Drop that salmon!

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:44:00 +0000

On the subject of seafood, I'd always been well intentioned but underinformed. It's not that I didn't care, didn't hear the dispatches about avoiding Chilean sea bass or the antibiotics in shrimp, but I felt overwhelmed by a stream of investigative reports and gloomy forecasts. Overwhelmed is how a lot of us feel these days, as food-related crises proliferate in the news -- potentially contaminated beef from sick cows, possibly toxic crop spraying in California, food riots in Haiti. The bleak onslaught can make eating ethically seem like a daunting, if not impossible, goal. It was with this sense of doom that I began Taras Grescoe's "Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood." But by the time I was done, I found myself holding court in the canned fish aisle explaining to fellow shoppers the difference between skipjack and albacore tuna.

Live large and prosper

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:52:00 +0000

William Shatner seems perfectly content spoofing his iconic status in Priceline commercials, but for Leonard Nimoy, life after "Star Trek" has been a more solemn existence. The man who would rather you not call him Spock has, for decades now, immersed himself in music, poetry and fine art. His new book "The Full Body Project," is an arresting collection of black-and-white nude photographs featuring full-bodied women who stare into the camera, practically daring us to judge them on their nakedness or their size. Nimoy is one of the few contemporary artists (another would be British artist Jenny Saville) working with full-figured models these days. With its references to artists from Matisse to Herb Ritts, "The Full Body Project" recalls a rich history of zaftig women in art at the same time it reminds us of their current absence. Indeed, "The Full Body Project" could be read as a critique of Hollywood -- or at least the glamour machine that runs on size 2 supermodels.Salon spoke recently with Nimoy about how he became fascinated by female body image, the decade and a half he spent working as a photographer, and how he made Joy Behar feel svelte.

Salon.com > Nicole Pasulka

Drop that salmon!

Live large and prosper