Successful Kibbi at Palmyra, Failed Milk Campaigns and Herbicides

​Today's notes on national stories, local trends, random tastes, and other bycatch dredged up from the food media.

Jonathan Kauffman

Palmyra's kibbi plate.

​ 1. Kibbi. I finally got a chance to stop at Palmyra, the Syrian restaurant on the corner of Haight and Pierce that still looks an awful lot like the Burger Joint it replaced. Perhaps "marginally Syrian" would be a better name for the restaurant, which serves the standard Middle Eastern menu of falafel and shawarma, along with rotisserie chicken and a few pastries. The kibbi plate ($9.95) I ordered was quite good -- the bulgur wheat crust cracked and crumbled when I bit into the kibbi, revealing a simply spiced filling of ground beef and onions. I alternated bites dipped in a mild, creamy garlic sauce and a sweet roasted-chile purée. The tomato-cucumber salad, bright with lemon and parsley, was a good counterpoint.

2. This week in women-oriented marketing. The New York Times reports that the California Milk Processor Board's offensive PMS-themed ad campaign -- designed by SF agency Goodby, Silverstein, & Partners -- has been pulled. Visitors to the website, www.everythingidoiswrong.com, are being redirected to a more "serious" discussion site, gotdiscussion.org (love the .org), about milk and premenstrual symptoms. And the U.K. Guardian's Sophie Atherton rightfully mocks the latest spate of beers designed for women.

3. Everybody's Roundup ready. Monsanto is admitting that evolution is besting its Roundup herbicide, often sold in conjunction with Roundup-resistant GMO corn and soybeans. As Fast Company writes, "More than 11 million acres, up from just 2.4 million in 2007, are now infested with Roundup-resistant varieties [of weeds]." The impact on conventional agriculture could be huge. Seeing as how evolution has been around a few billion years longer than GM technology, didn't anyone see this coming?