The refashioning of junk foods as slightly more healthful items is nothing new, but recently, we've noticed something extreme happening in the snack world, and we're not sure what to make of it.

We never got the appeal of Snackwells, because we're pros at not watching what we eat, and there are just so many snack-able foods in this world that haven't come out of plastic wrap. That said, the whole class of slightly-less-terrible-for-you snack foods seemed innocent enough if you were really fiendin' for a sugar fix, and we couldn't really condemn their existence.

However, the times? They are a-changing, and there is a whole new frontier beyond Snackwells. The plethora of low-fat or sugar-free prepackaged sweets lining the racks of bodegas is already mind-boggling, but the ways that junk foods can be turned "healthy" does not end there.

Why, just last week, we walked into a drugstore only to be confronted with a "Snickers: Charged" bar, which contains caffeine, taurine, and B-vitamins. B-VITAMINS! In your candy! After the jump: some of the more head-scratching happenings in snack food and beverage offerings across the nation.

In March 2007, Coca-Cola unveiled Diet Coke Plus, which is basically just regular old Diet Coke... but fortified with B-vitamins, magnesium, and zinc! This totally means that we can stop eating vegetables, and start chugging soda, right? All flippancy aside, we have mixed feelings about a gambit like this. On the one hand, if you were chaindrinking Diet Coke to begin with and switched over to Diet Coke Plus, you're probably not worse off. On the other, the more likely outcome seems like a whole slew of arguments about how diet soda is "good" for you. We have yet to see anyone downing a Diet Coke Plus though, so it's probably too early for outrage (or ringing endorsement).

On the candy front, our attention was brought to a claim that Gummi Bears might be good for your teeth. Xylitol, the sweetener used in Gummi Bears, helps combat a certain kind of tooth decay. We're thinking that someone out there should promote the refrain "four Gummi Bears three times a day keeps the dentist away!"

Finally, we're still stuck on that amped-up Snickers, which is meant to jumpstart a midafternoon slump. The press release from Mars includes the choice tidbit that the new candy bar "offers consumers a bar of substance and a delicious and satisfying way to tackle the afternoon hours when one needs to ‘re-power.’"

Of all of the ways that we've seen junk foods revamped into healthier incarnations, this is the one that seems the most wrong. What's next, junk food manufacturers of the world? Marshmallows with 50% of our daily value of fiber? Calcium-fortified Twinkies? The line has got to be drawn somewhere.

Gummi Bears May Be Good For Your Teeth [Slashfood]
First Candy Bar From Snickers Brand Provides A Boost of Energy with Caffeine, Taurine, and B-Vitamins [Candy Addict]

Because there are so many good places for small plates in our city...

Toro: We love Toro for Spanish-style tapas and a scrupulous Sunday brunch. Fireplace in the winter, patios for the summer, Toro knows how to adapt and has been one of Boston's best for shared plates for years. They have industry night the first Thursday of every month, which is a solid deal for any servers out there looking to sample some of the South End's yummiest dishes.

Tapeo: Newbury Street's answer to small plates. With a menu that rotates seasonally every eight weeks, we love stopping by for the latest concoctions from the kitchen. The bar offers a similarly fun blend of old and new, including a great selection of Spanish wines. That's only fitting, right?

Estragon: Also nestled in the South End, Estragon features Spain's best in a touted authentic atmosphere with gold 30s decor. The cozy bar features a sangria bubbler, and the waitstaff is thoughtful and warm. The prices keep your options open, with a little something for everyone, regardless of their budget. And, particularly for the veg heads among us, Estragon is the city's best bet for veggie options. Period.

Toro [Official Site]
Tapeo [Official Site]
Estragon [Official Site]

[Photo: udn/Flickr]

The office or school cafeteria, a little corner of the food-service industry rarely covered in these parts, deserves some credit. The same group of people makes lunch or dinner or both every day for the same other group of people using roughly the same ingredients on whatever cycle their deliveries happen to be on. And nobody riots except, occasionally, prisoners (and Darth Vader, in this hilarious Legos video by Eddie Izzard).

Some cafeterias, such as Google's, have a reputation as gourmet. Others are hallowed — see Gridskipper's list of some of Washington D.C.'s powerful lunchrooms, including the Supreme Court and the WTO. Some really suck (think every public school and also prison and also many offices). All, however, share a few key traits:

• The line: It's not a cafeteria if you don't move your little plastic tray down a metal line with the food all behind some pane of glass. Or some similar setup. There's something very comforting in this, as it brings a strong sense of order to the chaotic problem of figuring out what to eat for lunch. Or it's depressingly like an auto plant. You choose.

• The workers. It seems there's more interaction with cafeteria workers than with service staff in off-site lunch spots. While most deli counter staff will make your sandwich with little interaction, cafeteria workers are famous for providing the friendly exchange that helps brighten your day, or the surly banter that encourages you to eat outside the office now and then. When you think about it, you see these people just about every work day. Probably more than most of your friends.

• Plastic-covered desserts on little plates. Dessert tastes better when it's served like this. Don't know why. Don't care, really. Sometimes, at home, we cut a slice of cheesecake onto a little plate, cover it in plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge for an hour, just to re-create the effect. No, not really.

• They are going out of style. This is disturbing. The office cafeteria is definitely on its way out, as companies look for ways to reduce overhead and employees look for ways to not eat institutional food delivered by SE Rykoff. But that's nothing new. They've been going out style for decades now and they will never really disappear. As much as you'd like them to.

