Dressing (or not) for Dinner

Everyone interviewed seems to be worried about whether San Francisco’s nudists are going to observe decent etiquette in restaurants. Surely such a fashion faux pas as wearing an iPhone belt while roaming nude rules them out of being a big threat?

Weighing in on kitchen scales

Why do most Americans who actually have a digital kitchen scale get one in the first place? We needed one when our daughter became diabetic. Our friend got one after she had a stroke and had to lose weight. It’s a great tool for learning how to calculate, cut down on carbs and portion things right. But you can take it too far, and in the foodie world, it’s becoming kind of an obsession, like iPhone apps for food. Will it really make you a better cook?

Green Lentil Sausages

After finding a recipe for garlicky, peppery Romanian grilled beef sausages (what’s not to like?), I wondered whether I could make a vegetarian version using green lentils and vital wheat gluten, and cooking them in the microwave like seitan. The recipe took some tweaking but the final version makes a mean grinder.

Microwave tricks: Seitan without Simmering

It takes an hour or more to simmer wheat gluten fully, and the one answer I found on the web for “Can you microwave seitan?” was “Not unless you want wheat gluten shoe leather”. I wonder, though–does the person who answered that know how to microwave something doughy like gluten correctly? Does this bear revisiting? Would a cut in time down to 5 minutes from an hour or more make me happy? Answers–possibly not, probably so, and absolutely. Yes. It would.

Who’s dissing the lentil?

Some of the commentators on the new USDA MyPlate icon point out that a lot of the guidelines’ listed choices for proteins are kind of on the upper-middle-class end of the food chain. True, true, but that’s no reason to diss the lentil.

The new MyPlate icon–fantastic or plastic?

Already, the MyPlate icon is in a certain amount of branding trouble, but what surprises me are all the minor-league detracting comments from national food and nutrition experts. The first thing they all have to say is that the plate looks dumbed down. Forgive me, but wasn’t the Food Pyramid’s unreadable and unusable design a large part of the problem? Let’s face it. It’s supposed to be a general reminder, not the Savior of the Western Waistline. Despite its similarity to the Microsoft Windows logo, I think it’s a big improvement.

Age, salt and the new USDA dietary guidelines

You’d think that was great, and I do, that the USDA guidelines have finally caught up with what the medical associations have been demanding based on the overwhelming weight of studies on dietary sodium intake. But there are two catches hidden in the midst of all this. After reading the new guidelines, I wonder how serious the USDA is about urging the public to cut down significantly on salt. They’re starting to look bought yet again.

The Minimalist Makes His Exit – NYTimes.com

I don’t agree with some of Mark Bittman’s more-is-more recipes. I also don’t think Bittman always walks the walk when it comes to touting nonmeat meals and affordable, commonsense ingredients. But you can’t fault his sense of fun on video. I don’t really think he’ll be able to parlay his next NY Times gig, on food politics and the like, into personal parodies of Blue Man Group, The Thin Man’s Return (He Couldn’t Resist the Spaghetti), or Legend of the [you-name-it Kung Fu] Master. But I could always be wrong

Local, organic and forgotten field hands

Darra Goldstein’s editorial in the Fall 2010 issue of Gastronomica calls out the schism between the “local, organic” righteousness of wineries and customers and the forgotten field workers they still exploit in the process.

Play with your food…

In a season of too many boring holiday cookies, this take on playing with your food, from artist/New York Times blogger Christoff Niemann, caught my eye…