Do you believe an anti-Kerry ketchup created during President George W. Bush’s re-election campaign that claims its “W” doesn’t stand for George W. Bush? Can you believe it’s lasted more than seven years? (Photo: W Ketchup)

During lunch today at Central Square’s Veggie Galaxy — all wonderful, from the hot chocolate, Kendall Square burger and fries to the Melt sandwich (spicy tofu and vegetable salad), potato salad and coconut-based ice cream — W Ketchup was mentioned.

Somehow I missed this, but in 2004 at the height of President George W. Bush’s campaign for re-election, a New York banker and other right-wing friends created and began selling the stuff as an alternative to Heinz ketchup, which bore the name of a family once married into by the wife of Bush’s Democratic opponent, Massachusetts Democrat U.S. Sen. John Kerry. And it’s still on sale via a website that explains all you’d care to know about the conservative condiment, or at least a looking-glass version of it where the very reason it exists is talked around like a black sheep nephew in jail again after being caught huffing glue while wearing only a thong and a swastika armband after failing to rob a minimart with a paintball gun and barely literate note.

Since mentioning the actual W is taboo, some media said the “W” stood for “Washington,” Washington County, N.Y., or “George Washington,” but the “About W Ketchup” section of the website tells a different story. Ignoring the actual context of the product’s origins, the history instead shows a picture of Ronald Reagan and says:

W Ketchup was launched on June 14, 2004, nine days after President Ronald Reagan died at age 93. We thank President Reagan for his selfless service to this nation.

The implication here is that W Ketchup was inspired by Reagan’s passing and somehow readied for sale as a tribute after a frenzied eight-day miracle of entrepreneurialism, named possibly after the deceased leader’s totally unmentioned middle name (Wilson) for some equally unmentioned reason. If you buy that, there’s another suggestive stretch in that section, that “Unlike other brands of ketchup, W Ketchup does not donate any money to politicians or political groups” and that this is somehow an enlightened and applaudable position. That lasts only if you don’t read see the headlines of the company’s press releases, which lack the same sense of bipartisan restraint: “W Ketchup Calls on Congress to Impeach Obama” and “W Ketchup Demands the Senate Reject the Nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court,” for instance. The most recent, from Dec. 13, doubles down on the Kerry issue, though, coming off like a parody of conservative thinking:

Teresa Heinz married failed presidential candidate and disgraced senator John Kerry. Kerry is distantly related to the wealthy Forbes family, and was educated at an elite boarding school in Switzerland, where he learned French.

The press release has an odd headline as well — “W Ketchup reaffirms Commitment to American Cuisine” — but it all begins to connect when readers get to the paragraphs complaining that “Heinz is releasing a new ketchup made with balsamic vinegar instead of the traditional white vinegar”:

The company claims the new concoction is more “sophisticated” and recommends it be used on the “Haute Dog,” “Hamburgeur” or “French Frites.”

W Ketchup Chairman Bill Zachary reacted: “We doubt French spellings will convince Senator Kerry to share in the cuisine of his fellow Americans, or that he would dress his plate with so plebian [sic] a sauce as ketchup, whatever ingredients the laboratory at Heinz develops. We at W Ketchup will continue to offer traditional ketchup for those that relish in American food [sic].”

It’s true, in December Heinz began selling a limited-edition test flavor of ketchup made with balsamic vinegar, apparently to broaden the range of flavors like mustard makers have.

Not much else here is true, though. The myth-debunking snopes.com notes that “Teresa Heinz Kerry does not ‘own the Heinz Corporation’  — she has no involvement whatsoever with the management or operations of the H.J. Heinz Co., nor does she own anything close to a controlling interest of the company’s stock.  According to Heinz itself, the Heinz family trust which Mrs. Kerry inherited sold most of its shares of Heinz stock back in 1995 and currently holds less than a 4% interest in the company.” (Media friendly to W Ketchup got this backward, saying “A spokesperson for Mrs. Kerry has said only about 4 per cent of her stock consists of H. J. Heinz shares. W Ketchup countered this by saying that 4 per cent of her portfolio is ‘a ton of money.’”)

