Cheeseburgers Cause Global Warming

I'm waiting for the inevitable decree that dancing, music, bright coloured clothes and thinking impure thoughts enrage Blessed Gaia cause global warming as well.

Lobster Bid

"Big Dee Dee", a 10 kilogram lobster in New Brunswick, has been saved from the cook pot by a vegetarian who bought him at auction for $3000. Said vegetarian, no surprise, intends to release Big Dee Dee into the wild.

As lobster lover, I am always delighted by this sort of story. Not only is the owner of the lobster $3000 richer, but we now have a chance to catch the crustacean again so he can meet his date with destiny and a nice bowl of melted butter.

And maybe a loaf of fresh, hot French bread on the side.

And a bottle of decent champagne.

Excuse me, I'm getting a bit peckish.

Isn't capitalism grand?

We Didn't Listen!

Out of France comes the news that the price of escargot is due to skyrocket due to production shortages.

Mind you, I wasn't aware of the "peak snail" theory.

Fun Fair Food

Local government group LACORS has decreed that food served at theme parks and other holiday venues is unhealthy for children.

Sweet spirits of nitre, that's the whole point of holiday food.

Garden Mars

I used to be less than convinced about the necessity for colonising Mars, but the latest results of the NASA Phoenix probe has me looking forward to the day when we can expect to see our skies dark with the annual return of the asparagus fleet from the red planet.

Melon Record

A melon sold at auction in Japan for ¥650,000.

That had better be one good melon.

I Was Wondering About This

In breaking news, giraffes have been declared kosher.

My local deli is going to need a bigger display case.

RoboMuffins

Bakes muffins; hunts for.... Mmm... Muffins.

Galactus, Call Your Service.

According to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, overweight people are causing the "food crisis" and (All together now!) global warming.

And petrol lighters keeping oil at $126 a barrel.

The $100 Philly Cheesesteak

I knew that spike in Cheez Whiz prices would hit home.

Pâté de Liberté

In a burst of common sense, Chicago made a small bow to liberty and lifted its ban on foie gras.

My compliments to the chef.

Robosoup Nazi

British scientists receive £1 million to develop robot that can stir soup.

They'll get on that cancer cure right after lunch.

Soylent Green is Squirrels!

Save the Planet^tm; eat a squirrel.

Now they're just messing with us.

Outlaw Veggies

Gordon Ramsey wants it to be illegal to serve out of season produce in restaurants. That's illegal as in "against the law".

First Jamie Oliver and now Ramsey. What is it about celebrity chefs that brings out the totalitarian in them? I once ran a kitchen myself, so I understand how wielding the big knife can instill delusions of grandeur, but usually the pocket dictatorship doesn't extend beyond terrorising the staff and browbeating the customers in the dining room.

Happy days, happy days.

Mystery of the Ages

From the BBC:

Every day British people throw away more than a million pots of unopened yoghurt. Why?

Having tasted "cheesecake" yoghurt by mistake, I offer this possibility:

Maybe because it's nasty?

The Two-Hour Egg

The problem isn't soft-boiling the ostrich egg; it's finding the three-foot long toast soldiers to go with it.

Fugu

A painful reminder of that blowfish & chips fast-food investment in Southend that I just want to forget.

Black Saturday, they still call it.

The $12,000 Knish

Unfortunately, one of the ingredients is "moose snout".

Moose snout?!?

Breakfast Three Times a Day

In defence of the Great British Breakfast.

Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold

If you can't trust celebrity chefs, then what hope is there in this vale of tears?

Your Tax Euros at Work

Having never heard of the percolator, the EU is spending €6.3-million to develop a robot that makes coffee.

Instant coffee.

Space Cabbage

NASA is adding kimchi to the International Space Station's menu.

They've been wanting to test that emergency escape plan for years.

Danger! Ice Cream!

Ice cream cone toppings have been declared the latest risk to life and limb in Britain.

And to think that all my generation had to worry about was a piddly little thing like nuclear annihilation.

Tinned Cheeseburger

Go away. Just go away.

Survival Menu

An interesting vignette that goes well with that vegetarian survival manual we looked at the other day.

Ploughman's Lunch

The ploughman's lunch is my favourite bit of pub grub that turns a long, sunny Sunday afternoon and a couple of pints of good beer into a little bubble of heaven.

This, however, is an abomination in the eyes of God and man.

A Damn Fine Cup of Coffee.. And It Better Be

An $11,000 coffee machine.

I'd still rather have a Teasmade.

Christmas Cheer

Passing on the gift... of caffeine.

Mmmmm... Ham

Thieves in Australia have made off with 17.6 tons of ham. Police are posting round the clock guards on all mustard, horse radish and cheddar cheese warehouses.

Al Qaeda is not suspected.

Turkey Ten

The letters to the editor column in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer included this self-consciously cute "top ten" list from a vegetarian who clearly has been watching far too much David Letterman. It just ached for a fisking

10. You will pardon a turkey - just like President Bush, but for the right reasons.

Except the the presidential turkey is still alive while mine will be dead whether I pardon it or not. Is the bird supposed to spring like Lazarus from the supermarket deep freeze?

