Reading List for September 20-24

1. "Reform on the Range: Cubans Heed the Call to Farm" from NPR

"There's an old joke in Cuba that if education, health care and athletics are the Cuban revolution's greatest achievements, then its three biggest failings are breakfast, lunch and dinner. Government supermarkets — where many Cubans can't even afford to shop — stock imported mango juice from Mexico, chicken from Brazil and butter from Denmark. All could be easily produced locally."

" 'Having a farm means coping with everything — ants, thunderstorms, scratches, hurricanes, waking up at dawn,' Ramos says. 'It's sacrifice and hard work, but somebody has to do it. We can't all be intellectuals, because then there'd be nothing to eat.' "

2. Coverage of the Salmonella - Egg Recall Hearing before a House Energy & Commerce subcommittee
"Wright County Egg's Found Apologizes for Salmonella; Egg Producer Says His Business Grew Too Quickly" from NYTimes
"An Iowa Egg Farmer and a History of Salmonella" from NYTimes

3. "Blackwater's Black Ops" from The Nation
"Another important piece from The Nation: Monsanto hired Blackwater subsidiary (and former CIA man) to spy on critics." - @michaelpollan

4. A few ongoing topics ...
“Critics Call Child Nutrition Bill Counterproductive” from NPR

"Ending childhood hunger by 2015 has been a priority for President Obama, and ending childhood obesity has been a priority for the first lady. The child nutrition bill is supposed to help do both. But some hunger groups say that the way things stand now, the legislation would do neither."

"Some Obama Allies Fear School Lunch Bill Could Rob Food Stamp Program" from NYTimes
"Child Nutrition Food Fight Bumps Up Against Political Reality" from NPR

FDA rules won't require labels on genetically-modified salmon (article and editorial from The Washington Post)

5. "Waiter, There's Soup in My Bug" from NYTimes

"He simmered heirloom tomatoes in duck fat and matched that sauce with plump, raised, umami-bomb gusanos de maguey — expensive caterpillars that have to be painstakingly rooted out of agave leaves. Each course was paired with a Mexican cocktail. (For one, raw cucumbers were hollowed out like cups, filled with mezcal and rimmed with “worm salt” — a pungent powder of salt, chilies and ground-up agave worms.) He told the assembled throng that he wanted to transport them back in time — to a hacienda outside Mexico City in 1600, say, when indigenous and Iberian cultures were colliding."

And for dessert: "vanilla ice cream with a flourish of cayenne-spiced and agave-syrup-sweetened mealworms." Yum?