• Better start hoarding the peanut butter. The Department of Agriculture predicts a 13 percent drop in the peanut crop, mostly due to droughts in the South. [Sun-Times]
• Be not afraid to try modernist cooking at home; olive oil powder is particularly fun and easy to use. [SE]
• The latest food-safety scandal in China involves “gutter oil,” cooking oil that is literally scooped from sewers and sold illegally. This makes exploding watermelons sound fun by comparison. [Global Spin/Time]
• Life ain’t the same on the ranch in Texas, where the ongoing severe drought is rendering cattle country somewhat like the Dust Bowl era. [USAT]
• Though the U.S. is decades behind Japan in vending-machine coolness, a display tomorrow in New York of twenty high-tech machines — which can accept credit cards, spit out full meals, and more — might help us down the road toward amending that. [Crain’s]
