• Discover global cuisine through the kitchens of grandmothers with this excellent photojournalism project Delicatessen with love by Gabriele Galimberti. Each photo features a  grandmother with her signature dish as both ingredients and finished product. At right, grandmothers from Egypt, Haiti and Latvia.

• The GM food debate gets even uglier as Monsanto threatens to sue the state of Vermont. "Lawmakers in Vermont are looking to regulate food labels so customers can know which products are made from genetically modified crops, but agricultural giants Monsanto say they will sue if the state follows through."

• Looking to unload a châteaux? Christie’s is capitalising on the thirst for wealthy Chinese consumers to buy wineries by opening the world’s first estate agency for would-be vineyard buyers.

• Luxury food producers take note and come up with ways that you can take advantage of this style. Jaeger-LeCoultre tempts female consumers with emotional marketing, and they do a great job of it. “'Jaeger-LeCoultre’s strategy behind this campaign is connecting with their target market’s emotions on various events and occurrences that happen throughout their life, and focusing on the positive perspective that they can continuously reinvent themselves,' Ms. Strum said." Notice that nothing is said about watches in the full two minutes.

• 3D printing meets food (above). Janne Kyttanen has produced prototype printed pasta, breakfast cereal and burgers to demonstrate how advances in 3D printing could transform the way we eat (interview and slideshow). "Kyttanen, co-founder of design studio Freedom of Creation and creative director of printer manufacturer 3D Systems, told Dezeen: 'Food is the next frontier. We’re already printing in chocolate, so a lot of these things will be possible in the next few years.'"

• What drones should be dropping: beer. In South Africa this summer, concert goers will be able to order beer on their phones that will be delivered by drone, kind of like beer from heaven.

• Square, the mobile payment start-up firm, sets its sights on the food industry "Several months ago, Square launched a “Business in a Box” package for $249, including two card readers, an iPad stand, a cash drawer and an optional receipt printer, all wirelessly connected to the Square Register app. Last week, Square announced an update to that app designed specifically for quick-serve restaurants, allowing operators to modify orders and print kitchen tickets."

• Flavor and Language — the eternal challenge of describing flavors in words. "I came across an interview with Harold McGee, that peerless explorer of the science of food. In it he said apropos of sauvignon blanc: ‘It is so difficult to connect particular flavours with their sources, it’s hard to really define what minerality is, or what the expression of a place in a product could actually be. And you have to ask yourself, how many times have people actually tasted minerals, like the flint from which Loire white wines are said to get their flavour? How often do you put a rock in your mouth and suck on it?’" via the excellent project Flavour First

• Workers Claim Racial Bias in Farms’ Hiring of Immigrants “If you can’t find locals to do the work, why is the answer to bring in people who have little protection and not grant them legal status?” asked Mr. Knoepp of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “If we need them, why not bring them in and make them legal citizens with real protections? The answer is because then they wouldn’t keep working in the fields given the conditions of that work. They would do something else. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

•  Trending: sommeliers = new food celebrities "Until recently, serious restaurants in the United States were owned by celebrity chefs, creative developers like Danny Meyer and Richard Melman, or corporate chains. But sommeliers have now begun taking the lead role, as investors make them the centerpiece of their restaurant concepts."

• Nigeria is one of the top markets for champagne. "The figures, from research company Euromonitor, found that Nigeria had the fastest growing rate of new champagne consumption in the world, second only to France, and ahead of rapid growth nations Brazil and China, and established markets such as the US and Australia." And not only are they drinking champagne, they're making music video about it. Check out Pop Champagne

The Marathons sing about one of America's favorite foods: Peanut Butter.

Feeling a little too scrubbed and wholesome? Let RuPaul fix that for you honey.

