Last week I was in Los Angeles for an upcoming episode of Bizarre Foods America, which premieres Monday night at 9 p.m. on Travel Channel. The first episode of the new season is all about The Twin Cities, and I couldn’t be prouder of the show, our local crew, the fans who came out to watch, and the local stars that opened up their farms and restaurants to us. More on that in a moment. 

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Welcome back and Happy New Year. I spent several weeks at Copamarina and it was absolutely what the doctor ordered. It’s a quiet, little, low-key family resort in Puerto Rico and I heartily recommend it. I came home in time to watch a lot of good football, see Morimoto, get narrowly edged out on Iron Chef America, and do a couple of interviews to raise some awareness for the upcoming season premiere of Bizarre Foods America, a special season devoted to all things edible in the good ol’ US of A. Check it out Monday, Jan. 23 at 9 p.m. on Travel Channel. Episode one was shot right here in the Twin Cities; I can’t wait for you all to see it. About half of what we shot wound up on the edit room floor because we had way too much good footage. That being said, if you don’t see yourself and you wonder WTF???, well I have the producer’s number for you. Call him.

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Check this out . . . books of the year, and I think you might like to grab a few copies for yourself or your friends as a holiday gift. 

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Happy Chanukah and Merry Xmas to all. Regardless of what you celebrate, I am hoping you are celebrating something and sharing time with those you love. 

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This is no joke. We still need a good deli in the Twin Cities. Despite my best wishes hopes and dreams, Rye won’t be "the one."

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For those of you who haven't heard through the grapevine, the December issue of Mpls.St.Paul Magazine will be the 159th and last that Adam Platt edits. 

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I know I have been way too serious as of late, and I don’t want to develop a rep for being such a joy-less buzzkill, so in an effort to show you where my heart is I wanted to make sure you all saw this hysterical bit from The Daily Show. I still laugh my ass off thinking of it, whoops, wait, I am watching it again . . . yeah, it’s still hysterical. We clearly all need to lighten up because as TDS points out, 100 percent of all people who eat food will die.

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Things are scary out there. I was away last week and couldn’t chime in; thanks for all your patience. Here’s a double dose of “scary good” news:

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This one is big. Over the weekend in Charleston, South Carolina, where ironically I was also shooting an episode of Bizarre Foods, the Strib’s Lee Dean was attending a journalist convention and submitted the following post to a Taste Blog, where she declared a native Minnesotan dining critic who now writes for the Village Voice in NYC, to be none other than Ruth Bourdain, the Beard Award winning mashup Tweeter. 

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Maybe you haven't heard of him, but Joe Baum was a legend, and so few today understand the profound impact he has had on the American dining scene and on how we eat today. 

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