This is all by way of expressing a bit of envy for a sous-chef friend who is preparing to join the staff at Google in his former capacity as a web writer. Some people have all the luck, food-wise.

Darth Vader In The Cafeteria [Maniac World]
Washington D.C.'s Top Workplace Cafeterias [Gridskipper]
Google Food Photo Blog [Flickr]

[Photo: Just a workaday lunch at Google via Brett L./Flickr]

We'd try to think of a clever title, but the name is already so darn cute...

So we miss Rachel's Kitchen in the Bay Village, but what good news that she's moved to Cambridgeport! Hungry Mother features updated southern cuisine: boiled peanuts, fried catfish, grits, collard greens, and cinnamon buns for dessert. The service? Out of this world. Easily the nicest folks in the Kendall area. The prices are steep, and the place can get noisy on a busy night, but the succulent shrimp and roasted chicken with snap peas are worth any trouble you might encounter. We love trying new spots, and this one should be on your list too...assuming it isn't already.

Grab a HM logo pin on your way out as a souvenir.

Hungry Mother [MenuPages]
Hungry Mother [Official Site]

[Photo: LimeyG Bends Yer Lughole]

• New Yorkers are taking their dining rooms to the streets this summer. [NY Times]

• A Chicago coffeehouse serves up conservative politics with its lattes. [Chicago Tribune]

• Investigators are closing in on the farm that produced those pesky tainted peppers we've heard so much about. [AP/MSNBC]

• Cities looking at banning fast food in poor neighborhoods. [Slate]

Photo of plain cheesecake, above: chernwei/flickr

Here's an intriguing one from Sashertootie on Flickr with red beans with a graham cracker crust. Looks pretty tasty, no?

This one has a brownie on the bottom and peanut butter cups on top. Want. Now. From mmmm, brains on Flickr.

I love love love this idea. Totally doing this for my next party. From ::fanny::.

Deep fried cheesecake? Seems...superfluous. From Scuzzi.

Melissss shares a great shot of a cheesecake that has a cookie crust and another layer of cookie on top. Looks heavenly.

Located on and around Union and Blackstone Streets to the side of Fanieul Hall, Haymarket is where fruit and vegetable vendors come to sell their goods in a setting that can't be described as elegant. There's significant garbage, and yelling is par for the course. Haymarket is not your neighborhood Whole Foods, filled with diverse cashiers smiling while encouraging you to buy re-usable tote bags and magazines about how to incorporate yoga into your life. But if you're looking to save money like we are, Haymarket is the place to be.

Prices vary by each stand, but it's easy to find deals such as 6 oranges for $2, or 5 apples for $2. Fruits such as raspberries and blueberries run a little bit more expensive, but by expensive we mean probably $4 for a large container. If you're looking to buy a crate of something like mangos, of course the prices are going to get higher. But when you compare it to grocery store prices, it's practically a steal.

If you're willing to get yourself out of bed in the early hours of Saturday morning, then you definitely have the pick of the litter. That's when the produce is at its freshest, and choices are more diverse. But then again, the earlier you go, the more you'll be paying. If you want to wait until late in the afternoon when they're preparing to shut down, you can probably find significant deals even lower than those we mentioned above, but you're running the risk of having lower quality items to choose from. Either way, stay in the loop when buying your fruit, and head to Haymarket.

Map of Haymarket Area [Google Maps]

[Photo: Megan Johnson]

To hear some analysts tell it, yesterday's left-field news of Bennigan's restaurants' chapter 7 bankruptcy is a harbinger of doom for the casual dining industry. From the Wall Street Journal's Market Watch blog:

"These restaurants share many subtle and complex challenges that extend beyond this difficult economic climate," says Ron Paul, president of Technomic. "To some extent, they've become victims of their own success--a mature category with too many units and not enough differentiation, at least in the eyes of consumers."
According to Technomic, the top 20 casual dining chains in the category in which Bennigan's operated had unit growth of 45 percent during the most recent five-year period, well beyond the growth in demand.

We listen to a lot of Marketplace on NPR and this story hits a few notes that have gotten a lot of play over the last year or so: You spend money faster than you can make it, make commitments that your wallet can't keep, and eventually you go broke and lose your house. This seems to be a general trend in the U.S. right now, from gigantic corporations down to individuals.

But there's another trend out there that might lend a hopeful counterpoint to the tired "sad music" they keep playing on that show, at least as far as eating is concerned: It could be, just maybe, that with the rise of the Food Network, the chef as rock-star, and the growing national obsession with eating fresh, local, creatively prepared foods and, the market for the kind of mass-produced family meals in which Bennigan's specialized is shrinking.

This is obviously not a hopeful sign to investors and employees over at the ill-fated chain, but to the national health and well-being, it's a good thing. To get really out there with it, there's a chance that these lean economic times and simultaneous food chic could do wonders for the nation's health: huge, meaty, deep-fried meals become too expensive and go out of fashion, while locally produced fruit, vegetables and proteins become the cheap and trendy option for more Americans. High oil prices may put more of us on bikes, riding to the farmers' market or co-op instead of the ever-pricier and low-quality mega-chain. Healthy lifestyles by necessity!