She's got her own Peanut Butter song, New Orleans bounce-style. "It must be jelly cause jam don't shake." Warning: video may be too bootilicious for work.

weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

• Chickens are keeping their mess to themselves, fashionably, with chicken diapers (right). "'Chickens are a symbol of urban nirvana,' The New York Times wrote last year, 'their coops backyard shrines to a locavore movement that has city dwellers moving ever closer to their food.'" We expect the ironic, 80's-inspired, hipster chicken diaper line any day now.

• A sensible and delicious solution to low meal-cost school lunches: ditch the industrial meat. A New York City school goes meatless. “This is so good,” said 9-year-old Marian Satti of a black bean and cheddar cheese quesadilla served at Tuesday’s lunch, the Daily News said. 'I’m enjoying that it didn’t have a lot of salt in it.'”  

• Culinary students at CIA protested what they feel are weakened standards. “There are students here who understand the work and the discipline...but there are also some who just want to coast and get on reality shows, and we see them getting away with it.”

• A small town in Scotland has launched its own signature menu as a way to support regional cuisine and identity. Huntly, a town of only 4,000 people, has stepped out with this vision. How about "Huntly tattie soup (made with locally-grown veg and short rib or plate beef); Deveron cure trout and mayonnaise made with rapeseed oil; Highland kedgeree (using Moray-smoked haddock, free-range eggs and Fairtrade rice); and Gordon barley risotto with Moray langoustine, mushrooms or rabbit, dotted with Douglas Fir pine oil."

• A nice refresher for your eyes and inspiration for your cocktail menu, a visual sake round-up.

The Newbeats 1964 rendition of Bread and Butter, as sweet and innocent as an after school snack.

"He likes bread and butter

He likes toast and jam

That's what his baby feeds him

And he's her lovin' man"

• A new local food and beverage consciousness has come to Ghana. "'We are trying to create a new atmosphere here, and to rejuvenate our sense of identity," said Kofi Owusu-Ansah, 39, who founded Republic with his brother Raja last year. 'If you look at our spirits, you will find not one single import – the base for all our cocktails is local-made sugar cane spirit akpeteshie.'" Curious about all the African food you don't know about? Check out the new project My African Food Map.

• Russians are now trying to get back to their former, healthier cuisine. "'We want to inspirate [sic] the old Russian traditions with new feelings and ideas," Akimov says. "In Europe, it [local food] is about health and sustainability. In Russia, it's more than that. It's an opportunity to revive whole regions.' LavkaLavka and its partners aren't just resurrecting their country's indigenous foods – they are reinvesting in the people who grow them."

• In Florida, you don't have to go out of your way to find exotics — just go out your back door. The giant African land snail is the latest eco-invader. (yes, everything really weird happens in Florida) If you want to make good use of the invaders by turning them into dinner, food writer Tim Hayward of the Guardian UK visits an African restaurant in south London for a cooking lesson (video).

• What we will probably all be eating soon and probably should be already: edible insects. London-based company Ento wants to convince you to give this sustainable protein a try.

• Insects are also helping us figure out what we should be eating. A young (high school aged young) scientist in Texas is working with fruit flies to more closely examine the effects of organic food on their systems. "By nearly every measure, including fertility, stress resistance and longevity, flies that fed on organic bananas and potatoes fared better than those who dined on conventionally raised produce."

• And not to freak you out that the world is actually coming to an end, but climate change is going to mess up winemaking in a big way. Global warming will make it difficult to raise grapes in traditional wine country, but will shift production to other regions.

What's old is new again — Fin de siècle theme edition!

• You can pick an apple of a city tree! Seattle is building the country's first permaculture food forest. The city’s new park will be filled with edible plants, and everything from pears to herbs will be free for the taking. "People worried, ‘What if someone comes and takes all the blueberries?’ That could very well happen, but maybe someone needed those blueberries. We look at it this way—if we have none at the end of blueberry season, then it means we’re successful.”

• Kids are eating food worth eating! Local seafood has started to move boat to school in Oregon. "Right now, Sobell said, grants are key to making more local food available to schools. But even if they run out, she said she hopes the schools will keep their relationships with producers and incorporate some local food purchases into their budgets. 'This kicks it off and gives people new connections," she said. "Portland schools can still serve local, natural beef even if it's only once in awhile.'"

