New York Times blogger Bruce Buschel has done a great service by compiling a list of 100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do – if nothing else, he's given fed-up diners one more forum in which to vent their ever-mounting aggravations. Thanks for the break, Bruce.

Most diners and servers would stand behind the majority of Buschel's prescriptions, which include not cursing (Rule 45), opening Champagne without making a ruckus (Rule 29) and knowing what the bar stocks (Rule 81). But his list is far from perfect. While Buschel's document would make a fine training manual for butlers, it fails to acknowledge the realities of running a restaurant. Here's what Buschel apparently forgot:

Some things are beyond a server's control.

One of Buschel's first recommendations (Rule 4) is to offer a free drink to someone who's had to wait a long time for a table. "The guest may be hungry and thirsty," he explains. May be? I think it's a safe assumption that anyone who shows up at a restaurant is craving food and drink. But I don't know of a single server who's empowered to start giving that stuff away.

The same goes for Rule 23, which insists diners be alerted to 86'd items before they open their menus. Since the hostess usually drops off menus when she seats a table, cutting her off would require Usian Bolt-speed (and necessitate breaking Rule 33 – Do not bang into chairs or tables.)

Hostesses, of course, should brief diners on which items are no longer available. But often they don't, just as the kitchen often turns out the first appetizer on a ticket a full 12 minutes before the second appetizer is ready. I completely agree that servers should "bring all the appetizers at the same time" (Rule 60), but I won't let a tray of raw oysters sit in the window while a new guy struggles to properly heat a dish of crab dip.

• Don't mourn the loss of the summer produce bounty. A guide to the dark leafy greens of fall -- like spinach, collards, Brussels sprouts, rainbow chard and savoy cabbage -- proves autumn has a cornucopia of seasonal vegetables.
• Cookbook author Paula Wolfert reveals her sacred kitchen object, claiming she "never met a pot of clay she didn't like."
• The common chickpea is spiced up with cumin, turmeric, coriander and cayenne.
• Got a hungry man in your life? Lucinda Scala Quinn, author of "Mad Hungry, Feeding Men & Boys" offers ten tips for feeding men (and boys), like "don't ask if they're hungry" and "train them to fend for themselves." After the tips, she cooks up five guy-approved recipes, like "Flat Roast Chicken" and "Steak Pizzaiola."
• Warm up with hearty stews as the weather cools down. Tomatillos, small green tomatoes popular in Mexican cooking, shine in a "lean, mean slow-cooker recipe" with beef eye of round and pinto beans.

• Seven soup recipes from seven new cookbooks help Denver residents stay warm this season.
• Seared scallops, salad and rib-eye are the way to go at the newly revamped Simms Steakhouse.
• The Colorado Beer Festival descends on Colorado Springs this Saturday, and offers more than 70 beers to sample, as well as a designated-driver program.
• The Wynkoop Brewery will hold its own Beers of the Year mini-festival on Saturday, also.
• Dublin-made cream liqueur Coole Swan, which gets its name from Yeats' poem "The Wild Swans of Coole," is finally for sale in Colorado, and one food writer -- who claims it's the finest cream liqueur he's ever tasted -- couldn't be happier.
• A "gastropub" opens in Cherry Creek, inspiring food critic Tucker Shaw to explore the etymology of the word.
• A knife-wielding blogger discovers the bounty of the duck.

• Trevor Corson, the author of "The Story of Sushi," says to step away from the chopsticks -- the proper way to eat sushi is with your fingers.
• Joaquin Baca of the Brooklyn Star only serves up food he likes to eat -- including the Americana classic green bean casserole, updated with homemade mushroom soup and onion rings.
• White House chef Sam Kass stirs pots and policy. When he's not preparing meals for the first family, he gathers with senior policy advisers to figure out how to improve the health of the country's children.
• First Lady Michelle Obama makes a cameo on the Jan. 3 episode of "Iron Chef America" to raise awareness for the Healthy Kids Initiative -- and revealing that the secret ingredient is anything from the White House garden.
• From Momofuku to Marco Canora, the roundup of this season's best new cookbooks is sure to take readers on an "edible adventure."
• Sam Sifton's latest reviews Le Relais de Venise L'Entrecôte, the Parisian import to Midtown that relies on "the simplicity of salad, steak and fries, heavy on the salt and butter, rich as a cardiologist," and waitresses in what resemble French maid outfits.
• The Minimalist, Mark Bittman, takes meatball madness to the Middle East with lamb, cumin, mint and bulgur.
• Nostalgic for wine from their Vienna upbringing, Carlo Huber and Paul Darcy made it their mission to bring Viennese wines and wine culture to the United States.
• Saltie, a tiny sandwich shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, serves up sandwiches "the Earl would approve."