There will certainly always be a place for casual family dining chains such as Bennigan's, TGI-Friday's, Applebee's, etc. But based on yesterday's news and the subsequent analysis, it seems those gambling on Americans' obscene gluttony may have over-drawn.

Bennigan's files for bankruptcy protection [AP]
Bennigan's Bankruptcy Indicative of Larger Casual Dining Woes, Says Technomic [Market Watch]
Starbucks closing 600 stores in U.S. [AP/B-Net]
Marketplace [NPR]

[Photo: A Bennigan's in Seoul, Korea via Rhett Sutphin/flickr]

Well truth be told, there are some fabulous little restaurants out there that you've probably never heard of, and they are the perfect locations for dinner parties. Canestaro, tucked on Peterborough St. behind Boylston in the Fenway, is the epitome of the drippy candle Italian cucina where the owner seats you, the portions are enormous, and the vino flows like the Charles River (but a hell of a lot cleaner!)

Canestaro's menu spans every genre of Italian cuisine, from large 16 inch pizzas to calzones, burgers with an Italian twist, a boatload of pasta offerings, and sandwiches galore. Due to our pasta addiction, we are dependent on their dishes that combine pesto and shrimp with penne. In fact, we think we'd like a keg of pesto in our own kitchen, but that's beside the point. Canestaro is located so close to Fenway Park and the Museum of Fine Arts, it serves as a great pre-game/post-museum stop. So whether you're gearing up for bleacher seats at Fenway, or viewing Italian pieces like the Titians and Tintorettos at the MFA, remember a cannoli is always waiting for you around the corner at Canestaro.

Canestaro [MenuPages]
Canestaro [Official Site]

[Photo: Tommy Williams/Flickr]

• Rice costs triple what it used to in North Korea, which the World Food Programme warns is on the brink of a serious food crisis. [The Guardian]

• The Whole Foods-Wild Oats merger is stuck in court for the time being. [NYT via Salt Lake Tribune]

• Chef-driven restaurants are in store for the new terminal at JFK airport. Maybe people will actually want to show up early for their flights now. [NYT]

• About 13 percent of the average American family's food comes from outside of the United States. [Chicago Sun-Times]

• Australia is just getting the ball rolling on the trans fat issue; their food labels don't even have to list trans fat. [Canberra Times]

Unfortunately, we are skilled in neither software development, large-number theory, nor ad sales. Basically all we have to offer the world is our totally uninformed opinion on everything, plus set of moderate home-cooking skills.

Enter the Google cookbook. This slim little volume was put in our hands the other day, and we feel a little bit like we've been handed the holy grail of the intersection of food- and internet-nerdery. It's 76 spiral-bound pages, and it's not available in stores, on eBay, anywhere &mdash unless, of course, you are a 6-year user of GoogleAds, in which case you get it in the mail along with a spiffy black Google-branded apron.

A quick google search of the google cookbook turns up surprisingly little: various corners of the internet, but nothing epic, nothing quite at the level that we, in our little nerdy heart, feel this deserves.

So we're doing this the right way: THERE IS A GOOGLE COOKBOOK! AND WE HAVE IT! IN OUR HANDS RIGHT NOW! AND WE ARE SHARING IT WITH YOU! RIGHT NOW! AFTER THE JUMP! (also: foie gras-stuffed falafel!)

First, gigantically, the cover:

The book is divided into four seasonal sections, starting with spring and moving through to winter. Each season is separated by a handy little tab, and each gets its own circular logo. The recipes in each season's TOC are divided into categories: Appetizer, Soup, Salad, Entree, Vegetable, Starch, Dessert. It's great. It's so earnest.

We're utterly charmed. We deeply, deeply love the variety of these dishes &mdash Wood-Roasted Lobster with Garlic Crisps and Blood Orange-Cilantro Vinaigrette! Sweet Potato, Spinach, and Shiitake Mushroom Gratin that calls for an entire gallon of heavy cream! Motherfreaking Foie Gras-Stuffed Falafel that is categorized under salad!! Can we just point out that in a cookbook of only forty-three recipes, two call for foie gras?

If you, like us, are now harboring very complexly detailed fantasies about working for Google, allow us to present to you Chef Wade Tamura's Fried Chicken, recommended for fall:

[Photo: Google cookie, via billypalooza's Flickr]

Tucked away on bucolic Chestnut Street on the flat of Beacon Hill is a favorite restaurant of neighborhood folks, from the old-time Brahmins in bowties to the cubicle dwelling, straight out of work happy hour crowd looking to forget their work day. But what keeps the crowds coming back to 75 Chestnut? We think it's the cozy, yet elegant atmosphere that isn't trying to look as if it caters to crowds of millionaires (Which if you surveyed the patrons at 75's famous Sunday brunch, you probably could confirm). Black leather stools decorate the small bar area, giving an "everybody knows your name" feeling (Yes, the owner of 75 Chestnut is also the owner of Cheers and the bar the television show was inspired by). The dining area is not expansive; Closely set tables are mixed in with camel-colored leather booths ideal for a small group of diners or on a romantic evening.

