While billions of Asians use chopsticks every day of their lives, here in the West, we encounter them most often in restaurants. I learned to eat with chopsticks before I was 5. My mom took two pairs of adult-sized chopsticks and whittled them down to kid-size. She painted one set blue for my younger brother, and one set pink for me. These were special and much better balanced for our small hands.
When news broke on July 7 that United Egg Producers had struck a deal with longtime nemesis the Humane Society of the United States, a lot of people had to check and make sure they weren't reading The Onion by mistake. The surprise announcement drew gasps of "stunning," "historic" and "landmark" from observers in the food and agriculture community. The often bitter antagonists appear to have buried the hatchet, at least temporarily, and not up each other's bottoms. Gary Truitt, in Hoosier Ag Today, wrote: "Unprecedented does not do the situation justice."
