These beauties say that even more eloquently.

Freshly shucked and ready to set down in front of the wise guest who ordered them.

John Dory Oyster Bar in Manhattan. (Philip Montgomery for via WSJ Photo Journal

When a thing is not the thing it says it is.

Like cheese on toast, which is what it is.

Like how it used to be called Welsh Rarebit. Here’s The Old Foodie on rabbit vs rarebit:

The OED traces Welsh Rabbit to 1725, sixty years before “rarebit”, and the eminent lexicographer H.W.Fowler stated in no uncertain terms “Welsh Rabbit is amusing and right. Welsh Rarebit is stupid and wrong.” End of discussion.

Why the identity works:

It’s all about the cheese. The point of the dish is to have a vehicle for cheese. The Welsh love their cheese. [Who doesn't?]

And also whimsey. Rabbits do whimsey well.

Identity design by  CandyCoatedUniverse

Begs the question, why an ampersand?

A thing of beauty to hold together the two main ingredients.

By Andreas Neophytou via ffffound

via Forgotten-Hopes, thanks to ffffound

Seriously. By Felix Sockwell via ShareSomeCandy. Perfect for that bike food cart you’ve been dying to launch.

Sweet. Smart. Great metrics. Wait for “Results.”
By the time the piece has you, you’ve forgotten the significance of the special offer that inspired the whole thing in the first place. Doubly good … 2-for-1 good.

From IdeasAreAwesome [are they ever] via Leona Hobbs, aka Tumbleona.

It’s just a tad early, but clearly some specialty farmers have been able to get zucchini blossoms to restaurants like Petite Maison in Midtown Manhattan.

My Zia Annina would never serve them with a  sauce — or call them beignets. That’s just verbal embellishment for the menu. She’d put them on a fresh linen kitchen towel, and we’d grab them with our hands and chow down.

Still, a little spicy tomato sauce is a nice touch.

via Wall Street Journal’s Photo Journal. Photo by Ramsay de Give.

Local food is getting a bit of ribbing these days. Check out this great video from the new IFC show “Portlandia,” where local eating is pushed to the extreme, with great comic effect. Hilarious.

Still, at the end of the day, we’ve eaten three meals, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs [OMAFRA] wants to make it easier for more of that food to come to us from nearby.

I first got involved with OMAFRA by writing several newsletters for the ministry’s Savour Ontario initiative. It gave me the chance to profile chefs, producers, farmers and distributors working together to put Ontario food into our best restaurants.

The initiative has branched out. The ministry has cast a wider net, focused on the “broader public sector.” In that net are 150 hospitals, 250 childcare centres run by municipalities and colleges, 100 long-term care facilities, 22 universities, 28 colleges, 100 school boards. You get the picture. That’s a lot of meals. And that’s one sweet spot of opportunity for producers to expand their markets.

“Ontario’s Local Food Champions 2011” is a report released last week by Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation. It profiles three Local Food champions who are making strides in putting more local food into the public sector. The report features a university executive chef, a municipality and a health-care facility, all of whom have produced valuable, scalable models. You can get the report as a pdf at the bottom of the page here.

To make it easy for others to follow these models, the ministry launched OntarioFresh.ca, a groundbreaking online marketplace to help grow the businesses of folks doing this good work.  What you’ll find is a registration site where you can sign up in advance of the official launch of the full site in September, when you’ll have full access, including the marketplace feature. OntarioFresh.ca is a Friends of Greenbelt Foundation initiative with funding from OMAFRA.

Worth noting, and found on the OntarioFresh.ca site, is the Broader Public Sector Investment Fund, which provides grants for anyone working to get more Ontario food into public sector foodservice. The ministry calls this “the value chain.” There’s something in it for everyone. If that’s you, plug in.

In the meantime, drop by the Local Food Plus booth at the Green Living Show, running until Sunday. Say hey to Erin Shapero, one of Canada’s leading experts in local sustainable food. Erin is Manager of Institutional Relations for Local Food Plus. She’ll hook you up.

Photo by Lino Micheli aka The Accidental Farmer

This is the house brand belonging to Waitrose, the UK supermarket chain. As long as the contents properly resemble the packaging, they should do all right. [Wonder what that celery tastes like. What an underrated and underused vegetable.] Still, although I love a minimalist approach, these feel just a little under-designed.

Via SwissMiss via MelissaEatonOnDesign.