The Nashville City Paper reports today that PETA, in a effort to curb the use of chicken suppliers who use inhumane slaughter techniques, has purchased 160 shares of the Nashville-based restaurant. I don’t call myself a stock market guru, but 160 shares doesn’t seem large enough a portion to have much control, perhaps they plan on buying more later. PETA also owns shares of YUM! brand, which owns Kentucky Fried Chicken, and a target of a widely-publicized campaign to stop the cruel techniques used by their suppliers. Already comments have been made that PETA is trying to make O’Charley’s a vegan restaurant, not the case. Of course, anytime PETA is involved you will find a few insecure meat-eaters.

We found ourselves without child this weekend and wanting to go out to eat somewhere that we don’t usually bring the morsel along.   We decided quickly on The Cheesecake Factory since the usual smog deters us from shaving years of the life of our child and visits are few and far between, unless we eat there in Atlanta.  When asking for a table we usually give the line “The table furthest away from the smoking section, please.” only this time to be told the entire restaurant is non-smoking!  It is nice to know I can enjoy my food now without someone’s lung-gunked cancer dust settling on my fries.  I have noticed many resaturants going this route lately.  Ted’s Montana Grill is completely non-smoking, even the patio, since their opening.  Buca Di Beppo went non-smoking last year.  We have found ourselves not considering restaurants with smoking sections when we do eat out.

For those of us who have eschewed dairy and once loved those munchy goodies called Cheetos I have found the perfect snack! Robert’s American Gourmet makes a great “cheese” crunch snack called Tings. In fact one could almost get these mistaken for Cheetos although they don’t quite coat your fingers as thick with goop to lick off when you are finished. The contain a nice coating of nutritional yeast to give the “cheese” flavor and have the same perfect crunch you would get from Cheetos.

I am on my third bag this week. That a big deal for me as I am not a huge chip eater.

Hemp milk, a relatively new product to the store shelves is finding itself in the news a bit in places.   I have read a bit of good information on it, finding it is loaded with calcium and phosphorus (46% and 43% of RDA respectfully), not to mention vitamin B12 (25%).  Hemp, illegal to produce in the US, is grown mainly in Canada and exported.  The biggest supplier of hemp milk is Living Harvest.

I have tried the Original Flavor, it has a slight nutty flavor and not too bad.  As a regular drinker of soy milk I couldn’t say I would use it to replace the soy milk but otherwise it makes a nice change.

Wild Oats does carry it in the shelf-stable milk area.  $3.59 for 32 ounces.

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/national/article/0,1406,KNS_350_5518510,00.html