The Top 10...
...IT HAS BEEN UPDATED in the moderately interesting way that we tend to do at the end of every annum. Happy New Year, y'all! Posted at 2:25 PM Central Time

Happy holidays! (Now have a free book)
A FREE BOOK! The book has been given away! | It's (finally) that time again: The first person to write in and request the book linked below gets it for free. Limit one per person and you must send me your mailing address — although we won't use your email or postal address for anything other than sending you the book. Email me for a free book while it lasts!

Note: If you've already won a book from me give someone else a chance. Thanks!

Gone! Claimed by Roberta of Austin, Texas!
Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost & Found | "Cabich, bird fude, nodiles, buttmilk, dog yogurt, bannes, hare sope, cream of salary soup.* What do these things have in common? They're all items from real grocery lists. Whose lists? Who knows. They were found discarded in shopping carts, dropped on supermarket floors and parking lots, even tucked in returned library books. These lists have been collected into the volume you are now holding. Peek inside to see what people will write on scraps of paper they never expect anyone else to see.

Marvel at the unusual combinations of food the average person shops for. You'll find yourself captivated by this unexpected and off-kilter glimpse into the lives of those around you. Separated into chapters -- funny lists, sad lists, unhealthy lists, organized lists -- the book also includes commentary by the author and some delicious recipes created from found grocery lists. If we are what we eat, then this book reveals deep and strange truths about the average food shopper... not to mention more mundane facts like a lot of people love vodka, banana is actually very difficult to spell and that butter used to be dyed yellow using marigolds.

*Translation: Cabbage, bird food, noodles, buttermilk, dog yogurt (duh), bananas, shampoo, cream of celery soup. —Amazon (List price: $19.99)

Yowza! Just email me for a free book while it's still available! THE BOOK HAS BEEN CLAIMED. Posted at 6:56 PM Central Time

The Food Timeline
We've been busy here, but look for the return of the GLC giveaway in the next week!

In the meantime, have a look at this really interesting Food Timeline:

Ever wonder what foods the Vikings ate when they set off to explore the new world? How Thomas Jefferson made his ice cream? What the pioneers cooked along the Oregon Trail? Who invented the potato chip...and why? Welcome to the Food Timeline!

Food history presents a fascinating buffet of popular lore and contradictory facts. Some people will tell you it's impossible to express this topic in exact timeline format. They are correct. Most foods we eat are not invented; they evolve.

Posted at 8:16 AM Central Time

The Grocery List Collection is coming to Chicago...
Hey! I will be presenting a portion of my immense collection of found grocery lists at an underground art event in Chicago, and giving a talk about the lists, collecting and my books.

The event is sponsored by He Said/She Said, an exhibition and event series held in the home of Pamela Fraser and Randall Szott. They take turns presenting what amounts to an ongoing conversation about art and culture -- Ms. Fraser presenting art and artists, and Mr. Szott sharing the activities of people who work in other contexts (that's me :-). Together they hope to offer up a fun and thoughtful take on current ideas in art and life.

All the info you need is here: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1327562/

Hope to see you there!

-bk Posted at 10:30 AM Central Time

The GLC on The VSL
Cool. We got a little mention on the very awesome Very Short List! Posted at 8:25 AM Central Time

Awesome advert
Enough people have sent this my way that I have to link it up: "Put your skills to better use."

Though I must confess that I think they put their skills to great use -- and I would love to find a list like this one day. Posted at 7:58 PM Central Time

One thousand nine hundred lists!
Man. It's been too long. I finally added another 100 lists. There are thousands more waiting to be posted. Someday.

To everyone who has been sending in lists and emails... thank you! You are awesome. Posted at 2:00 PM Central Time

Food. Lists. Shoulds. Shouldn'ts.
Here's a mini-round-up of some recently published lists of recommended foods to eat.

• The 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating


• The 20 Healthiest Foods for Under $1


• Eight foods you should eat every day


• Ostrich, and the 7 other foods you should be eating


• The 29 Healthiest Foods on the Planet

On a semi-related note (how not to eat), I just finished the 6th annual celebration of National Sandwich Month over at keaggy.com: http://www.keaggy.com/sandwich/. You can see the results (58 sandwiches!) over on Flickr too. Posted at 9:15 AM Central Time

Tips for stretching your food dollars
"As food prices continue to rise it's more important than ever to stretch your food dollars. Over the years I've discovered different ways to save money on food and groceries, and I want to share some budgeting and spending ideas with you this week.

I make a grocery list and 'try' to stick to it. I leave a note pad on the refrigerator to keep track of the food we need to replenish. Before shopping, I compare weekly grocery ads to find the best prices. If there is a good deal on something and I use the product on a regular basis, I buy it in multiples (especially the buy one-get one free items). Replacing name brand items with a generic equivalent also helps the budget. I have found that many less expensive generic products taste as good as the more costly name brand products." Posted at 6:43 AM Central Time

An amazing new book about grocery lists



So there used to be, like, no fun or interesting books about grocery stores and grocery store... stuff. Then Julian Montague released his amazing and comprehensive "The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification" in 2006. A marvelous achievement! Have you seen it?

