Here's what's cooking around town today...
Dear non-Muslim People of France - it is perfectly acceptable for you to eat a halal beef burger. It will not give you the cooties. Restaurants serving such food to accommodate a Muslim population are not racist, they are actually trying to be inclusive. [Globe and Mail]
Keep it on the straight and narrow - while a drink or two each day is considered to be good for the heart, the occasional bender can undo all the good that might come of that. [National Post]
And for today's Olympic bashing - even children can see through the scam of corporate sponsorship, and how fast food should have nothing to do with elite athletes. [Good Food Revolution]
Kids can also get involved in a program that teaches them to cook while helping to feed the homeless. [National Post: Posted Toronto]
With lots of donated cash, materials and labour, the Akiwenzie's new smokehouse facilities are coming along. [Fiesta Farms]
If you ever wondered how we became a society that loves to eat in its cars, look no further than the 50s drive-in diner and the carhop. [Toronto Sun]
A little science lesson from Herve This makes for light and fluffy pancakes. [Foodpr0n.com]
This post about food memories is a bit meandering, but it's got some good stories included within. And a picture of a carrot-loving dog, because if you never know what to do with that last hard bit of carrot up near the top, that's probably because you don't have a dog standing by, supervising your veg prep, to take care of it for you. [Well Preserved]
And in Food For Thought - alfajores, get that cow off your roof, being a pizza delivery guy and Veruca Salt's bad attitude. [Save Your Fork]
I think we're missing the point here by demonizing sponsorship of athletes by corporations. People who haven't lived the life of a competing athlete who has a job and likely goes into debt in order to compete (speaking from personal experience and still climbing out of debt) will obviously find grounds to be critical of said athlete who will take sponsorship money. Its easy to sit behind our computers and rally behind the thoughts (mind you, valid ones) of a young girl, but we can't conveniently forget the other side of the coin here.
Technically your comment is out of line here as it's not on topic (ie. not about food), and if you want to debate the sponsorship aspect of it further, I suggest you go to the originating site and post a comment there.
However, I can't really feel any sympathy for athletes who whine about the under-funding of sport and take corporate sponsorships from companies like Coke or McDonald's. No one is *forcing* them to compete on this level. At the end of the day, puffed up "national pride" or not - it's a personal goal, for personal gain. Certainly we don't fund the arts community to the degree we fund sport - hell, we don't even fund other creative fields like we do sport. There are tons of international chef competitions every year - yet most chefs who dream of competing in something like the Bocuse D'or are on their own in terms of paying to take part. But we'll throw millions at athletes - it doesn't make sense.
It especially doesn't make sense in an era when every other thing of importance is underfunded. Those billions of dollars thrown at the Vancouver Olympics or the joke of the "own the podium" campaign - think for just a second how many meals that could provide to the homeless, how many farms that could help create in Haiti, how many community gardens that could fund, how many local family farms that could save. And for a few minutes of glory for 1 person and a hunk of gold around their necks, we as a country and a society are willing to sacrifice everything else. It's idiotic.