Rants & Raves 12/8/12


Oh, the webbernet! It gets me all riled up with dire news and mainstream idiocy, then blammo! it hits me with something so awesome, it must be shared. Welcome to this week’s collection of Rants & Raves!

Rants

Wanna get worked up? Let’s get worked up!

I love savory and sweet together, but this is beyond the beyond.
Even I cannot get behind the idea of a chocolate eclair stuffed with a hotdog — and I’m a girl who daydreams about the days I used to dunk french fries into chocolate milkshakes. But I cannot with this. Thanks to blog reader Emily for sharing this monstrosity with us.


When using your own appendages is just too challenging…

A tool to dunk Oreos into milk. People, please! If you need assistance dunking your cookies, maybe you don’t deserve cookies. PUT DOWN THE COOKIES. (Thanks for the heads-up, Laura!)

So, it’s free with purchase, then?
An employee at an Albertson’s grocery store in Roswell, NM, found a loaded pistol inside a package of frozen meat. A semi-automatic Rock Island Armory .38 Super, to be specific, along with seven rounds of ammo. “I have personally never heard of this in 13 years,” said Sgt. Jim Preston of the Roswell Police Department…. “We could speculate on a lot of things,” he said.  “It could have been someone just dropped it there, or it could have been something that someone put it there trying to hide it for 100 different reasons.

Raves

And now the good stuff… whew!

RadioLab gets us in the gut.
This is a contribution from my main man Dave, who listens to RadioLab while he cleans up the kitchen. (I cook; he cleans.) The first story is about how we digest, the second story connects food and emotion, and how our gut affects our thinking. The last story, about a guy who loses the ability to eat, is really touching.

Train Like a Man, But Eat Like A Woman
Breaking Muscle demystifies intermittent fasting and whether it’s the right approach for most women. (Spoiler: It’s not.) “In the end, you have to find the nutrition style that works best for YOU… with so many respectable females being brave and sharing their nightmare experiences, I only hope that women will approach any kind of starvation or restriction eating with serious caution. ”

I’d like a crown made of popcorn, please.
Gastronomista put together a round-up of adorable and inexplicable photos of foodie pin-ups girls. Meet the Pork Queen and the ladies of her court. (And for more funny food photos, check out these adventures of the Radish Man.)

In full-body spandex, no less!
Fitbomb shows us how superheroes stay in shape. In the ’80s, I think.

Cooking Isn’t Creative, and It Isn’t Easy
This interview with Chris Kimball of Cook’s Illustrated just makes me love the curmudgeon all the more. Sample quote: “I hate the idea that cooking should be a celebration or a party. Cooking is about putting food on the table night after night, and there isn’t anything glamorous about it.” This article also makes boiling an egg sound like an impossible task. I relished every word.

Thinking about barefoot shoes?
J. Stanton publishes some solid science on his site gnolls.org, and his review of minimal shoes tells you everything you need to know to make a smart purchase.

Well Fed, Out in the World
I love these photos and stories about two weeks of cookups from Well Fed — and the compliments are tasty, too: “What I absolutely love about Well Fed is that my food turns out just like Melissa’s photos. This is because her instructions are spot on easy for any home cook.” Thanks, Shara!

I need this dress. That is all.
Fall in love with these dresses inspired by literature, including this one, which, clearly, I desperately need. Immediately.

Pure Fun

I unabashedly love this, and I’m on a mission to create a playlist of all the songs, minus anything by Chris Brown, ’cause he’s a bad, bad man.

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Comments

  • Katie says:

    Thanks for this!! I love love LOVE the pop mashup at the end.

    I also love how you included the “train like a man but eat like a woman” article. So many health articles don’t focus on women, which is unfortunate, because we’re more than half the population. Also, articles that do tend to treat men and women the same….we’re not! I once had a colleague describe women as small men that lift lighter weights. Yeah. I almost smacked him. So thanks for that, hopefully others see it and learn!

