Time Magazine, DWTS, and Scientific Research: Highlights from My Reader

It’s Friday, time for this week’s most interesting articles from my Google Reader.  Remember, there’s always more to read from “What I’m Reading” on the right sidebar of the blog.

Highlights for August 15-21

Time Magazine’s cover story this week is a really quality article by Bryan Walsh titled “Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food”. I’m always thrilled to see mainstream media sources reporting on what I know to be true.  Definitely an article worth passing on.  Grist has some good commentary on the piece as well.

On a lighter note, the folks at The Internet Food Association have a lot to say about candy.  A very amusing post about m&ms, artificial flavoring and advertising.

I have never watched Dancing with the Stars.  I planned to keep it that way.  But Mark Decascos, the Chairman on Iron Chef America, is going to be on this season so I may have to change my viewing habits.

My food blogging friend Alex (who as you may recall is partly to blame for this blog) was interviewed by Epicurious!  I’m super jealous, but she’s clearly better spoken than I am.

Scientists have been hard at work testing the effects of food on us: Via Serious Eats, “Scientists Say Popcorn is Good for You” and via mental_floss, “Caffeine Reverses Memory Impairment (in Alzheimer’s mice, at least)“.

Spring Break is Over

It seems almost unbelievable, but my spring break is just about over.  It’s Sunday night, I’m watching Iron Chef.  “Battle Butter”?!  I should go to bed, get back in the “school routine” and work towards getting over this cold, but I’m too intrigued.

My Man and I didn’t cook as much as I intended to over break (actually, we didn’t do several things I intended to–breaks apparently aren’t as long as they used to be).  We did create one great olive-tomato-and-cucumber salad (all his idea) and we made broiled polenta with cheese on top.  I’d never have polenta before, and it’s not bad.  Definitely worth considering various ways to use in the future.

Lots of good conversation was had during the past week about food and related issues.  How we want to shop, what we want to eat, local vs. organic vs. quanity of produce.  Eating was a lot simpler when I didn’t know anything.  Now every shopping trip is filled with questions and options.  I know I’m not doing as well as I could be and I remain hopeful that living with someone whose tastes and food interests are more similar to one and playing more of a direct role in the shopping and cooking will improve things.  I’ve finally started reading Food Matters by Mark Bittman and it’s really eye opening, but sometimes having so much information is overwhelming and guilt inducing.  But I remind myself again, doing something (eating meat one less time a day, purchasing grains in bulk, eating more produce) is meaningful, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

In other news, 2 months until the wedding :)

Well, how did I get here?

It’s funny how things work out.

I started this blog last week, hoping that I would stumble upon something worth reading and writing about without causing too much controversy or being too boring.  I love reading blogs and I love writing and I wanted to be part of the “blogosphere”.  But I had no real direction.

So…last night my sister, my Man and myself had settled down to watch Iron Chef America on the Food Network, as we do every week.  Pim was one of the judges for Battle Tomato (more about that later, possibly) to which I commented “I want to be a food blogger!”  My sister, always good for encouraging me in these foolish ventures, chimed in “You want to be Alex.”  Yes, yes I do.  So, with all due respect to Alex, who I have known for longer than either of us should confess to, and Pim, who does this for a living, here I am.

It should have occurred to me sooner.  For months I’ve been watching Food Network like its my job, looking up recipes, buying cookbooks, reading food blogs, trying to be more “flexitarian” (more about that later) and complaining about the food in my household.  I am so excited about this project.

So, to start this off right, I am reminded of what my 9th grade history teacher always used to say:

“If you don’t eat, you die.”