Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I wanted to reply to vineofivy's comment on the futility of action with McDonalds on the scene. Ironically, McDonalds has done more to improve feedlot conditions than anyone, since they can make demands on the giant meat processors that smaller buyers can't, such as improving slaughterhouse rules. While I haven't eaten any fast food hamburger in years and years (last one I ate gave me the runs instantly) the animals were better raised for them than most of the regular beef at the supermarket or at your local diner. The first step is demanding grass and organic meat whenever you consume meat - and help make it a menu option everywhere, not just the high end seasonal driven places. Even McDonalds will put a grass fed organic hamburger on the menu when there's demand for it. But until we refuse to buy industrial meat (yes, no $2 steaks for sale at the super, or $6 roasted chickens), it will keep being churned out no matter the cost to the environment or our health.

Chinese was a well honored tradition in Detroit as well. Although the places weren't as crowded as the dim sum places I went to last year, the good chinese places in suburban Detroit could all easily hold a few minyans. In fact, my step-mother introduced a Chinese dinner at their synagogue as an event on Christmas eve, and its now been going on for more than five years (no pork or lobster though).

I began cooking all the meals for my family - hacking poultry, chopping veggies and everything - when I was 13, and had been in the kitchen cooking with my grandma with a long paring knife since I was 8. If you teach good knife safety and supervise the first few weeks, a mature kid can easily handle themselves. I got my share of nicked thumbs and chopped fingernails, but that's how you learn.

Note the recipe calls that this makes 64 one oz. servings! Paula's were at least 4-5x that size, which is how people at home will make it after watching her. I'm all for individual freedom, to mislead people into thinking that those giant balls of sugar and fat are "fun" is reprehensible. That sort of serving is toxic for many people, and someone should have said so. You wouldn't show how much fun drinking a liter of vodka or smoking a pack of cigarettes are without showing the consequences, but encouraging people at home with serious weight issues to gorge on 1000 calories of processed fat and sugar is fun?

Did they once mention that this thing is probably 1000+ calories of fat and sugar. Did you see the size of those things! Maybe one or two nut sized candies like this would be reasonable for the holidays (like a truffle or two won't kill m), this thing was the size of a freaking baseball!
This sort of food - large doses of pure processed sugar and fats - is seriously dangerous to many people's health, especially many people at home watching TV during the daytime. I know much of my family does not really understand the damage something does to their boderline diabetic systems. I can't imagine anyone would make binge drinking look like so much healthy fun on daytime television, but its probably equally toxic.

I enjoy Food Network! I AM SO GLAD THAT THEY FINALLY PUT AFRICAN AMERICANS ON THERE TO SHARE SOME RECIPES THAT I CAN RELATE TO. I am not interested in panini or vinaigrette....give me soul food & my family is happy!! I am glad that they are more diverse now & I will watch them even more now, since I will be getting recipes that my whole family are used to & will be able to enjoy! THANX FOOD NETWORK...KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!
Also, dont be so hard on Rachel Ray....she is not a chef & it just shows how food network is not so fast to judge others, they accepted her & the audience saw themselves in her & that is how she has became so famous. She IS goofy, but that just reminds me that she is human! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK RACHEL!! JUST (PLEASE) get rid of the goofy laugh....she laughs at LEAST 4 times a show & it is beginning to DRIVE US CRAZY!! lol

Paula Dean can simply say the word "mayonaise" I practically burst into flames. She is unbearable, her recipes are down right irresponsible (and nasty). Have you seen The Lady's Brunch Burger recipe? Bacon and a fried egg, on top of a burger w/ a glazed donut serving as the bun.

I am not making this up.

Thanks Cybercita! I bought some red and white heart-shaped ramekins for Valentine's Day but had not decided what to do with them....... I will now wonder no more... The Strawberry Pots de Creme will work out perfectly... Thanks again!!!

Eating less meat means eating less meat, not cutting it out completely, and that sounds reasonable. In fact, I started buying locally, grass-fed beef since this summer and pretty much refuse to buy it from the grocery store anymore--beef is one of those things that's not necessarily seasonal, and so can be acquired at the farmers market all year. Since it costs more at the market, we just eat less of it--and it's been just fine, actually.

I have to agree that we could just eat less in general. A lot of restaurant portions are ridiculous; we've switched to eating at sushi places or tapas restaurants when we go out, mostly because the portions are a lot more manageable. Yeah, not cheap either, but we only eat out fancy-like every couple of months (birthdays, anniversaries, special occasions).

I don't think we need to eat as much as we do, particularly meat. I think American culture thrived on the bounty created by industrialized meat (and food in general), when it first started out. But we've taken that to an extreme in a hedonistic way, almost. So the fact that there are repercussions and that, in a capitalistic society, it continues to be lucrative (and cheap for consumers), are both not surprises.

I think of farmers in the past eating--they had true cause to eat heartily, considering they were caring for an entire farm--and I think they would be a little shocked at how much we eat. Overeating, to me, is a little like drinking too much--for special occasions or times when you've managed to bring together a large group of family and friends. Should we drink too much every day? No. The occasional over-indulgence (and the inevitable "oh that sucks" moment the next morning) keeps us in check--or should.

This isn't me shaking my finger at people, but with people shaking their fingers at how little I eat (I'm five feet tall and wanted to lose weight, and am now maintaining--so my portions seem just fine to me), I wonder if they should examine not how little I eat, but how much they do. Yeah, a small sandwich does look pathetic next to a steak and cheese on a humongous grinder roll--but it's not so pathetic if you add a salad, some ingenuity and a few more years on my life.

Wow, I didn't realize I had so much of an opinion on this...

I think Christmas is my favorite Jewish holiday. This year, at midnight on Christmas Eve, we had matzoh ball soup, chopped liver, cholent, pastrami, and kasha varnishkes at the Second Avenue Deli. For lunch on Christmas Day, we had Peking Duck in Chinatown at (where else) Peking Duck House. Both restaurants were packed.