So W Ketchup still doesn’t like Kerry; Kerry is married to someone who was once married to someone with the same last name as a company that makes ketchup but who has no say in what the company does; that company made a product with a funny ad that gives fancy French names for traditional food; Kerry speaks French; therefore do not buy Heinz Ketchup, but buy W Ketchup instead; because Ronald Reagan is a conservative icon.

And if you’re wondering why a Cambridge website includes this post — in what may be the only media reference to the product since 2004 — why, the logic is just as simple: W Ketchup exists; it competes with other ketchup brands, one of which is served with the French fries at Veggie Galaxy, 450 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square (unless Veggie Galaxy makes its own); the French fries are really good, with or without ketchup, and so are all the other menu items we tried.

Mindy Kaling talks with reporters at the 2009 Screen Actors Guild awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. (Photo: Kristin Dos Santos)

She’s conquered standup comedy and become a star on NBC’s “The Office.” She’s written books (including a funny memoir, “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?”) and plays (“Matt & Ben,” about Cantabrigians Matt Damon and Ben Affleck). She’s been in movies (including “No Strings Attached” and this year’s “The Five-Year Engagement”), was even just named a best-dressed by Nylon magazine — and now she’s on the menu at Mr. Bartley’s Gourmet Burgers in Harvard Square.

Alongside “The People’s Republic of Cambridge,” a burger topped with cole slaw and Russian dressing and “The Skip Gates,” a teriyaki burger with grilled pineapple and onion rings is “The Mindy Kaling”: a burger topped with guacamole and pineapple-jalapeno relish with baked beans. Now, to the layperson, that may sound confusing and potentially disgusting, but to a native Cantabrigian such as Kaling — born in 1979 as Vera Chokalingam — it’s an honor.

Stonehill College student and Kaling fan Kelsey Finigan went to Mr. Bartley’s on Friday night and had a Mindy Kaling, so new it’s only on the “Happy New Year” menu. And she tweeted it.

“So honored to have a namesake burger at Mr. Bartley’s in Harvard Square,” Kaling tweeted an hour later. “And next to Ray Allen’s!” (A Ray Allen is a comparatively normal burger. It has grilled peppers and dijon mustard.)

“Love this place,” Kaling said. And in reaction to a comment that the Harvard Square institution has the best onion rings: “I KNOW, THE BEST.”

The Mindy Kaling is only being tried out by Mr. Bartley’s, workers said Saturday. If enough people order it, it’ll make it to the permanent menu.

All kinds of chocolate will be glorified, taught about and even dispenses as samples Jan. 27-29 at Harvard Square’s second Chocolate Festival, including the hot chocolate at Crema Café and signature treats at L.A. Burdick. (Photos: top, Kai Schreiber; bottom, Sushiesque)

How dark can you take your chocolate? Because Harvard Square’s Chocolate Festival, running Jan. 27-29, adds a wrinkle from last year’s inaugural event: two upscale “Dining in the Dark” events in which people savor chocolate dishes blindfolded, heightening their sense of taste and smell.

One at Nubar, in the Sheraton Commander hotel, 16 Garden St., at 7 p.m. Jan. 27 ($65 each for 35 participants), and a repeat at UpStairs on the Square, 91 Winthrop St., at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 28. To keep the senses even more alert, owners Mary Catherine Deibel and Deborah Hughes are keeping the menu secret. ($60 per participant)

On that Saturday there’s also:

A chocolate treasure hunt in the square from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. starting with buying a $1 map in Deguglielmo Plaza in front of Crema Café at 27 Brattle St.). Proceeds go to support the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, and the hunt can be completed in as little as 45 minutes.

A chocolate sampling event from 1 to 2 p.m. in Deguglielmo Plaza with a samples from restaurants and shops from across Harvard Square.

