Top Ten Links of the Week: 8/6/10 – 8/12/10

It's a thought-provoking roundup today, sweet readers. Grab some coffee and start pondering.

1) Wall Street Journal: Changes in Flushing Set Off Food Fight
My family hails from this area of Queens, so I find this story of Asian supermarkets edging out traditional grocers just fascinating. If you sell food, do you cater to the residents who have been there for decades, or the exponentially increasing population of new residents, who have entirely different diets? Will old-school folks accept eel as part of their everyday cuisine? Will recent immigrants develop a love of Entenmann’s crumbcake? How does the shifting ethnic makeup of the U.S. play out in produce?

2) HuffPo: The Dark Side of Vitamin Water
This piece has been making the rounds lately, and we mentioned it briefly in Wednesday’s Nutritionism article. To summarize: Coca-Cola is being sued over the continued existence of VitaminWater, as it allegedly makes unfounded health claims. Coke’s response (and I am not making this up): "no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage." Nevermind the word “vitamin” is IN THE NAME. Other choice ad lines Coke denies would give a false impression: “it will keep you ‘healthy as a horse,’ and will bring about a ‘healthy state of physical and mental well-being.’” Mind, consider yourself blown. (Thanks to reader Alice for the link!)

3) Jezebel: Is it Selfish to Throw a Vegan Wedding?
Oo! Chelsea Clinton’s wedding spawned this interwebs mini-tempest. Three or four years ago, I would have thought it was way selfish, especially if a large contingent of guests are avowed meat eaters. Today, that’s changed. Vegan food can be just wonderful, and a well-prepared vegan buffet could shock the beejeezus out of friends and family. (Seriously! Imagine a pasta-themed wedding. No one would even notice the difference. They’d be too busy stuffing their faces.)

4) The Atlantic Food: The Minds Behind the Shopping Carts
Did you know that supermarkets only make 1% or 2% profit off of sales? And that they’re constantly in danger of closing? This are more fascinating facts, including why grocers probably won’t be the ones to lead the war on obesity, found herein.

5) New York Times: Your Tired, Your Poor, and Their Food
How can you not love an opening line like this? “One of the first sights that greeted immigrants in New York, right after the Statue of Liberty, was a prune sandwich.” William Grimes’ detailed, tempting review of two books, 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement and Twain's Feast: Searching for America’s Lost Foods in the Footsteps of Samuel Clemens, will have you clicking to Amazon before you even finish reading.

6) Get Rich Slowly: How I Save Tons of Money By Grocery Shopping Once Every Three Months
Some may find this an extreme way to save cash, and I don’t think I could do it due to space limitations, but you gotta applaud the writer’s commitment and planning. That’s a lot of beans.

7) Kalyn’s Kitchen: Twenty Zucchini Recipes for Sneak Some Zucchini on to Your Neighbor’s Porch Day
Mouth-watering rundown of South Beach-friendly zuke recipes, guaranteed to get use up quite a bit of your summer haul.

8) Lifehacker: Use Your Kitchen Sink to Get Cooking Smells Off Your Hands
Garlic fingers. They’re a pain in the tuchus, right? No matter how many times you douse yourself in Palmolive, the scent can be impossible to clear from your digits. Until now.

9) Len Penzo: The 10 Most Economical Sandwiches
Salami wins! BLTs lose. How do eight other popular American sandwiches fare? Only Len Penzo knows for sure.

10) What’s On My Food?
Wanna know what pesticides can be on which berries? You will never need another similar website again. (Thanks to reader Christy for this one.)

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Chow: What Food to Bring to New Parents
Solid, out-of-the-box advice like, “keep your visit brief. Unless your friend is begging you to stay, 45 minutes is the max. New parents have barely enough time to shower, let alone two hours to sit around and gossip.”

Make and Takes: Wipe-off Weekly Menu Board
Man, this is cute.

Neatorama: Wine Monkey
Speaking of cute…

The Oatmeal: When to Use i.e. in a Sentence
Oops.

The Simple Dollar: A Guide to Using Dry Beans
Quick tutorial on making and using bagged legumes, which I have not yet been able to master.

AND ALSO

Gawker: Share Your Most Spectacular “I Quit!” Stories
Some of these are just fantastic. (Due warning: Some are fantastic and profane.) Here’s mine: one summer in college, I worked busing tables at new (terrible, perpetually empty) restaurant. After receiving no training, a negligible cut of the tip pool, and once, a $30 paycheck for a 20-hour workweek, I tendered my resignation on a cocktail napkin and walked out. It was irresponsible, but felt awesome. The place went out of business by the end of the year.

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