The Rebel Palate

(Click here to jump to today's recommended song, Gene Vincent's cover of Unchained Melody!) It's Valentine's Day, rebels! Even though I didn't post this in December like I wanted to, Valentine's Day is an equally opportune time to talk about making cookies. Last year, I got this Mirro "Cooky" Press for my birthday, because someone needed to get rid of it and thought I'd want it. And why not? It's food-related, it's old, and it's obscure. I wasn't sure how old it was at first, so I did some minor digging. Using The Internet Archive's handy-dandy "search within text" function (which I used in this post ), I found documents containing "Mirro Cooky Press" from as far back as 1949. A book called Spiffy Kitchen Collectibles says it's from the "1940s-1950s", and since it came out in the final year of the 40s... let's just call it 50s.

(Click here to jump to the recommended song, Comu si Beddra by Angelo Daddelli & i Picciotti!) Ciao, ribelli. Gangster media is a staple of American pop culture. Everybody knows about The Sopranos, The Godfather and Goodfellas. Sometimes we sympathize with Mob characters or fantasize about being in their shoes. They have just about every status symbol- money, power, and ways of showing their money and power. Plus people have a morbid fascination with crime. But at the end of the day, we don't want to catch ourselves thinking we like the Mafia. In real life, they're real trouble. And forget about joining them- even the movies can tell you it's not a good idea. The victims are real, but in Sicily, they're taking a stand. Addiopizzo (or "Goodbye Pizzo"), is a nonprofit organization based in Sicily. They have a travel service and an online store . They partner with local businesses that refuse to pay the pizzo, or

Turns out acorns aren't just for squirrels. They're for humans, too- and they tase pretty darn good in biscotti. Weird, natural AND obscure! (Click here to jump to the recommended song, Brains by Aurelio Voltaire!) Howdy, rebels! Sorry for the embarrassingly short post on Thursday . I must take full responsibility for the crappy way I handled it. I didn't think the subject matter would be an absolute nothing sandwich, and I'd already "promised" to write something about maple syrup being out-of-season . So yes, apologies. Can't say it'll never happen again because I'm in the Early Installment Weirdness phase. I'm sure one day I'll regret 11 out of 10 of these posts. Anyway! Every fall I used to make acorn bread. My family hated it, but they were too nice to say so and ignored it instead, making me (read: our chickens) eat the rest. My dad said it "tasted honest", which I take as a compliment, but