75 describes their menu as "regional American comfort food," and comfort food it definitely is, but with a classier take. For example, the herbed clam chowder adds in a combination of Maine potatoes and smoked bacon, while the BLT Wedge isn't quite your expected brown bag lunch version. Instead, multiple iceberg lettuce hearts are a base for a boatload of apple wood-smoked bacon, tomato, and bleu cheese dressing. Our personal favorite is the Roasted Eggplant Ravioli, which fills traditional ravioli pasta with an unexpected mix of artichoke hearts, black olives, roasted red peppers and pine nut pesto. These interesting twists on typical American fare are what keep the restaurant a favorite year round, though we must admit autumn is our favorite time to visit, due to the beautiful fall foliage of the tree-lined Beacon Hill streets visible through the large glass windows of the restaurant's front. The epitome of a true Bostonian restaurant that manages to combine class and comfort, 75 Chestnut is destined to be a fixture on the Boston restaurant scene for years to come.

75 Chestnut [MenuPages]
75 Chestnut [Official Site]

[Photo: [Rest Review]

Today's an exciting day, food-blog-wise. You all know "The Waiter" over at Waiter Rant, right? Well, no longer! Now you know a man named Steve Dublanica, a former waiter who writes a blog and whose book debuts today.

The New York Post has the story of a man who shared in print many of the things the rest of us former service industry types wait to tell people until they're too drunk to remember. Serving food that may have come into contact with the floor, giving everybody decaf coffee, regardless of their order, spitting in food, these things happen. Not necessarily by Dublanica himself (well, the coffee thing, yeah) but they do happen, and he'll tell you about it.

For the last four years, Dublanica has made no move to cover up any potentially shocking aspect of the service industry as he cranks out sometimes bitter, sometimes philosophical, sometimes funny essays. He naturally kept his own identity and that of his restaurant a secret, and "Cafe Machiavelli," somewhere in suburban New York, remains unnamed.

Now that he's a big-time author, however, Dublanica has to do things like radio appearances on Bloomberg and Leonard Lopate, guest-blogging for Powell's Books, and being the subject of feature articles in the New York Post, so he had to come clean. He also quit his job, apparently. Now who's going to introduce you to terms like "crop dusting?"

Secret Service: The Waiter Gets Mad — And Gets Even [NY Post]
Waiter Rant [Official Site]

[Photo: An anonymous waiter via independentman/flickr]

If you dare to bring up the word pizza in Boston, pretty much all you'll hear about is the divine beauty of The Upper Crust, and its magical fairy tale of how a group of friends came together to create the holy grail of pizza for Massachusetts. Their delicious blend of cheese and spices, and the interesting combinations they manage to create, oh how glorious! And don't be mistaken, we eat Upper Crust regularly. It's damn good. But there are alternatives out there (besides Dominos) that many Bostonians often forget about when choosing their pizza.

Enter: Bostone Pizza, which offers an extremely diverse menu and delivery service. Their 2 forms of pizza include the Traditional, which is the typical thin crust pizza, and the Sicilian, a deep dish, thick and cheesy variety cut into squares. Our personal favorite is the tomato basil, a white pizza with huge tomato slices laid over basil leaves and mixed with olive oil. Amazing.

But where Bostone Pizza has the upper hand on the Upper Crust is their diverse menu that offers everything from subs and pasta dishes to wings and steaks. Basically, there's something to please everyone in your party. So if you're looking for great delivery pizza but someone in your crowd craves something else, feel free to get Bostoned.

Bostone Pizza [MenuPages]
Bostone Pizza [Official Site]

[Photo: flickr]

• Produce gets sunburn? Apparently so — and now sunscreen, too. [IHT (AP)]

• L.A. chefs forced to become "food police," journalistic puns ensue. [LAT]

• There's $1.6 billion in food and beverage advertising targeted at kids. [NYT (AP)]

• Despite speculation, the EU has approved the merger of Mars and Wrigley. [Forbes]

• Weakened economy means more eating at home means higher profits for Kraft. [NYT]

(Also! MenuPages humbly suggests the New York Times revise their capitalization policy with regard to particles, because we stared at that Kraft headline for like a full two minutes, unable to parse it, before realizing the lowercase "in" was not a preposition.)

New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni expressed surprise today at seeing a modest Manhattan eatery, La Sirene, included on an Open Table list of the city's 10 best:

But I wonder. Is this somehow another sign of how Internet-savvy the restaurant’s chef and owner, Didier Pawlicki, is?

As I noted in my review, he personally replies to almost each and every diner comment about the restaurant on the Citysearch web site, either thanking happy diners or reasoning with unhappy ones.

Has Mr. Pawlicki or someone in his corner gamed Open Table? Or have his aggressive Internet ways spawned an especially Internet-oriented, Internet-activist clientele?

While marketing firms offer business owners like Pawlicki search optimization and other online services, this could be a case of general customer satisfaction that filtered all the way to those customers' online habits, or maybe some very shrewd outreach. The premise of Bruni's blog entry seems to be that Pawlicki is either an online marketing genius or a culinary genius, and indeed he may be a little of both.

At MenuPages, we editors get a chance to see the user-review sausage being made. It's thanks to a personal look at every user-submitted review that we rarely end up on Eater's Adventures in Shilling. And this process gives some insight into how so-called "black pr" (or sock puppets or shills or some possibly nicer, yet-to-be-coined name) works. It's not hard to spot a shill, but what is hard is determining what we'll call here a partial shill.

This may be somebody who knows an owner or staffer and eats at the restaurant as a paying customer and then is asked to post a glowing review. It may be someone known to the staff or owners who actually receives something for free in exchange for a good review. It may be a staffer or owner trashing the competition.

