Mud Baron

When Food Revolution Day brought Jamie Oliver back to LA with his "Big Rig" on the UCLA Medical Center's campus, it was time to check in with him to see where he felt things stood in L.A.

In Washington DC the USDA's Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and locavore darling Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan take to the internets today at 10 a.m. local time (yep, now) to launch the USDA's new Know Your Farmer Know Your Food Compass.

Did you catch the 2 minute animated "commercial" for Chipotle, starring some happy pigs, rainbows, and Wille Nelson covering "The Scientist"?

While Time Magazine has declared 2011 as the "year of the protester," what gets lost in that hoopla are the origins of the protest. And those origins point back to what is, or what is not, on our collective plates.

Nearly a year after chef and activist Jamie Oliver visited LA and our schools' lunchrooms none other than Rush Limbaugh weighs in on our kids and their eating habits at LAUSD. Sounding more like Jonathan Swift sans irony, Limbaugh has responded on air to this weekend's LA Times piece on the new menu fail at the country's second largest school district.

"Shut your fucking mouth! We can lose you in here" becomes even more poignant as the constitutionally challenged National Defense Authorization Act for 2012 sits on President Obama's desk. As it currently stands, spokespeople for Obama have stated he would not veto it.

While we love Santee High School's culinary students because they can rock a chile relleno stuffed with corn, beans and squash for the likes of Artisanal LA, but this week they have been rocking the same high school/high end cuisine for the venue known as Occupy LA.

San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and New York have all had one (or two) and this weekend it's L.A.'s turn for the Green Festival. What may sound like a crunchy, west-of the-405-Earth-Day-redux is actually a bit of an organic-occupy-wall-street-social justice-in-bougie-hemp-fabric-neighborhood-gathering... at the LA Convention Center.

It's Food Day! But wait, we eat every day so why an actual "Food" day? According to the non-profit that is sponsoring this day as dialogue they have some fairly straightforward (okay, awesome) goals. Plus, a few ways for you to get involved in the local "good food" movement.

The Los Aangeles Community Garden Council hosts its 5th Annual picnic/training/workshop thing today (hey, now) at the Loma Alta Park and Community Center in Altadena.