Subject: Michael Pollan

• The Food Bubble: Pop!

  Pop!The Times has an interesting article today comparing the restaurant industry to the real estate and financial sectors--there was a bubble, and yes, it burst. The article cites New York Department of Labor stats that show the restaurant industry gained 50,000 jobs in the last seven years, only to lose 10,000 of those jobs between October 2008 and January 2009. (Only four months!)It's true that in the last few years there seemed to be no end to the number of enormous, money-soaked restaurant o

  March 18, 2009

• Free Will Astrology: May 7 through 13

  May 6, 2008

• Flora! Flora! Flora! It's Plants as Muse in a Big Group Show at a Manhattan Bank

  September 3, 2008

• They Shoot Journos, Don't They?

  June 3, 2003

• Exit Stage Right

  September 21, 1999

• Chasing the Dragon

  October 5, 1999

• 'The New Yorker' Sells Out

  February 1, 2000

• Books

  January 15, 2002

• Feeding Frenzy

  March 19, 2002

• Toxic to the Tongue

  July 30, 2002

• Grocery Auctions & Dinner Deals

  More people are cooking at home instead of eating out, but they aren't exactly thrilled about it, according to a recent study. More of us doubted the safety of supermarket food last year compared to how we felt about it four years previous, back in the blissfully innocent days before poisonous peanuts. [Reuters] In other supermarket news, bargain hunters have taken to bidding on their groceries at auction. Grocery auctions are great places to pick up everything from cereal to spare ribs to fo

  March 30, 2009

• Another Food Scare: Now it's Pistachios

  More fodder for those who believe the FDA needs a total overhaul--another food recall! This time, it's pistachios. The recall involves one million pounds of the nuts, possibly contaminated with salmonella, produced by Setton Pistachios in California. The FDA recommends avoiding all pistachios and pistachio products. These food recalls always make me think of something Michael Pollan writes in The Omnivore's Dilemma: If our food distribution system involved many smaller producers that served thei

  March 31, 2009

• Earth Day Prompts Green Talk; Big Ag No Fan of White House Garden

  A new study shows that the more choice we have, the more likely we are to opt for unhealthy foods. Fries or salad? Er, what do you think? [CBC] Michelle Obama has incurred the wrath of Big Agriculture by aligning herself with the locavore movement. The Mid-America CropLife Association (MACA) wrote a letter to the First Lady pointing out the role of industrial agriculture in feeding the country's population. [London Times] Brooklyn hot dog vendors are feeling the sting of the economic crisis.

  April 23, 2009

• Michael Pollan on the Colbert Report

  The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30cMichael Pollancolbertnation.comColbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical HumorGay Marriage The Colbert Report was food-centric last night, including Colbert dining and dashing on the ridiculous $1000 sundae at Serendipity, and this interview with Michael Pollan about his new book, In Defense of Food. The interview is a little awkward, but also hilarious. Highlight: Michael Pollan discovers, live, that he was not breast-fed.

  May 14, 2009

• Dying to Eat in Food Inc.

  June 10, 2009

• Michael Pollan on Julia Child and Our Culinary End of Days

  The imminent release of Julie & Julia has so far launched about five thousand articles, and this weekend, Michael Pollan will bring us one more. The film has inspired Pollan to pen over 8,000 words in the New York Times Magazine about, among other thing, the rise of cooking as a spectator sport, the decline of home-cooked meals, the evils of the processed food industry, and the brilliance of Meryl Streep. As for whether Americans can reverse the trend that's taken us away from the kitchen an

  July 30, 2009

• New Food Safety Laws Passed; Philippe Sends Spies to Mr. Chow's

  ​The Cove, a tense new Sundance award-winning documentary about a town in Japan where thousands of wild dolphins are captured for marine amusement parks or slaughtered for food, opens in select theaters today. [Reuters] The House of Representatives passed new food safety legislation yesterday that will require more frequent inspections of processing plants and give the FDA the power to order the recall of tainted foods. Democratic support was overwhelming, but Republicans were split, with

  July 31, 2009

• Island Snacks Recall; Industry Bigwigs Bid Cafe des Artistes Adieu

  ​The latest food safety scare involves a snack mix made by Snack King Foods in Rochester called Island Snacks Natures Mix. The product, sold at Kmart, is being recalled due to the detection of undeclared sulfites during routine tests. [Forbes] BlackBook rounds up the best comfort food spots to be found in Prospect Heights, including the small plates place Beast, local foods haven Franny's, and neighborhood mainstay Tom's Restaurant. [BlackBook] Following the shuttering of the storied C

  September 1, 2009

• Michael Pollan on American Obesity and the Healthcare Debate; Tavern on the Green Files for Bankruptcy

  ​Following last night's speech by President Obama on healthcare reform, Michael Pollan pens an op-ed pointing to the "elephant in the room" of the health-care debate: the way Americans eat. [NY Times] Tavern on the Green has officially filed Chapter 11, listing assets and liabilities of as much as $50 million each. The lease on the site of the second-highest-grossing restaurant in the U.S. last year was awarded to restaurateur Dean Poll last month. [Bloomberg] City Chicks: Keeping Micro

  September 10, 2009

• 'Bacon Is Good for Me': The Remix

  Remember that episode of Wife Swap where the chubby, angry Southern kid goes apeshit when his new health-nut mom tries to take away his bacon? Behold: the remix. The kid's "bacon is good for me" catchphrase provides the refrain, spliced with shots of bacon pie, a Bacon Explosion, and Kevin Bacon. You were saying, Michael Pollan?

  September 10, 2009

• Michael Pollan's New Food Rules

  The New York Times Magazine's food issue is coming out this weekend, but some of the content is online now, like the cover story on Jamie Oliver's project to make fat Americans slim down. Then Michael Pollan weighs in, as he is wont to do, with some new rules on how to eat. But these aren't actually his mandates--they're the result of a post on the Times' Well blog, soliciting readers' rules to eat by. Pollan picked his 20 favorites, and among them are these: Don't eat egg salad from a vendin

  October 8, 2009