1. Good news if you love Indian and Thai food, new study finds Curry Spice Kills Cancer Cells
2. Need a new twist to bacon and eggs? Stacey Snacks blog shows us how to make Baked Eggs in Bacon Baskets
3. Veggie art puts Mr. Potato Head to shame.
4. Playing with your food never looked so good- check out this amazing sandwich art from TOXEL.com.
5. Some strange canned food, it seems like you can put anything in a can on Food Network Humor.
6. Food & Wine magazine feature Supper Clubs that have gain cult following.
7. Start happy hour early at work by checking out some vodka porn.
8. Al Dente Blog has a great suggestion for a fun host/ hostess gift with a Lucky Break Wishbone.
9. Not everyone loves pumpkin pie, but everyone loves Thanksgiving cupcakes!
10. Still need a dessert idea? Womansday.com suggests switching it up with Four Decadent Thanksgiving Desserts

Above Photo by Suttonhoo

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Above wine tattoo photo by Rambleonsylvie

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Don’t play with your food, you say?  Jennifer Rubell didn’t hear you.  For the opening of Performa 09, Rubell staged a “Creation” themed food installation featuring 2,000 pounds of honey-drenched ribs, 2,000 pounds of peanuts, and 2,000 pounds of ice – all mounded in tall piles. For dessert, Rubell brought in chopped down, fully mature, fruiting apple trees. They lay toppled on their sides with red apples scattered on the ground of the installation space. If the intention of this spectacle was to make a statement about mass consumption, Rubell has done just that. Guests circled her food piles, cringing slightly at the exorbitant display. Rubell is unapologetic about any offense her installation might cause, saying “I wanted people to be forced to examine why they’re so concerned about killing an apple tree.”

What do you think?  Art for art’s sake or do Rubell’s antics make you question your relationship with food?

photo from 16 miles of string

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Lumpy, warty Kabocha squash is one of my favorite winter squashes.  Sweet, understanding and forgiving in the kitchen, Kabocha makes a fantastic cooking companion.  When picking out a Kabocha squash from your farmer’s market or grocery store, choose one with firm skin and a woody stem.

After I scrubbed and rinsed the outside of the squash, I split it in two and roasted it in a 375 F degree oven for 30 minutes, until it was fork-tender.

After removing the squash from the oven, my kitchen was perfumed by its scent- creating a quintessential autumn kitchen. The Kabocha effortlessly gave up its seeds,  leaving behind vibrant, marmalade colored sweet meat.   After discarding the seeds and scooping out the steaming flesh, the outer shell of the gourd stayed mostly intact, resting like a helmet on the roasting pan.  With a squash this easy to cook with, it was hard not to think of other ways to utilize it other than soup.

At the same time I roasted the Kabocha,  I roasted chopped onions and carrots tossed in olive oil and salt and pepper in another pan, until caramelized. After sauteing three cloves of garlic, fresh ginger, one Thai chili and two stalks of chopped celery in a large pot with olive oil and dried herbs, I added the roasted vegetables with the squash with four cups of chicken stock and simmered for another 20 minutes. Once the soup took on the characters I was looking for most, then I pureed it in a blender until smooth.

I served the Kabocha squash and ginger soup with toasted multigrain bread, smeared with a French triple cream brie.  The pungent cheese paired with the warm, sweet ginger spiced soup couldn’t have been more ideal for a Northwest rainy, blustery November evening. Looking for an autumn soup, or perhaps a starter to your Thanksgiving meal, try experimenting with the delicious Kabocha squash.

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Jonathan the butcher, the Rhode Island “Not-a-Hen” Chicken, and our homemade kill station comprised of a ladder with an inverted traffic cone and a bucket.

Putting the bird in the cone, head first. The cone calms the bird and prevents it from bruising itself while struggling.

Guiding the head through the cone to expose the neck. Jonathan makes a swift slice at the jugular with a small paring knife and steadies the bird during its death spasms.

Done with the hardest part, Jonathan and his first kill.

Here, Jonathan scalds the bird in hot water and quickly plunges it into ice water to loosen the feathers. The feathers come out easily afterward. The bird should more or less resemble what you buy from the supermarkets at this point (plus a few parts).

For more information on how to butcher a chicken, click here.

