We spoke to JJ Virgin over the phone about what qualifies someone to be a "freaky eater," as well as some of the more extreme measures they've taken on the program to make people confront their dangerous life choices.

This is the second season of the show, and there has been a lot of controversy about programs similar to "Freaky Eaters," like "Hoarders" and "Intervention." Some people are wondering if putting these people up on screen is helpful or just exploitative. What is your response to that sort of claim?

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You must have hated that. I almost can see you, queen-like, reading Salon (as you do every day) in the print form we give to celebrities, reading that article with your lovely eyes widening before crumpling it into a ball and throwing it across the steam room where you are currently enjoying a reflexology massage.

"Get me the New Yorker!" I hear you screaming at your personal assistant/GOOP editor (?)/Chris Martin, "I will teach them who is the most grandiloquent food celebrity of modern culture!"

And congratulations, Gwyneth. You did it. Lizzie Widdicombe's article "Gwyneth’s World: Gwyneth Paltrow, Movie Star and Domestic Goddess"so turgidly describes your latest dinner party with Jay-Z, Michael Stipe, the Seinfelds, Christy Turlington and a bunch of other famous people that I wanted to crumple up my edition of the magazine and throw it across a steam room. But I can't. Because I don't have a steam room, and also I don't have a copy of the New Yorker. Some of us aren't made of crisp, lemon-scented money, Gwyneth!

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Gwyneth Paltrow is like the James Franco of bourgeois aestheticism. While James is busy being an artist/author/teacher/actor/etc., Mrs. Coldplay has branched out her career from actress to include singer, lifestyle mommy blogger and, most recently, health food authority. Despite having her cooking magazine concept turned down by Hearst, Gwyneth is undeterred: Her recent recipe book, "My Father's Daughter: Delicious, Easy Recipes Celebrating Family & Togetherness," has just hit the shelves after a truckload of buzz. And like Franco, Gwyneth is one of those people who is just easy to snark on: Her GOOP newsletter is designed for people just like herself -- that is to say, moms who appreciate the tip that $60 olive oil is worth it and that a macrobiotic diet is totally key for your child's health -- making her an easy target for her clueless haute sensibilities. As Gabe Delahaye on Videogum wrote after Gwyneth came out with her "How to stuff a chicken" video:

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Brown rice syrup is just one of many "natural" sweeteners that have taken off in the wake of the backlash against artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose, which, of course, were invented to defeat the dietary axis of evil -- refined white sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Once confined to Berkeley communes, these not-refined-sugar, not-man-made substances pose a huge marketing opportunity, since most people who avoid sugar don't want to get cancer but also aren't ready to commit to a joyless, dessert-free existence. Natural sweeteners are the perfect answer to this conundrum. Right?

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1) Tomato tip: Use the stems for flavour too. Don't eat them but allow stems to infuse your sauces/stocks/tomato waters, etc. That's where the lovely tomato smell derives from.

- MissTan

I remember once fondling a friend's tomato plant and being horrified by my hands afterward. They had taken on so much of the incredibly intense smell from the stems that I wanted to gag, and so I've been wary of touching the stems ever since. But I love this idea -- diluted in a sauce or stock, that concentrated aroma can relax and scent the whole lot. In fact, British culinary superstar (that is not an oxymoron) Heston Blumenthal recommends you plop a tomato stem or two in pots of sauce or ketchup and let them sit there for a few hours. (Make sure to do it when the sauce is cool, though; the aromatic compounds tend to disappear when heated.)

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Somewhere between the greens and beans of the old-time South to hippie-dippy nut loaves and the microwaved on-the-go Gardenburgers, we seemed to have lost our way. As meat got cheaper and cheaper, it went from an occasional (and seasonal) luxury to the center of our diets ... and the center of our food culture. We became, as Elissa Altman put it on her blog Poor Man's Feast, a nation of "vegetable idiots ... Vegetables are simply not a part of the American culinary lexicon: give a man a kohlrabi and he won’t know what to do with it. Give a man a steak, and he will." 

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So, curious about what other "filth" and "water insoluble inorganic matter" are legally tolerated, I consulted the Food and Drug Administration's stunningly poetic-sounding "Food Defect Action Levels" -- the level of screwiness you are allowed to have in your food before the FDA will take action. You never actually want to get some FDA action, but you might be surprised at how much gunk can be in your product before they will show up with some bad news.

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The CBC recently reported the tragic story: A Canadian woman, by the near-symmetrical name of Lind Bird, was driving across the U.S. border when she was stopped for a random search, which randomly turned up the most randomly illegal contraband of all time -- a chocolate egg-toy that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has determined is a clear and present danger out to choke American children. The border patrol officer threatened a $300 fine, Ms. Bird politely gave up the Kinder Surprise, and, after an extended hassle including signing off on a seven-page letter authorizing U.S. authorities to destroy (read: snack on) the confiscated goods, she tried to pick up the pieces and get on with her life, scarred by a government that has that kind of time and money to throw around, but not enough resources for universal healthcare.

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Buying less not only prevents us from tossing out more, but I've always found that having fewer ingredients forces me to be more creative and diligent about eating what I do have lying around -- especially if it's higher quality, tastier stuff. But monks make awful dinner party hosts, and around this time, when we're entertaining and celebrating, many of us will be buying food in jumbo bunches and econo-packs. Here, then, are a few more tips on how to ride out the wave of leftovers and unused bits sure to pile up in your fridge soon.

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And the answer is: Yes! Or no! It's complicated (a little). The keys lie in how much you abused it to begin with, how you treat and store it, and what you plan on doing with it afterward.

Safety

First, from a safety perspective, you have to keep in mind that every oil has a smoke point, a temperature at which it, well, smokes -- and beyond that, a flash point, where it will burst into flames. It's exciting stuff, and more so if you happen to be standing next to it.

