This summer, Tony Tomelden hopes to be making bloody marys at the Pug in Washington, D.C., with tomatoes and chilies grown above the bar, thanks to the city’s incentives for green roofs.

Mr. Tomelden, the Pug’s principal owner, says he’s planting a garden to take advantage of tax subsidies the city offers in his neighborhood if he covers his roof with plants.

“If I can do something in my corner for the environment, that seemed a reasonable thing to do,” he said. “Plus I can save money on the tomatoes.”

This reconstruction of the earliest known olive oil factory demonstrates a simple yet ingenious process to extract olive oil from olives using pulleys, levers, and gravity decanting. This was much more effective than using mortar and pestle to make olive oil, typically used for small scale production. Dating back to the 6th century BC, this factory was located in the Ionian city of Clazomenae, on what is now the coast of western Turkey. This photo shows the press used to squeeze the olive oil out from burlap sacks filled with a paste of ground up olives.

I’m guessing part of the key to the Mediterranean Diet is the exercise you get pushing this olive press around. ;)

In this brief talk from TED U 2009, Jonathan Drori encourages us to save biodiversity — one seed at a time. Reminding us that plants support human life, he shares the vision of the Millennium Seed Bank, which has stored over 3 billion seeds to date from dwindling yet essential plant species.

In the Guardian — “Day of the lentil burghers: Ghent goes veggie to lose weight and save planet”

Ghent embarks on a radical experiment today, seeking to make every Thursday a day free of meat and of the fish and shellfish for which the city is renowned.

On the eve of what is being touted as an unprecedented exercise, the biggest queue in the Flemish university town of 200,000 yesterday was for signatures – to collect a bag of wholefood goodies and sign up for “Donderdag – Veggie Dag”, turning the burghers of Ghent into pioneers in the fight against obesity, global warming, cruelty to animals and against the myth that meat-free eating amounts to a diet of soggy lettuce, a slice of tomato, and a foul-tasting bean burger.

Try that in this country, and you’d have an armed insurrection on your hands.

We have San Bernardino, known all over the world as the birthplace of the fast-food industry, and we have Loma Linda, which enjoys an international reputation as a bastion of vegetarianism. [...]

It’s an interesting historical dichotomy that during the late 1940s, the ’50s and the early ’60s, when San Bernardino entrepreneurs like Richard and Maurice McDonald, Glen Bell and Neal Baker were opening their McDonald’s and Taco Bell and Baker’s restaurants, the predominantly Seventh-day Adventist community of Loma Linda, a mere six miles away, was sailing innocently along as the only town in America where you couldn’t buy a hamburger anywhere.

Continued: “I.E.’s a veggie good place”

The article then goes on to list some of the best vegetarian options available at various restaurants around the area.

For the first time, scientists have isolated the parasite Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia) from professional apiaries suffering from honey bee colony depopulation syndrome. They then went on to treat the infection with complete success.

Let’s hope the study translates to widespread recovery!

Having lived in a citrus community the past 20+ years, I’ve really had a change of heart regarding bees. I always thought they were cool, but at a distance. Once you get over your apprehension, though, it’s quite pleasant having them around your flowers and trees. Plus the local honey is great.

Speaking of honey, that was a substance I had a tough time with growing up. Loved it in things — oatmeal, graham crackers, etc., just not on anything. Nowadays, however, the more honey (and the more varieties) the better. Yay bees!

I’m not certain what this broccoli is saying in what I’m pretty sure is Vietnamese, but he seems quite happy about it, whatever it is. :)

He would definitely taste better were he spicy and grilled. ;)

They were so intent on getting the word out on how healthy their cotton candy was that they ran out of room for “tastes good” on the bag.

Yes, as if the produce section weren’t frightening enough, now you have to watch out for Brazilian Wandering Spiders wandering around the bananas.

TULSA, OK — The world’s deadliest spider found in a Tulsa grocery store. An employee at Whole Foods Market at 1401 East 41st Street found a Brazilian Wandering Spider wandering around in their produce section.

The store handed the spider over to biologists at the University of Tulsa who say that employee is lucky to be alive.

According to Wikipedia,

The Brazilian wandering spiders (Phoneutria spp.), armed spiders (”aranhas armadeiras”, as they are known in Portuguese) or banana spiders (not to be confused with the relatively harmless species of the genus Nephila) are a genus of aggressive and highly venomous spiders found in tropical South and Central America. These spiders are members of the Ctenidae family of wandering spiders.

The Brazilian wandering spiders appear in the Guinness Book of World Records 2007 as the world’s most venomous spiders and are the spiders considered directly responsible for most human deaths due to envenomation from spider bites.

So, yeah, look twice before picking up your next bunch. :)

Via Boing Boing.

The potato has never been an issue for me, no matter what variety or preparation. I have even been known to sneak a number of raw slivers whilst chopping a spud for some recipe or another.

It is thus with great pleasure that I point to today’s** poetry entry from the ongoing and endlessly entertaining Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor, “Ode to the Potato” by Barbara Hamby:

"They eat a lot of French fries here," my mother
   announces after a week in Paris, and she's right,
not only about les pommes frites but the celestial tuber
   in all its forms: rotie, purée, not to mention
au gratin or boiled and oiled in la salade niçoise.[...]

Continue…

* The same cannot be said of cabbage in all its forms, oddly enough.

** And a Happy Pi Day, by the way!

Cuties-brand California Mandarins. These are a bit on the pricey side, but they’re quite tasty and juicy.

Mr. Kass’s appointment should please chefs like Alice Waters, who have lobbied the Obamas to set an example for the rest of the country by emphasizing food that is healthy, local and sustainable. It further suggests that a vegetable garden on the White House grounds, another of Ms. Waters’s dreams, could be on the horizon.

(Via NYT > Dining & Wine.)

Don’t be so quick to feel virtuous when you reach for dried fruit instead of chocolate, or veggie chips instead of Pringles. Many snacks that are marketed as being great for your waistline actually aren’t that much better—and, in some cases, are worse—than some popular notoriously indulgent treats.[...]

Via Lifehacker.