”

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 67

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

 

• The Cut Foods project (above) by photographer Beth Galton and stylist Charlotte Omnes gives a new look into the center of common foods, from donuts and coffee to soup and ice cream. "Normally for a job, we photograph the surface of food, occasionally taking a bite or a piece out, but rarely the cross section of a finished dish. Charlotte and I thought it would be interesting to explore the interiors of various foods, particularly items commonplace to our everyday life. By cutting these items in half we move past the simple appetite appeal we normally try to achieve and explore the interior worlds of these products."

• El Bulli chef to launch cultural foundation Ferran Adrià aims to create a monument to high cuisine as fitting the legacy for a restaurant voted world's best five times. "I decided to get out of the restaurant star system...But El Bulli never closed. It is simply being transformed."

• Another example of how everything gets weird at industrial scale: the popularity of Greek yogurt has given us an excess of acid whey explains Whey Too Much: Greek Yogurt’s Dark Side.

• A portrait of the cuisine of Senegal, and the story of their indigenous rice, now under threat by GM crops. "Indigenous Senegalese rice is burgundy in color, transforming into a pale violet when cooked. In Bassene’s carefully arranged pile of rice bundles, there was an equal number of red and tawny yellow rice varieties. He explained that this was a blended variety of traditional Senegalese and Asian rice, a product of the GM crops that have begun to infiltrate the fields of western Africa just as they are the world over. ...One wondered if he felt that after such long struggles and eventual triumphs over war, slavery, and colonization, he finally felt defeated by the silent war being waged upon his fields by the pitchmen touting the virtues of GM foods. Bassene took a bundle of the red indigenous rice in his hand, gripped its base tightly, and said, “We will always prefer our own rice. We will never stop farming it.'”

• Share: The Cookbook that Celebrates Our Common Humanity is a project of Woment for Women International (WfWI), with contributions from Annie Lennox to Aung San Suu Kyi. "Food builds our physical resilience, brings us joy, and strengthens our bonds with family and friends. What we choose to eat, and how we choose to prepare it, can also generate employment, wealth and economic stability for others."

• Another reason to prioritize labor issues in the greater food discussion: human trafficking. Report says Thai fisheries human trafficking ‘widespread’

• A look in The Guardian at whether Food miles are missing the point: "The problem is it's far too simple. Looking only at transport costs for your food is not just to miss the bigger picture, it's to miss the picture entirely. The only way you can get some sense of the footprint of your food is by using what's called a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), which brings everything about the production of that item into play: the petrochemicals used in farming and in fertilisers, the energy to build tractors as well as to run them, to erect farm buildings and fences, and all of that has to be measured against yield. It's about emissions per tonne of apples or lamb."

• Another reason to oppose fracking: it's messing with beer. "According to the Association of German Breweries, hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and natural gas from shale rock poses a threat to the taste of pilsner and they're campaigning against legislation to regulate the extraction process."

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 66

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

• Pinkhouses, like at right, could be the more energy-efficient future of vertical farming. "A photon is a terrible thing to waste...So we developed these lights to correctly match the photosynthesis needs of our plants. We get almost 20 percent faster growth rate and save a lot energy."

• Luxury Daily goes over the seven deadly sins as applied to QR codes, and they're right on. "Gluttony Just because they exist does not mean that you should engorge your marketing collateral with QR codes."

• Michael Pollan on Why Bacteria Aren’t the Enemy and the cheesemakers and fermenters who are “pacifists in the war on bacteria.”

• A powerful use for spoiled food: Kroger Co.'s anaerobic digester in Compton takes unsold food from Ralphs and Food 4 Less and converts it into 13 million kilowatt-hours of electricity a year.

• In a display of branding gone bad, Nutella's parent company Ferrero want to ban World Nutella Day as an unlawful use of it's mark.

• A thoughful piece that explores How Twitter is Reshaping the Future of Storytelling "For people who love compelling writing, there’s something tantalizing about lines being shared one at a time. A line on its own changes a reader’s relationship to the very texture of the syllables and ideas. Twitter story experiments aren’t shackled by the linear requirements of paper."

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 65

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

• Discover global cuisine through the kitchens of grandmothers with this excellent photojournalism project Delicatessen with love by Gabriele Galimberti. Each photo features a  grandmother with her signature dish as both ingredients and finished product. At right, grandmothers from Egypt, Haiti and Latvia.