• Glamorous ladies of the evening ride lobster-driven stove chariots! Well, in our dreams and in the fabulous image above from Retronaut they do.

• If you've ever wanted to own a piece of French hospitality history, now is your chance. Legendary Parisian Hôtel de Crillon to Auction 3,500 Items "So what might you pick up? How about a bar created by César in 1982 (valued up to €12,000 [$15,424]) or a Philippe Starck for Baccarat “Dark Super” console table from the restaurant Les Ambassadeurs  (€15,000)[$19,280]?  Trop cher? Then perhaps a Christofle mahogany and silver-plate dessert trolley (€3,000 to €4,000 [$3,856 to $5,141]), a molded crystal and silver plated Lalique light fixture (€3,000 to €4,000 [$3,856 to $5,141]) or a large wood veneer, gilt bronze and marquetry Louis XVI–style desk from the lobby (€300 to €400 [$386 to $514]) would be just the thing."

• The Dead Rabbit in New York takes retro cocktails to a new level as an Irish bar based on three historic worlds of bartending and a gang of immigrant ruffians, with punchbowls lining the shelves, and teacups made to protect gentleman's waxed mustaches.

• And the finale to our edition, the excellent Portlandia Season Two anthem, The Dreams of the 1890's Are alive in Portland (video).

Go forth, drink bitters and ferment something!

• These cones were made for walkin: Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld has created a line of shoes where the heel is decked out with a sparkly ice cream cone (right) or Brazilian plastic footwear brand Melissa. Another great find from fave blog Laughing Squid.

• NPR's On Point featured an interview with New York Congresswoman Louise Slaughter on the problems of antibiotic use in livestock. The shocking out-take: as many people die of antibiotic-resistant superbugs in the US now as die of AIDS.

• And just to prove that it doesn't have to be that way, The New Pork Gospel is a loving profile by Barry Estabrook of Russ Kremer, the pig farmer that inspired Chipotle's commercial in praise of small pork producers.

• Here’s a project in Brazil that takes a different spin on the food truck concept: food trucks that, rather than selling food, are training people how to prepare food and manage their own culinary businesses (and maybe even their own food trucks!)

• The Beastie Boys' Mike D Runs a Free Food Truck in the Rockaway neighborhood of New York City, helping out residents hard-hit by Hurricane Sandy.

• For your weekend reading pleasure, we've found a new favorite food journal find in London-based The Gourmand. And it doesn't hurt that their logo looks a bit like the Pork Fairy.

• We will leave you with a few words of wisdom from Chef Thomas Keller on why it's desire and not passion that make the best cooks. "It’s not about passion. Passion is something that we tend to overemphasize, that we certainly place too much importance on. Passion ebbs and flows. To me, it’s about desire. If you have constant, unwavering desire to be a cook, then you’ll be a great cook...(more)"

This is a smarty pants edition of Sing Along Snacks. Rotifer's tribute to Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, the early 20th century Viennese architect who designed what would become the prototype of the modern home kitchen, gets your groove on and supplies clever cocktail party trivia.

Rotifer - The Frankfurt Kitchen from Shock & Awe Video Productions on Vimeo.

• International style reigns: The Liberation of Paris  Vibrant, young, adventurous, international chef shake it up (in glamorous slides from the New York Times).

• Getting the Shot: Food Photography 101 from the LA Times (source of the peeps, above).

•  Feast your eyes on some Beer and Cheese pairings, photographed so beautifully we want to live there.

• View the other worldly Vanishing Spirits: The Dried Remains of Single Malt Scotch "'After first noticing the patterns left behind in his glass, Button began experimenting with other Scotch residues, shining different colored lights on them and photographing them up close. The results were strangely beautiful. 'A little celestial, or extraterrestrial, almost,' says Button."