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No wonder mushrooms add such intense flavor to any dish.  For instance, you can start the night off with a Mushroom Pate that will be the new crowning glory of any cracker.  Follow that up with a Mushroom Ravioli using your favorite fungi.  Finally, finish the evening off in style with a scoop of Porcini and Honey Ice Cream.

Greasy Chinese food?  Fuggedaboutit.  Why not give magic mushrooms a try tonight?

Photo by daneen_vol

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You can often find me chuckling when I stand in my mother’s kitchen. On the counter it’s not surprising to find three crackers wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, five almonds in a small dish or something like three pear slices leftover from breakfast resting on a clean plate.

“Why are you keeping three grapes in this dish?” I’ll laugh. “Really mom, there is only about a quarter cup of mayonnaise in this container and it’s taking up space in your refrigerator, why don’t you toss it out?”  Neither of my parents are  what I call penny pinchers, nor did they grow up with the notion to save every scrap of food, but one thing my mother hates more than anything else is wasting food. So why throw away three segments of an orange when you could add it to your yogurt tomorrow?

My mother is one of the best cooks that I know of. Extremely resourceful and downright clever when it comes to making something out of nothing. Perhaps like a “found artist,” she looks at every ingredient in her kitchen as if it could be part of a greater piece of work.

Whether we like it or not, we often turn into our parents- and I am no exception.  My husband has since put my counter and refrigerator gatherings on a mental due date. Ever so carefully he’ll ask if he can toss half of a grilled chicken thigh that is wrapped in plastic or the quarter-sized piece of blue cheese that I simply couldn’t bear to toss from a couple nights ago. The beauty of it all is that I DO find ways to use these found items in my fridge. Like the Cobb salad that I made using the leftover blue cheese and the diced chicken thigh or the half stem of fresh rosemary that -even though small- the leaves were sprinkled on a pizza and I used the stem to infuse the tomato sauce. When you think about it, many gourmet meals we happily pay  for in restaurants today came from leftovers, like cassoulet, Asian dumplings, bouillabaisse or cioppino- the Italian seafood stew, which name comes from people assembling “a little bit” of what ever was leftover from the day’s catch.

I challenge you all to rethink what you consider as garbage in your fridge simply because you can’t be bothered to include bits and pieces into your next culinary creation.  I’ve got three words for you when it comes to most odds and ends: soup, salad or bento box!

A little bit more inspirtation for you:
The Frugal Girl – Gives you pointers on leftovers.
CheapEats.ie- Gives advice on fishcakes using leftovers.
The World According to Eggface uses the bento box solution.

Above photo by: The Pack

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“How we eat can change the world” – Alice Waters

Life has a way of make us feel overwhelmed and insignificant at times. News headlines never seem to be short on stories of pollution and mounting environmental concerns. It is a daunting challenge. But Waters suggests that each of us has the ability to contribute to the solution by the simple act of eating. I love that.

photo by Bruce Tuten

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Raise your hand if you’ve ever entered a bookstore intending to buy a literary work and left with a cookbook or two. It’s ok. It happens to all of us.

Vegan Soul Kitchen came out in March of this year, and I had been lusting for it since hearing an interview with Bryant Terry, the author, on The Splendid Table in April. Therefore, when Amazon gently recommended it to me- on sale- as I bought my fall textbooks, I happily added it to my virtual shopping cart.

The recipes are modernized, veganized versions of the traditional African American and Southern recipes Terry enjoyed growing up in Memphis. When one thinks of Southern cooking, “vegan” is not the first word that comes to mind. Even the vegetables tend to be battered, deep fried and flavored with bacon or lard. Terry proves that one can enjoy Southern and African American cooking without sacrificing lifestyle or nutrition. “To be clear, though, I am not presenting this as a ‘healthy cookbook,’” Terry writes in the introduction, “Vegan Soul Kitchen is a real food cookbook for anyone with a soul that likes tasty eats.”

The recipes range from drinks to sides to entrees to desserts, with an entire section devoted to watermelon. One theme throughout is a focus on sustainability. As an example, Terry encourages readers to compost the matter remaining after making the stock for the Tempeh, Shitake Mushroom and Cornmeal Dumpling Stew I prepared last night. I picked up all of the vegetables for the stew (except the mushrooms for the stock) at the farmer’s market yesterday: every ingredient called for in the recipe is in season at the same time. In fact, the concept of the book grew out of the director of CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) asking Terry to create recipes for CSA members.

