It’s a foodie love/hate conundrum. When a tiny little hole in the wall place that you love suddenly gets the big publicity. Sure, you’re happy for the restaurant, but having to stand in line for a table at your regular haunt because the foodie tourists have taken over the place is chaffing. Such is the case this week, as Jennifer Bain of The Toronto Star visits the taco ladies at the back of Perola’s in Kensington Market. Regulars who make Perola’s a must-do market stop will now likely find themselves in a line snaking through the store as they wait for their tasty tacos - which at least will give them time to get acquainted with the many flavours of Jarrito soda and different varieties of pickled cactus on the store’s shelves.

Also in the Star, Susan Sampson has a piece on getting kids to eat their veggies by teaching them to cook. And lobster lovers might be interested in the CSA-version of lobster fishing - buying a share in a trap. Tansyn Burgmann reviews After Rain, a Thai restaurant in Mississauga, Gordon Stimmell picks three wines for a deserted island, and Susan Sampson has caffeine-free sparkling soft drinks and a new sugar substitute in her In Store column.

Rita DeMontis reviews the new James Lileks book Gastroanomalies at the Toronto Sun. Lileks is back with more picture of scary food from days gone by. Lots of stuff in aspic, apparently - they liked the aspic back then. DeMontis also celebrates a decidedly un-PC fruit - oranges. Ain’t none of these grown within 100 miles. With orange facts, and health info. To compliment the theme, Elizabeth Baird’s got a selection of recipes that use citrus.

There’s abalone on the menu at the Globe and Mail where Normand LaPrise offers up tips and recipes, and Carly Weeks reports on the US decision to allow the sale of cloned meat.

“The stuff has such a powerful yuck factor,” said Joseph Heath, a University of Toronto philosophy professor and co-author of The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can’t be Jammed. “Presumably the best way to market cloned meat is to not tell people it’s cloned meat.”

That may be what the industry is betting on. The FDA has decided that since food from cloned livestock is as safe as that from conventionally bred animals, those products won’t require special labels before they are put on sale. However, companies that want to label their products as clone-free can make a request to the FDA.

I predict the membership of vegetarian groups across the western world will suddenly skyrocket.

Also in the Globe, Beppi Crosariol explores the world of Canadian whisky.