Hillary Clinton

If you, like me, just had your mind blown seeing Hillary Clinton, the United States Secretary of State, just support the popular uprising in Egypt, you might be thinking back to other protests that have been happening, many of them related to food. Food insecurity is a leading cause of war, crime, and insurrection. Also! Food insecurity is not what happens when you feel like your scones are a little dry. I’m sure you can figure it out. Check out some of these links and reflect. How could you help more people access food–not the food you think they should be eating but just actual FOOD? How about making sure the people who are part of your food chain are as well taken care of as the pricey ingredients?

Here’s a list of some recent demonstrations surrounding food insecurity and other food issues.

Jan, 2011 protests in Jordan over food prices.

Jan, 2011 uprising in Western Bengal over steep increases in food prices

August, 2010, workers in Atlanta, Georgia gather to protest working conditions at Sodexa, a primary supplier of school food throughout the area.

Police  trainees in Eastern Equatoria protest food shortages

Not content with being pretentiously retro, Jones Soda is now after your bacon-flavored holiday dollars. For $9.99 you can stuff a stocking with:

• 2 Bottles of Jones Bacon Soda
• 1 Tube of Bacon Lip Balm
• 1 Package of Bacon Popcorn
• 1 Package of Bacon Gravy Mix

And because revolting carbonated beverages aren’t just for meateaters, they also offer Tofurkey-and-Gravy Soda.

Do we want to think about why there is a dog on the label? Probably not. Just for you guys, I registered on the site and added a “gross” tag to each product, which is an exciting feature that myjones.com (I KNOW) offers.

Hi Shut Up Foodies,

We haven’t heard from you WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU? but SINCE WE DON’T READ AND CAN’T TAKE A HINT, we’d still love to partner with you to offer a free STUPID SOUNDING COOKBOOK to your readers.

A STUPID RECIPE CONTEST on your blog THAT ISN’T ABOUT COOKING would engage your already active foodie audience HAHAHA, and reward them for doing what they do best- cooking! MORE HAHAHS Besides, who doesn’t love free cookbooks? US. WE DO NOT LOVE FREE COOKBOOKS.

Please take a look at OUR STUPID WEBSITE for some of the recipes that your readers could tackle for the contest. OH MY GOD.

If you’re still interested in running a STUPID BOOK STUPID CONTEST on your blog, or you’d like more information, please contact THE WORLD’S DUMBESTPUBLICIST, OH SORRY THE TITLE IS “SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER”

Here is the thing about Halloween. It is about candy, fear, and costumes.  It is the one day of the year when it is OK for kids to take candy from strangers! It’s not a holiday for adults. The sluttification of Halloween is admittedly a national disgrace, but the cutification of Halloween is just as wrong. This “Three Witches Snack Bento” offends on three levels:

First, there is no candy. Second, aforementioned cutesiness. Third, are the witch faces drawn on with Sharpie??? Maybe this dish should be called “Mommyblogger’s Revenge.”

I’ve probably mentioned before that every time I go to the movies, I assess that film’s potential to become a Rocky Horror Picture Show-like phenomenon. Obviously all the Jane Austen movies could have been influential, and I really hoped for Velvet Goldmine, but nothing yet.

It’s no surprise then, that I do love a cheesy theme bar. The Tonga Room in San Francisco is very pure, with the rain and the lightning and the lagoon.  But they don’t have GUNFIGHTS!!! According to this Los Angeles Times story, two bars in Wyoming have them nearly every day. Here’s the gunfight at the Irma Hotel:

I think they should up the ante here and arm everyone with paintball or lasertags and you get to eat what you kill.

This book sounds amazing! Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1860-1960, by Rebecca Sharpless. From Amazon:

As African American women left slavery and the plantation economy behind, many entered domestic service in southern cities and towns. Cooking was one of the primary jobs they performed in white employers’ homes, feeding generations of white families and, in the process, profoundly shaping southern foodways and culture.

Rebecca Sharpless argues that, in the face of discrimination, long workdays, and low wages, African American cooks worked to assert measures of control over their own lives and to maintain spaces for their own families despite the demands of employers and the restrictions of segregation. Sharpless also shows how these women’s employment served as a bridge from old labor arrangements to new ones. As opportunities expanded in the twentieth century, most African American women chose to leave cooking for more lucrative and less oppressive manufacturing, clerical, or professional positions.

Through letters, autobiography, and oral history, this book evokes African American women’s voices from slavery to the open economy, examining their lives at work and at home. Sharpless looks beyond stereotypes to introduce the real women who left their own houses and families each morning to cook in other women’s kitchens.

I couldn’t get a cover image to load. Bonus amazingness–the author’s name is Becky Sharpless?!

They did neglect to provide caramel cushions.

Via Neatorama and various.