Tuesday Megalinks

Lots of lists and how-tos in this week's links, including Eat Me Daily’s fall cookbook preview, The Kitchn’s guide to $20 group dinners, and a triumvirate of healthy goodness from Chow. Take it away, internets…

5 Second Rule: Advocate
Interview with Dr. Susan Rubin, founder of Bettter School Food, which is at the forefront of the Make School Lunches Less Sucky for Kids movement. Informational. Inspiring. Anti-Monsanto. (Thanks to Casual Kitchen for the link.)

Boing Boing: How Many Minutes Do People in Your City Have to Work for a Big Mac?
Chicago: about 12.
Nairobi: nearly 160.
Um … this is one of those times I’m happy I live where I do.

Casual Kitchen: The Food Spending Poll - Results and Conclusions
Dan ran an informal poll by his readers, and found that we spend 5 percentage points more on food than the U.S. average. We’re #1! We’re #1! (Um, but seriously – check out the stat breakdown. Eyebrow-raising stuff that could be attributed to us foodblog readers’ natural interest in cooking.)

Chow: 10 Beginner Cookbooks
Expected: Joy of Cooking, How to Cook Everything, How to Boil Water.
Unexpected: Cooking with Jamie, Starting with Ingredients, The Joy of Mixology. Mmm … ologies.

Chow: Know Your Peppers – Chow’s Visual Guide to Chile Peppers
If you don’t know your Basque Fryers from your Hot Banana peppers, this excellent pictorial is the place to start. Don’t forget to check page 2, because MY GOD, confusing a Habanero with a Pimiento de Padron would be very, very, very bad. (Like, worse than accidentally calling your dad “old dude.” And trust me, that’s bad.)

Chow: Whole Grains 101
From A (amaranth) to W (wheat berries), this guide to common grains could be even handier than that pepper thing I just posted. P.S. Has anyone out there tried Kamut? I’ve never even heard of it before. It sound like a Dungeons & Dragons warlord.

Eat Me Daily: Fall Cookbook Preview
Of special note: Pioneer Woman’s inaugural tome (yay!), Alton Brown’s first book about Good Eats (double yay!), and Michael Psilakis’ book on updated Greek classics. If any of his recipes came from Kefi (one of his NYC restaurants), it’s gonna be good.

Eat Me Daily: NYC Subway Ads: Human Fat Pouring Out of Bottles
These ads depicting fat poured from high-sugar drinks (Snapple, Gatorade, etc.) are much like the subway itself: gross, but effective.

Gizmodo: Alton Brown’s Safe and Scary Kitchen Hacks
Alton likes to have liquid nitrogen around. Y’know, for kicks.

Jezebel: Why is Normal Eating So Hard to Define?
The Jezzies analyze a recent New York Times blog post, which defines “normal eating” in one of the best ways I’ve ever read: “Normal eating is going to the table hungry and eating until you are satisfied. It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it-not just stop eating because you think you should. Normal eating is being able to give some thought to your food selection so you get nutritious food, but not being so wary and restrictive that you miss out on enjoyable food. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad or bored, or just because it feels good. Normal eating is mostly three meals a day, or four or five, or it can be choosing to munch along the way. It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful. Normal eating is overeating at times, feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. And it can be undereating at times and wishing you had more. Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating. Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life.” More on this tomorrow…

The Kitchn: 10 Ways to Feed 10 People for Less Than $20
As Labor Day Weekend creeps up on us, we’re likely A) running out of money, and B) entertaining a large group of people angry over going back to school/ending their vacation/running out of health insurance. The Kitchn has the remedy, with fantastic suggestions for substantive party meals.

The Kitchn: How to Properly Season a Dish
Do you over-salt? Have you under-peppered? The Kitchn feels your pain, and tries to ameliorate the situation with this informative post.

Mrs. Micah: Couponing for Charity
Do you have a lot of coupons, but not a lot of use for them? Kate’s collecting them for charity. It’s a great way to contribute without breaking the bank.

New York Times: Exploring Peanut Butter’s Potential
PB (peanut butter, not Pam Beasley) finally gets some respect as a high-class ingredient. If you click, don’t forget the link to Bittman’s blog – the comments are full of solid recipe ideas.

Newsweek: America’s War on the Overweight
Complex, interesting article about changing national sentiment regarding the obese. Is the anger ingrained in our culture? Is it self-loathing? Is it anger over health care bills? Read and ponder.

Simple Dollar: Handling an Overwhelming Harvest Without the Waste
Whether you have bushels of zucchini or a metric ton of tomatoes, Trent has ideas about how to get rid of it without anything going to waste. Gardeners! Read this!

Slashfood: What Can I Get You Folks? Server Errors That Servers Hate AND When Should Your Server Say No?
Thought provoking, somewhat controversial recurring Slashfood column on the everyday debates over waiter service. These are Hanna’s two most recent entries, along with the obligatory outraged commentary. Good stuff.

Slate: Don't Buy Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking (You will never cook from it.)
Julia’s seminal tome just hit #1 for the first time, ever, but Regina Schrambling cautions you against buying it. And … um … I agree. (*avoids lightning from on high*) I owned Mastering for YEARS, and only cracked it to browse. Everything looked so complicated (at the time) and the recipes used SO MUCH BUTTER … I couldn’t do it. Le sigh.

(Photos courtesy of What You Really Get, Marlboro University, and Scientific American.)

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