• The GM food debate gets even uglier as Monsanto threatens to sue the state of Vermont. "Lawmakers in Vermont are looking to regulate food labels so customers can know which products are made from genetically modified crops, but agricultural giants Monsanto say they will sue if the state follows through."

• Looking to unload a châteaux? Christie’s is capitalising on the thirst for wealthy Chinese consumers to buy wineries by opening the world’s first estate agency for would-be vineyard buyers.

• Luxury food producers take note and come up with ways that you can take advantage of this style. Jaeger-LeCoultre tempts female consumers with emotional marketing, and they do a great job of it. “'Jaeger-LeCoultre’s strategy behind this campaign is connecting with their target market’s emotions on various events and occurrences that happen throughout their life, and focusing on the positive perspective that they can continuously reinvent themselves,' Ms. Strum said." Notice that nothing is said about watches in the full two minutes.

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 64

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

• 3D printing meets food (above). Janne Kyttanen has produced prototype printed pasta, breakfast cereal and burgers to demonstrate how advances in 3D printing could transform the way we eat (interview and slideshow). "Kyttanen, co-founder of design studio Freedom of Creation and creative director of printer manufacturer 3D Systems, told Dezeen: 'Food is the next frontier. We’re already printing in chocolate, so a lot of these things will be possible in the next few years.'"

• What drones should be dropping: beer. In South Africa this summer, concert goers will be able to order beer on their phones that will be delivered by drone, kind of like beer from heaven.

• Square, the mobile payment start-up firm, sets its sights on the food industry "Several months ago, Square launched a “Business in a Box” package for $249, including two card readers, an iPad stand, a cash drawer and an optional receipt printer, all wirelessly connected to the Square Register app. Last week, Square announced an update to that app designed specifically for quick-serve restaurants, allowing operators to modify orders and print kitchen tickets."

• Flavor and Language — the eternal challenge of describing flavors in words. "I came across an interview with Harold McGee, that peerless explorer of the science of food. In it he said apropos of sauvignon blanc: ‘It is so difficult to connect particular flavours with their sources, it’s hard to really define what minerality is, or what the expression of a place in a product could actually be. And you have to ask yourself, how many times have people actually tasted minerals, like the flint from which Loire white wines are said to get their flavour? How often do you put a rock in your mouth and suck on it?’" via the excellent project Flavour First

• Workers Claim Racial Bias in Farms’ Hiring of Immigrants “If you can’t find locals to do the work, why is the answer to bring in people who have little protection and not grant them legal status?” asked Mr. Knoepp of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “If we need them, why not bring them in and make them legal citizens with real protections? The answer is because then they wouldn’t keep working in the fields given the conditions of that work. They would do something else. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

•  Trending: sommeliers = new food celebrities "Until recently, serious restaurants in the United States were owned by celebrity chefs, creative developers like Danny Meyer and Richard Melman, or corporate chains. But sommeliers have now begun taking the lead role, as investors make them the centerpiece of their restaurant concepts."

• Nigeria is one of the top markets for champagne. "The figures, from research company Euromonitor, found that Nigeria had the fastest growing rate of new champagne consumption in the world, second only to France, and ahead of rapid growth nations Brazil and China, and established markets such as the US and Australia." And not only are they drinking champagne, they're making music video about it. Check out Pop Champagne

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."

• A nice refresher for your eyes and inspiration for your cocktail menu, a visual sake round-up.

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 62

• A new local food and beverage consciousness has come to Ghana. "'We are trying to create a new atmosphere here, and to rejuvenate our sense of identity," said Kofi Owusu-Ansah, 39, who founded Republic with his brother Raja last year. 'If you look at our spirits, you will find not one single import – the base for all our cocktails is local-made sugar cane spirit akpeteshie.'" Curious about all the African food you don't know about? Check out the new project My African Food Map.

• Russians are now trying to get back to their former, healthier cuisine. "'We want to inspirate [sic] the old Russian traditions with new feelings and ideas," Akimov says. "In Europe, it [local food] is about health and sustainability. In Russia, it's more than that. It's an opportunity to revive whole regions.' LavkaLavka and its partners aren't just resurrecting their country's indigenous foods – they are reinvesting in the people who grow them."

