Posted by Sheryl Kirby in news and media, rag round-up on December 13, 2007 at 4:21 pm

"Get progressive or get out." Wayne Roberts at NOW discusses the necessity of diversity in farm crops, in providing locally-grown ingredients to our multi-cultural communities. Also at NOW, Steven Davey visits Johny Banana, and Urbano, the Italo-Tapas place at Queen and Shaw where the cutesy names of the dishes are enough to keep me away, even without my weariness at the bastardization of the small plates concept. Graham Duncan has some tipsy gift suggestions in his Drink Up column.

At Eye, Alan Vernon and Sean Kelly Keenan go for a Picnic and play with their food.

They're talking turkey at Metro where a CP wire piece interviews a former Jehovah's Witness who is cooking up her very first Christmas turkey this year. There's another CP wire piece about the trend toward missing giblets in turkeys these days (that's the little bag of guts and bits that comes inside the bird - remove these before cooking and make gravy):

“But sometimes we miss a turkey or two when they are being cleaned as they go down the production line. They get pulled out with the rest of the innards and so the giblets get thrown out unintentionally.”

Mmm, mmmm!! How's that for imagery? Nothing says Christmas like a poultry factory kill line. Incidentally, Whole Foods has Tofurky roasts available right now for $9.99.

Also in Metro, Billy Munnelly offers some sweet alternatives to regular wine, and there's also some info about Munnelly's book. There's also a piece about honeycrisp apples, looking oddly familiar until I realized it is from the TorStar wire and ran in The Toronto Star a couple of weeks back. Chris Atchinson reviews Southside Louie's, and the foodie interview is comedian Ian Sirota.