And in 2007 I submitted my own opus, "Milk Eggs Vodka: The Lost Grocery Lists of America," a compilation of abandoned grocery lists discovered in grocery carts, market floors, and parking lots across the country.

And now here we are in 2008. What's left? Oh, plenty, trust me. Hillary Carlip also collects other people's discarded shopping lists. And she's been doing it longer than I have. She recently put out a wonderful book called "A la Cart: The Secret Lives of Grocery Shoppers," in which she imagines and assumes (quite literally and astoundingly!) the identity of the shoppers behind her found lists and writes some backstory about them. I love it. You will too. More: alacartthebook.com Posted at 8:41 PM Central Time

My new book: "50 Sad Chairs"
I probably should mention that my new book is out. It's published by the weird and wonderful folks at BlueQ. It's a nice little photo book of the sad chairs of St. Louis. No, really. Discarded chairs in alleys. Abandoned chairs on street corners. Abused chairs on loading docks. You get the picture. You're gonna like it.

Check out www.50sadchairs.com to see some page samples and (if you want) by it at Amazon or Blueq.com.

C'mon! Posted at 11:51 AM Central Time

Buying Organic
See which of the country's largest producers are behind your favorite organic snacks. Posted at 9:10 AM Central Time

Supermarket Follies
"I am an anonymous cog on a very small wheel in the gigantic machine that is the UK retail sector. I work in an administrative capacity in the local outlet of a UK supermarket chain with national coverage and high (and positive) brand recognition. I work for and with fools, morons, cretins and idiots. Then I get dragged out onto the shop floor and have to deal with the customers ... Some of this is rumour, some of this is speculation, some of this is innuendo. None of this is made up by me. Most of it is 24ct fact. Which bits? Probably, generally, the bits that seem likeliest to have been made up." Posted at 9:41 AM Central Time

The Best Peanut Butter in the World
"I love peanut butter. But more importantly for the statement you are about to read here, I know peanut butter. I know peanut butter the way Da Vinci knew fluid mechanics, the way Einstein knew physics, the way Grand Master Flash knows a turntable, the way Tom Brady knows how to perfectly balance throwing touchdowns and humping supermodels. I have eaten it. I have coddled it. I inhaled. What can I say? That's how I spread." Posted at 9:15 AM Central Time

Study: $90 wine tastes better than the same wine at $10
"In a study that could make marketing managers and salespeople rub their hands with glee, scientists have used brain-scanning technology to shed new light on the old adage, 'You get what you pay for.'

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Stanford's business school have directly seen that the sensation of pleasantness that people experience when tasting wine is linked directly to its price. And that's true even when, unbeknownst to the test subjects, it's exactly the same Cabernet Sauvignon with a dramatically different price tag." Posted at 9:14 AM Central Time

One last hurrah for 2007: A new set of top 10 lists
Since we do it every year, and this is the last day of the year, I figured I'd better get to it. So without further doo-doo, here is a highly debatable, wildly underwhelming collection of funnyish lists: The Top 10 found grocery lists of 2007.

Happy New Year! Posted at 9:38 AM Central Time

Stained Glass Cookies Recipe

Stumped about what cookie to make for XMAS? These "stained glass cookies" will wow everyone:

"We can EAT these?" Andrew (age 5) asked incredulously.

"Yes, you can eat them," I replied, "they're cookies. You can also hang them from your tree."

"What's inside?" asked Matthew (7).

"Lifesavers. And Jolly Ranchers."

"LIFESAVERS? AND JOLLY RANCHERS?"

It's as if Santa himself had just poked his head through the fireplace. The boys, my young neighbors, dissected and demolished the ones they had each picked out to eat. It was all I could do to keep their hands off the remaining cookies. Oddly, they went straight for the hard candy center, and only after that was discussed ("What is this, watermelon? Must be a Jolly Rancher") and devoured, did they move on to the cookie border.

Thanks Chris Glass! Posted at 11:29 AM Central Time

Thank you!
I just wanted to let everyone who bought my book this year know that I donated a percentage of the royalties to a couple great causes:

1. The St. Louis Area Foodbank (feeding struggling single-parent families, the elderly and the working poor)


2. Mentor St. Louis (a school-based youth and literacy organization)

Thank you! I hope everyone has a great holiday season! Posted at 1:02 PM Central Time

Fill up the grocery cart, roll off with savings
"It's easy to forgo coupon clipping and comparison shopping during the holidays. Yet this month is the worst time to abandon tactics that never go out of season." Posted at 9:23 PM Central Time

The official 2008 Grocery List Collection calendar
Just in time for the holidays, the official 2008 Grocery List Collection calendar features dozens of strange and funny found shopping lists from around the world. Categorized much like my book, "Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found," this calendar has weird lists, hilarious lists, unhealthy lists, foreign lists, artistic lists, sad lists, super-short lists and more.

Details: 12 months (all of 2008, in fact!), 13.5" x 19", coil binding, white "lineny" paper (100# weight), with full-color ink throughout. Order it at Lulu.com for just $24.95! Posted at 2:51 PM Central Time