Anyway, most vegetable oils smoke somewhere between 400 and 450 degrees F when they're fresh, but that temperature will drop significantly -- up to 100 degrees -- even after one use at high heat. So what I'm saying is, oil used to sear or fry something at high heat should be reused carefully if at all: Keep a watchful eye on it; if it starts smoking, you know what will eventually come next. (For a smart and important but kind of terrifying discussion of this, check out Shirley Corriher's seminal food-science cookbook "CookWise.")

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The vaccines aren't required in the U.S., although in Great Britain, officials say vaccinations have given them the safest egg supply in Europe. A survey conducted by the European food safety agency in 2009 found that about 1 percent of British flocks had salmonella compared to about 60 to 70 percent of flocks elsewhere in Europe, said Amanda Cryer, spokeswoman for the British Egg Information Service.

There's been no push to require vaccination in the U.S., in part because it would cost farmers and in part because advocates have been more focused on more comprehensive food safety reforms, those watching the poultry industry said.

But Darrell Trampel, a poultry veterinarian at Iowa State University, predicted vaccination will become more common after the recent outbreak.

"I think (vaccination) will move from hit and miss to being a standard," Trampel said.

The salmonella vaccine prevents chickens from becoming infected and then passing the bacteria on to their eggs. It has been available in the U.S. since 1992.

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Despite their ubiquity, cantaloupes are some of the loveliest citizens of the fruit world -- they can have up to 20 percent sugar, the sweetest of any melon -- but a bum specimen often tastes no more exciting than a cucumber. Now that most of the country is in the thick of melon season, when they can really boast the sweetness and the floral, tropical aromas they were meant to have, Darryl shared his tips on how to shop for them.

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Avoiding food poisoning is complex (the p.c. term now is "foodborne illness," lest we start tainting the deli guy as a "poisoner"), but it can be largely boiled down to a few key points about how bacteria grow, taught to us by our friend Fat Tom.

Fat Tom is not, in fact, a person, but a mnemonic device used by the National Restaurant Association, for whom wit and cuteness don't come easily. (Its literature contains earnest warnings against foods that have been "time temperature abused," and warns against getting your customers sick with an illustration of a judge's gavel banging on a stack of cash.) But it is  good at telling you how to keep bacteria from growing on your lunch. So, Fat Tom helps you remember what makes a bacteria-friendly environment and how to avoid creating one:

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So, yesterday, when it was in fact 103 degrees in the g*****mned shade, I stood in front of the swimming pool-size bin of watermelons at my supermarket watching people go through their selection rituals. One man insisted that he could tap-and-listen his way to juiciness and, as if to impress the pretty woman next to him, proceeded to refine his technique until it looked like he had to do nothing more than touch the fruit, like a spiritual laying on of hands. It seemed a bit silly, all this hocus-pocus, but I understand the need for belief: What's sadder than cutting into a mealy, bland watermelon?

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But hey, there's something to be said for the power of their palates, their ability to pick up cues and vocalize what they're tasting from the muddle of flavors in the mouth. (Even if, as I sometimes suspect, they just think they can.) I'm not talking about "super tasters" — those few who physically have more taste buds than the rest of us — but the eaters and cooks who always seem to know just what it is they're eating.

How do they do it? And more importantly, other than spending $60,000 on a culinary degree, could I train myself to do it, too? I put the question to experts who should know: a tongue doctor, a chef or two, a sommelier and a flavor chemist.

Breathe, Damn It!
I start with the doc, naturally: Andrew P. Lane, an otolaryngologist — he studies the head and neck, that is — who directs the Johns Hopkins University Sinus Center.

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Dear Salon Food:

How many times have you heard that spices lose their potency "after 6 months"? It's repeated so often, but it seems absurd to me that all spices would behave exactly the same and I know that most processes of deterioration graphically resemble that of Newton's law of cooling (\[\frac{dT}{dt} = -k (T - T_a).\]) with the fastest deterioration occurring initially.

Paul

Dear Paul:

Do you have any idea how awkward it is to get on the phone with some poor spice company representative and subject them to the sentence, "Yes, but is the deterioration of the spices anything like Newton's law of cooling? You know, like, slash-bracket-slash-frac-whatever that squiggly bracket is called…"

But hey, I did it for you. And even better, I also called Jane Daniels Lear, who wrote the superb cookbook "One Spice, Two Spice" with chef Floyd Cardoz of Tabla, the most influential Indian-inflected restaurant in America, and I learned more than I ever thought I would about the buying, storing and fading of spices. Here's what you should know.

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Dear Salon Food:

My doc told me to "watch my salt intake." If I brine a chicken or a turkey or a rack of ribs, how much is the normal salt content increased?

Alan 

Dear Alan,

I feel you. Brining is one of those things that's easy to pick up and hard to put down. I mean, all you do is drop what would be dry, mild meat -- chicken breasts, say, or lean pork, or, of course, turkey -- in some salty water, let it hang out for a bit, and it comes out juicy and flavorful. Magic! It takes maybe two minutes of your time and a little forethought, and your dinner goes from sucky to succulent. There are few better cost-benefit deals in the world, let alone in cooking. (For an interesting overview of how it works, including revisiting old high-school chemistry terms like "diffusion" and "osmosis," click here.)

But there is a cost, as you suggest, in terms of sodium intake (and sugar, since many brine recipes call for sweetness to balance the saltiness). So I dusted off my pencil for you to see how much salt (and therefore sodium) ends up getting into meat you brine. Yes, it's word problem time, kids! I'm not the sharpest pencil in the bookbag, so if I can handle this math, so can you. So: A plane carrying a cup of table salt takes off heading west at 12 p.m. going 1,002 km/h...

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