A Bit o' Linkage

Some things I've seen lately, and have been meaning to link:

:: Roger Ebert has a wonderful article about the Astaire-Rogers film Top Hat. I really need to track down a copy of this movie, which is my favorite of the Astaire-Rogers canon. Fred Astaire makes me wish I was elegant. (Also linked, I've just seen, by Tristram Shandy.)

:: The history of Chinese restaurants in America. It's pretty interesting to read about the cheerful racism of the early Chinese food business. Unfortunately, the article doesn't really answer the question I have about Chinese restaurants: why it is that seemingly every Chinese takeout place has the exact same menu. The only variations, really, tend to be decor and quality of food preparation. (This, of course, does not include the "genuine article" restaurants like Ming Teh in Fort Erie, Ontario. To which I've never gone. Yeesh.)

:: Why chefs shouldn't wear gloves. The argument is that wearing gloves actually promotes bad sanitation habits, like more infrequent hand-washing and glove-changing. This is, in my experience, not at all a far-fetched argument.