The book is peppered with pop culture references; for example, Terry titles his vegetable section “So Fresh and So Green Green.” (Outkast, anyone?) He also includes a soundtrack for each dish, drawn from an eclectic variety of musical genres. The songs accompanying my stew were “Chicken an’ Dumplins” by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers and “Shroom Music (Champion Bound)” by Quasimoto (neither of which I had in my iTunes library).

However, the only music I needed was the sound of a hearty, delicious meal simmering on my stove.

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I was still reeling from New York City’s swift ban of trans fat when the high fructose corn syrup debate ignited and tore through the shelves of one of my favorite local grocers, vaporizing all traces of high fructose corn syrup. For a kid who grew up in the 80’s, this is like wiping out an entire food group. It made me queasy. Just what poison is this high fructose corn syrup? Why are we only now trying to get rid of it after it’s been around for over 30 years?

If you’ve already settled this sugary mess for yourself and would rather enjoy your Halloween loot in peace, you probably want to meander to happier recesses of the internet . However, if you are curious and don’t mind giving up your Halloween loot, read on.

There are two camps in the high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) controversy: one insisting that HFCS is harmful for human consumption and another arguing that HFCS is chemically no different than table sugar and therefore deserves equal treatment. The general consensus among experts is that both of these carefully worded statements are in fact, correct.

From a chemical standpoint, HFCS resembles table sugar and is metabolized similarly. To make HFCS, corn syrup is converted into fructose through an enzymatic process, and then recombined with pure corn syrup*. Essentially: HFCS = fructose + glucose. HFCS comes in a few different flavors, however: HFCS-42, HFCS-55 and HFCS-90. The trailing number denotes the percentage of fructose each solution contains. Arguments can be made here that these varieties differ from table sugar (sucrose) because sucrose contains glucose and fructose in a 50/50 ratio. But since most consumables are made with HFCS-42 (in foods and baked goods) or HFCS-55 (in beverages), the fructose-glucose ratio is close enough that most experts don’t deem HFCS signicantly different from sugar.

In a recent lecture given at UCSF, Dr. Robert Lustig notes that the main charge against HFCS is not a chemical difference from table sugar, but an economic one. HFCS is cheaper to produce and it works marvelously as a flavor enhancer. As a result, HFCS has found its way into a majority of our processed foods. As a nation, we are eating more sugar than we ever have and one of the main culprits seems to be the cheap and ready availability of HFCS.

The graph below from the USDA shows the trends in the consumption of various sugars over the past 40 years. You can see that corn syrup had replaced cane sugar as the dominant sweetening agent by the mid 80’s. As the use of corn syrup has surged, our total caloric intake of sugars has risen correspondingly.

This trend is alarming because over-consumption of refined sugar, be it table sugar or HFCS, is detrimental to health. There is mounting evidence that the fructose component of the refined sugars is down right dangerous (yes, fructose, the fruit sugar!). When fructose is isolated from the plant mass, you lose your satiety signal, and it leaves you vulnerable to overeating. Which is exactly what I experienced after having a desperation-cupcake yesterday. Have you experienced this before? Craving more food after having sweets? And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Read what the American Heart Association has to say about the effect of sugar intake (including fructose) on cardiovascular health. In any case, my point is that the arguments of each camp in the HFCS debate (HFCS is bad for you, and HFCS is equivalent to sugar) are not mutually exclusive.

To me, the HFCS controversy is emblematic of a larger problem in our relationship with food – a fragmented food chain. There’s rarely a week that goes by without some news about contamination in our food supply (for example, this week’s stories on BPA and e-coli – again!). This happens because many of us have relegated food preparation to the industrial food complex. When we do this, we become so removed from the origins of our food that it becomes more difficult to know what is healthy or safe. My strategy for staying above the fray? Stay away from processed foods, get in the kitchen and roll up your sleeves with some wholesome foods and good recipes.

What’s your take on high fructose corn syrup? Has the HFCS controversy changed your eating or shopping habits? If so, how?

*Although sound in theory, it seems to me that the more processed a food is, the higher the likelihood for contamination. This Washington Post article from earlier this year reported findings of mercury in high fructose corn syrup.

Sugar cubes photo by: Vali…