Yesterday our Love with Food box arrived. I love getting them every month. It's a surprise and a present every month. And with each one I think about Lassa, who gave it to us as a Christmas gift.

Love with Food is a subscription service in the form of a box of unique and mostly new specialty food products (no perishables) - giving producers trying to break into distribution a chance to catch on virally, and hungry consumers the chance to discover them. Then, (and here's the Love with Food part) they turn around and donate a meal to a hungry child for every box sold.

I am stupendously pleased that NASFT has today announced they have changed their name to Specialty Food Association. It makes sense. I could never remember the acronym, or what it stood for. It's just simpler, sleeker, and more appropriate.

It also reflects the growing importance specialty food has in our diet and food conscience. "Sixty-six percent of US consumers purchase specialty foods {in 2012}, up from 59% in 2011." (Specialty Food Magazine, October 2012, Annual Report: Specialty Food Consumers, p.34.)

Hey, we had a little snow last night...and today.

As is required by a civilized society bent on projecting introspection (aka Will made me write this)...I've rounded up 5 things I found curious and captivating about 2012. I could run down a list of bad crap, but we've had enough of that for now, yes? So, here they are, in order of how they dawned on me:

In a world gone mad...
1. I'm surprised by how few surprising things there were. This probably either means I'm clueless, inured, or too quirky myself to see quirky for quirky. But if you take a look at Epicurious' prognostications on 2012 (delivered at the end of 2011) you'll see homemade dairy and cheesemakers sitting proud on their list of things to watch for this year. So I guess the fact that 'new trends' scooched a little closer to my reality in 2012 tamps down the 'surprising' factor.

The kraken slithers in its watery realm and the dire wolf scents the air...yes, indeedy, HBOs new season of Game of Thrones is amassing its vast marketing army for full scale invasion in Spring. Of course I started it with my garden picks for the characters (ok, that's a lie. HBO probably came up with merchandising ideas on their own...) and now HBO has (reportedly) tapped Ommegang to produce Iron Throne Blond Ale to coincide with the start of season 3.

GoT Geek digression...while various reporters seem to think the beer is a clear reference to Joffrey, I think it could just as easily be Cercei, or even Tommen.

In January Madame Fromage told us How to Make a Downton Abbey Cheeseplate, today, I propose a Game of Thrones cast of characters drawn from my garden, where crazy weather has nurtured freaks and monsters galore.

Sadly no contenders presented themselves for some cast members, Daenerys, Bran and Ned Stark notably. And I belatedly realized I should have snapped a pic of the potato plant fruit that appears occasionally late summer as a perfect representative of Joffrey...a cheery tomato-looking thing that is deadly, DEADLY poison (they don't call them Nightshade for nothing you know.) But I didn't so you'll have to imagine that one, or google it.

You have better in your garden or larder? Bring it on.

So here we go...a homegrown cast.

The original beauty, aging and a bit battered, Catelyn

A recent article in Mother Jones examines what Americans are eating overall. Information here is pulled from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and we learn that we now spend more on processed foods than any other food type. This is followed by meats, with dairy now at the bottom!

Wondering why northern Italy got hit twice in short order with earthquakes? I asked Jeffrey Park, coauthor of Dynamic Earth (Read it. It's about the earth you live on. The one we return to, call mother, mine, fight over, and, sadly, the one that puts the terror in terroir). He's a Yale seismologist who works on the seismology of northern Italy. Here’s what he had to say. A warning, there’s strong earth science language in this report, a suggestion that plates are getting stuffed in the mantle, plus a reference to a quake in the 1500s. Reader access to a geological dictionary is advised. ~ Steph

The earthquakes both hit very close to Bologna, where I spent a year's sabbatical while collecting seismic data. I once spent a night in Carpi, where the cathedral roof fell in.

Last night I attended a casual mini trade show in Somerville MA. Gorgeous cheeses from around the world were out and available for sampling - including 6 I'd never tasted before. The crowd was small so you could actually talk to producers, and diverse, which made it interesting. Spain made a big showing, including a range of raw sheeps milk cheeses, and a lactic set goats milk from brand new Santa Gadea. Giovanni Guffanti Fiori brought a southern italian bell shaped 3 milk cheese covered in ash. Made with (I think he said) Maltese goat milk, this was a wild and wooly ride around a barnyard. I like it! but it is not for the faint of heart.

I'm munching a Trader Joe's cheddar CheeseStick and reading Eric Asimov's article on The Pour (NYT) about tasting 18 Bordeauxs from the magic year of 1982; made so by the perfect storm of Robert Parker's enthusiasm for the vintage, a new parched public eager to learn about wine, and changes in Bordeaux economics that would sweep away sleepy local wine production in France...or so I have recently read!

The wines are 30 years old, and according to those who know, a club you can tell I am not a member of, they are now "in their prime." They have been stashed in a collector's wine cellar, enriching their "opulence" and gaining in value and fame.