9. You'll celebrate life and good fortune, rather than death and misfortune.

Um... The bird is dead already, so the point is moot. And if the alternative is nut cutlets, I fail to see where the "good fortune" comes into the picture.

8. You won't suffer nightmares about how the turkey lived and died.

Don't now. Won't ever. Even if the shade of my departed feast showed up at midnight decked out like Marley's Ghost complete with chains, it would still be a turkey, which has the inherent fear factor of an overstuffed pigeon.

7. You won't have to call the Poultry Hotline to keep your family alive.

Not since I grasped that whole germ theory thing. The only threat a turkey will have to my family's life is if it's a killer cyborg turkey from the future hunting Sarah Connor. And that hasn't happened to me more than a couple of times.

6. You won't have to sweat the saturated fat and cholesterol.

I don't know what you do, but I generally sweat sweat.

5. Your vegetarian friends will adore you.

Oh, I'm really looking forward to that!

4. Your kids will tell their friends about their cool "tofurky."

The school bullies are really looking forward to that.

3. You won't fall asleep during the football game.

My napping habits are my own affair.

2. You are what you eat. Who wants to be a "butterball"?

Vegetarians in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

1. Commercial turkeys are too fat to have sex. Could happen to you.

And vegetarians are too... No, it's too easy a shot.

Custard in Crisis

The Great British pudding is in peril of extinction.

To the crumble ramparts!

The Museum of Ham

The Holy Grail.

How did I miss this when I was in Spain? Okay, I was only there for nine hours with six of those in the hotel and the other three going back and forth to the airport, so that might have had something to do with it.

The Gaunlet Has Been Thrown Down

From the Daily Express:

HAM and bacon should be cut from our diets to avoid the risk of bowel cancer, a landmark study has shown.

First they came for the popcorn and I said nothing...

Old Orange

A 116-year old orange has gone display at the Potteries Museum in Staffordshire.

If that sort of thing is of value, then the back of my fridge must be a treasure trove. I think I've got a bit of bacon in there that dates back to the Wilson government.

Born Free

Run, little crayfish! Run!

Fatty Cascade

The Great British Fry-Up: heart attack on a plate or victim of a modern scientific superstition?

An object lesson in what happens when an untested hypothesis is blindly acccepted when it serves the ends of those who believe they have a "Science-given" right to control the lives of others.

Culinary Milestone

A chilli sauce so spicy that it closed down Soho with a bioterrorism alert.

But what makes this story a corker is that the report includes the recipe!

Hands Across the Seas

Speaking of Mars bars, here is a Transatlantic taste test the reveals hidden wisdom.

On the Expense Account

Ever fancy dropping $1,677,273.50 on a day's meals? Then follow the link and watch your life's savings melt away.

Alternatively, you can stick with me and for £50 we'll start with eggs, bacon, baked beans and chips for breakfast and end up with steak & kidney pudding with a bottle of cheap Chardy for supper by way of a slap-up ploughman's lunch with a few decent pints of Guinness to wash it down and a cream tea to round out the afternoon.

I'll even throw in a couple of pork pies & a Mars bar to tide over 'tween times.

Can't say fairer than that.

Warning Sign

The British government is now running a pilot scheme for slapping warning labels on cafe menus advertising foods that fail to toe the Party line are unhealthy. Hopefully, the labels will look something like this:
Rumour is that if the "voluntary" pilot scheme is a success it will be followed by special squads of black-clad nutrition enforcers being sent 'round to restaurants to scream at patrons to sit up straight and eat all their greens or there won't be any pudding.

Freegans

What modern Britain has come to: You can live in a van and scrounge through dustbins for your supper, but if you come up with a daft name for your squalid activities it is immediately raised to the unassailable status of a "lifestyle."

Cradle To Grave

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C. S. Lewis

First is was the smokers, then it was junk food, then it was fat, and now it's baby milk coming under the baleful CCTV eye of the Thoughtpolice.

"It's for your own good" must be the most chilling sentence ever uttered.

Yes, We Hate You All

Having discovered that the notorious "carbon footprint" can justify the most draconian measures, the environmentalist movement has finally gone clear off the deep end with this gem from The Times:

Walking does more than driving to cause global warming, a leading environmentalist has calculated.

Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance. The climate could benefit if people avoided exercise, ate less and became couch potatoes. Provided, of course, they remembered to switch off the TV rather than leaving it on standby.

Translation: "Our vision for man's future on Earth? Go home, turn off the heat, sit in the dark, and starve."

First They Came For The Smokers...

BBC headline:

Obesity 'contagious', experts say

Now that the spectre of secondhand fat has been raised, can the same draconian measures leveled against tobacco be far behind?

Culinary Crystal Ball

2005: Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver condemns the "turkey twizzler" culture in British school lunch rooms. Demands students eat what he wants them to eat. Government yaps like happy little puppies at the thought of more social engineering opportunities.

2007: Cost of school lunches shoots up 250 percent and students stop eating the "healthy" menus because they can't stand them. School meal services face collapse. Government acts all surprised that students act like creatures with free will and responds by pouring more taxpayer money down the rat hole.

Don't you love it when a plan comes together?

Half Baked

When you're the only contestant in a baking contest and still only manage to come away with second prize, it might be time to re-examine your goals