More on meat , a bit about honey, and lots more local eating and drinking

No sooner do I post the entry on meat than it’s all around me, practically slapping me (as it were) in the face.

Merna had kindly sent me this interesting review of Mark Bittman’s book Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating, which is being billed as the natural extension of Pollan’s In Defense of Food – only with recipes. So I rushed out and bought it and the first page says:

Two years ago, a report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) landed on my desk. Called Livestock’s Long Shadow, it revealed a stunning statistic: global livestock production is responsible for about one-fifth of all greenhouse gases – more than transportation.

So that caught my attention, as did the review’s praise of his simplified approach to cooking (he does after all write a column for the NYT called The Minimalist: he wants to teach you How to Cook Everything!). Then it turns out there’s an interview with Bittman in the Globe and Mail today as well.

Maybe you’d like to practice your French listening skills by watching this video which Jo-Anne kindly sent me, of people who risk man-eating tigers to harvest wild honey each year. Like all good eaters, they thank the forest gods for their bounty at the end.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPgl8SEzUr4]

In other more local news… I noticed a poster for a Sustainability Fair in the town of View Royal this weekend, on Saturday January 24 from 11-4; or you can catch Don Genova’s perky short course on coffee from 10-4; Lorna Crozier reads at the Planet Earth reading series, 7.30pm this Friday 23rd. It seems we’re also in a time of warming beverages: this weekend we have the Victoria Whisky Festival, complete with tastings and masterclasses. The more abstemious can hold off until February 14-15 for the Victoria Tea Festival. From February 19th to March 8th there’s an opportunity for serial dining with the Dine Around & Stay In Town Victoria event.