For conscious and discriminating diners

Veg dishes for Oprah, Ellen, veg eaters and true foodies: Chef Tal Ronnen's recipes and new book here. Learn to cook like the pros - watch the vids. Chef Ronnen created Oprah's 21-Day Cleanse menu shares recipes for meatless cuisine from his book The Conscious Cook. By applying traditional French culinary techniques to his dishes, he creates rich, full flavor that satisfies even carnivorous cravings.

Eating Animals - read esp if you do

Also read Eating Animals, excellent new book by Jonathan Saffran Foer. Especially if you eat animal-derived foods. LATimes review here

Dog songs CD benefits prison program

Holiday gift idea for folks with dogs – benefits a good program that positively engages people serving jail time. Check out Paws in Prison.

Flu food-flighters

Yep, fruit, veggies...plant-based, not animal-derived...right here in the Wall Street Journal.

Columbia SC: Good story at every turn

Robin's "Worth the Trip" feature for the Examiner newspapers - this week, Columbia S.C. Here's the story.

Richard Pryor's widow rocks!

From the Animal Issues Bulletin during an appearance on the Leno show Chris Rock shocked everyone with insensitive slurs on pit bulls specifically and dog generally: “What the hell did Michael Vick do? Pit Bulls ain’t even real dogs! Dogs have never been good to black people!”

Unfortunately for Chris, he was hoping to get cast as Richard Pryor in an upcoming film on Pryor’s life. Pryor’s widow Jennifer shares her late husband’s love for animals, and she did not take Chris’ off-hand comment lightly. In an open letter to Rock, she said:

“For your information, Chris, what Michael Vick did was to torture, drown, electrocute and murder dogs all for fun and for profit! He went to prison for felony animal cruelty! That’s what he did! These types of comments only encourage abuse and misunderstanding of this breed, as well as actual dogfighting. Clearly this part of your latest stand-up routine would not make Richard laugh!”

So, Marlon Wayans is reported to be the one who will portray Richard Pryor in “Is It Something I Said?” which will be in theaters in 2011.

Recovering with Four-Legged Friends Requires Less Pain Medication

Recovering with Four-Legged Friends Requires Less Pain Medication

Thanksgiving with strangers - volunteering during beach vaca

Robin's new Ocean Beach, Cal. travel piece in the Examiner newspapers...Volunteering during Thanksgiving vacation. Here.

Door County: That bowl of cherries

Robin's Sunday Travel piece in various editions of the Examiner. One's here.

Good housekeeping beats insecticides...and rids allergens

Research shows good housekeeping is more effective than insecticides. When a building supervisor notified tenants in Brooklyn that one of the apartments had a bedbug infestation, Eddie Rosenthal feared that it was only a matter of time until they spread to his home. But it wasn't just the bugs that gave Rosenthal the creeps. So did the prospect of using pesticides. So Rosenthal decided to try a few tricks that might keep his home bug-free without spraying chemicals. He raised his bed off the ground, filled some cracks and applied some nontoxic powder to spaces between walls.

Now new research shows that such good housekeeping techniques not only minimize chemical use, but they are even more effective at controlling pests than hiring an exterminator to spray powerful, toxic pesticides. A single use of such techniques in 13 New York City apartment buildings eliminated substantially more cockroaches and mice than repeated professional applications of pesticides. Another plus: asthma-triggering allergens related to bugs were up to 70 percent lower in residences using preventive techniques than those using insecticides. Details here.

Animal cams: Inside the nest...out in wild

Views from animal-cams...laughing Kookaburra, hummingbird, owl, armadillo. Check out Sam Eaterson's Museum of Animal Perspectives here. Bear back-scratching against a tree here.

Meat industry creates half of all greenhouse gases

New study: meat creates half of all greenhouse gases. Read it in The Independent.