• In Florida, you don't have to go out of your way to find exotics — just go out your back door. The giant African land snail is the latest eco-invader. (yes, everything really weird happens in Florida) If you want to make good use of the invaders by turning them into dinner, food writer Tim Hayward of the Guardian UK visits an African restaurant in south London for a cooking lesson (video).

• What we will probably all be eating soon and probably should be already: edible insects. London-based company Ento wants to convince you to give this sustainable protein a try.

• Insects are also helping us figure out what we should be eating. A young (high school aged young) scientist in Texas is working with fruit flies to more closely examine the effects of organic food on their systems. "By nearly every measure, including fertility, stress resistance and longevity, flies that fed on organic bananas and potatoes fared better than those who dined on conventionally raised produce."

• And not to freak you out that the world is actually coming to an end, but climate change is going to mess up winemaking in a big way. Global warming will make it difficult to raise grapes in traditional wine country, but will shift production to other regions.

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 61

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

What's old is new again — Fin de siècle theme edition!

• You can pick an apple of a city tree! Seattle is building the country's first permaculture food forest. The city’s new park will be filled with edible plants, and everything from pears to herbs will be free for the taking. "People worried, ‘What if someone comes and takes all the blueberries?’ That could very well happen, but maybe someone needed those blueberries. We look at it this way—if we have none at the end of blueberry season, then it means we’re successful.”

• Kids are eating food worth eating! Local seafood has started to move boat to school in Oregon. "Right now, Sobell said, grants are key to making more local food available to schools. But even if they run out, she said she hopes the schools will keep their relationships with producers and incorporate some local food purchases into their budgets. 'This kicks it off and gives people new connections," she said. "Portland schools can still serve local, natural beef even if it's only once in awhile.'"

• Glamorous ladies of the evening ride lobster-driven stove chariots! Well, in our dreams and in the fabulous image above from Retronaut they do.

• If you've ever wanted to own a piece of French hospitality history, now is your chance. Legendary Parisian Hôtel de Crillon to Auction 3,500 Items "So what might you pick up? How about a bar created by César in 1982 (valued up to €12,000 [$15,424]) or a Philippe Starck for Baccarat “Dark Super” console table from the restaurant Les Ambassadeurs  (€15,000)[$19,280]?  Trop cher? Then perhaps a Christofle mahogany and silver-plate dessert trolley (€3,000 to €4,000 [$3,856 to $5,141]), a molded crystal and silver plated Lalique light fixture (€3,000 to €4,000 [$3,856 to $5,141]) or a large wood veneer, gilt bronze and marquetry Louis XVI–style desk from the lobby (€300 to €400 [$386 to $514]) would be just the thing."

• The Dead Rabbit in New York takes retro cocktails to a new level as an Irish bar based on three historic worlds of bartending and a gang of immigrant ruffians, with punchbowls lining the shelves, and teacups made to protect gentleman's waxed mustaches.

• And the finale to our edition, the excellent Portlandia Season Two anthem, The Dreams of the 1890's Are alive in Portland (video).

Go forth, drink bitters and ferment something!

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 60

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

• These cones were made for walkin: Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld has created a line of shoes where the heel is decked out with a sparkly ice cream cone (right) or Brazilian plastic footwear brand Melissa. Another great find from fave blog Laughing Squid.

• NPR's On Point featured an interview with New York Congresswoman Louise Slaughter on the problems of antibiotic use in livestock. The shocking out-take: as many people die of antibiotic-resistant superbugs in the US now as die of AIDS.

• And just to prove that it doesn't have to be that way, The New Pork Gospel is a loving profile by Barry Estabrook of Russ Kremer, the pig farmer that inspired Chipotle's commercial in praise of small pork producers.

• Here’s a project in Brazil that takes a different spin on the food truck concept: food trucks that, rather than selling food, are training people how to prepare food and manage their own culinary businesses (and maybe even their own food trucks!)

• The Beastie Boys' Mike D Runs a Free Food Truck in the Rockaway neighborhood of New York City, helping out residents hard-hit by Hurricane Sandy.

• For your weekend reading pleasure, we've found a new favorite food journal find in London-based The Gourmand. And it doesn't hurt that their logo looks a bit like the Pork Fairy.

