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Don't store other cheese with bleu cheese.

http://www.slate.com/id/2263794/

This was prompted by the tale of the pound cat known as Oliver, formerly known as Navarro, who had a truly nutjob owner, who decided that coating said cat in cooking oil and salt and flake red pepper then locking him in the trunk was a good idea. I'm not sure I believe the tale that he intended to go through with the deed, I think he's mostly crazy with a capital R and Z , and an exclamation point at the end. But definitely a bad owner. But in case you were tempted, in many states roof rabbit is off the menu.

For a much more challenging view.

So I was trolling through the opinion page of the WaPo while drinking my coffee and I stumbled on this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/13/AR201008...

I guess my taste is, like in so many other things, decidedly middlebrow. I grew up on hippified whole wheat bread. I know I'm "supposed" to buy whole wheat but I really don't care how much better it is for me, I don't like it. On the other hand, I don't care for industrial white at all. So if one defines "white bread" as "industrial wonder" I agree that is vile, but give me a good French country loaf or sourdough---made of white flour, thankyouverymuch---and I'll be happy.

It's a Travel Channel show. I don't have cable so I have only seen some episodes on Netflix streaming. This show is amazing. The host, Andrew Zimmern, is enthusiastic and likes to go where the people live. He's not at all afraid of going nearly anywhere and has had shows in safe locales like Paris but also in Uganda, where he went fishing for lungfish in a swamp by sticking his hand in a ditch of water. My favorite was the trip to Sicily, where he goes to a fishing village and has lunch with a family. I'm not sure I'd eat most of what he does---he's a lot braver than me definitely, and most of us, I suspect---and I sure hope he keeps his shots current, but check the show out if you get the chance. It's really fun.

http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Bizarre_Foods

Addendum: Real Ethiopian food, just for Stuart.

I don't have a waffle iron or sandwich press and don't really intend to get either anytime soon. I used to have a Foreman grill, which presses reasonably well, but I never liked it for anything else and lack the counter space. However I decided to make an approximate Cuban sandwich (with a bottle of beer) for dinner, which requires approximating a sandwich press. Here's my attempt. This might be totally obvious to others, I don't know, but it had never occurred to me.

Sliced country bread
Ham, sliced thin
Provolone Cheese, sliced thin
Dill Pickle slices
Yellow Mustard
Butter (or a bit of vegetable oil)
A few heavy cans of soup, beans, etc. (unopened)

Heat up a cast iron pan for the bottom and a pan that's a bit smaller than the bottom pan. (Easily done by putting the top pan in the bottom one.) Melt the butter in the pan and assemble the sandwich with cheese on the outside and the ham, mustard and pickle on the inside. Put the sandwich in the cast iron pan. Lightly grease the top of the sandwich and put the sauce pan, weighted by the heavy cans on top of the sandwich and wait until the cheese on the bottom of the sandwich has started to melt. Unlike with a sandwich press, you'll have to turn it because most of the heat is coming from the bottom pan, which is best done with tongs.

I think it would have been better with a softer bread like a hoagie roll and, of course, I lacked the roast pork. This method doesn't give the nice grill marks of a sandwich press, but if you happen to have a grill pan, I guess that'd do the trick. Alton Brown does it with six bricks heated to 500 degrees in an oven for an hour but that just seems like WAY, WAY overkill to me.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/the-best-of/original-cuban-sandwich-r... has a regular recipe.

http://www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/2010/08/grilling-a-butchers-case...

The author argues that it's a good idea to cook a steak low and slow. I think what he really did was reinvent a roast, in this case a sirloin roast. Generally it is a good idea to cook a roast low and slow and then put the crust on separately, either before or after the long cook.

Korean fillings wrapped in a tortilla:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/dining/28united.html?8dpc

I live in a very Korean neighborhood and work in Koreatown in Manhattan, but haven't seen them yet, though I confess I haven't looked either. Anyone tried one?