Tuesday evening roundup

First, the good news...

...followed by 'just when you thought this situation couldn't possible get more WTF???.'

This is interesting and makes a lot of sense. It reminds me of having dinner with a friend over the holidays. We went to this Moroccan restaurant in Charlestown. I ordered two appetizers, because they were] what appealed to me most, of the entire menu. That cost about the same as an entree, but it was less food. But I just couldn't get excited about the vegetarian entree options (couscous with root vegetables- yawn) and I don't go out to dinner to be bored. My dinner companion (always to be relied upon, almost to the same extent as my mother, for unnecessary comments) said, 'that wasn't a very good choice.' [Shrug.] I realize that's not quite what the article is about (almost the other way around, really) but it's the same principle: when it comes to food, you want what you want, and the psychology of price is secondary.

By the way, my roommate has not annoyed me at all since he got back on Sunday night. He's continued to be himself-- subtle things that I wouldn't have noticed had he not established a pattern early on--like saying, 'I'm going to go get my uniform ready.' Which signifies that on some level of consciousness, he feels the need to provide a reason for leaving my presence, whereas I wish he wouldn't. But he's been otherwise unoffensive. He did tell me yesterday that I got him into eating almonds. I asked him how I managed to do that-- I mean, I think that first weekend that we were both in the house, and some friends came over and we made a big salad and I invited him to join us, there were almonds in the salad, but they were by no means the notable ingredient (there was also smoked salmon, goat cheese, and avocado, among other things). He said he'd seen that I kept them around, so he started eating them, and now he's hooked. Which is good; almonds are good for you. But it's a bit odd to me that he'd try something--especially something as simple as almonds, that you'd think most people at his age would have discovered and either dismissed or embraced--just because he saw them in my pantry.

He has his own cabinet of food, but for some reason he put his syrup in mine, where I keep the honey, jam, etc. (not complaining-- there's no shortage of space in that cabinet--just saying so you don't think I was going through his stuff). So as I reached for my cocoa powder, I caught sight of the ingredients: corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, and a whole bunch of chemicals. Actually, it's almost admirable that there are no explicit pretenses of "maple"-- maple is nowhere on the packaging, although I'm sure there's some marketing of the maple concept in the product's color. I've not tried it, nor will I ever, but I'd bet it's been engineered to taste like maple syrup.

I'm telling you this because I saw Food, Inc.

I really, really recommend that you see Food, Inc. I don't care how little time you have. I don't care how far from you it's showing. Just see the f*ing movie. And then proceed to reclaim the nation's food system.