But it can be very hard to pinpoint, in the larger discussion, when a satisfied customer becomes a shill. Would it be a conflict of interests if a restaurant owner, circulating amongst tables of chatty satisfied diners, mentioned that he'd appreciate any feedback in a certain online forum? Probably not. What if he then sent over a dessert or a coffee? Well, yes, then it would be a payoff.

But what if he was planning on sending out that dessert or espresso anyway and the topic of online reviewing came up naturally in conversation? Well, the adage says something about the appearance of conflict of interest being tantamount to actual conflict of interest, but if everything were that strict, restaurateurs and diners would only ever discuss the weather. And where's the fun in that?

Also, doesn't it make sense that an increasingly net-savvy dining public would naturally post a lot of positive feedback if a particular restaurant regularly impresses? Of course, and you won't find a much more net-savvy group than lower Manhattan diners.

What does all that say about Pawlicki and La Sirene? Well, we don't know yet, but one sure thing is that La Sirene is now on our radar for the next time we're hungry in TriBeCa. Something's working for him.

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other
New York Dining [Open Table]
La Sirene [MenuPages]
La Sirene [Official Site]

[Photo: via La Sirene official site]

We thought only some Ella Fitzgerald lyrics could describe our feelings as we crank out this week's openings and closings!

Openings:

Brookline: Head to DeNo's Pizza, "Home of the Sicilian Pizza King," where's Alexander's used to be located. Their other spot in West Roxbury is said to be great for thin-crust pizza and subs, so we're guessing their new outpost will be as well. [Chowhound]

Davis Square: As we mentioned last week, Davis Square's Boloco is heading out. As a replacement, Reading restaurant Green Tomatoes will be opening a second outpost, appropriately named Green Tomatoes 2. Starting at the beginning of August, they will be offering everything from sandwich wraps to prepared meals such as quiches and stuffed chicken. However, no mention of those green tomatoes being fried. [Chowhound]

Closings:

Jamaica Plain: Word about town is that Cafe D in JP is definitely going out of business by September, and a southern Indian restaurant will be taking its place. [Chowhound]

[Photo: Buckingham Boston Apartments]

A couple of Friday reports helped shed a little light on the recent fiasco of a salmonella scare that started with tomatoes and ended with red-faced public health officials.

According to an AP story on the ABC News website, part of the difficulty in conducting a speedy, efficient investigation had to do with poor record keeping that was a result of weak regulations lobbied for by fruit and vegetable growers themselves:

The industry pressured the Bush administration years ago to limit the paperwork companies would have to keep to help U.S. health investigators quickly trace produce that sickens consumers, according to interviews and government reports reviewed by The Associated Press.

The White House also killed a plan to require the industry to maintain electronic tracking records that could be reviewed easily during a crisis to search for an outbreak's source. Companies complained the proposals were too burdensome and costly, and warned they could disrupt the availability of consumers' favorite foods.

The apparent but unintended consequences of the lobbying success: a paper record-keeping system that has slowed investigators, with estimated business losses of $250 million. So far, nearly 1,300 people in 43 states, the District of Columbia and Canada have been sickened by salmonella since April.

"If the FDA had been given the resources and authority years ago that it asked for to solve these kinds of problems, I think we would have solved this already," said William Hubbard, a former FDA associate commissioner.

On July 3, Minnesota e-mailed the feds. After tracing credit card receipts — to find what the restaurant's healthy customers didn't eat — there was good evidence that the jalapenos were sickening people. And, officials had a diagram tracing the pepper shipments all the way back to three farms in Mexico.

One of those farms shipped peppers through the same large warehouse in McAllen, Texas, where Food and Drug Administration inspectors weeks later would find a single contaminated Mexican-grown pepper being packed by a neighboring vendor.

AP: Food Industry Bitten by Its Lobbying Success [ABC]
Pepper tip helped salmonella hunt continue

[Photo: Jalapeno peppers via Florian/flickr]

Allston is full of tiny surprises around every corner and delicious, underappreciated treats. Fun Food Snackery lives up to its name, featuring an exciting array of crepes, fruit, and Summer Snow. FFS uses Christina's ice cream, which we mentioned last week. Big points for local businesses hooking up with one another. They're also conveniently open every single day until 11pm.

Another reason to love FFS? It really is for everyone. Dairy-free desserts are available for the lactose intolerant - fruit and sorbet, among others - and this opens up a wide range of vegan options as well. Free ice cream toppings and the wheel you can spin to help with these complicated decisions keeps us coming back for more.

Fun Food Snackery [MenuPages]
Fun Food Snackery [Official Site]

[Photo: Hachimaki/Flickr]

• Iowa workers protest conditions at a kosher meatpacking plant. [New York Times]

• A DC raw foods restaurant will be nation's first "crowdsourced" restaurant, offer oat-hemp balls. [Washington Post]

• Users of Los Angeles food banks are hungry. [LA Times]

• West Bank Palestinians are thirsty. [Chicago Tribune]

• Meanwhile, in Japan, they're going wild for eel drinks. [San Francisco Chronicle]

Lately, Brooklyn-based duo Matt and Kim have been in pretty heavy rotation in our music library. These guys are just so poppy and summery, it's great. But we had no idea just how fun and apparently food-obsessed they were until seeing this video. Look at that! Wouldn't you totally like to have lunch with these two and talk about things like Mr. Potato Head's psychological problems or how awesome frozen grapes are? Answer that after you watch this, the funnest foodiest music video ever:

Matt and Kim [Official Site]

No matter how you roll through Inman Square, there are ways to feed your face. Consider the following:

S&S Restaurant might not be a diamond among stones, but it does do a few things right, namely a huge menu and the ability to handle large groups. It's nice to breakfast-all-day-with-a-group options in our town aside from the IHOP, ya know? It sure is hard to mess up scrambled eggs and toast.

