Chris Onstad writes very funny web cartoons about teddy bears. He’s also the author of The Achewood Cookbook, which features characters from his comic strips and which is described on his website as follows: “This is a cookbook for people who are fed up with glossy, high-quality efforts by professional chefs who aren’t forced to shop at lousy chain grocery stores and cook everything in a ruined teflon pan.”

Hit Salon for a pretty good interview with the dude.

Onstad on his new cookbook:

Basically, I was sitting around looking at that massive “French Laundry Cookbook,” which is essentially useless to any home cook, and I thought: Well, fuck this. I think it would be fun, and it would be a great challenge, to take on a project for guys who are just out of college and have one pan and one electric burner. And because of where I was with Achewood at the time, I thought: This is a thing for young guys. It’ll connect well with my young readership. So I went to some chain grocery store like Albertsons and bought ground beef and some eggs and mustard and worked up about 50 recipes for various things ranging from cocktails to Scotch eggs.

Onstad on the word “foodie” (i love this part):

The first time I ever heard a friend say it, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, my gut twisted, and I felt angry for some reason. Why do we need this fake new word? There are so many words that already describe the concept of people who like food, or enjoy cooking, or enjoy knowing about cooking. “Foodie”: It’s like the infantile diminutive — you put a “y” on the end of everything to make it childlike. We don’t need it. It’s embarrassing. “I’m a foodie.” Oh my God.