Frightened by the size of your carbon footprint, frightened for the future of polar bears, frightened by food you eat, frightened... go to this article in NYT Times Anxious About Earth's Problems? There's Treatment.

The latest trivia is at...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/us/16therapy.html?

Campus slaughters? No ecoworry there.

Heresy from Delia Smith who has just come out with a new book How To Cheat At Cooking...


Tinned minced lamb! Frozen mashed potato! This sounds like an act of heresy against the new orthodoxy of sourcing fresh - and preferably organic - produce from local shops, using only natural ingredients, and using the freezer purely as a repository for Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia.

Delia bristles slightly. She has never 'done organic', she says. 'And it's still "death to the freezer" in the old way. You're not going out and buying half a pig now - that's all gone. And you're not going to be spending time cooking for your frigging freezer - because that's the same work and it doesn't taste good.'

For full story go to......http://www.telegraph.co.uk/wine/main.jhtml?xml=/wine/2008/02/16/nosplit/sm_deliasmith116.xml

When I entered The Harbord Room which has just opened at 89 Harbord, I didn’t feel the tectonic plates shifting, but by the time I leave, I recognize that the city’s restaurant focus has shifted upwards from Queen and College Streets. Now Harbord Street can claim bragging rights to the title of Toronto’s top restaurant row. Don’t know anywhere else that offers such a lineup from the unctuous ***1/2 Splendido to the *** 93 Harbord, Boulevard Café, Messis, Tati, and now The Harbord Room.

THR’s got an uptown glaze on it, Brad Denton (who designed Czehoski) has made a posh ‘hood hang that is fashionable Tuscan pink, part club, part bistro with marble topped tables, studded leather chairs and only thirty seats. Great for us diners because we know chef Cory Vitiello (formerly at the Drake Hotel) is going to be personally on our case. Vitiello is a star example of the way good cooking is evolving in Toronto. He has digested the random influences that enrich the city and fused them into a deceptively simple menu which limns unfamiliar combinations along with tastes that deftly complement each other.    more »