We’re less than six full days into the new year, and there’s already been a virtual slew of the usual posts about eating healthier, saving cash, and dropping mad poundage. Here are a few of the best, along with a thought-provoking piece from Jezebel, a few solid features via the Chow team, and a sad g’bye bidden by Elastic Waist.
Casual Kitchen: 41 Ways You Can Help the Environment from Your Kitchen
Easy, extensive list of green tips you (Yes, you. The one over there with the snowman socks. I see you.) can implement without much effort.
Chow: Eat Your Lawn - A new wave of gardeners replants front yards with food
Lacking a backyard, some enterprising foodies are sowing seeds in their front patch of grass.
Upside: “Mmm …delicious peppers.”
Downside: “Hey you kids! Get off my string beans!”
Chow: The Raw Deal - As raw food goes commercial, purists cry foul
You ever notice that these kind of stories are always set in San Francisco? It's weird for a place that makes such good burritos. Anyway, in essence: hardcore raw foodies are turning their nose up at gourmet raw restaurants (which serve raw-style "lasagna" and "pizza"), claiming their menus are, quote, "a mimicry of something that was never truly ... nutritious in the first place." Nerd fight!
Chow: Whole Grains with Flavor
10 suggestions for adding more healthy grains into your diet, including quinoa, polenta, and millet. I presumed millet was a fish until a few months ago, so this is nicely timed.
Chow: Will it Save My Life? - From red wine to Kombucha, are superfoods actually healthy?
Acai, soy, green tea: they sound real nice, but do they actually work? Research and links abound, with mixed results for each superfood.
CNN: Lisa Kogan Throws a Party
Lord, I love this woman. Did you ever read someone’s writing and think, “If I knew him/her in real life, we’d be buds. We’d do our hair and stress about our extended families, and it would be AWESOME.” I have. (And have you ever felt weird and stalker-ish after writing something about your thoughts? I've done that, too.)
Elastic Waist: Thank You and Good Night
EW is checking out for the duration. If you haven’t had the chance to see this blog in its two years of existence, it’s worth the trip. You’ll be missed, Anne.
Epi-Log: 10 Links to Keep You Reading and Eating All Year Long
Oh, yay! Nice roundup of sustainable food and farming blogs, with a ton of resources, to boot. To boot!
Epi-Log: Dieter’s Diary – Time to Get Right
If you’re, like me, a newly-committed dieter … er, lifestyle changer … this is coming just in time. Siobhan Adcock’s pursuit of weight loss isn’t anything new, but her use of reader tips knocks it up a couple of notches over your everyday diet blog. Good stuff.
Frugal Village: Shopping at Salvage Grocery Stores
Like sunlight and decent landlords, salvage supermarkets are sorely lacking in Brooklyn, so I was fascinated to read this article. There’s a state-by-state list here, but be sure to peruse the FV post for a more thorough breakdown.
Get Rich Slowly: The GRS Garden Project Winners and Losers for 2008
The winners: berries, tomatoes, and fruit from trees.
The losers: the 2008 Detroit Lions. Not that they had anything to do with this. They just lost an awful lot.
Jezebel: Are We TOO Worried About Food Allergies?
Hm. I was all like, “What, are you kidding? Kids could DIE.” Then I read this sentence: “A bus in his child's school district was completely evacuated after a single peanut was found on the bus floor.” Methinks that might be a tad extreme. Some commenters agree. Some, not so much.
Kansas City FOX News: Waiter Receives $1,100 Tip After Having a Bad Day (video)
Single dad in pre-med program waits tables to get by. Starts out having bad day, until couple drops an $1100 tip on $80 bill. Single dad is elated. Hearts warmed everywhere. (Thanks to Eater for the link.)
The Kitchn: Salads and Other Side Dishes AND Snazzy Cocktails and Wines for Every Budget– Best of 2008
The fine folks at The Kitchn round out last year with this pair of monster posts. Take it from me: there’s nothing like gettin’ tipsy and eating salad. If nothing else, you’ll feel very French afterward.
New York Times: Forbidden Nonfruit
Superb personal story of one man’s coming of culinary age. Deprived of junk food as a child, Joshua Yaffa goes on a sugar binge not unlike Hunter S. Thompson’s psychedelic journey in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The moral? Sometimes, it’s okay to have a Cheeto.
The Simple Dollar: Personal Finance 101 – On Ponzi Schemes and Other Things
While this is unrelated to food, it IS the clearest, most concise explanation of the Bernie Madoff debacle I’ve had the pleasure to come across. If you’re wondering why investors (including Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon) are so up in arms, take a look.
Wise Bread: Seafood on the Cheap AND Making the Most of Imitation Crab
Good lists as long as you keep the environmental sustainability of your fish in mind. For more info, check the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Guides. (Also, their pictures of penguins. But that’s more for fun.)
Wise Bread: Six Painless Ways to Cut Calories
Sure, “drink water” makes the list, but so does “try open faced sandwiches” and “drink a wine spritzer.” Any calorie-chopping post that acknowledges alcohol is aces by me.
(Photos courtesy of I Can Has Cheezburger and Photobucket.)
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