I was going to begin this post by saying that given the wild success of the BDSM mommy-porn novel ("novel") Fifty Shades of Grey, it was probably inevitable that there would be a Fifty Shades-themed cookbook -- except NO, it was NOT inevitable, it doesn't even make any SENSE.

But it's happened anyway.

Yes, Random House is publishing a cookbook ("cookbook") called Fifty Shades of Chicken, and because book trailers are a thing now, there's a trailer featuring the voice (though presumably not the abs) of someone who sounds suspiciously like Patrick Stewart of Star Trek: The Next Generation and some other stuff fame.

You can watch the trailer after the jump.

See Also:
- "50 Shades of Buttercream, or the Top 10 Ways Cupcakes Are Like Sex"

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Courtesy of Liz Fathman

Authors Maddie Earnest and Liz Fathman of Missouri Harvest.

What's the best piece of advice for people who want to begin eating better on a local level? According to Liz Fathman, co-author of Missouri Harvest, A Guide to Growers and Producers in the Show-Me State, "Take it one step at a time."

For those who don't know where to begin, Fathman's book pinpoints exactly where to start, spelling out the farm-to-table movement as it applies to Missouri agriculture, listing goods and vendors by region and providing a guide to using it all.

"There are a lot of people who want to eat locally but feel it's harder than it needs to be. We're hoping to demystify the process and make it easier for people to make that leap from wanting to eat locally to actually pursuing and doing it," says Fathman, an anthropologist and publications manager at the Missouri Botanical Garden (4344 Shaw Boulevard; 314-577-9400).

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Eric Schlosser has taken on a variety of writing subjects in his time, from illegal immigration to marijuana to pornography, but he's best known for his sharp criticism of the fast food industry in his 2002 book Fast Food Nation. A proponent of the slow food movement, Schlosser tours the country several weeks a year to speak at colleges about sourcing fresh food locally. Next week, Schlosser will visit the metro area to participate in two events: a dinner at Farmhaus (3257 Ivanhoe Avenue; 314-647-3800) prepared by Josh Galliano and hosted by Slow Food STL, as well as a speaking engagement on April 25 at 7:30 p.m. at the Hettenhausen Center for the Arts at McKendree University (701 College Road Lebanon, Illinois; 618-537-4481). The talk is tentatively titled "Why you need to know what you're eating." Gut Check was able to catch up with the writer to discuss his new writing projects, dodging bad food in college towns and what moves he'd make if he ran the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Click through for an opportunity to win tickets to Schlosser's speaking event at McKendree University.

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Melissa Hamilton

What makes Gabrielle Hamilton's Blood, Bones & Butter stand out so supremely from the pack of shoulda-coulda-wanna been-there-done-that food memoirs? The simple answer is that she's a badass. And a really good writer.

Hamilton is the chef/owner of Prune, an intimately idiosyncratic restaurant in New York City. She and her book have been mentioned in the same garlic-scented breath as Anthony Bourdain, and it's understandable why. Her story of love, family and other miscellaneous crimes is as raw, honest and gutsy as any Kitchen Confidential, but the telling in Blood, Bones & Butter isn't laced with testosterone-driven kitchen horror shows. It's more about the hunger that drives a person's coming of age, one that just happens to be fueled by a life in the arduous arena of restaurant work.

She will read from and sign copies of Blood, Bones & Butter on Monday, January 30, at 7 p.m. at Left Bank Books' downtown St. Louis store (321 North Tenth Street; 314-436-3049).

In the frontispiece of Blood, Bones & Butter, there's an illustration of a bloody asparagus on a paper towel. What's the story with that?

Oh, I have a cutting on my arm -- you know, it's one of the "body modification" arts if you want to call it that--

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Restaurateurs Colby and Megan Garrelts of Bluestem in Kansas City recently recently released a cookbook outlining their signature seasonally-focused Midwestern dishes. Chef Gerard Craft hosts a special five-course dinner at Niche on Friday, January 20, to properly introduce Bluestem to St. Louis. Gut Check spoke with chef Megan Garrelts to get a glimpse into Bluestem's inner workings.

Courtesy of Estes Public Relations

Chefs Megan and Colby Garrelts of progressive fine dining establishment Bluestem in Kansas City, Missouri

Chefs Megan and Colby Garrelts, a repeated James Beard Foundation award nominee, came a long way before opening their nationally-renowned fine-dining operation Bluestem in Colby's hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. The couple met while employed at TRU in Chicago under chefs Rick Tramonto and Gale Gand and went on to share their mutual passion for food working everywhere from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Today, the restaurant offers prix-fixe courses for dinner in addition to a more casual lounge side with its own menu.

