"From 1860 to 1960, Cuba had some of the best land for cattle in the Western hemisphere," says Wright. In 1960, Cuba had about 6 million people and 2 million cattle, but now has only 2 million cattle for 12 million people, he explains.

"There's a tremendous need to restock Cuba's ranches, and the opportunity has to be given to people like me," he says, adding that he'd start out by sending 3,000 head of cattle, tractors, trucks, and irrigation equipment to Cuba as soon as the two nations adjust their policies to allow for that.

Photo: justydrink/flickr

Chef Allen's [MenuPages]
Chef Allen's [Official Site]

Perhaps unsurprisingly given our occupation, the bulk of our life plans revolve around food and our bucket list is no different. We want to do the full tasting at The French Laundry and eat roast chicken at L'Ami Louis. We want to visit the food centers in Singapore and the open air markets in Provence. Most of all, though, we want to eat our way through the United States. There are huge regions we've never explored and we're very anxious to eat barbecue in North Carolina, gumbo in New Orleans, and ripe-from-the-tree avocados in California, to name just a few.

The pre-kickin'-it food plans of other MP editors are after the jump, but really, we're awfully curious about what's on your list, so leave it in the comments.

• Did you know that restaurants have to pay $900 for the chance to participate in Miami Spice? Here's a good roundup of some of the better deals among the 100 or so restaurants participating this year. [Miami Herald]

• George's in the Grove might not be the best place for a quiet dinner, but if you want good food in a fun atmosphere, looks like it's the place to go. [Miami New Times]

• Fuegovivo gets two-and-a-half stars, sounds a lot like the many other Brazilian churrascarias that seem to be all the rage these days. [Miami Herald]

• It's only been open for a month, but the Jam Cafe is already busy with people stopping in for a snack or a light meal. [Miami Herald]

• Scott Simmons found lots to love at Bar Louie. [Palm Beach Post]

• Fresh from her trip to Guatemala, Gail Shepherd searches for some of the dishes she'd had on vacation. She found success at La Rosa in Lake Worth and El Chapin in Palm Springs. [Broward-Palm Beach New Times]

It happens every year about this time. Oppressive heat and humidity and general grossness make us nostalgic for the heady days of mid-April, when the temperature was mild and just about everything was newly in (or coming into) season. But one favorite was just on its way out, and right about now we miss it terribly.

Fortunately, there is hope yet for oyster lovers.

Traditional wisdom states that you must not eat oysters during months without the letter "r" in them. That is to say, summer months. A few years ago, while researching this story for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, we learned that that had to do with the oysters' spawning season--they get all milky and weird when they spawn.

According to this little New York Times item from earlier in the week, oysters and other shellfish — especially local harvests — can become contaminated from summer algae blooms or "red tides."

But there is hope yet, oyster lover. You don't have to wait until September to slurp. One thing we learned during our trip to the San Francisco Bay Area's oyster country is that some local farms are growing imported varieties, such as Kumomotos, from Japan, which spawn in alternate months from our North American regulars.

Also, as the Times points out, government regulations prevent aquaculture outfits from selling shellfish grown in contaminated water. Many growers finish their oysters in clean-water tanks, which flush out contaminants.

So there you go, you can totally eat oysters in the summer if you order the right kinds and make sure you go through government-regulated suppliers. The Oyster Guide website has a bunch of farms listed. Some even do mail order.

Being There: In The Raw [San Francisco Bay Guardian]
The Claim: Never Eat Shellfish in a Month Without an R [New York Times]
Where to Order Oysters [The Oyster Guide]

[Photo: The walrus and the carpenter from Alice in Wonderland via superfluous consonants/flickr]

• A look at the detective work that went into tracking down that nasty jalapeno [AP/Chicago Tribune]

• An Ohio woman charged with assault after throwing peanuts at her allergic neighbor [Fox News]

• Seems a Wisconsin grocery store owner might have been selling stolen fruit [Twincities.com]

• Rising food prices may be a culprit behind the rising crime rate in Manila [GMANews.tv]

Most first dates take place in restaurants. God knows why.

