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The Stew

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By JEFF HOUCK

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 6, 2008

GREEN UP THE LUNCHBOX

Less than two weeks until students in the Tampa Bay area return to school. Yay.

Greenopia.com says the average child who packs a lunch for school generates 67 pounds of waste a year. That works out to 18,760 pounds of lunch waste for an elementary school with about 280 students. We have no idea if the trash-per-student average is accurate, but it still begs the question of how you can reduce your kid's lunchtime carbon footprint.

Greenopioa offers these tips for packing a lunchbox this fall:

•Replace paper napkins with cloth.

•Pack stainless-steel utensils instead of disposable plastics.

•Use reusable drink containers instead of disposable juice boxes, juice pouches, cans and plastic bottles.

•Avoid using plastic wraps, plastic bags, wax-paper bags and aluminum foil - opt for Tupperware instead.

•Cut down on packaging waste by purchasing foods in larger containers that you can recycle at home, rather than buying individually packaged servings.

•Choose lunch boxes or backpacks over paper or plastic bags.

Most of these suggestions are pretty do-able. Except the cloth napkin. That one will only get your kid beat up.

If you're really dedicated to the reusable napkin, I have an alternate suggestion: Tell your child to just use his or her sleeve. Like always.

THE POP THAT WON'T STOP

Lots of readers have been forwarding me YouTube videos showing what look to be popcorn kernels popping when they're put in the middle of a cluster of active cell phones.

They're fun videos to watch. And all are fake as can be.

The myth busters at Snopes.com fished around for an explanation. Seems it all started with a spoof article printed in 2000 in a British newspaper about how radiation from a cell phone could cook an egg in its shell. (It can't.)

In May, the hoax was updated with popcorn after Cardo Systems Inc. (makers of Bluetooth headsets) created three videos as part of a viral marketing effort. The videos have been viewed more than 4 million times.

Cardo later confessed to the hoax. "Making popcorn with a cell phone happens only in the movies," the company said on its Web site.

CNN later reported that the special effect was achieved by dropping already-popped popcorn onto the table between the phones and digitally editing out kernels from the scene.

So there. You can stop sending me the videos, thank you.

To read the Snopes entry, go online to www.snopes.com/science/cook egg.asp.

WINE DINNER

The Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City is hosting a Benziger winery dinner with Erinn Benziger at 7 p.m. Sept. 25. Cost is $75 per person, all-inclusive. Call (813) 248-4961 for reservations.

OLYMPICS FOOD-RELATED QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Anything from P.F. Chang's menu is good, but I'm thinking it's not going to be on the menu when we get to Beijing." - Anne Donovan, coach of the U.S. women's basketball Olympic team, when asked by WashingtonPost.com what her favorite Chinese food was.

OFFENDED BY PROTEIN

I received lots of nice calls and e-mail last week from readers who liked the story we did on how to get the most out of your steak by grilling and seasoning it correctly.

One anonymous caller, though, was less than pleased.

"Yeah, your cover of today's Flavor I found very offensive with all the steaks on the cover," the voicemail message said. "You have a lot of vegetarians in this area. I think you could have a more neutral cover than seeing all that meat. I found it very offensive." (To listen to the call, go online to my blog, The Stew.)

She must have missed the Crock-Pot cover the week before, when we featured onions, garlic, tomatoes and zucchini. Every recipe in that story was even gluten-free, too. Funny, no meat-eaters called to complain about that one.

We're big fans of vegetarian food. Debby Magill does a great job organizing dinners for the Tampa Bay Vegetarians ( www.tampabayvegetarians.org).

As a peace offering, I've put a recipe for Fava Bean Bruschetta on my blog, The Stew, at TBO.com. It comes from the book "Organic Marin: Recipes From Table to Land," by Tim Porter & Farina Wong Kinsley (Andrews McNeel, $29.99).

MOMMY, PLEASE MAKE IT STOP

A new law of culinary physics:

Fake cheese attracts real cheese.

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