Yes, it's very gouda!

Market Square, Woerden, originally uploaded by groggy doggy.

Of the four cheese markets in the Netherlands only the one in Woerden is authentic. Here, dairy farmers who produce cheese set the sale price with a market foreman (marktmeester) in an open setting. The other three cheese markets (kaasmarkt) are historical reproductions for tourists. They are located in the cities of Alkmaar, Edam, and Gouda.

The Gouda you find at the grocery store did not come from Gouda in the Netherlands unless it says "Noord-Hollandse Gouda." The European Union has strict standards on how place names are used on food labels. Strangely, the city of Gouda is not located in North (Noord) Holland, but South Holland - somebody should alert the PDO/PGI/TSG.

Estonia Unexpected

Tallinn, originally uploaded by Tashi Delek.

Helsinki's neighbor across the gulf is on its way to become the celebrity nation of post-communism. When compared to other former Soviet states, Estonia rated at the top of the heap in terms of economic and individual freedom, corruption, and human development. Furthermore, Estonia ranked at the top globally in the composite index State of World Liberty.

While other former Soviet states have devolved into despotism and disorder, Estonia has nurtured the growth of a legitimate, representative government. Most of the nation's trade goes through Nordic states with historic and cultural similarities. Iceland was the first nation to recognize the independent Estonia after the final Soviet forces left.

Soviet withdrawal from the Baltic states was precipitated by the longest human chain ever created. Around 2 million people held hands across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, it reached over 370 miles. The deteriorating remains of the Soviet military installations in Estonia are easy to find. So called, "ghost bases" that many native Estonians weren't aware of until the departure of the Soviet military are beginning to attract tourists interested in the history of nuclear warfare and communism.

Have a look at Tallinn's old city hall and an inviting street cafe.

We are Tuna

Tsukiji Fish Market, originally uploaded by x-girl.

And we're all just waiting around at the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo. Around 1972 Japanese fish wholesalers discovered the delectable taste of the Bluefin Tuna when caught in the seas near New England. American fisherman didn't have a market for the giant fish so they were happy to put them on transcontinental flights to Japan.

The Tsukiji Fish Market is the largest market for seafood in the world (by area and tonnage of product). It moves around 4.4 million pounds of seafood daily. There is practically no limit to the diversity of sea creatures that are sold at Tsukiji: eel, lobster, oyster, barnacles, sea pineapples, octopuses, squid, puffer fish, sweet shrimp, and flying fish can all be found at wholesale prices.

Tuna, however, are the main event. Buyers for large distributors and single restaurants all gather at Tsukiji for the daily auction of Tuna. The stakes are high. According to Vanity Fair the buyers can lose control:

The tuna weighed 200 kilos. At ¥100,000 per kilo, the possessed bidder had paid ¥20 million—the equivalent of more than $170,000—for a fish whose parceled meat could never recoup that amount.

The tricky part about this auction is that the buyers cannot truly know the quality of the fish until it has been cut open. Clues about the texture and taste of the fish are derived from the fins.

The official name of the Tsukiji Fish Market is the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market. It is owned and operated by the municipal government through a law dating back to 1923. Officials in Tokyo are debating the practicalities of moving the public market to a new, larger site. Vendors and buyers seem to be adamantly opposed to the proposal since the former Tokyo Gas site has severe ground pollution.

One would imagine that a place as crowded with live and recently decesed sea creatures would posses a certian smell (putrid or gut-turning, for instance). However, according to at least two visitors it doesn't stink.

Via Vanity Fair, If You Knew Sushi, and CHOW, Sushi Scribes.

CyberNet

I've been trying to explain this story for a few weeks now. It's a real mess of a scandal and now my family is tied into it (through a car). People outside of Grand Rapids seem to be really unaware of it, and I suppose it is a "local" topic, but it's a parable fit for any Law & Order fan or prospective international banker. Here's a good synopsis (and a paragraph which neatly summarizes it.)

It's March, and CyberNet's headquarters is still bristling with activity and filled with people. Nearly four months to the day after its chief executive took his own life and the company collapsed, the offices are crowded once again: This week, under the direction of bankruptcy court, CyberNet's assets are being auctioned off to the highest bidders in an effort to return some funds to the company's cheated creditors. People from all over Michigan have come to find bargains, but many have also come to see the inside of the extravagant offices and gawk at the jaw-dropping riches, which have become legendary, if not infamous.

Read more about CyberNet...

Fast Company gives Wal-Mart ideas

To call these twelve, I mean ten steps some kind of break-through for the business community would be melodramatic. The truth about the corporate-culture and business practices of Wal-Mart has been obvious for a while now. In Part One of Hanft's piece for Fast Company there are two unique suggestions:

2. Fire your consultants. ... Now, you've over-corrected in a really scary way, and have gone out and hired a rogue's gallery of spinmeisters who've worked for Reagan, Clinton, Kerry, and Bush. Is that something to be proud of? These are the people who have thrown gasoline on our obscene culture of partisanship and demonization of the "enemy."

3. Leverage your size to help your 1.6 million employees in unexpected ways. The public views you as resisting health insurance benefits because you are cheap and evil. Turn that around. Imagine the radical impact you could have on the marketplace and your brand optics if you focused your ruthless cost-cutting skills on HMOs, forcing them to crumble under the same margin pressure that you so regularly exert on vendors.

Then in Part Two he goes on to mention a few more (and one that I disagree with completely).

7. Stop treating your employees like commodities. No one thinks of Wal-Mart as a place to get a first or a second job, stay on, and build a career. You've got to change that.

10. Lastly, you've announced you're running a big holiday TV campaign, using celebrities for the first time -- names that include Garth Brooks, Queen Latifah, and Destiny's Child. That timing really makes a lot of sense. Kill it. You can't afford health care benefits but you can afford to pay over-priced celebrities to dance around the TV screen? Celebrity advertising has lost its luster anyway, and does anyone really believe that these chauffered millionaires actually shop at Wal-Mart?

I'm glad he (and hopefully a large segment of the American population) has recognized that Wal-Mart is not only a nasty example of how a company can operate but an entirely phony enterprise that can barely hide its disdain for working-class people.

The one problem I find with Hanft's piece is his Sixth suggestion "Expand your vendor base." This would defeat Wal-Mart's key ingredient: aggressiveness and directly impede two other suggestions he made in this piece (one I mentioned above about leveraging against HMOs and another I didn't about preserving small town business by allowing niche market competition) . The retailer's aggressive tactics are perfectly suited to other non-descript giant manufacturing firms. First, Wal-Mart must change its ways, then perhaps small-scale manufacturers would be interested in selling at Wal-Mart. The most critical way Wal-Mart must signal this change is to demonstrate (not with actors) that the wealth that passes through each Wal-Mart clearly benefits the surrounding community and the people who work there.

These are basic demands.The US retail market is currently at a crossroads: the continued reign of Wal-Mart's approach can be accepted as a necessary sacrifice or it can turn toward alternative approaches that reward work and talent; respect existing communities; cooperate with vendors; and ultimately value human life. This is not a choice that the executives at Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, and dozens of other firms will sit down and ponder about. It's one that every "consumer" can act on. Every time a person decides that he or she WILL shop somewhere this alternative approach is used - the board rooms hear it. Call it a Trickle-Up theory: the force of hundreds of thousands of hands carrying merchandise out of smaller, more thoughtful establishments throughout the country might be enough to move the Wal-Mountain.