    • Mel says:

      One of the things that’s really started to jump out at me after almost 4 years of eating paleo is that so many of the nutrition and training guidelines are based on the experiences of MEN, and the articles and advice don’t usually acknowledge that the experience for women might be different. That’s slowly starting to change, and I’m SO glad, but for now, I think we have to really examine the advice we read and try to find out in what ways we might need to adapt it for women — and, frankly, I’m 44, so I need to think about how it affects a more mature body, too.

  • Sam says:

    The rants are definitely worthy, ew what the heck is wrong with the people who made that first item?! I too and a sweet and salty lover, but wtf. That must be awesome to see people cooking out of your book though! so cool 🙂

  • Mel says:

    It’s so much fun to see photos from people cooking with Well Fed. Such a lovely treat for me!

  • Emily says:

    Mel, you are awesome! So fun that you shared that awful hot-dog eclair link I sent … and I will fight you for that book dress. Well, maybe not, ‘cuz you’d probably kick my ass. Love the pop-song mashup too. Great post all around! 🙂

    • Mel says:

      Did you look at the other dresses? There was another made from romance novels that looked like lace — so cool!

      Glad you liked the post!

      • Emily says:

        just followed the link and looked at the rest of them … yeah, the lace one is pretty amazing. And I’m kinda jonesing for the Bell Jar sweater too.

  • Deirdre says:

    I LOVE Cooks Illustrated, and the quote (I can just hear his voice while he is saying it), made my morning. I love a good curmudgeon 🙂
    I read the article Lift Like A Man And Eat Like A Woman, last week. It was brave and made so much sense. And interestingly, the male trainers ran to IF’s defense for their female clients. I KNOW that it doesn’t work for me, nor does the bacon obsession. I can attest after a, gulp, 20 lb weight gain over the last year. I threw away my scale (as instructed), lifted heavy, ate “clean,” and was told not to worry that nothing fits any more and just get stretchy clothes. I was horrified when I had to hop on the scale at the doc’s recently. Yes, I have some thyroid stuff, and I am at an age of peri-menopausal symptoms…but really? I love how I feel eating Paleo, but I am vain, too. I do hope that the voices of awesome women (like you) in the community get louder and louder here, because WE are listening. Thank you for you amazing cookbook and your blog. Much love!
    Deirdre

    • Mel says:

      I hear ya, sister! I, too, followed the “chase peformance, eat clean, don’t worry about it” philosophy — but that, coupled with my crashing hormones — did not work for me. I do better when I eat moderate carbs, fat, and protein — and do lots of movement in addition to heavy lifting and once-in-a-while high-intensity. I think eating paleo is definitely the answer, but I can’t do it the way dudes in their 20s do it.

    • Ms Jane says:

      Ditto Deidre! And yeah I can’t do IF and frankly, i find it kind of weird that Paleo advocates seem to really push it. And Mel I’ve been sooooo busy lately I’m planning to delve back into your blog during the summer holidays. I’ve been missing it!

    • Sigi says:

      Ditto to everything Deirdre said. Like … EVERYTHING!

  • Eileen says:

    I’m a new fan of your blog, and this list is just one reason why. Your links are so much more varied than the “foodie” links in the paleo community. Don’t get me wrong – I appreciate those too – but life is vast and your blog embraces that fact.

    • Mel says:

      I’m glad you found me! And thanks so much for this comment. Sometimes I worry that my blog is hard to “get” because the topics are far-ranging… good to know you like the different places I take it. Thank you!

  • Rachel says:

    Thanks for the danthology! We need a new playlist for our CF box, and I’ll make ’em listen to pop instead of metal when it’s up to me. 🙂

  • I love that music video too!

  • Cathy M says:

    Have to say that I agree 100% about your recipes always turning out the way they are supposed to. Well Fed is my fave paleo cookbook (though Practical Paleo is a close second!), and the only one I’ve given other people as a gift.

  • Susan says:

    I may be 50 but I love “young” music. Thanks for sharing this!!

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