So anyway, first rule: insist that your date picks the restaurant, which actually isn't a bad idea. Except what if he/she suggests a restaurant that isn't within an acceptable price range? How do you explain, no, sorry, I'm a cheap bastard who can't afford to take you there, even if we go Dutch. Yeah, upon further consideration, that's a bad idea. You make the date, you pick the restaurant.

Her other rules include avoiding the following foods: sushi and other food eaten with chopsticks (can get messy), spaghetti (same as chopsticks), garlic (bad breath), coffee (worse breath), oysters (too obvious), Brussels sprouts, beans, curry, sunchokes, fresh pasta, kimchi, any cruciferous vegetables, and tuna (all apparently in the flatulence-producing family). Also no-nos: sharing plates (huh?!) and having an extra drink.

After the jump, what MP editors have to say about this...

An article in today's Epi-Log stimulated waves of nostalgia for a Martin family favorite summertime tradition: The county fair. It was a fine article, but didn't really focus on food, so here's a follow up with some personal culinary favorites available at most county and state fairs.

Of course, the main rule is to eat things at the fair that you can't get anywhere else. If you're in Wisconsin, for example, get cream puffs, even though they're not traditional fair food. In Minnesota, eat nothing that doesn't come on a stick. In western Washington, top your burger with Walla Walla sweet onions.

But in addition to the regional favorites, pretty much all fairs bring with them a host of classics that you can get almost nowhere else. After the jump you'll find a few personal preferences. Feel free to comment with your own favorites/forgettables.

We're craving the 'cue from Mama Lucy's in particular:

On Friday and Saturday evenings you'll find Lexuses, SUVs, antique convertibles and rundown pick-ups squished together in the tiny lot where people stand in line for the full slab ($21), half slab ($13) or for the regular rib sandwich ($6.50). The barbecue is a smoky, sweet, supple pork flesh doused in a rich crimson sauce bejeweled with fine black pepper dots. There's a cinnamon-y finish that leaves your fingertips smelling like a world where cholesterol is myth and caloric obsession, an abomination. The barbecue is served with a couple of slices of white bread -- a naked sponge cake for those who love the sauce just as much, (if not more than), the meat. Owner Jack Homes opened the venue 14 years ago as a tribute to the recipes of his late grandmother Lucy Palmer -- a native of Brunswick, Ga., who worked as a Miami-Dade metro bus driver for 25 years.

BBQ scene in Miami is smoking hot [Miami Herald]

• Grocers are now pulling jalapeno peppers from shelves in the next salmonella scare. [LA Times]

• Lack of preparation, poor record-keeping — there are a million things wrong with our food safety system. [WSJ]

• Grocers are adjusting to new consumer spending habits, thanks to inflation. [Star-Tribune]

• A proposed law would ban any new fast-food restaurants from opening in a 32-mile area of Los Angeles. [LA Times]

But. There's always a but. The gently mocking tone in the article ("what won't these rich people pay people to do?!") nagged at something in the back of our mind, and we weren't sure quite what it was until we ran across this op-ed in The Food Section. Here's the thing: what, essentially, is the difference between hiring an organic backyard vegetable garden consultant (which we are happy to make fun of) and, say, hiring a landscape designer and the requisite team of college students on break in order to lay out and mulch your zinnias (which we accept as totally okay)? Where's the real difference between buying a share in a CSA and asking The Fruit Guys to add you to their roster?

Because as much as we're inclined to make fun of the folks who contract out their contributions to sustainable agriculture, we can't really look past the fact that (a) we are not exactly out there getting our hands dirty ourselves, and (b) we spent a good portion of our lunch hour today discussing how terrific it is to send our laundry out to a wash-n-fold service despite the fact that we have a completely free washing machine literally three feet from our bedroom, simply because it is so much more convenient to have someone else do it for us.

If we're willing to contract out our laundry for 85 cents a pound, to no ultimate global benefit, who are we to smirk at someone who allocates a portion of their disposable income to increase the demand for local produce, ethically-raised meat, and seasonal deployment of ingredients? Not to mention the jobs that it creates (and sustains): gardeners, small-scale farmers, responsible restaurateurs and chefs. And let's not forget that the people with enough money to outsource their virtuousness are the same people with enough money to subsidize community gardens, greenmarkets, food pantries, and get-kids-to-eat-their-veggies initiatives — all good things, all things we wish we spent more time working to further, but don't. Quite possibly because we are so lazy we can't even be bothered to fold our own t-shirts.

