A Literary Culinary Journal
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by Jonell Galloway
50 homemade Halloween decorations, from political pumpkins to geek lanterns, offers loads of ideas for making original, creative jack-o-lanterns.
Click here for recipes for making homemade Halloween treats with your children.
Wee toddlers are sometimes scared by all the ghoulish things surrounding Halloween, so Tera Pearson has created Halloween care packages for toddlers.
Being Green This Halloween is Simple at Goodwill is a wonderful way of recyling old clothes and objects to make Halloween costumes and decorations.
If you still like caramel apples (I do!), here’s an easy recipe for making your own to hand out as treats.
To see a lovely gallery of vintage Halloween decorations, click here.
If you don’t want the mess of the pumpkins, try making jack-o-lanterns the green way by making jack-o-lanterns and Halloween decorations from old books. How green!
Auburn Pub offers lots of tips for keeping Halloween and Halloween costumes safe.
For photo lovers, here are some tips on shooting frighteningly fun Halloween photos.
Happy Halloween!
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by Jonell Galloway
MSNBC Today Show’s nutritionist Joy Bauer says the average trick or treater comes home with the equivalent of 10 cups of sugar and 10 lbs. of butter. When you put it in those terms, you realize if you want to contribute to the health of future generations, there are strategies for choosing healthier options. An easy-to-implement video full of common sense tips for choosing your treats.
Here’s some great Halloween photography to get you in the spirit.
Halloween is Here gives loads of recipes for complete Halloween meals, for both adults and children.
If you’re set on staying green when it comes to Halloween costumes, here are some more creative ideas.
Shine! Yahoo offers lots of healthy savory and sweet Halloween recipes, such as chocolate-covered fruit, as does Family Health and Nutrition.
If you’re planning a Halloween lunch party for your children, here are some simple ideas for giving a ghoulish look to sandwiches, fruit and other ordinary fare.
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by Jonell Galloway
“Many fruits and vegetables produce ethylene gas, a colorless, odorless gas, as they begin to ripen. Some foods aren’t affected much by ethylene gas, while others are extremely sensitive to it.”
I never knew that it was a natural gas that fruit and vegetables produce that causes this to happen.
One thing I have noted is that when you buy fruit and vegetables that come from large agribusiness farms, they have a particularly high water content and they rot much faster than fresh garden and organic produce.
In any case, it is good to separate the ethylene-producing produce from the non-ethylene-producing. There is actually a method.
Click here for more details.
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by video
If you’ve ever had to the good luck to taste Joël Robuchon’s mashed potatoes, made with the variety Ratte, you probably daydream about them often enough. This here explains how to make them. Click Swiss Info to watch a video that explains how to make them.
Gawker says more than 10,000 tons of potatoes will end up in Swiss troughs this year. The dry spring and warm autumn made them too big to meet the standard sizes that can legally be sold in supermarkets.
Ever wonder how many calories are in those KFC mashed potatoes and gravy? article calculates “680 calories, and an even more shocking 2130 mg of sodium per serving.”
Potatoes from the New World most likely saved Europe from a famine in 18th century. This Smithsonian 
is a fascinating history of the potato and how it changed the world, and full of interesting facts.
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The annual chocolate feast, fete and orgy known here in Paris as the Salon du Chocolat takes over the city this year from October 20 to 24. If you’re not in Paris already, get here fast. There might not be any chocolate left if you arrive on the last day.
It has been remarked (by yours truly) that if you toss out a euro these days it will probably land on a Paris chocolate shop or pâtisserie with a celebrated chef bent on titillating his customers’ taste buds while dazzling their eyes and lightening their wallets.
No other city, not even Brussels, has as much fine chocolate as Paris. Paris is the chocolate capital of the world.
While the Swiss and Belgians weren’t looking, Paris stole their milk cows and became the swaggering global capital of chic chocolate.
All challengers to this claim please take one of our chocolate tours and then decide whether to proceed with the duel.
