How Red was my Velvet?

Slate has a brilliant story today about the growing popularity of red velvet cake and why the "unnatural" color of the cake and the amount of red food dye required for the recipie freaks some people out.

But first, some deep thoughts from my shallow brain.

Yesterday at lunch I went to a greasy little chinese restaurant around the corner and sat at the lunch counter. After I finished my fatty, knuckly spare ribs and rice, I opened my fortune cookie. "You may prosper greatly in the field of medical research," I read.

"What?" I thought. "I will prosper in the field of medical research? That's definately the wrong fortune for me. There's no way ... oh... as a test subject?"

Also, am I the only one who reads "The Art of the Cookie" on the back of the Pepperidge Farm Milano cookie package and imagines James Lipton's voice reading that ridiculous copy? I don't mean I can hear James Lipton's voice in my head; it's as if I expect to draw my curtains and see him sitting outside my window in Brooklyn at his museum-store desk with a stack of blue index cards, making that soundless laugh, cooing, "Ah, the classic Milano. Simple. Elegant. the perfect balance of two exquisite cookies embracing a layer of luxuriously rich chocolate."

Ah crap, I'm so busy. You'll have to read the Slate story yourself and then we can discuss Red #40 here later.