So, um, where exactly was that part worth mocking, again?

A Locally Grown Diet With Fuss but No Muss [NYT]
Op Ed: Is Eating Local Earnest or Elitist? [The Food Section]

[Photo: CSA crop, via mikaela_'s Flickr]

These are the restaurant hours:
Dinner, Sunday – Thursday, 5 p.m. - 11:30 p.m. and Friday and Saturday, 5 p.m. - midnight.
Brunch, Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

If you beat us to sampling it, don’t forget to report back!

Cita's Italian Chophouse [Official Site]

Palm Beach:
• 13910 Jog Rd in Delray Beach
• 1200 Town Center Dr (Abacoa) in Jupiter
• 801 N Congress Ave (Boynton Beach Mall) in Boynton Beach
• 11701 Lake Victoria Gardens Dr (Dowtown at the Gardens) in Palm Beach Gardens
• 3101 PGA Blvd (Gardens Mall) in Palm Beach Gardens
• 5100 PGA Blvd (PGA Commons Central) in Palm Beach Gardens
• 650 S Rosemary Ave (City Place) in West Palm Beach

Broward:
• 1100 W Broward Blvd in Fort Lauderdale
• 3399 N State Rd 7 (Lakes Mall) in Lauderdale Lakes
• 9439 W Atlantic Blvd (Coral Square Mall) in Pompano Beach

Miami-Dade:
• 9600 SW 160th St in Miami
• 750 NE 125th St in North Miami

A few thoughts: Palm Beach Gardens is really bearing the brunt of the closures, although after looking at the locations, it looks like the company might have really over-saturated the market there. I should note the Lauderdale Lakes closing also, which Michael Mayo at the Sun-Sentinel wrote was the one that Magic Johnson brought to town. It's one of the few Starbucks in predominantly black neighborhoods.

'Magic' evaporates at Lauderdale Lakes Starbucks [Sun-Sentinel]
Starbucks [Official Site]

Could this lean economy mark the beginning of the end of the homebody hipster — the college-educated, post-feminist indie-rocker with her baking pans and knitting needles and house cats? Maybe so.

A story on Marketplace last Friday explored the sharp decline in the popularity of knitting, which took off just as rapidly in the high-stress years after 9/11 terrorist attacks. "Worried women knit," one commenter said. But it seems the belt-tightening required in most households has left little room for that kind of hobby.

Similarly, the Associated Press reported yesterday that the long-running cupcake trend is, well, "slimming down" would be a weird phrase for it, but something like that. The new twist: Frosting shots. Get rid of all that annoying, costly cake and just give us the hard, sweet stuff for a buck and a half:

“It's kind of the cut-to-the-chase evolution of cupcakes,” says Tanya Steel, editor in chief of foodie Web site Epicurious.com. “I can imagine it being at parties. It's a great thing to have at an office party. It provides just a little bite of sweetness and yumminess without going whole hog.”

So maybe we're entering a new era of (figuratively) leaner, less-ironic/symbolic food trends, and hobbies (hopefully) borne of interest, rather than fear. Straightforward burgers seem to be holding steady, and large plates are making a comeback. This is a good direction. Just don't take away our lolcats. That hilarious meme needs to stick around forever. You can have the word "meme" back, though.

Knit 1, pearl 2, point and click [Marketplace]
Bottoms up: Frosting fans line up to take shots [AP/San Diego Tribune]
A Hamburger Today [Serious Eats]
Large plates make a comeback [SF Gate]

[Photo: via Kscakes lolcat builder]

• Poor regulation of Chinese food production has U.S. Olympians worried about what they eat in Beijing. [ABC News]

• L.A. wants to close 400 fast food restaurants in order to save the obese from themselves. [WSJ]

• Food banks take a page from The Book of Ruth, start setting up gleaning programs. [USAToday]

• Want to eat sustainably and locally without actually doing anything? You lazy locavores are not alone! [NYT]