Courtesy of the NYTimes,

A cute human interest story...



...unless you're poor and can't afford real food, that is.

The return of the canned cheeseburger

Here it is: the truest expression of crap food at its most elemental; the crap sublime, if you will

OMG, someone actually TRIED that nauseating-looking German cheeseburger in a can. The enterprising - and undoubtedly iron-stomached - folks over at the Onion had the nerve to actually eat something that, one suspects, is really more an object for parody than degustation.

I'd venture to bet they're the only people in the world to have actually eaten the thing instead of buying it and then exhibiting it proudly on a shelf, where it would glow the pure essence of crapitude as it was meant to.

From the department of EWWWWWwwwwww.....

Blech! Chocolate-flavored cheese singles? I’d write more about this if I weren’t about to puke.

More eats overseas

Via Alexis Hayder's Liberian Living blog, a snapshot of a street market in Monrovia:



Read the post that goes with the photo here.

From the looks of it, I see 3 different kinds of eggplants, okra, chilis, squash and a number of things I can't identify. Of course, if none of these thins tickle your fancy (and you can afford it), you can apparently also get sushi or Lebanese food over there. Who woulda thunk it?

Inside the slaughterhouse

Photo from knox_tri's flickr stream

It's not often that slaughterhouses allow reporters inside to photograph the proceedings. So I was surprised to this slideshow in North Carolina's Charlotte Observer.

Mini digest

I wouldn't normally think of doing a news round-up since so many other websites do a great job of that, but I came across a couple of morsels I just couldn't pass up:

Photo from mes_tiza's flickr stream

The U.S. Olympic team will be dining on American food during this year's Games in Beijing. Major sponsors will be Tyson's, which is shipping around 25,000 lbs of meat to China for this purpose; and Kellogg's. Apparently, we're scared of possible contamination in Chinese-produced foods, which, given the stakes, is not surprising. But come on now. We all know there are no weird growth hormones in American food....right?

Photo from Tracy O's flickr stream

The American Farm Bureau is concerned with possible means-testing in the Farm Bill up for debate in Congress right now. Apparently, $500,000 in adjusted gross income shouldn't be too much to exclude you from receiving government aid. Again, damn! Why don't I have my hand out?

Photo from iLoveButter's flickr stream

Beef magazine is reporting that high fertilizer prices could drive producers to reconsider their pasture management practices. I don't think it's good news when American farmers and ranchers face higher production costs, but perhaps there's a silver lining here somewhere?

Farmers Market, Ukrainian style

These two paintings are from Olechko, a cool blog I just came across through Global Voices Online - which I also highly recommend for anyone wondering about what the world outside the U.S. is blogging about.

Anyhow, this is pretty hardcore. Seriously, it's got to be freezing in the Ukraine around this time of year. But that isn't stopping some enterprising people from bringing what their garden produces into the city for some extra income. Looks like a pretty decent haul for the dead of winter - leeks, daikon and some root vegetables.



That said, I still feel very lucky to be living in San Francisco, the land of inexhaustible food and dining options.