Category: lucky dip

Lucky Dip – Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

There are school lunch organizations out there that are feeding kids healthy, organic foods. But your kid’s school isn’t necessarily working with them. They might be dealing with a service like this. [Toronto Star]

There’s nothing sadder than really, really wanting to love a restaurant and having it come up sub-par. [Drawn and Devoured]

Live in Toronto? Jennifer Bain would like to come to your house for dinner. You should invite her. I’ve met her and can vouch for the fact that she’s a nice lady and not an axe-wielding serial killer. [Toronto Star]

Oohh… I love Sri Lankan grub. This place in Markham looks outstanding. [Spice City Toronto]

The hottest new trend for restaurants? Opening an accompanying food shop. [Globe and Mail]

The US will not list bluefin tuna as an endangered species. But… why?? [Politics of the Plate]

The bigger the package, the bigger the portion. Why buying in bulk may not be such a great idea. [National Post]

Quebec sugar pie rocks. (And it’s supposed to be gooey.) [Madame Benoît et Moi]

Speaking of sugar, the Candy Expo is now the Sweets and Snacks Expo, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a whole pile of candy going on. [Serious Eats]

Lucky Dip – Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

Would ketchup on steak be a deal-breaker in a new relationship? How about if they won’t eat blueberries? [Globe and Mail]

That brings a whole new meaning to “franks and beans” – a worker at a Heinz factory in the UK loses a finger in some machinery. [Food Manufacture UK]

Eat fruit, it’s good for you. [Globe and Mail]

Oh, no they didn’t… Cadbury UK (which is owned by Kraft, which is owned by cigarette manufacturer Phillip Morris) has run an ad that references model Naomi Campbell and compares her to chocolate. The ad has been pulled to avoid a racial backlash, but expect some lawsuits in the near future. [The Independent]

A history of whisky (part 1) in Toronto. [Toronto Standard]

Food prices will double by 2030. Before you start whining about the price of corn flakes, think about how this will affect the 44 million people who have been pushed into poverty just in the last year. [The Guardian]

Archaic liquor laws in Utah are hurting restaurants, where not every customer is Mormon, and some of them might want the occasional drink. [The Salt Lake Tribune]

Lucky Dip – Monday, May 30th, 2011

Lentil chips? Fruit snacks? Is the end nigh for good old sugar and powdered beetle wings?? Sing it with me folks, I Want Candy! [The Atlantic]

The USDA’s food pyramid is so ubiquitous, most Canadians think it’s the system we use as well. But it’s getting a redesign and will apparently look more like a plate, which might actually be a better gauge for people to calculate their food portions. [CBS Atlanta]

Would you like some tea with your Secret Pickles? This supper club is laid back and unpretentious. [The Grid]

Heston Blumenthal creates a pommery mustard ice cream for UK supermarket Waitrose. [Daily Mail]

Canadians share a common border with our neighbours to the south, but we have very different tastes in snack food. [Toronto Sun]

If you could redesign the nutrition label on packaged foods, what would it look like? Now’s your chance to show the world. [Food Politics]

Could foods containing a potentially lethal chemical have been shipped to Canada? [Globe and Mail]

An e.coli outbreak in Germany has killed 14 and may be linked to cucumbers. [Toronto Sun]

Feeling Lucky?

As promised last week on TasteTO, the Lucky Dip column will be migrating to this site as of tomorrow.

There will be some changes, however, and it will morph into a combination of the local Toronto news links we were running on TasteTO and some international food stories and issues that I featured daily in the Food For Thought column on Save Your Fork. Part of what caused me to burn out over at TasteTO was the idea that we had to link to everything, which meant that I had to at least read everything, which got frustrating when the posts were bad, not to mention that it also ate up many hours of my day, every day.

This version will be a curated selection of food-related stories that I personally like and/or find interesting; either because they are well written or because the topic is important or unique. This may not be to everyone’s satisfaction, but it will keep me from getting cranky, which, in my world, is my top priority.

In those other columns, I also tried to always have at least 10 articles each day; even if some of them were not so great. In this version you’ll get what I like; that may be 10 or 15 or 5 different things, it will depend on the day. Plus, I reserve the right to say “to hell with it” occasionally and go to the beach. Well, probably not the beach, but you get my jist. One of the things that I grew to loathe was the required commitment to churn out those posts every day, even if I didn’t feel like it, even if there was no good content to include. On days when I’m busy or would rather read a book, y’all are outta luck. (Get it?… heh.)