Sometimes, late in the morning, when there’s nothing else for background TV and the DVR is empty, I’ll put on the later version of Today with Kathie Lee and Hoda.

I never would have known about them except for the Saturday Night Live sketches.

It’s entertaining background – for all the wrong reasons.

Today it was, how to spread dangerous microorganisms all over the kitchen from raw lamb.

The food safety fun starts about 2:20 in the video below where Chef Michael starts touching the raw lamb and then everything else in the kitchen.

To the chef’s credit, he does say cook to an internal temperature of 140F, but doesn’t bother to use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer to show that the pieces Hoda finds too raw may be safe or not.

Color is a lousy indicator of pretty much anything.
 

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When health types warn about a certain activity, it’s code for, we have an outbreak but we can't tell you just yet, so be careful.

I should have been more cynical when the health types in Wales warned this morning about infections from petting zoos. I’m still naively optimistic.

There are at least 13 people sick with cryptosporidium after a lambing event at a stately castle in Wales.

The BBC reports, those who became ill visited Erddig Hall, owned by the National Trust, over the last 12 months.

Public Health Wales said there was no ongoing risk and that it would continue to monitor the situation.

Dr Judy Hart, Consultant in Communicable Disease Control, said: "Cryptosporidium is generally a mild disease.”

Unless you have the runs for six weeks.

A table of petting zoo-related outbreaks is available at:
http://bites.ksu.edu/petting-zoos-outbreaks

The table doesn’t include the ones in the U.K., which are particularly egregious, but will soon.

Once the kid goes to sleep, Amy and I usually adjourn to the bedroom, no matter how early, and chill.

I go through my ritual of flipping through bad TV while Amy does fascinating farm animal things on Facebook.

Last night, my flipping took me to the Primal Grill With Steven Raichlen, where the dude was cooking lamb chops on a shovel in a fire pit.

Apparently, by holding the shovel over the open wood fire, the smoke curls up over the shovel to add a robust flavor to the chops.

This guy’s got way too much time on his hands.

To check if the lamb was properly cooked, he pushed his finger into a chop, proclaimed it “spongy” and therefore done.

However you want to cook meat – with a shovel, a pick-axe, a V-8 engine -- use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer to ensure a safe food temperature.

The Toronto Globe and Mail used to be a decent newspaper. I was enamored with the paper and its journalists as a genetics undergrad, was thrilled when I started writing regularly for the paper in the 1990s, and then dismayed as the amount of crap published began to far outweigh the thoughtful stuf.

Once such sign of decline was the hiring of columnist Leah McLaren about a decade ago. Chapman was somewhat enamored with her self-indulgent depictions of young female life in hip Toronto; I thought it was bullshit.

Leah is still at the Globe as it continues its drawn-out decline, and wrote on Saturday that,

“This year for Christmas I poisoned the in-laws.

“They had flown all the way from Toronto to spend the holidays in London, dragging several extra bags of gifts across the Atlantic like a modern-day Santa and Mrs. Claus. In return, I had planned a feast for dinner.

"The centrepiece of the meal was a beautifully aged prime rib roast. I had purchased it, for nearly $100, from my local Notting Hill butcher, who specializes in organic, free-range, ethically farmed beef, lamb and poultry.

"I don't eat much meat these days, but everything about that shop made me feel safe, from the quaint striped awning to the well-heeled locals queuing up for their premium giblets to the butcher with his starched, white-linen apron making small talk as he trimmed the leg of lamb. Even the store's slogan ("Real meat naturally fed") was heartening. What could possibly be more healthy, comforting or downright trendy than a rib roast for Christmas? As I stepped out of the shop with my several pounds of Grade A flesh in hand, I was determined to follow the butcher's emphatic instructions: "Do not overcook."

"And I didn't. The prime rib was perfect - except for the 36 hours of stomach-churning misery it caused everyone who ate it."

Leah’s lesson from all this? Don’t eat red meat.

One Moses Shuldiner responded with a letter in the Globe today, stating that Leah’s “mistake was to not inform herself of proper food handling techniques as recommended by the Toronto Public Health Department, which can be downloaded from the City of Toronto's website. … After reading information from public health anyone can, for a nominal fee, write the test to become a certified food handler, ensuring mastery of the material.”

Shill. Mere mortals do not have to become certified food handlers to cook dinner for the in-laws, or anyone else. I cooked lamb on Christmas Eve and my 1-year-old ate it. No one barfed. Use a tip-sensitive digital meat thermometer. Next time, Leah, stick it in.