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by Jonell Galloway
This year’s fashion show at the Salon du Chocolat in Paris was probably the most stunning and creative to date. The fashion designers gave a burlesque atmosphere to the entire show, and there was a full array of top top models to show their creations to their best advantage.
I’m melting! Chocolate catwalk show comes a cropper after model’s dress falls off. The Daily Mail has one of the most complete coverages of the chocolate dress fashion show, with a full photo show, including the several shots of Karine Ferri’s dress as it gradually desconstructed as she walked down the runway.
Trendhunter show a great closeup of the gladiator bikini that 2005 Miss France Cindy Fabre paraded.
Japan was the featured chocolate country this year, and Japanese Susumu Koyama, 47, was even named “Best Foreign Chocolatier” — winning out over top masters from celebrated chocolate-making nations like Belgium and Switzerland.
The Telegraph has a great photo of Anca Radici, with a close-up of her chocolate stockings and shoes.
ShoppingBlog shows some highlights in video, including the deconstructing dress.
Good photos to be seen on Out and About in Paris as well.
The show ends tonight, so if you’re in Paris, you still have time to pay a visit.
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by Jonell Galloway
The Guardian says Ferran and Albert Adrià, the culinary visionaries of El Bulli, will be performing the superstar restaurant’s cocktails at Tickets in Barcelona, paired with a “greatest hits collection” of food: Parmesan ice cream, Iberian ham “airbag-uette,” mango leaves with marigold, yogurt pistachulines, and steamed brioche with mozzarella. So what next, Ferran?
Click here to watch the video.
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The world’s first vegan strip club: Will topless dancers really be able to teach customers at Casa Diablo to shun meat?, The Guardian
Shared Meals, Shared Knowledge, The New York Times
Angela Hartnett’s wood pigeon salad recipe, The Guardian
Energy Shots: The Next Big Thing in Marketing Caffeine to Children (Marion Nestle), The Atlantic
Prevent Alzheimer’s, Cancer: The Positive Effects of Drinking Coffee, The Guardian
How to make dandelion and burdock beer – dig for victory and a very British root beer, The Guardian
The Pawpaw: Foraging For America’s Forgotten Fruit, NPR
Pinch Me – A Culinary Dream Tour of Germany, Doc Sconz
The Danish food revolution: How the Danes went local, sustainable, and DIY, Culinate
Baked Sweet Potato Fries, She Wears Many Hats
Cheese flavour map charts cheddar/blue/regional/goats cheeses by how nutty/earthy/tangy/savoury, British Cheese Board
Feeding frenzy: Who’s behind the unsavory food stamp parodies, grist
Kraft recalls Velveeta mac and cheese, may contain wire bristles, Digital Journal
Book Review: “25 Years of Recipes from ‘The Art of Eating.” (Julia Child called the founder, Ed Behr, a cultist!), Zester Daily
Shrimp Po’ Boys with a Spicy-Sweet Remoulade, Feast on the Cheap
Gandhi Tour developed in India, Time
Grilled Halloumi and Turkish Fig salad with Persian Pomegranate, Shiyam Sundar
« Bio-logique » : Sur la logique de production et de consommation du « bio » aujourd’hui en France, exploratrice de saveurs
NO-GO zones for coal seam gas projects should be set up to protect high food-production areas, Victorian farmers say (Australia), Weekly Times Now/Slow Food Melbourne
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by Jonell Galloway
So the Paris chocolate show, the Salon du Chocolat — undoubtedly the most cherished in the world — is officially open to the public, from October 20 to 24, 2011.
More than 800 chefs have created some 700 recipes to the delight of young and old alike, and pastry chefs will be demonstrating their master creations for all to see.
The the 17th Salon du Chocolat was officially inaugurated last night, and started out with bang: the initial bang of the fashion show, made up of chocolate dresses. The fashion show will be shown every day at 5 p.m. The photo above shows just a sample of the amazing creations that adorned the runway. This year, the dresses include creations by France’s best chocolatiers, as well as by up-and-coming fashion designers, and the Godmother of French fashion, Chantal Thomass.
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Meet Jonell Galloway, a freelance writer and editor specialized in French cuisine. 