But for the seekers among us, we'd send you down the block to All Star Sandwich Bar. Some balk at an $8 sammie, but we like local spots with nice folks who fill our bellies. It might be a sandwich place, but their chili is to die for. And can you say free Oreos?

Alas, real dessert is often in order. Not to fear: Christina's has every strange and wonderful flavor of ice cream or sorbet you could want. Everything is seasonal, rotating around like the planet, but we say you can never go wrong with chocolate.

S&S Restaurant and Deli [Official Site]
All Star Sandwich Bar [Official Site]
Christina's Homemade Ice Cream [Official Site]

[Photo: lilivanili/Flickr]

• Mac and cheese, please, filled with fancy ingredients. [MP: Boston]

• Oh, let's just have a basic dinner: a tiny bird drowned in Armagnac. [MP: Chicago]

• A crepe would not be creepy! [MP: Philadelphia]

• Can we just have some damn coffee cake that won't kill us? [MP: San Francisco]

• How about just some fish that won't give us food poisoning? [MP: South Florida]

We know, sometimes it's hard to get excited about what seems like a corner bar in what isn't your own 'hood. Thing is, Delux is worth a trip across our fair city, rain or shine. With what we sometimes called "inspired food," this hidden gem serves famous quesadillas year 'round, plus a rotating sample of amazing salads (arugula, goat cheese, and pears are often involved), hearty soups (tomato with your grilled cheese, anyone?), stellar pasta selections (often a ravioli containing spinach or pumpkin), and tons of goodness on tap, not open Sundays. Get there.

Delux Cafe, 100 Chandler Street, Boston, (617) 338-5258

[Photo: LukeLucas/PicasaWeb]

• EPA bans carbofuran residue on domestic and international foods, food safety advocates rejoice. [Washington Post]

• The New Orleans Times-Picayune is reviewing restaurants for the first time since Hurricane Katrina. [New York Times]

• McCain sees Obama's trip to Germany and raises him a visit to an Ohio German restaurant. [LA Times]

• New England based grocery chain thinks Whole Foods stole its slogan. [Boston Globe]

• Colorado scientists can tell you just how good (or bad) your senses of taste and smell really are. [San Francisco Chronicle]

Perhaps unsurprisingly given our occupation, the bulk of our life plans revolve around food and our bucket list is no different. We want to do the full tasting at The French Laundry and eat roast chicken at L'Ami Louis. We want to visit the food centers in Singapore and the open air markets in Provence. Most of all, though, we want to eat our way through the United States. There are huge regions we've never explored and we're very anxious to eat barbecue in North Carolina, gumbo in New Orleans, and ripe-from-the-tree avocados in California, to name just a few.

The pre-kickin'-it food plans of other MP editors are after the jump, but really, we're awfully curious about what's on your list, so leave it in the comments.

Helen, MP: Chicago:

• Ortolan. OMG totally absolutely Ortolan. This is my total absolute #1.

• Street food in Bangkok or Singapore (or both!)

• Butter-poached lobster at Per Se or the French Laundry (it’s never been on the menu when I’ve been there - sigh)

• Meat from an animal that I’ve slaughtered/hunted myself (cow? Sheep? I feel like I owe it to my carnivorousness to look something in the eye, then kill it and eat it)

• The duck fat fries at Hot Doug's in Chicago

• Oysters straight from the ocean – see them in the water, reach in, shuck, slurp. Repeat.

• Pibales – baby eels – outdoors, at 3 in the morning, drunk, in Basque Country

Adam, MP: San Francisco:

• Monkey Brains on the half, um, head. Just to see if I’d have the stones.

• Caviar. Lots of really expensive stuff, not the $12 budget shit I’ve had so far. What does a $100 mouthful of fish eggs taste like?

• Ostrich egg(s?)

Elsa, MP: Philadelphia:

• Like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, except with jamon, boquerones, and various chocolate things, I would like to eat my way through Spain.

• The other thing would be a seafood tour of the world, especially since there is so much potential for both incredible variety and the best things I have ever put in my mouth. Just think about the differences between say, Japanese, Icelandic, Croatian, and Peruvian seafood. Or, Spanish, Scandinavian, and Cape Verdean, etc.

What's on Your "Bucket List"? [Serious Eats]

[Photo: I Can Has Cheezburger]

A sure bet for a good meal, Shabu-Zen is our runner up for the Boston C-town shabu scene. Dig: fresh ingredients, quick service, yummy sake, a wide array of veggies, delicate slivers of beef and chicken for your cooking pleasure. First time? The staff will provide instructions. Open 'til midnight on the weekends!

But Kaze is by far our fave. This Chinatown destination is a must-have for a shabu craving, conveniently located in the heart of downtown madness. And, if it makes you feel better about the authenticity of your food, we've had a few minor communication problems with the staff here over time. Lucky for us, we find this endearing and a sign that we are, in fact, in the right place for the right thing.

