Friday, May 9, was the second anniversary of the first post on the Ethicurean … and we forgot to celebrate.

The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is currently hosting a witty installation by Beijing-based artist Zhan Wang. It’s a sculpture of San Francisco made entirely of kitchenware — tongs, graters, pots, serving dishes, tea kettles, and so on. Naturally, each piece is made in China.
The photo above shows the Financial District as viewed […]

Two health and nutrition awards for the Ethicurean.

Just finished a major upgrade of the WordPress system that this blog runs on; sorry for the disarray for the last few hours. I have also installed a bunch of new plug-ins in response to reader requests:

You can now e-mail posts to friends, as well as tag them yourself for Digg, Delicious, Facebook, MySpace, etc. […]

Finally, after 3 months of blizzards, winter seems to be showing signs of weakness in Montreal. I’m sure this doesn’t mean that winter is over, even though spring officially began over two weeks ago, but still, today the sun was shining and the snow was melting, and people were out on the […]

We’re very pleased to announce that guest contributor Ali Benjamin has accepted our invitation to don an Ethicurean apron. Ali’s a busy bee on the Internets, writing her own blog, The Cleaner Plate Club, as well as contributing to Eat. Drink. Better. She’s a freelance writer and mom in Vermont; for more, check out her […]

There will be no set of Digests for Thursday morning as hoped because I just accidentally deleted it. If I can face reconstructing it, maybe Saturday.
And yes this is the real time.

There hasn’t been nearly enough fun around here lately. Our last attempt at making you smile — despite Farm Bill delays, Monsanto victories, the co-option of the EPA, and tragic transgenic pigs — caused quite a brawl in the comments section. (22 and counting!)
So, it’s Friday. Start the weekend off right with this beguiling little […]

The Spring 2008 issue of Meatpaper, the magazine’s third, is out and it’s even better than the first two. One of the two editors (Sasha Wizansky and Amy Standen) admits she has gone back to vegetarianism, and perhaps coincidentally there is a complicated new awareness to the array of articles and a little less fetishization of the flesh. If you think about meat, really think about it, you must also contemplate death, and that is what the most interesting of the pieces in this issue do.

Agribusiness stocks rose sharply today, following the announcement this morning of a new technique that transforms conventionally raised produce into organic, instantly and at almost no cost.

Check out “Keep on Shoppin’ in a Label-Free World” — a SOLE food-centric twist on the the Neil Young song that was written and performed by Dan Sullivan, a senior editor at the Rodale Institute’s NewFarm.org.

Grants, surveys, contest, etc.

What a rip off. The ennui I get at the grocery store only costs 25 cents a dozen.
—Jeff Donald, Exeter, NH
Congratulations to Jeff, whose entry in our first-ever caption contest was the clear winner amongst the Ethicurean judges. (We ranked our five favorites and then added up how many points each got.) Tying for […]

The latest in a series of interpretive paintings done by 5-year-old Frederick, inspired by his mother’s reading "The Omnivore’s Dilemma" and summarizing it for him. (See #1, Children of the corn | #2: Chicken Little at Magic Mountain | #3: Sequoia National Pork)
To counteract billions in marketing dollars, parents must start young.
When the subject […]

In the aftermath of the Hallmark/Westland slaughterhouse exposé, henceforth to be known as Downergate, there has been much outrage. Let there now be outraged laughter … assuming your sense of humor is as sick as mine.
I think this animated editorial cartoon about Doreen the Downer Cow, "The Omnivore’s Nightmare" by Mark Fiore, deserves an award. […]