The Art of Chocolate Tasting at 3 p.m. at the Russell House Tavern, 14 JFK St. A master chocolatier explores the history of chocolate and the cacao bean, including its history among royals. ($25 each for 30 participants)

An Evening of Wine and Chocolate at 6 p.m. at Finale, 30 Dunster St., which takes a systematic approach to tasting wine and pairing it with chocolate and includes a discussion of how chocolate and wine are made. Organizers promise plenty of tasting. ($48 each for 25 participants)

A “Death by Chocolate” interactive murder mystery event at 7 p.m. at Fire + Ice, 50 Church St., featuring a gourmet three-course dinner. Here’s the idea, which is also a bit far to the sugary side, as described by the plotters: “Count Chocula welcomes you to ChocoCon 2011! Lady Godiva and Billy Wonka have come together to announce their newest creations. Their innovations are the Golden Ticket to chocolate success! Help Wonka sort through the clues and interrogate the suspects. Find out who was willing to go so far as to cause a … DEATH BY CHOCOLATE!” ($49.95 each for 150 participants)

There are also 2½-hour chocolate tours starting at 11 a.m. Jan. 28-29 teaching the history of chocolate, how luxury chocolates are made and bringing participants to a several sites for samples and tips on tasting, buying and storing fine chocolate: Cardullo’s, the gourmet shop with a wide variety of chocolates, Lakota Bakery cookies and other treats; chocolate shop L.A. Burdick, known for its hot chocolate and homemade truffles; coffeehouse and bakery Crema Café; Sweet Cupcake; J.P. Licks, the ice cream and hot chocolate shop; Finale, the dessert restaurant; and even, get this, Lush, the maker of vegetarian (and, the company says, more than 70 percent vegan) products for bath, hair and body, because it uses cocoa in some. ($48 each for 14 participants in each tour, with lower prices for kids)

This post took significant material from a press release.

Panera Bread baguette is good for a chain, great when it’s hot out of the oven and over-the-top terrific when it’s an example of good customer service. (Photo: Robyn Lee)

I think the Porter Square Panera Bread is here to stay for a while — and I suddenly have warm feelings to hope that’s so.

The eatery, which opened July 6 at what is technically 5 White St. in the shopping plaza, is Porter’s answer to the gourmet-ish comfort food of Au Bon Pain enjoyed by folks in Harvard, Kendall and Davis squares. But it did something for me last night no Au Bon Pain, its one-time kind-of owner, has ever done: won my cranky customer’s heart with great service.

I went in too late Tuesday night and found the basket of baguette (what the company likes to call “French baguette”) empty. I quizzed the workers with some desperation as to whether there might yet be a loaf hiding out somewhere, or even anything like a baguette. But no, the site had been slammed that day and had run out hours ago of an appealing plain bread.

Since Panera is my only local baguette option, I was out of luck. I didn’t even bother checking the nearby Shaw’s grocery store to see if it had any store-made baguette, which is not only the most expensive baguette I know of, but probably the worst I’ve ever tasted. And, if it’s not too old a joke, it usually sells out by the time I go looking.

Wednesday, though, I made it to Panera earlier; was briefly shattered to see the basket empty again; then elated to hear there were loaves just then fresh from the oven, so fresh they hadn’t been slipped into paper sleeves and stocked. I ordered one. “How many?” the manager asked. “Just one,” I repeated, asking the worker at the counter how many he thought I could eat.

But he gave me two — explaining it was to make up for my disappointment the previous night. (I don’t remember crying, just whining.)

Nice going, Panera manager.

I was stunned and delighted, a feeling that lasted through my walk home in the cold tearing off hot hunks of crusty bread, and lingered afterward.

Qdoba lasted there from January 2005 to June 2010, despite how universally its Mexican food was disdained compared with the competing Chipotle chain and certainly the Anna’s Taqueria across the street. With service and product such as this, Panera should be around for decades. And I may buy baguette there every night I can.

(Because we’re past that union problem, right?)

The weekly event is open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays through April at the Cambridge Community Center, 5 Callendar St., near Putnam and Western avenues in Cambridgeport.

In the tradition of Kendall Square’s Venture Cafe, which at one time was soliciting ideas for a different name, it looks like the default is going to last awhile here, too. While in October founders were still advertising a contest to name the market, now its website simply calls it “The Cambridge Winter Farmers’ Market.”

