Wednesday evening roundup

Good move, certain governors; way to take a stand at the expense of your state's most vulnerable residents. (It says it's just the abstract but there's not much more in the full article).

From time to time, a topic close to my heart resurfaces. I haven't had time to share my nightmare stories in the comments.

I hesitantly bring you more Palintology, but it's worth it.

The Brooks-Collins conversations are always interesting, but this one works especially well as a companion piece to this. Note the emphasis on listening, and note that it is ironic that my RM is pursuing an advanced degree in leadership.

The pictures in this slideshow made me want to gag, but the text is informative... although not useful to me, because I don't eat any of that $hit anyway. Mark Bittman reiterates the benefits of cooking for oneself and eschewing processed foods, directing us to a Grist piece that explains, with some empirical backing, that it doesn't take much longer anyway.

By the way, make sure you check out the Times Magazine piece on urban farming. It asks the same question as the Post article on Afghanistan that I posted a week or so ago: can agriculture can survive in pure free market conditions?

While we're on the topic of food, the Times writes about the culture(s) of leftovers.

It's just intuitive for me to offer leftovers to guests (i.e. offer leftovers from the same dinner/party to departing guests, not serve leftovers to guests). My parents and their friends always send guests home with leftovers... and really my parents (and I) generally eat "leftovers" but they're not called that. It's just practical to make a lot of food at once and go through it over several days. That's maybe one reason that people feel they have to resort to purchased pre-prepared or processed foods: do they think it's beneath them to eat something they made a few days before? I wouldn't eat fresh, interesting food if I had to make something new and elaborate every day. Then again, I'm kitchen literate (see Bittman piece linked above).

I do expect to get my tupperware back; I don't set time parameters, but what matters is that I get it back eventually. Alex and I often have one another's tupperware on a revolving basis, and Carrie returned to me tupperware that I'd forgotten about, just before she left for Uzbekistan. I also find it useful to save containers from hummus, marscapone, etc. for just that purpose, so people can carry away food and then recycle the container.

As for the bizarre etiquette issues brought up in the leftover article, I just can't believe some people. Asking for cheese back when you'd given it to someone? For more are-you-f*ing-kidding-me behaviors, see (especially) the second letter in this column.