USDA, reform agency?

And other news from Bitten

By Culinate staff

September 3, 2009

On Mark Bittman’s blog, Bitten, guest blogger Kerri Conan recently noted that the USDA is making grant money available for local and small-scale food projects, such as community kitchens, farmers’ markets, school cafeterias, and mobile slaughterhouses. Guest blogger Cory Ramey took a look at the blight giving tomato lovers a hard time on the East Coast this summer. And Bittman himself ran a thoughtful interview with Culinate columnist Deborah Madison, discussing her new book, What We Eat When We Eat Alone.

As Madison told Bittman, it’s rare that “people talk about eating alone with a sense of self-respect. I was touched by how challenging it is for people to enjoy their own company, and by how few people take as much care feeding themselves as they would if they had someone across the table — even someone they don’t like.”