• We will leave you with a few words of wisdom from Chef Thomas Keller on why it's desire and not passion that make the best cooks. "It’s not about passion. Passion is something that we tend to overemphasize, that we certainly place too much importance on. Passion ebbs and flows. To me, it’s about desire. If you have constant, unwavering desire to be a cook, then you’ll be a great cook...(more)"

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 59

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

• International style reigns: The Liberation of Paris  Vibrant, young, adventurous, international chef shake it up (in glamorous slides from the New York Times).

• Getting the Shot: Food Photography 101 from the LA Times (source of the peeps, above).

•  Feast your eyes on some Beer and Cheese pairings, photographed so beautifully we want to live there.

• View the other worldly Vanishing Spirits: The Dried Remains of Single Malt Scotch "'After first noticing the patterns left behind in his glass, Button began experimenting with other Scotch residues, shining different colored lights on them and photographing them up close. The results were strangely beautiful. 'A little celestial, or extraterrestrial, almost,' says Button."

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 58

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

 

• Because winter is not over yet, March is National Noodle Month. (not to be confused with National Pasta month, which is October, duh.)  Food52 has some delicious suggestions, like Viet Hapa Pho by Furey and the Feast (above).

• At the Bay Area Center for Asian American Media’s 2013 CAAMFest, the “Emotional Eating” program will screen seven films from North America and Asia about food and all that goes with it. Showing at Sundance Kabuki, in San Francisco.

• To keep going on the east-meets-west theme, a new bar in London called Mizuwari has opened up featuring Japanese whisky (yes, that's whisky made in Japan). Miss Whisky give it a thumbs up.

• Picking wine and other alcohol off a list is everywhere, but picking a particular breed of beef that way is news. Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland has started to offer a breed book for diners to choose their beef. "While this makes our job a little more complicated because we have to source from farmers from all over Scotland, having a weekly change of breed gives us a chance to be more flexible," said Mr Howie. "There are issues with low breed numbers for the likes of Galloway or Highland cattle so, in some instances, we will wait until the time is right, while larger herds such as Luing or Aberdeen Angus are more readily available."

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 57

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

• From one of our favorite blogs, Laughing Squid "Malaysian artist Hong Yi has embarked on a project to create a piece of artwork out of food for every day in March. The results so far are quite excellent and range from reproductions of classic works to original creations. You can follow her project on Instagram."

• Britons are being urged to eat more wild venison as part of land conservation. "Deer populations are going through the roof, there is a population explosion and they are causing problems." They also happen to be delicious. 

• And you can conserve land in your own driveway with a home aquaponics systems. If Kijani Grows in West Oakland can do it, so can you. Check out this video.

• Jewish restaurateurs are revisiting Chinese dishes — and schmaltzing them up "There’s a Borscht Belt shtick about Jews and Chinese food,” he quips. “My personal joke is that I learned to speak Yiddish in the Chinese restaurant from my customers.” 

• And if you want even more Jewish-Asian fusion, try A Seder Spiced With Indian Flavors.

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 56

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

 

• What makes the perfect pig? An Iowa farmer has set out to recreate a rare German breed, as seen in this great New York Times video. His pig won a San Francisco Cochon 555, which the farmer calls "the superbowl of pork." We have to agree.

• NPR looks at how our brains evolved to equate food with love. In primates "sharing food appears to be a way of strengthening the alliance and ensuring future cooperation, he says, not unlike a business lunch."

• A voyeuristic view into strangers' refrigerators. What does your fridge say about you: "For more than four years, photographer Mark Menjivar photographed the contents of strangers' refrigerators for his exhibit "You Are What You Eat," which has traveled to museums and universities across the country. In a short article by Mark Wilson at the Fast Company website, Menjivar said, 'One person likened me asking to photograph their fridge to me asking them to pose nude for the camera.'"

• Steak — the new branded university swag and a grat way to generate revenue after harsh budget cuts. “Schools are looking for new ways to generate revenue, but there is more entrepreneurial thinking in colleges and universities than ever before, too,' said Brian Wansink, a professor of consumer behavior at Cornell and the director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab."

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 55

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

• Mermaids who ride lobster, and other glamorous menu art of decades past from Smithsonian Magazine. And if you're wondering what an oyster loaf is, read here. Hint, it's from San Francisco.
  

• AUA’s Resources Working Group is working with the Chicago Urban Agriculture Mapping Project to inventory and map the thousands of urban agriculture projects (urban farms, community gardens, residential vegetable gardens, school gardens, etc.) underway across the Chicago metro area.