The listed vendors: Big Sky Bakery; Bug Hill Farm; C&C Lobster; Danish Pastry House; Deborah’s Kitchen; Fastachi; Foxboro Meat and Cheese; Jordan Brothers Seafood; Redfire Farms; Samira’s Homemade; Seacost Butters; 7 ate 9 Bakery; Shady Oaks Organics; Silverbrook Farm; Sprouted Raw Foods; Swiss Bakers; Taza; Q’s Nuts; Valicenti Organico; and Westminster Meats, with food demonstrations by Cambridge Brewing Co., live music by Two Tire Fire and a free art exhibit at the center’s Riverside Gallery.

Harvard historian Ezra Vogel discusses his “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China” in a video posted on YouTube.

The lifetimes of Deng Xiaoping and Toscanini overlapped for more than a half-century, but it’s a good bet they never met until now.

That is, Toscanini’s ice cream, in Central Square, is hosting Harvard historian Ezra Vogel, whose weighty “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China” (The Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2011) is drawing equally weighty reviews from media including The New York Times and the U.K. Independent, at 6 p.m. Monday. Toscanini’s is at 899 Main St.

Deng, the somewhat faceless successor to Mao Zedong, is known for transforming China into an economic powerhouse during his roughly two decades of leadership and presiding over the bloodshed ending the Tiananmen Square movement for Democracy in 1989. Vogel’s tome is drawing attention not just for its topic, but for the fact that despite its topic “most of Deng’s life and career takes up only a quarter of Vogel’s 714 pages of narrative,” as the Times notes, and a sympathetic tone summed up in the author’s defining question: “Did any other leader in the 20th century do more to improve the lives of so many?”

While as a topic for an ice cream shop book signing “Deng” makes somewhat less sense than having in Jeff Potter for his “Cooking for Geeks,” it reflects the eclectic interests and circle of friends of founder Gus Rancatore — and makes some sense in the hometown of Harvard (where Vogel is Henry Ford II research professor of the social sciences, emeritus) and where the Chinese-speaking population has grown from 3.7 percent of the population a decade ago to 4.1 percent in last year’s U.S. Census.

And, after all, ice cream is yet another thing quite China can claim to have invented.

“Please come meet Ezra and have ice cream, coffee or tea,” Rancatore said Sunday.

Copies of the book will be available.

Casbah, described as having similar food but being “a little bit cheaper, and bit more casual” than Casablanca, is at 26 New St., off a rotary behind the Fresh Pond Mall and Best Western Tria hotel — once the Persian restaurant Basha.

Grub Street Boston has more details.

Paul O’Connell, of Chez Henri, Bob Sargent, of Arlington’s Flora, and Chris Schlesinger, of East Coast Grill, were recognized after cooking together at a Thursday benefit for farmers markets. (Photo: Nick Pavey)

The Urban Barn Dance held Thursday was the most successful in the fundraiser’s four-year history, packing its space in the Dante Alighieri Center in Kendall Square and providing plenty of aid to farmers markets throughout the state, organizers said.

“We were thrilled by the turnout of guests who support our mission,” said Jeff Cole, executive director of the Mass Farmers Markets group. “The Urban Barn Dance was a harvest celebration of our markets, our farmers and the supporting community members who shop farmers markets.”

There was live music, contra dancing and a “spectacular” silent auction, organizers said, but of foremost importance to the foodies crowding the room was the meal their $50 or greater donation bought — a feast prepared by Chris Schlesinger, of Inman Square’s East Coast Grill, Paul O’Connell, of Chez Henri near Harvard Square, and Bob Sargent of flora Restaurant in Arlington.

“It was a great event,” said Mary Ruhl, a Winchester who came into Cambridge for the event. “It’s not every night you can enjoy the work of three chefs in one meal.”

The meal included beets, Brussels sprouts, “last hurrah tomatoes, never-seen-before squash-maple mash (a ‘must imitate’), grilled hake and other delights,” said Rachel Greenberger, director of the Food Sol healthy food initiative at Babson University and writer on sustainable agriculture for the Boston examiner.com.

Kendall Square’s farmers market runs today for the last time this season from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Main Street, near the T stop. (The Farmers’ Market at Harvard — usually noon to 6 p.m. Tuesdays at Oxford and Kirkland streets — just held its final day of the season.)