Shabu Zen [Official Site]
Kaze Shabu Shabu [Official Site]

[Photo: w00kie/Flickr]

It happens every year about this time. Oppressive heat and humidity and general grossness make us nostalgic for the heady days of mid-April, when the temperature was mild and just about everything was newly in (or coming into) season. But one favorite was just on its way out, and right about now we miss it terribly.

Fortunately, there is hope yet for oyster lovers.

Traditional wisdom states that you must not eat oysters during months without the letter "r" in them. That is to say, summer months. A few years ago, while researching this story for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, we learned that that had to do with the oysters' spawning season--they get all milky and weird when they spawn.

According to this little New York Times item from earlier in the week, oysters and other shellfish — especially local harvests — can become contaminated from summer algae blooms or "red tides."

But there is hope yet, oyster lover. You don't have to wait until September to slurp. One thing we learned during our trip to the San Francisco Bay Area's oyster country is that some local farms are growing imported varieties, such as Kumomotos, from Japan, which spawn in alternate months from our North American regulars.

Also, as the Times points out, government regulations prevent aquaculture outfits from selling shellfish grown in contaminated water. Many growers finish their oysters in clean-water tanks, which flush out contaminants.

So there you go, you can totally eat oysters in the summer if you order the right kinds and make sure you go through government-regulated suppliers. The Oyster Guide website has a bunch of farms listed. Some even do mail order.

Being There: In The Raw [San Francisco Bay Guardian]
The Claim: Never Eat Shellfish in a Month Without an R [New York Times]
Where to Order Oysters [The Oyster Guide]

[Photo: The walrus and the carpenter from Alice in Wonderland via superfluous consonants/flickr]

Silvertone Bar & Grill: A runner-up for best dining downtown, Silvertone keeps things low-key with menu staples like their steak tips and cold martinis. Legendary M&C keeps many folks going back though, time after time. Filling for dinner, a bit too heavy for lunch. Did we mention the friendly staff?

Coda: An excellent beer selection can compliment your M&C here, chock full of peas and a little on the runny side, hot out of the kitchen. Careful, vegetarians! This one also includes pancetta (but they'll leave it out if you ask nicely).

Zon's: This Jamaica Plain treat claims the prize for now. A baked but saucy gourmet version of pasta and cheese, add sweet peas for a few bucks more and find yourself in heaven. We already love Zon's for the amazingly chill atmosphere, great burgers, and classic drinks, but their M&C topped with bread crumbs takes the award for best comfort food either side of the river. Worth a subway trip or drive out of your way. Far, far out of your way, even.

Silvertone [Official Site]
Coda [Official Site]
Zon's [Official Site]

[Photo: billaday/Flickr]

• Rapper 50 Cent is suing Taco Bell for messing with his name. [Wall Street Journal]

• A look at the detective work that went into tracking down that nasty jalapeno [AP/Chicago Tribune]

• An Ohio woman charged with assault after throwing peanuts at her allergic neighbor [Fox News]

• Seems a Wisconsin grocery store owner might have been selling stolen fruit [Twincities.com]

• Rising food prices may be a culprit behind the rising crime rate in Manila [GMANews.tv]

Serious Eats linked to a Guardian story today about first date food dos and don'ts that promptly made me laugh. I think I've broken almost every rule on this list. Let's start with the very first sentence:

Most first dates take place in restaurants. God knows why.

So anyway, first rule: insist that your date picks the restaurant, which actually isn't a bad idea. Except what if he/she suggests a restaurant that isn't within an acceptable price range? How do you explain, no, sorry, I'm a cheap bastard who can't afford to take you there, even if we go Dutch. Yeah, upon further consideration, that's a bad idea. You make the date, you pick the restaurant.

Her other rules include avoiding the following foods: sushi and other food eaten with chopsticks (can get messy), spaghetti (same as chopsticks), garlic (bad breath), coffee (worse breath), oysters (too obvious), Brussels sprouts, beans, curry, sunchokes, fresh pasta, kimchi, any cruciferous vegetables, and tuna (all apparently in the flatulence-producing family). Also no-nos: sharing plates (huh?!) and having an extra drink.

After the jump, what MP editors have to say about this...

