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Today, October 16th, is World Food Day, a day designated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations since 1945 as a day for promoting awareness of issues related to hunger, agriculture and food production.

While much of the time this site, like most food blogs, talk about indulging personal hunger and food cravings, there's a lot to think about on this subject these days, much of it rather sobering.

(Related to my previous post - this is something I was originally going to submit to the How To... event held by ProBlogger, but I ended up posting something else. To be taken it with a big grain of salt.)

This month, Frank Bruni of the New York Times is writing about his experiences eating in Rome on his Diner's Journal blog. One of things he mentions is what he perceives as the inferior level of service in most Rome restaurants. A number of commenters chime in, some claiming variations of "it's because Europeans hate Americans".

If you live in the U.K., (or elsewhere where they sell U.K. newspapers complete with inserts) get ready for a week of food-related inserts starting tomorrow in The Guardian.

I've been living with my new refrigerator for about a month now, and I love it. What I particularly like about it are the "Biofresh" compartments - the sealed drawers with adjustable humidity for storing fresh food. (Biofresh is term used by the manufacturer, Liebherr, but other manufacturers use other terms for it.) The humidity can be set to low for meats, fish and cheeses, and high for fruit and vegetables. And, there are three big drawers - way more than a regular refrigerator.

Set your TiVos or iTunes Music Store reminders. The second season of our favorite American cooking competition show is just a week away! New host, more contestants, change of venue to Los Angeles -- could be exciting! (Or, a disaster. We'll find out.)

Julia Davis as Fanny Cradock in Fear of Fanny

Food Destinations is back for round 3! This time, it's hosted by Emily of Chocolate in Context, and the theme is My Favorite Chocolate Shop. Mmm, chocolate. Go over to Emily's site and read up on the details! The deadline is October 30th.

Yesterday's musings on the priciness of at least some organic produce reminded me of a very useful guide to pesticides on popular fruits and vegetables, published by the Environmental Working Group. I've listed it before in my Daily Links, but I'm repeating it here in case you missed it. It's a wallet-sized guide to the produce that has the most pesticides (so worth buying organic) down to the ones that have the least (so perhaps worth buying conventional.

I am old enough to recall the '80s rather clearly (and, isn't it a bit scary how '80s fashion like humongous oversized sweaters seem to be making a comeback now? What's next, the return of footballer-sized Dynasty shoulder pads?), so I remember when the first Farm Aid concert took place. At that time, family farms in the U.S. were in dire straights, so a bunch of musical artists, inspired by the massive Live Aid concert, got together to raise money and awareness for the plight of the American farmer.