• A reporter and his daughter attempt to make their own Halloween candy and quickly vow to never do it again.
• Kansas City kids collected more than 850 pounds of sweets on Halloween night and gave it all away to benefit a charity that provides braces to low-income youths. Rest assured, the candy didn't go to waste, but to troops overseas.
• A recipe for a reduced-fat au gratin potato casserole pleases the palate.
• At The Drop, a small plates restaurant on Kansas City's "Martini Corner," how you want to eat is almost as important as what you want to eat.
• Sumo, a Japanese steakhouse in the suburbs, is a pleasant surprise with top-notch service, spicy salmon rolls and... spinning eggs?
• A raw food enthusiast uses finds from her Halloween harvest for a semi-healthy Welsh rarebit recipe.

• A brief background on bloodsuckers, plus "a bloody fete Dracula would thirst for" -- creative fanger foods, pun intended.
• When left home alone with the task of feeding trick-or-treaters, one columnist came to discover the marvelous match of red wine and chocolate.
• Bacon banter has finally leveled out a bit, but isn't going anywhere anytime soon. However, a recent local event preceding April's Baconfest Chicago wowed porcine appreciators, with dishes like the pumpkin-bacon-waffle with pomegranate-glazed pork belly.
• More than "junk food with a European pedigree," Nutella is a "vaguely wholesome" snack with an interesting background -- and can be made at home from scratch.
• The Festival of Wood- and Barrel-Aged Beer takes place November 7, and pays tribute to a worthy beer trend on the rise.
• A gallery of ten "superfoods" we should be consuming more of, from avocados and beets to chia seeds and dandelion greens.
• Recipes: Comforting Chicken Pot Pie with Drop Biscuits ("the gustatory equivalent of curling up with your favorite blanket"); the luscious Vanilla Ice Cream with Bourbon Walnuts and Caramel; Slow-Cooked Pulled Pork and Spicy Slaw "warms up a Halloween party;" Sheila Lukins' Banana Cake.

• As wine sales have dipped with the failing economy, the results of the annual Plonkalooza, which judges 50 local wines -- half whites, half reds -- priced at $12 or less, are more promising than ever.
• L'Ecluse 16 in France's Alsace region serves "traditionally French [fare] with an inventive twist," with consideration of seasonal produce.
• An interview with Boston "Rising Star" Jiho Kim, head pastry chef at L'Espalier.
• A gallery guide on how to satisfy your "pumpkin palate," from its savory cameos in coffee and beer, to inventive pancakes, pastas and whoopie pies.
• Reminiscent of collegiate endeavors, the Boston Globe goes on an informative pizza crawl, sampling everything from cheese-loaded dive pizzas to the upscale quality-ingredients of refined Italian eateries.
• Restaurants: Jamaica Plain's Bon Savor serves French and South African cooking and is "as much about charm and personality as food;" "the coolest place in town," Trina's Starlite Lounge dishes up delicious bar fare; Barbara Lynch's flagship restaurant No. 9 "is still tops" for French and Italian seasonal cuisine.
• Recipes: A brothy, vegetarian Mexican-Style Soup; a refined Cod Wrapped in Phyllo with Pea Puree; Apple-Plum Crumble with maple syrup and oats; a spicy-sweet Vietnamese Caramelized Chicken.

Cheese with that pie? It might taste good, but it's definitely not required by law in the Dairy State.

