Tuesday evening (food) roundup

McDonald's feels the financial crisis... in Iceland.

As a vegetarian who occasionally embraces fake meat, I nonetheless agree with the following assessment:

“They want to replace industrially raised meat with industrially raised soy. In place of a chicken in every pot, they want to see a “chicken” in every pot…. Rather than push folks to embrace soy weenies and test-tube “shmeat,” I’d rather see a revival of minimally processed rice and beans, a move toward meat as a side dish, and a return to diversified farming that uses manageable amounts of manure to nourish cropland. Let’s ban the CAFO—but not eviscerate what’s left of our palates.”

But rice and beans sounds boring, staid. You can do amazing, tasty things with beans (and various grains, if you so choose). I just made a delicious black bean stew (sauteed onions, cumin, salt, pepper, celery, canned tomatoes). I make a tasty chickpea-spinach curry, and even non-vegetarians embrace my lentil moussaka and lentil lasagne.