Post Script

"The next big thing will be vegetables."

So says celebrity chef Mario Batali, famous for his Romanesque appetite and all the girth that comes with it. The quote seems out of place, then. 

But get this: Mr Batali has shed some poundage and adopted a healthier, lighter diet. And he put together a new cookbook to share his new recipes with us; a cookbook that is heavy on the veggies.

"Eating as a pleasure is still a part of my life. Eating as a sport has faded away," he told the Chicago Tribune. 

Read a brief interview and profile of Batali's new Italian cookbook here.

Strawberries, meringue, ice cream?

It's hot and humid, and that's all the reason we need for a scrumptious summer cake like this. Via Treehugger's weekday vegetarian.

That's one less nasty toxin to worry about ... and one more to worry about

Grist reports that a decade-long fight by consumer advocates has finally resulted in an EPA ban on the pesticide endosulfan. Similar to DDT, but perhaps more toxic, endosulfan has been banned in the European Union since 2007 but was commonly used in the United States on tomatoes in Florida and cotton in California and Nevada. Other items treated with the substance include melons, cucumbers, squashes, potatoes, apples, blueberries, eggplant, lettuce, pears, peppers and stone fruit.

Of course, this victory is offset by the worrying development in California; the pending and possible approval of methyl iodide as a pesticide to be used by strawberry growers. Methyl iodide is more toxic than the now-banned methyl bromide that it may replace.

Blight is back: watch your tomatoes

The Rodale Institute wants tomato-growers to keep an eye out for signs of blight again this year. The devastating fungus was found on home-grown varieties in 2009, and now it's back. 

Rodale.com spoke with Meg McGrath, PhD, associate professor of plant pathology at Cornell University: "Unfortunately, I think it's a matter of time before it's widespread. (...) Hopefully, people will be more knowledgeable of the disease this year, realizing it's a community disease. If you end up with it, you have to take care of the problem, you can't let it fester in your garden."

What to look for? Brown patches on leaves are a sign that your plants are affected. Growers should remove the plant, bag it and send it to the landfill. And try not to cry.

Details and photo here.

What happens when organic goes BIG?

OrganicNation wanted to know the pros and cons of organic brands being snapped up by big corporations. They interviewed Ken cook, president of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and asked him for his thoughts. The video is posted here and is worth a few minutes of our time.

Where is your milk from?

So... your milk says organic on the label, that's good! But what if it came from a massive dairy operation out of state where the animals aren't given much space or time to graze? Or maybe it came from a local dairy where the cows are few and pampered. Sometimes it's hard to know. Good thing we have the internet to save us! Go to this cool website: Where Is My Milk From?, enter your milk carton's code and get the dairy details. We tested it on a carton of Organic Valley half-and-half, which came from Smith Dairy in Richmond, Indiana.

Thanks to Nancy Quinn at Third Sector Creative.

From Racine ... to the cover of Food & Wine Magazine

This is a tale of a local boy done good if ever we saw one. Racine native and former chef for Louise's Trattoria, Alex Seidel now finds himself on the cover of Food & Wine magazine, hailed as one of the country's 10 best new chefs.

Currently at the helm of Fruition Restaurant in Denver, Seidel has come a long way since he left UW-Milwaukee to go to culinary school. Seidel tells the Journal Sentinel that he and his wife, Melissa, a Cedarburg native, love to come home to Milwaukee, and when they do, they head to Kopps for burgers and Wells Brothers in Racine for pizza.

The full story here, spotted first on Wisconsin Foodie's Twitter stream.

Foodie blog for the weekend

Organic, food, recipes. All good. Happy weekend!

Here... have some happy

Castle Rock ice cream - organic, delicious and on sale at Outpost June 15 - June 30. This is the good stuff. Don't say we didn't tell you. 

 

Big Ag responds to superweeds with more chemicals

We blogged about Monsanto's super weeds back in early May, and now Grist.org addresses how the agricultural giants are handling the problem. Weeds are growing resistant to the chemicals in Roundup? Then the answer must be more chemicals!

An excerpt: "As application rates have ramped up, the superweed menace has become so obvious the mainstream press has taken notice. 'Superweeds Hit Farm Belt, Triggering New Arms Race,' declares a Wall Street Journal headline from last week. (...) Rather than spark a reassessment of the wisdom of relying on toxic chemicals, the failure of Roundup Ready has the U.S. agricultural establishment scrambling to intensify chemical use.

The Journal reports that Dow Chemical, DuPont, Bayer, BASF and Sygenta are 'together spending hundreds of millions of dollars to develop genetically modified soybean, corn, and cotton seeds that can survive a dousing by their herbicides,' most of which are 'many decades old' and highly toxic.' "

Sigh.