Football season is almost here, so my kitchen work is ramping up. I have two new clients, Fred Warner and Kevin Givens, both 49ers looking for another Super Bowl ring. My job is to feed them the food that will get them there, which means I’m elbow-deep in grass-fed bison and venison and gelatinous stock made with chicken feet.

Follow along with that work @chefbrookesiem.

I’m also prepping to lecture at Grand Rounds at the University of Nevada, Reno Medical School. This won’t be my first time speaking in front of a room full of doctors, but it will be my first time speaking in front of a room full of doctors who might not agree with me.

The Reno-Tahoe area is perpetually behind the times from a cultural, educational, and health standpoint. Our restaurants are straight out of 1989, our psychiatry is stuck in the 90s, and the definition of health in this town is to park at the far end of the parking lot before getting day drunk at all-you-can-eat sushi which, in a landlocked city, is just as disgusting as it sounds.

Thus, I have been brushing up on my science and communication skills (shoutout to the book Supercommunicators) in hopes of planting seeds in a few medical minds. Turns out, it’s been an interesting few weeks in the world of bad medicine and bad journalism. So for this issue, I’m sharing a little of what I’ve been reading this week, because sometimes, shutting up is the most effective strategy.