The Wisconsin State Journal debunked the myth that Wisconsin requires apple pie to be served with cheese at restaurants in the state. The paper asked Connie Von Der Heide at the Wisconsin State Law Library whether or not state law required cheese to accompany the pie after a reader inquired about it.

"It certainly sounds plausible since after all this is the Dairy State, but the answer is no," she said. "The 1935 Laws of Wis., ch. 106 came close; it required serving a small amount of cheese and butter with meals in restaurants (effective from June 1935 to March 1937)."

What crazy food laws have you heard of? Let us know in the comments below.

Heigh "ho" indeed.

An Australian beer advertisement has reportedly ticked off Disney because it features a Snow White lookalike lying in bed blowing smoke rings with seven undressed dwarves. The ad campaign for Jamieson Brewery's Raspberry Ale was created by the Australian advertising agency The Foundry to promote the beer as "anything but sweet" with a maiden they call "Ho White" and seven dwarves.

Photo: roboppy, Flickr

The Hamburglar has been moonlighting as a secretary.

A 34-year veteran of the Westfalen Construction Association in Dortmund, Germany, was fired after eating a burger from her boss's lunch cart.

The 59-year-old secretary, Magdelene H. (her last name was withheld due to German privacy laws), was fired after eating a frikadelle (flat, pan-fried meatball) and two halves of a roll without permission from a buffet she had just finished preparing last July for her boss and his guests, Spiegel reports.

Vibrant Swiss chard from the Torrance farmers' market. Photo: clayirving, Flickr.

In the "treacherous food landscape" of today's supermarkets, noted New York Times contributor and author Michael Pollan has culled a collection of "Rules to Eat By" to help readers navigate "through the minefields of the modern-food marketplace or restaurant menu."

He requested suggestions from New York Times readers in March as research for an upcoming book and received more than 2,500 in just a few days. With food policies ranging from the innate ("Don't eat egg salad from a vending machine"), to quirky ("Don't yuck someone's yum"), to moral ("Don't eat anything you aren't willing to kill yourself"), Pollan's 20 favorites provide a helpful guide to eating right.

As food takes a longer and longer path -- and transformation -- from its origins, and the food industry gains increasing influence over what is deemed "nutritious" according to federal standards, eating right has become more and more abstruse. With the constant rise of misguided or unsound food principles -- Paula Deen categorizing her strawberry cake as "fruit" on "The View," KFC's Double Down sandwich swapping its bun for two servings of fried chicken, a markedly "Supersized" culture -- Pollan stresses the importance of the elementary practice of trusting culture, and following our leaders -- mothers and fathers and friends -- rather than increasingly convoluted federal nutrition guidelines when making appropriate food choices.

Weary of the "era of dazzling food science, supersize portions and widespread dietary confusion," Pollan published "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" and "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals," took the James Beard Award for best food writing and is currently the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley.

We're fans of the Chicago Tribune's "Cheeseburger Show," and we had to chuckle as "cheeseburger bureau chief" Kevin Pang gears up for a the fall burger season with a tribute to "Perfect Strangers." It's kind of a sloppy scene-by-scene re-enactment -- perfect for a cheeseburger. Click on the photo for the video. (Warning: Mild vulgarity by French Fry.)

Roger Moore as James Bond. Photo: ZUMA Press.

Oh James!

It turns out one of Her Majesty's secret agents lived the high life only in the movies. The James Bond of the 1970s, Roger Moore, won't eat foie gras, and he won't speak to friends who do either.

"Before I knew how it was produced I would often pick at it at parties just because it was on offer -- though I never ate too much of it because of its huge calorific content," he writes Tuesday in an op-ed in the Daily Mail. "Since I have understood the cruelty attached to its production I have never touched it again. I now boycott restaurants where it is served."

How does a man with a price tag on his head -- or at least his face -- keep from having his photo snapped by fellow partygoers or folks out for a hefty reward? Former New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni explains the art of ducking the spotlight in this Skype video from Salon's Kerry Lauerman.

[Via: 'Binger turned food critic' at Salon.com]