Central Square’s farmers market runs Mondays from noon to 6 p.m. through Nov. 21 at the parking lot at Bishop Allen Drive and Norfolk Street, and Harvard Square’s runs Sundays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Charles Hotel Courtyard at 1 Bennett St.

A winter market is to run Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. starting Jan. 7 at 5 Callendar St., near Putnam and Western avenues in Cambridgeport — but is still seeking a name, via a contest that can be entered here.

The fourth annual Urban Barn Dance, starting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Dante Alighieri Center in Kendall Square, benefits the nonprofit Mass Farmers Markets and farmers markets such as the event held each Sunday in the Charles Hotel Courtyard in Harvard Square. (Photo: Scoobyfoo)

The East Coast Grill serves its share of seafood and wine, and Chez Henri isn’t known for its simple farm fare. But the chefs of each are adapting for a good cause Thursday: The fourth annual Urban Barn Dance, a benefit for the nonprofit Mass Farmers Markets starting at 6:30 p.m. at the Dante Alighieri Center in Kendall Square.

Chris Schlesinger (East Coast Grill), Paul O’Connell (Chez Henri) and Bob Sargent of flora Restaurant in Arlington are to build a menu from locally grown food — including Globe Fish of Boston, Danish Pastry House of Medford, Austin Brother Farms of Belchertown and Hamilton Orchards of New Salem — before a live band and caller get attendees contra dancing (no experience required, organizers say) and the bidding begins in a silent auction.

The auction “offers a wide array of [goods from] the best local businesses from the culinary world and beyond — a perfect opportunity for early holiday shopping,” said Karin Turer, of Mass Farmers Markets.

Tickets to the event are $50, but there are other suggested levels of support (the $500 Golden Watermelon includes admission for two, as does the $250 Silver Queen Corn, while the $100 Bronze Fennel includes admission for one) that “provides the opportunity for guests to toast the hard work of their favorite farmers,” Turer said.

“The Urban Barn Dance is a harvest celebration of our markets, our farmers and the supporting community members who shop farmers markets. It is a delicious and fun way for people to support a bright future for the over 250 markets in our state,” said Mass Farmers Markets executive director, Jeff Cole.

Cambridge alone has four farmers markets listed on the group’s website: Kendall Square’s, running 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesdays through Oct. 26 on Main Street, near the T stop; Central Square’s, running from noon to 6 p.m. Mondays through Nov. 21 at the parking lot at Bishop Allen Drive and Norfolk Street; Harvard Square’s, running 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sundays in the Charles Hotel Courtyard at 1 Bennett St.; and a winter market running 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays starting Jan. 7 at 5 Callendar St., near Putnam and Western avenues in Cambridgeport — and still seeking a name, via a contest that can be entered here. There’s also Farmers’ Market at Harvard, running noon to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Oct. 25 at Oxford and Kirkland streets.

This post took significant amounts of material from a press release.

Toscaninini's in Central Square drew some of Cambridge’s coffee elite Friday, including the owners of 1369 Coffeehouse and Voltage Coffee & Art. (Photos: top, Jenn Mau; middle, Elisha Marshall; and bottom, Andrew Teman, all via Flickr)

Coffee is many things to many people, but all coffee makers revere its role in bringing people together to talk — which is what it did Friday morning, as some of Cambridge’s coffee elite met at Toscanini’s in Central Square to talk about what’s good, bad, old and new in the industry, and what Cambridge is doing about it.

The brewers and aficionados included Gus Rancatore, of Toscanini’s; Jaime Van Schyndel, the roaster behind Barismo in Arlington and dwelltime, the cafe under construction on Broadway in Cambridge; Lucy R. Valena of Voltage Coffee & Art in Kendall Square; Joshua Gerber of 1369 Coffeehouse in Central and Inman squares; Simon Yu and Alison Novak of Simon’s Coffee Shop in Porter Square; Corby Kummer, a food writer (including of “The Joy of Coffee”) and a senior editor at The Atlantic; Corky White, a Boston University anthropology professor and author of “Coffee Life in Japan”; Sandra Fairbank, restaurant designer and author of an unpublished book on French cafes; and Vaughn Tan, a food writer and Harvard business and sociology student.

