The Feed: February 13, 2013

The Feed is my weekly round up of interesting food-related stories from newspapers, magazines, blogs and websites.


The Bitten Word: “50 Things We've Learned in 5 Years of Writing The Bitten Word.” Fellow D.C. food bloggers Zach and Clay celebrate the 5th anniversary of their blog with a look back at 50 things they’ve learned, a great retrospective showcasing their good-natured writing style, zeal for adventurous cooking and love of all things tasty. There’s even some useful food blogging tips.

Food & Wine: “100 Best Recipes Ever.” Speaking of retrospectives, the March 2013 issue of Food & Wine celebrates the magazine’s 35th anniversary with a stuffed collection of articles and features that look at the journey of food and drink since 1978. I’m particularly fond of the “The Legends,” a collection of recipes from all-time great cooks like Julia Child, Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Jacques Pépin. The magazine also features the “20 Best-Ever Recipes” (which I was pleased to see included the Zuni Café Roast Chicken with Bread Salad, which I adore). Online, the website has the list of 100 recipes the 20 were chosen from.

Bloomberg Businessweek: “Monsanto Takes on 76-Year-Old Farmer Over Seed Patents,” by Susan Decker and Jack Kaskey. In a case that sounds like David v. Goliath, the U.S. Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in a case involving agriculture giant Monsanto and the 76 year-old Indiana farmer the company sued for planting soybeans seeds harvested from plants grown from Monsanto’s genetically engineered seed. Decker and Kaskey lay out the issues in a article that takes me back to the corn section of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Washington Post: “Value Added: Ending a career with a slow gin biz,” by Thomas Heath. The Post’s Business section profiled Michael Lowe and John Uselton, the father-son-in-law entrepreneurial team behind the New Columbia Distillers, D.C.’s first (legal) distillery in generations, which is up and running making Green Hat Gin. Apparently volunteers are needed on bottling days, which comes with some free samples. Sounds like fun.

New York Magazine: “Pizza Perfection: 101 Awesome American Pies (and Slices).” Let’s just stop and applaud a New York-based publication that’s willing to admit recognize that there are indeed pizzas worth eating that are not baked in the five boroughs. It’s a slide show post, so reading it means flipping through 100 photos of really delicious looking pizza. They are smartly divided by category:  American New Wave, Deep Dish (Armands!), Thin Crust, Neapolitan, New York, Sicilian, Slices, Chef-Driven, Frozen (Yes, surprisingly) and Outré. Probably best read when you’re not hungry.