Partnering with freelance photographer, food writer and friend Bonjwing Lee (a.k.a. the "Ulterior Epicure"), the Garrelts composed Bluestem: The Cookbook to tell an intimate story of Bluestem, featuring more than 100 contemporary American recipes that highlight the region's seasons and its culinary possibilities in both fine-dining and the home kitchen. Read on to learn more about the Garrelts and their endeavors.

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Bonjwing Lee

Tonight, Niche (1831 Sidney Street; 314-773-7755) presents the Bluestem Cookbook Dinner, featuring dishes from chefs Megan and Colby Garrelts of Bluestem, a progressive fine-dining establishment in Kansas City, Missouri, that features reinvented regional flavors from the other side of the state.

The five-course meal will be comprised of dishes from the cookbook as well as dishes created by chef Gerard Craft includes courses such as crispy sweetbreads with roasted radicchio, pickled apple, buttermilk and bourbon pecan molasses; Kansas City strip and short rib with puffed barley, Mienke grits, Thane's kale, pumpernickel and horseradish; and graham cracker pound cake with chocolate-poached pears and tangerine sherbet.

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You Are My Little Cupcake by Amy Sklansky

Today is National Cupcake Day! To celebrate, Pudd'nHead Books (8157 Big Bend Boulevard, Webster Groves; 314-918-1069) will host local author Amy E. Sklansky on Saturday to sell her sixth children's book, You Are My Little Cupcake, and, of course, will offer free mini-cupcakes! The rhyme-filled baby board book held the No. 1 spot on the RFT's Bestsellers List for two weeks last spring.

"It's a lovey book that really celebrates the special relationship between parent and child," says Sklansky, who wrote it for her own little cupcakes, Phoebe and Owen. Sklansky will present her list of book picks for the season and will sign copies of her book at 2 p.m. as one of Puddn'Head's celebrity booksellers.

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Mabel Suen

Copies of Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins now available at Left Bank Books.

Last week, Gut Check spoke with St. Louis native Ellen Sweets about her new book, Stirring it Up with Molly Ivins. The memoir celebrates Ivins' life by taking a deep look into her joyous domestic side. As a true testament to the fact that food brings people together, Sweets documents the details of how her friendship with Ivins formed over both sharing and creating fond memories in the kitchen. Recounting some pleasant plates from her own family's dinner table, Sweets shares a recipe for her mother's unique take on baked pork chops.

"Before we had them for dinner, I hadn't seen them anywhere else before. She said she just kind of made it up," says Sweets, explaining in the book that her daughter, a chef, had great success with the pork chops on her menu while in charge of her first commercial kitchen. Read on for the skinny on how to make this wholesome, comforting dish that gets layered for a tasty and impressive meal, and pick up a copy of Stirring it Up with Molly Ivins this Tuesday, Dec. 13 at Left Bank Books (399 Euclid Avenue; 314-367-6731) during a reading and signing by Sweets at 7 p.m.

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Courtesy of Ellen Sweets and UT Press

Ellen Sweets, author of Stirring it Up with Molly Ivins, with the late, great Ms. Ivins herself.

Reporting and food go hand-in-hand, as Gut Check (especially our waistline) knows all too well. However, for Ellen Sweets, a St. Louis native and award-winning journalist who has contributed content everywhere from the Post-Dispatch and her father's paper, the St. Louis American, to publications in Colorado and Texas, it's a way to form lifetime friendships.

Sweets met well-known political columnist Molly Ivins at an American Civil Liberties Union meeting while living and working in Texas. The two hit it off immediately through their mutual passions for progressive politics and food. They soon embarked on a number of at-home kitchen adventures in Ivins' Austin home. In Stirring It Up with Molly Ivins, Sweets provides insight into the Francophile-foodie and fun-loving side of Ivins that wasn't as well known to the public eye, demonstrating how Ivin's aptitude for creating in the kitchen with and for others was therapeutic before and especially during her battle with cancer.

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Elaine Abramson of Hazelwood believes she has stumbled onto the world's latest, greatest miracle diet and the salvation of the restaurant industry. Over the course of a year, Abramson dropped 50 pounds and ten dress sizes, all by eating only at restaurants! She describes it all in her new self-published book, From Fat to Fabulous: A Restaurant Lover's Guide, and adds that if everybody followed her example, we'd all be thin and fewer restaurants would close.

If only we could be so lucky!

The noble experiment began, Abramson tells Gut Check in a phone interview, when she started having problems with her knees, due to her excessive weight. "I couldn't stand long enough to cook," she says. "My husband started taking me out to restaurants. He's a very wonderful man."

It must be noted that Abramson was never much of a cook to begin with -- the introduction to her book lists, in loving detail, several of her worst culinary catastrophes -- so this may have been an act of self-preservation on Dan Abramson's part. Nonetheless...

After a few weeks of exclusive restaurant dining, Abramson noticed that her clothes were becoming loose on her.

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