Mike Wendling’s Recent Comments

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  How about Radiohead - Idioteque?

  On Songs about climate change are not so hot posted 2 months, 4 weeks ago 20 Responses

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  local to who?

  michelefield - I live in London and I eat local food all the time!  Now not everyone is lucky enough to have a garden or (in my case) an allotment, but there are also dozens of farmers markets, as well as regular street markets and greengrocers and supermarkets that use 'made in the uk' as a selling point.  Britain - and indeed most of Europe - is both very densly populated and incredibly fertile, which makes it much more easy to eat local.
  You raise a key point though by highlighting the 'import' question.  National boundaries confuse the issue to no end.  Now where Tom Philpott lives in North Carolina, if food is imported, it's come a long way.  But here in London, a carrot from France or a pepper from Holland might not have traveled as far as its 'made in the UK' equivalent.  It's not juste a European thing - think of the vast swathes of American territory that are closer to Mexico or Canadian breadbaskets than CaliTexFla.  
  The bad news is that we can't rely on simple rules and reflexes - the good news is that knowledge is mounting, and that's what we really need to make decisions about what to buy and what not to buy.
  On If buying locally isn't the answer, then what is? posted 2 years, 2 months ago 28 Responses

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  irradiated

  Greentrain are you talking about Australia?  British food isn't generally irradiated and neither is most food in Europe:
  http://www.foodcomm.org.uk/irradiation_legislation.htm
  In fact most dairy products over here will be fresher simply because of the much smaller distances.  This place is tiny.  My inner London eggs won't have come from much further than 50-100 miles away, I'm not sure how many Manhattan eggs can say the same.
  I think this egg thing is worth yolking onto though.  Is the fridge necessary because of salmonella?  I found this treatise:
  http://www.baking911.com/asksarahbb/index.php?automodule= ...
  When I was a kid (which wasn't TOO long ago) I could lick the batter spoon with impunity, but I hear rumors that American kids no longer do that anymore. On Umbra on refrigerator downsizing posted 2 years, 3 months ago 34 Responses

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  Ingrained habits

  I grew up in suburban USA and mom and pop still have two big fridges, and a freezer (you would have thought mom lived through a war, with everything she freezes).
  Having lived in the UK (albeit in the big city) for the last seven years I've managed to get by with single-serving fridges of various sizes.  and while I can confirm, Umbra, that fridges over here are getting bigger, but they're also getting more effecient.  The A-G grading system is on everything, it's easy to understand, and in a few years it will even apply to houses:
  http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1002882&Pr ...
  Oh, and we don't keep our eggs in the fridge either.  Those nice free-range ones you buy from the market will keep just fine until Sunday. Douse it in that unrefridgerated ketchup (apparently according to my British wife, cold ketchup is disgusting and unnatural) and you have the start of a classic British breakfast.On Umbra on refrigerator downsizing posted 2 years, 3 months ago 34 Responses

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  Good advice ...

  ... and next year, brew your own!On No need to serve gussied-up Coors with so many real craft beers available posted 2 years, 11 months ago 2 Responses