This Just in From The Guardian...

Tojo, Indonesia: A villager walks through a burnt forest after a slash and burn practice to open the land for agriculture. Photograph: Yusuf Ahmad/Reuters

In the last 6 months I've started to post more and more video from the British paper the Guardian. I think at this point it's my favorite news source. Anyway, this week they had two very different articles that I think are of note and you might want to check out.

The first one is a report about the UN biodiverstiy chef Ahmed Djoghlaf (who knew they had one?) who warns that:

nations risk economic collapse and loss of culture if it does not protect the natural world

Probably not a big shock to most of the readers here, but still very interesting stuff with a good audio narrative.

The second article is a little more fun. It's there list of the top 50 cookbooks of all time, with the top 10 missing (tricky buggers) which they are withholding from us until Sunday (to be continued).

I was particularly pleased that two of my favorite cookbooks make the top 50. At number 17 is David Tanis's brilliantly simple book A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes.

Number 11 (my lucky number!) is Alice Waters first cookbook: Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook.

Now we all have to be on tenterhooks until Sunday!

I think in the top 10 should be The Fannie Farmer Cookbook by Marion Cunningham, Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking by Yamuna Devi and The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters.

They also have to choose at least one British cookbook, I'm not so well versed, but maybe Roast Chicken and Other Stories or The Riverford Farm Cookbook?

It's like the Oscars of cookbooks!