The 2009 awards were in Monday. One article I read mentioned the only way these awards could reach Oscar-worthy notoriety is if it was broadcast live. As Thomas Keller makes abundantly clear, not all celebrity chefs are comfortable with the camera (and apparently some journalists can only muster questions like “What did you eat for breakfast?”). I scrolled passed the obvious celebrity of Momofuku Ko, Dan Barber, and Jean Georges to the journalism awards.

The USDA food pyramid has been inadequate since its inception in 1992. It is accepted that each day we need to consume protein, fat, and carbohydrates, in addition to the 8 essential amino acids, a lot of water, and some vitamins and minerals. The sources of our nutrients and their volume, however, have been argued for centuries. The USDA food pyramid is so steeped in politics, $$$, and other non-food-related power struggles, it has caused a series of rebuttals over the years from a myriad of specialists and individuals alike, all eager to add their two cents. Below is a sampling of these alternative pyramids, some helpful, some witty, and some literally flipping the pyramid concept on its head.

Each image demonstrates the brilliantly iconic form of the pyramid, while also exposing the limitations of trying to encapsulate a diet in an isosceles triangle. These are just the tip of the iceberg.

The New York Times has a lot to say about food these days. Whether it’s analyzing the merits of Michelle Obama’s victory garden in Opinion, declaring another “food revolution” with rising sales in organic products in Business, chronicling New Yorkers need for sugary comfort or in N.Y./Region, or promoting a book that gives recipes for an almost vegetarian diet in Health, there’s more to read than recipes and restaurant critiques. While some writers may be misguided by overused words like “foodie” and “local” or only marginally aware of “food issues,” it’s good to see the Times stepping up.

In the past the newspaper’s reporting on food has been deliberately slow to trends, absent of the daily beat, and many times lacking in intellectual and political substance. If the Times can recognize that the larger subject of food should be a mainstay in our newspapers and on our minds, we can get beyond the hyperboles of those who “eat to live” or “live to eat” which divide our current news choices.

What’s more “local” than a vegetable garden? Michelle Obama is building one after all. The New York Times reports the new garden will be the first since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in WWII, which was roughly 60 years ago.

We consider WWI and WWII to be the catalysts for our modern food industry, resulting in the abandonment worldwide of practices of raising, cultivation, and preparation of foods by hand. During the Great Depression our grandmothers were still using the whole chicken, feeding the family, and growing some tomatoes in the backyard. But by the end of WWII the government had found a nationwide solution in the form of industry, giving the public a break from cooking and nutrition.

Brunch. Grumpy shrill morning-after 30something women, large sunglasses, whispers about who doesn’t remember what from last night, hungover waiters, overpriced eggs and pancakes, and lots of hair-of-the-dog. Brunch. I gave up on brunch a couple years ago when I realized it’s basically the black void hungover food fade between breakfast and dinner, AND it only happens on my days off. I love me some baked eggs, but I make prefer ‘em without a side of sweaty waiter. Grub Street just reported on Brunch the musical opening April 2. Maybe my fellow New Yorkers will get a little queasy once this scene is set to music. Sample, anyone?

“BRUNCH is a new rock musical about the New York City restaurant scene from the eyes of those who do the serving. It’s about the daily grind, specials, romances, firings, tips and VIPs that inhabit every restaurant, bistro, café and diner in the city. BRUNCH follows a cast of characters — waiters, bartenders and managers — through the most hectic shift of the week, from the first cup of coffee to the last reservation at the tension-filled, comically riotous, patience-trying shift at the end of the restaurant week — Brunch!”

I’m a purist when it comes to lazy or secret eating habits. I tend toward spoonfuls of peanut or cashew butter. I like nut butters so much an ex-roommate of mine would carve initials in his Peter Pan as a marker to alert him of my having been there. I also love skinning a mango with my teeth and then sucking on the pit.

3 Buck Bites, Citysearch‘s newest endeavor, attempts to ease our pockets a little by promising to scour our cities for dirt cheap edibles. While it seems like a $4 meal nationwide consists of… you guessed it, burgers, dogs, tacos, sugar, and eggs, there is the occasional oyster ($2 mollusks for the win!) or Asian dish.

The NY offerings are more heavy on the sugar, making me wonder if cost of living can be ignored in this $3.99 bill. Still, there’s hopefully more blocks to walk in our street-food-free, sunless, floating cement box, and cheaper and more edible food to be uncovered in the outer boroughs.

In all seriousness, though, good food should cost less. Restaurants in New York at least (the site currently includes 7 other cities) need to close the gap in price. I am interested to see what sites like 3 Buck Bites will uncover, and what they will instigate.

You know it’s, err, finally happening when The New York Times reports on a trend. Uses of “Blipster” and “locavore” come to mind, but let’s not go there. Other than dubbing the recent artisan foods and specialty shops opening in Brooklyn a “movement,” and selecting those owners that aesthetically mesh with the existing Brooklyn “hipster” vibe, Oliver Schwaner-Albright’s article is worth the read (inspiring, even). He gives some well-earned props to Brooklyn Flea, the Mast Brothers Chocolate, McClure’s, Fine & Raw, and Marlow & Sons. I posted on the Flea back in November after a trip out to see Bob McClure, Michael and Rick Mast, and Daniel Sklarr. The return to real artisan trade, keen attention to detail, and community support in Brooklyn is definitely inspiring and can’t help but be reminiscent of the Berkeley food revival in the 70s and 80s. But small, local movements like these need something bigger (i.e. Alice Waters) to make any sort of national impact or even be dubbed a movement. What’s next, Brooklyn?

In the meantime, I need a job. Let’s revive the traditional apprenticeship, shall we?

Also, check out the comments from readers in the Diner’s Journal Blog.

This evening Sarah at Tastespotting denied one of my photos again for some misguided reason that had little to do with food. So naturally, I loaded her front page to check out what had been accepted today. Well, I came in contact with the beauty that is food porn, tactile images of amazement, stylistically and photographically perfect and ooooh so inedible. Cheers, Tastespotting, for reminding me again of the reasons besides eating to gaze longingly at food.

The Washington Post published an article recently on the comforts that people will not give up buying. Mine are: spinning, fresh produce, soft cotton, dark chocolate, and espresso. What are yours?