Because it was opening day at the Hi-Rise Bread Company location at 1663 Massachusetts Ave., the baristas and brewers who couldn’t come sent a box of cookies — delicious, artisanal Oreos with an intense, slightly bitter chocolate and astonishingly rich cream.

There was a calling out of Keurig, the maker of home and office coffee machines and their infernal individual-serving, one-use K-Cup packets, for reasons of low quality, skimming of customers and environmental waste.

And there was, of course, industry gossip — “Seattle peaked. There’s now a lot of entitlement, but not really a scene. I haven’t heard people talk about Victrola [Coffee Roasters] for about two years” — and discussion of how to distinguish trends from fads and whether to pursue either. “A couple of years ago you had to have a Clover machine, now no one wants one,” Rancatore said, while White noted the newest phase: Japanese equipment. “You can only know it was a fad when it’s over,” she said.

But the topics that dominated were Starbucks, sameness, crafting distinct coffee communities and where Cambridge fits in all that.

“Cambridge should be a hotbed,” said Van Schyndel, although he worried there would be a rush of coffee shops opening, even next to other shops. “I’m concerned on this side of river we’re dragging our feet.”

Rancatore and White provided a history lesson of Cambridge’s coffee explosion in the beat 1950s, with some 16 shops in Harvard Square alone, three crammed in where the square’s post office sits. The boom included the Blue Parrot and Cafe Capriccio, which reopened as Cafe Mozart; the survivor from that era is Cafe Pamplona, which came along in 1958.

“So we’ve been there, in a way,” White said.

There are five or six cafes just in Harvard Square, including three Starbucks — and the months-old addition to the chain that even drew praise for the design of its second-story space — “and here we all are,” Rancatore said, looking at the proprietors gathered around his shop’s Big Table. (Rancatore knows something about this. He ran the Someday Cafe in Somerville’s Davis Square before, during and after the arrival of a Starbucks. It closed in a landlord dispute, replaced by a crepe restaurant, but Diesel Cafe continues to thrive directly across the street from the chain location.)

The trick is to serve different, if overlapping communities, the group said. Most expressed a  degree of horror at some cafes’ laptop culture (“I cannot work in a cafe,” Tan said. “I never go to Diesel because everyone’s working, and I haven’t been in a Starbucks in 15 years”), with Barismo being famously unfriendly to lingerers with laptops and Hi-Rise reputed to have opened without a single outlet for customer use. But Van Schyndel said dwelltime will have a communal outlet, like Toscanini’s, so laptop users are clustered. While he knows he’ll draw venture capitalists with business to discuss, he also knows he’ll draw knitters and craftspeople from the neighboring Gather Here, and prefers to focus on the space he’s carving out for people to come in to give talks or lead discussions.

“Everybody can cater to different groups,” Van Schyndel said. “It’s not about turning people away.”

For 1369, there is no ideal customer, Gerber said. “For me, the ideal customer is a regular customer. We pride ourselves on being a place where kids with tattoos and grandmas come — where people who don’t normally interact do. I’ve seen badass crazy customers take 15 minutes to talk to a venture capitalist. I love that,” he said. “I appreciate certain things in customers: people with a willingness to talk, who come back and who are interested in food and have a community perspective.”

Seattle transplant Valena — who’s hosting the next likely get-together for the coffee crowd, a Nov. 5 barista masquerade with “no throwdowns, just dancing and beer” — has a unique mix of challenges and gifts at Voltage, a West Coast-influenced cafe that is leading square development into being a destination for more than innovation-industry workers.

Valena can look forward to potential years of disruption from MIT’s reconstruction of 26 acres around the nearby red line T stop and work on the Constellation Center performance space intended to go across the street. But she can also anticipate plenty of business from architects, engineers and construction contractors to add to the art fans and venture capitalists she already gets.

If not a lesson applicable to all coffee entrepreneurs, her mix of customers at least offers her plenty of entertainment.

“It’s a contemporary art space with a contemporary vibe, but it’s full of all these suits talking about high-profile products — and I’ve offered them a choice between cinnamon toast and animal crackers,” Valena said. “If we shut down to set up for an arts exhibit, it’s all business people, and we shut down for hour and its all hipsters. Its a destination for hipsters and it’s a ‘local’ for business.”