Sorenne and I only got through the start of The Colbert Report this morning before it was off to vaccinations, so this post is somewhat late.

But Stefan did take an excellent shot at more food wackiness being peddled on the Internet and insisted on his home herb garden, because, “I refuse to live in a world where I can’t garnish.”

My seeds are germinating in the Kansas spring, including my garnish garden, but I get my seeds at Home Depot or several other places. I want hybrids. Genetic modification is good. That’s why hybrid corn has been around since the early 1900s.

Not so for the Survival Seed Bank, which says it’s more valuable than silver or gold in a real meltdown.

Remember, our hand-picked seeds are not genetically modified in any way. You simply save some of your harvest seeds from year one and have more than enough to plant in year two. You'll never need to buy seeds again! You just can't do that with man-made hybrid seeds.

Most seed companies are now selling only "terminator" seeds which have been genetically modified and will not reproduce themselves.

This is nonsense. And for government-paranoias here in the Midwest,

"Indestructible Survival Seed Bank Can Be Buried To Avoid Confiscation."

It’s all BS to make a buck.

For the past week, people in Kansas have been asking me, did you love the Canadian men’s Olympic hockey victory?

I say, just glad it was a good game, great for hockey.

And then I say, the women’s hockey team really rocked.

Most people look at me and say, women play hockey?

The Canadian women defeated the U.S. for Olympic gold, 2-0, and then showed the men how to party.

I coached girls’ hockey for a number of years while my kids were growing up. To coach little girls playing ice hockey in Canada requires 16 hours of training. To coach kids on a travel team requires an additional 24 hours of training.

It seems reasonable to have some minimal training for those who prepare food for public consumption.

Not so in North Dakota, where the State Health Department says it will not seek charges against a rural Washburn woman for operating an unlicensed catering business linked to sickening 180 people last summer.

Aggie Jennings catered three separate events in June -- two wedding receptions and a family reunion -- that resulted in 76 people seeking medical attention with 10 hospitalized for salmonella Montevideo food poisoning.

A subsequent report found a total of 180 people met the case definition for Salmonella Montevideo.

The Bismark Tribune explains enforcement of regulations governing caterers falls under the jurisdiction of local health units.

Lisa Clute, executive officer for the First District Health Unit, said that board met Feb. 18 and voted not to recommend charges against Jennings, which would be Class B misdemeanors.

The strain of salmonella is one commonly associated with baby chickens, which Jennings raised on her rural residence.

The health department issued an order to Jennings to stop catering June 17, three days prior to the McClusky event, the report said.

The report also found there were four dishes that tested positive for salmonella and all had some type of preparation, storage or handling at Jennings' residence.

It said several people assisting in food preparation at her home may have provided a source of cross contamination.

Clute said the First District Health Unit wants to be consistent in how it deals with such cases and in this instance, she thinks it has.

"We are confident she will never do this again. We stopped it quickly and efficiently and at this point there is no public health threat.”

These people wouldn’t be allowed to sit on the bench and open the door at a little girls’ hockey game. I don’t want them to make food either.

There’s this Joint Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition at the University of Maryland where U.S. Food and Drug Admin. types go to be trained in all matters related to food risk.

A few years ago, I shook hands with one of the directors and said, sure, I’ll help you out on risk communication stuff, cause he said they sorta sucked at it.

I never heard back, despite several e-mails.

And they still suck at it.

JIFSAN’s spring symposium is, Risk Communication - Communicating Science to the Public.

Risk communication 101: talk with people, not to them. If any of you had kids you would know this.

Today’s The USA Today (I never tire of using that) reports that Dean Wyatt, a supervisory veterinarian at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service will tell a congressional hearing today that USDA superiors failed to act on reports of illegal and unsafe slaughterhouse practices, letting suspect operations continue despite public health risks.

The story says Wyatt will detail instances in which he and other inspectors were overruled when citing slaughterhouses for violations such as shocking and butchering days-old calves that were too weak or sick to stand. He also describes being threatened with transfer or demotion after citing a plant for butchering conscious pigs, despite rules that they first be stunned and unconscious.

In 2008 and early 2009, Wyatt ordered suspensions in operations three times at Bushway Packing Inc., in Grand Isle, VT. Among other things, he found downed calves being dragged through pens to slaughter — a violation because contact with excrement can contaminate animals. In each case, he says, managers overruled him and allowed the plant to keep running.

Bushway subsequently made headlines last fall when the Humane Society of the United States filmed undercover video of workers hitting and using electric prods to move calves. The plant was shut down.

CBS Radio called about 5 a.m. for comment – they’re so polite, they always e-mail first to see if I’m awake so they don’t wake the household. As soon as I said, yeah, let’s do it, 1-year-old Sorenne awoke so I missed the first call to change a diaper and provide 8 ounces of milk. But, the reporter at CBS in N.Y. agreed it was a good call, kid first, then radio soundbites, in which I said something along the lines of, I don’t know anything about the specifics of these cases, but the best slaughterhouses won’t be held hostage by a dude with a video camera, and will get way, way out in front of the minimal standards required by USDA. Maybe it’s too early and I’m still dreaming.