Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Who knows if they really use bacon fat to make theirs, but there is a bacon flavored mayonnaise on the market called Baconnaise. It's been the butt of a running joke on the Daily Show.

The "HK" on the illustration is a nice touch. Go Phillies!

Jimmy T's Tasty Eats (or Treats, though that might be misconstrued to mean deserts/pastries)---longer than I want, but a little catchy

i love love love love love taco bell, and i have never had any digestive problems from this vendor. I have tried the volcano taco, and found it spicy-for spicy's sake, but not flavorful at all! Although I am curious about the burrito's higher meat content, which may make up for the lack-luster flavor of the taco. I guess I am just lucky to have low blood pressure and can have as much sodium as I want, and that my husband has banned me from taco bell except for every 1/300 urges. Haha.

taco bell isn't that bad for fast food. I'll eat some of the items on the menu, I just make sure i don't get the sour cream. it doesn't taste that great and just adds calories. i still feel better (less full and gross) than when i eat at a "burger" joint. maybe once every two months.

@Hillary, I agree that water should cost more, to encourage conservation. However, when you are drinking a glass of water because you are thirsty, its pretty impossible to be wasting water. Watering your lawn is a different story. Safe, clean drinking water should be free to everyone- or at least restaurants shouldn't be making a profit off of it, which Millenium obviously is.

@grumpyglutton - I completely understand. To sell out your own cause for some ahem... subsidized dollars is unfortunate but not shocking. Such is the history of mankind I'm afraid.

@Mhila - I totally understand that too - there are NONE, not ONE CSA in this area. Even if you wanted to join - tough. There is an organic delivery service though, which is a step in the right direction.

@CJ McD - fight the good fight! To shoot the messenger for the message is to be willfully ignorant.

@finewinedine, your comment made me chuckle! I would never rent a straw either...As for free water, I actually wrote a blog post about this last year.Many European countries charge for water, so why don't we? I always felt water was a basic need that should be free, but there might be a larger picture here called conservation.

Hillary

"Cost is a real issue for most people. It really should be taken seriously. If not, then the effort -- whether in respect to food or homes -- is going to be a boutique industry, irrelevant to most people for the simple reason that they can't afford it."

Yes. Cost is a real issue.

And as with any new process/product/movement, at the "beginning" of it (where we are now even though she's been promoting it for over 25 years and it until recently, has not been embraced and still meets with resistance) there are always and only a select few who can afford it; be it indoor plumbing, televisions or organic, fresh food.

But to label HER elitist because we are at the beginnings of a movement that CURRENTLY everyone cannot afford it sligtly myopic at best.

I had the pleasure of being introduced to Alice Waters when she ate in the restaurant I was working. She was very warm and appreciative of the food and menu. I enjoyed her biography and feel the need to point out that Chez Pannisse is not a corporation focused on the bottom line and making profits. As it was represented in the book, the larger focus of the restaurant is to provide good jobs, insurance for employees, and funding to programs the shareholders believe in. This is Utopian, but that is a good thing.

"If her restaurant is an expression of her ideals, then those ideals... will be seen by few people, for the simple fact that few people can afford to eat there.
To me that seems odd (but maybe that's just me)...
I mean, there are many restaurants that charge more than the majority of people can afford to pay for a meal ... you might think it would be different for a restaurant espousing her ideals, but clearly it's not.
I don't know if anyone else finds that to be surprising, but I do."
-----

I would find it suprising too, if it were all she does. But it's not.

From the ChezPanisse website:

"...she created the Chez Panisse Foundation to help underwrite cultural and educational programs such as the one at the Edible Schoolyard that demonstrate the transformative power of growing, cooking, and sharing food.
Among Alice's many board affiliations, she is the Founder and Director of the Chez Panisse Foundation, an International Governor of Slow Food, a Visiting Dean at the French Culinary Institute, an Honorary Trustee of the American Center for Food, Wine and the Arts in Napa, and Board Member of the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market.

Alice is author and co-author of eight books, including Chez Panisse Vegetables, Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook, Fanny at Chez Panisse, a storybook and cookbook for children, and most recently, the encyclopedic Chez Panisse Fruit. Chez Panisse restaurant was named Best Restaurant in America by Gourmet magazine in 2001. Alice has received numerous awards, including the Bon Appetit magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 and the James Beard Humanitarian Award in 1997...."

As with any movement, you don't just talk about it, magically wave a wand and *poof*, it's done. I think you are either missing the message or think she has hurculean abilities.

She is a voice, a leader of a movement. It's up to the rest of "us", the people, the buyer's market to make it happen by our choices, actions and purchases.

@grumpyglutton: thanks for your comments on subsidized agriculture. I live in the heartland where corn and soy are king, and not even all people here realize that the reason the corn and wheat products are so cheap is because of the subsidies and how that plays into the overall food market economy.

One more thing to add to that, my understanding is also that for farmers who take subsidies also cannot grow any other crop on that field. For example, a crop might have the potential to be harvested in July, leaving time for another late summer crop (different food) to be grown, but in order to keep those subsidies, the land can only be used for the subsidized crop. A second harvest of something else renders their agreement void. Someone correct me if I'm wrong in this assumption.

I also don't know about the rest of yall, but the CSA's around here are full with long waiting lists. My family is caught between that rock and a hard place. Sure, I'd love to eat local and we do shop at the farmer's market a couple of times a month. However, fresh vegetables are only available fresh for a short amount of the year up here. Not to mention that in order to balance our desire to eat healthily and frugally, we go for what is inexpensive at the store (i.e. the greenbeans for 99cents this week, the napa cabbage for 89cents/lb next week).

I can appreciate the grandiose vision that Alice Waters has and kudos to her for being able to live that lifestyle. However, if she truly wants it to be universal and not just something that is available to the elites, talk about how to make it accessible to all is necessary.

Too many people are/have grown up not even knowing how to cook something that comes out of a box! My mother and I learned to cook together. We need to start with baby steps. Capture the gems that are universal (such as learning how to grow foods in pots or in backyards or cook and enjoy foods that aren't "typical" and are less expensive) and ignore the rest for now.