What's cooking: Flapjacks, book jackets

By KIM ODE, Star Tribune

Last update: February 6, 2008 - 4:36 PM

The Women's Prison Book Project has for eight years held a pancake breakfast to aid its effort to provide free books and resources to women in prisons nationwide. This year for the first time, diners can also walk away with mind food through a sale of donated books deemed inappropriate for prison use, most of them for $2 apiece. The breakfast features buttermilk and vegan pancakes, grits, fruit salad, coffee, tea and juice. Cost for the all-you-can-eat meal is $6 adults, $3 kids. Serving is from 8 a.m. to noon Feb. 16 at Walker Church, 3104 16th Av. S. (one block south of Lake St. and one block east of Bloomington Av. S.), Minneapolis. For more info, go to www.prisonactivist.org/wpbp.

Thin Mint alert

The Internet knows all. It knows, for instance, that Twin Cities residents are the second most frequent searchers for information on how to find Girl Scout cookies, topped by Omaha (which, after all, is only a warmer Twin Cities). And get this: Residents of the region bounded by Rochester and Austin, Minn., and Mason City, Iowa, are fifth in the nation when it comes to being in the hunt for Do-si-dos. The thing is, you can't buy the cookies online. However, a search at www.girlscoutcookies.org/ lets you type in your ZIP code to find the nearest Girl Scout council that will then help you place an order. Such searches have doubled since last year, when the Scouts unveiled their trans-fat-free line of treats. Coincidence?

Seeing, eating red

Not that you couldn't figure this out yourself, but in the spirit of Valentine's Day, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension Service has posted a list of red foods on its website (lancaster.unl.edu/food/ciqred.shtml). There is, of course, a healthy ulterior motive: Red foods are rich in phytochemicals, including lycopene and anthocyanins, which may lower the risk of some cancers and promote healthier hearts, memories and urinary tracts. Also on the site -- and with a broader application -- is a list of "starter" foods to ensure a well-stocked pantry, refrigerator or freezer, with an eye toward cutting down on haphazard trips to the store and easing your meal-prep decisions. Go to lancaster.unl.edu/food/ciq-basics.shtml.

Postgame analysis

It's one of those numbers that defy verification, yet is impossible to resist passing along: On Super Bowl Sunday, it is predicted, Americans will consume 156 billion calories between the pregame show and the cheerleaders' last jiggle. We just thought you'd like to know.