• New web service Feastly says it's aiming to be the Airbnb of the food world, creating alternatives to impersonal dining the way that the travel rental company has created an alternative market to generic hotels. "We want to be in every city in the world so wherever you're traveling, you can find a home-cooked meal," Danny Harris, co-founder of Feastly, tells The Salt.

• One of our new favorite ingredients was highlighted in Tasting Table this week in a profile of Chef Joshua Skenes of Saison in San Francisco and his obsession with seaweed. Stay tuned for lots more on cooking with seaweed in our latest culinary project, New Gaelic Cuisine, a cookbook featuring the artists and ingredients of Scotland.

• Food waste, the eco-issue we all feel participate in, but it might be easier than you think to not throw out so much. Food writer Louisa Kasdon explains. "You know “sell-by” dates? Also known as “use-by” dates, or the more euphemistic “enjoy-by” dates. Whatever you call them, it turns out most of them are marketing malarkey with a slim relationship to ensuring that food is actually fresh and safe to eat."

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 54

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

Here come the Snakes!

Sunday, February 10 is Chinese New Year and the beginning of the Year of the Snake.

• A big part of Chinese New Year is the food. In Shanghai, you can Eat your way through the culinary back streets.

• If you want to take the New Year literally, don't let us stop you. Meet Hong Kong's snake soup kings (with crazy/awesome photos, including the one above)

• You can do it at home: 8 steps to cook a snake

• And you can forage them yourself: Survival tips on choosing and cooking snake in the wild

• And what pairs with snake? China is set to become the sixth largest wine producer in the world by 2016. 

 Happy New Year & Bon Appétit!

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 53

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

 

• Granny among the apples (above). French photographer Cerise Doucède creates photos of people posing amidst flying objects.

• Poetry among the cheese, New York City cheesemongers get funky with their ripe prose. A favorite from Bedford Cheese Shop: "Andante Dairy Nocturne Icelandic ponies. Japanese cats on the Internet. Yawning puppies. Toddlers who give each other hugs. Goats climbing all over everything. Pink and green macaroons. Red pandas. Sparkly nail polish. Do you get where I’m going? Cute things. This cheese is so perfect and cute and delicious you just want to marry it. Or buy one and eat it."

• Urban farming — it's not just for hipsters. In Nairobi, it's an important source of food and income, as PRI reports (audio clip and video).

• If you're a US city-dweller looking to grow your own food, where to get your urban farming supplies? A list: Portland, OR http://www.urbanfarmstore.com, Brooklyn, NY http://bigcityfarmsupply.com, Manhattan http://www.cityhydroponic.com, St. Paul, MN http://eggplantsupply.com/Home.htm, Seattle, WA http://www.seattlefarmsupply.com/?page_id=2, and Oakland, CA http://www.3rdsthydroponics.com

• In London, a new urban one-stop Farm & Shop

• Want to get even closer to the earth? Try the newest restaurant ingredient (at least in Tokyo) — dirt. Dirt and potato soup, dirt ristotto, dirt ice cream...

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 53

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

This week we're waxing 70's and 80's nostalgic with Time for Timer, the cartoon champion of healthy eating.

The PSA classic, You Are What You Eat

And our personal favorite, Hanker for a Hunk of Cheese (which we pretty much do all the time)

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 52

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

 

• Do we really even need to explain what's wrong with the packaging above? Let's just say that a trip to the store this week pushed us a purse too far, and pulling together these examples was way too easy.

• Fresh Air talks with Paul Lukacs about his new book Inventing Wine, A New History Of One Of The World's Most Ancient Pleasures. (link to audio) Your fast fact for the day: "Lead, in fact, will sweeten wine, so lead was used for thousands and thousands of years."

• Whisky makers are taking notice of their largest untapped market, even in Scotland: women. Glasgow women say whisky is no drink for old men. "Long typecast as the definitive male tipple, whisky has a growing appeal for women enthusiasts and in Glasgow a new women's whisky club has been set up, to the delight of distillers." A message to distillers from a couple of whisky-loving women: don't get cute with us. Shoes and purses are lovely, but they do not belong in packaging for grownups. (For what not to do, see above.)

• And for the wackiest cross over of the week for all you girls out there, you can now buy perfume that allegedly smells like dough, brought to you by Pizza Hut. But will you smell cold and stale in the morning?