Carolina (MP: South Florida): personally, I think the "rules" are mostly bullshit. I eat whatever the hell I want to eat on a first date
Leila (MP: Boston): I try not to eat anything too messy
Carolina: what did you have on your first date with your boyfriend?
Leila: Well, we were friends first
the first time we ever had dinner (which was as friends), I had a bacon cheeseburger
the night we got together, I also had a bacon cheeseburger
i think i had one the other time we hung out as friends too
Helen (MP: Chicago): that wins
Carolina: I had steak frites with my boyfriend on our first date
Leila: that's a good date food
Carolina: it was ok. not that great, actually. Steak was overcooked.
Adam (MP: San Francisco): The last time I was on a first date we went to a Polish place and split a few things. Nothing spells romance like coleslaw and meatballs.
Carolina: the article advised against splitting anything
Leila: why? Splitting is romantic!
Carolina: I don't know. something about people being too polite to let the other person have the last dumpling or whatever
Adam: I also think really messy things like lobster or crab or barbecue, that can be a project, are a good way to break the ice
Leila: that's valid
Helen: assuming you're on a date with an adventurous eater
Leila: although i would say that on a first date, i am usually wearing something cute that I wouldn’t want to spill on
Helen: it could totally backfire
Adam: but that's another good thing about shellfish: you get a bib. Then you both look ridiculous
Leila: bibs are not sexy
Adam: you both look dumb and you both are eating so weirdly that you are prevented from even trying to be graceful. It levels the playing field for boors like me.
Leila: i am a delicate bacon cheeseburger eating flower. And! I would just like to point out that he was impressed by my love of greasy food.
Carolina: until my boyfriend came along, I out-ate every guy I'd ever dated. Like, at every meal. Easily. I was finishing food off their plates.
Adam: you know what? I disagree with the way this article treats alcohol too. I think having an extra drink on a first date is a good thing. It’s all about breaking the ice, right?
Leila: It's all about The Magic Zone. 2.5 drinks, y’all!
Helen: oh i just remembered that on a first date, this guy took me to sake bar decibel, which is this subterranean secret sake bar in the E. Village that is SO cool, but then he proceeded to destroy the awesomeness-points he got for introducing me to the place by attempting to order in Japanese. Which was incredibly pathetic.
Leila: on the night my boyfriend and i got together, we drank at least a pitcher and a half of beer and did karaoke. Truly, ours is a love story for the ages.

There you have it folks. Think of it as a sort of primer on where to take someone who actually enjoys eating out on a date.

What to Eat on a First Date [Serious Eats]
Are you ready to order? [The Observer via The Guardian]

Photo: IMDB

When Bostonians are searching for quality Italian cuisine, they generally head towards the North End for the authentic Italian experience. Don't be mistaken; we love the North End, but for those who work in Government Center or around MGH, it's too far of a hike for a quick lunch. Well, step into Antonio's on Cambridge Street and immediately you're transported from Beacon Hill to Bologna. The owners are often sitting out front enjoying a cigar and a story, and while they aren't quite the Corleone family, other Beacon Hill Italian spots can only attempt to duplicate their Italian authenticity. The familial aspect is what keeps bringing the regulars back, and as a result Antonio's is a favorite of Beacon Hillers and those who work in the area. But don't for a second imagine the food is below par. We could eat boatloads of their ravioli marinara, and with most entrees hovering around the $10 mark, the prices are bargains considering the massive portions. We brought a party of ten people looking for a reasonably priced restaurant for a group dinner, and the lively staff posed for photos and entertained us as if it was dinner theater. They're simply friendly and appreciative in a true Italian manner. So consider stopping by Antonio's, because it's really an offer you can't refuse.

Antonio's Cucina Italiana [Official Site]

[Photo: Antonio's Cucina Italiana]

An article in today's Epi-Log stimulated waves of nostalgia for a Martin family favorite summertime tradition: The county fair. It was a fine article, but didn't really focus on food, so here's a follow up with some personal culinary favorites available at most county and state fairs.

Of course, the main rule is to eat things at the fair that you can't get anywhere else. If you're in Wisconsin, for example, get cream puffs, even though they're not traditional fair food. In Minnesota, eat nothing that doesn't come on a stick. In western Washington, top your burger with Walla Walla sweet onions.

But in addition to the regional favorites, pretty much all fairs bring with them a host of classics that you can get almost nowhere else. After the jump you'll find a few personal preferences. Feel free to comment with your own favorites/forgettables.

Must-eats:

• Funnel Cake. Duh. This is like the food of the fair. You don't have to eat it first but if you don't have one you really don't deserve to be here. We normally just go for one straightaway to get into the spirit of the thing.

• Unless you're a grownup and can drink beer, that weird lemon ice drink should be your beverage of choice. Soda pop is boring and for the other 50 weeks of the year. At the fair, you've got to go for something fruity but still junky. That sugary yellow sludge is perfect.

• Two words: DEEP FRIED: Get anything and everything you can find dunked in hot oil. Fairs are notorious for really crazy treats like fried candy bars and Twinkies. They also drop every kind of vegetable imaginable in the oil, so get one of each. And don't complain that you're full. There's plenty of time to not eat when you get home.

(An aside: One time at the Alameda County fair, when it was like a million degrees out, we were bravely wading into a tray of maybe five or six different kinds of fried vegetables with creamy sauces when our little clique wandered into one of the livestock areas with us in tow.

Suddenly we were trying to enjoy fried artichoke hearts with ranch dressing in the middle of a 100-degree room filled with 200 cows and their droppings. This is not the way to enjoy your food. Tell your friends to cool it for one freaking second and make them sit in the shade and eat fried with you. You'll all be the better for it.)

• Outlandish soft-serve. This gets overlooked sometimes, but a lot of those traveling carts carry weird flavors of soft-serve ice-cream like pistachio and banana. Get it dunked in chocolate or rolled in sprinkles and you're golden.

• Chili!

Don't Waste My Time:

• Caramel and candy apples need to make some room. Christ, why are these so popular? Who wants an apple? Nobody, that's who. Fine, cover it in gross candy approximation. It's still fruit. And on this one day when mother isn't forcing it down your throat, do you really want an out-of-season apple taking up valuable stomach real estate? No, you do not. Plus, they're super dangerous to losing a tooth, which would put you out of commission for the rest of the day. Steer clear.

• Sno Cones and Cotton Candy are soooooo boring. You may get a cotton candy to split amongst the group, but seriously? These are like the lowest-budget treats in the world. Any half-baked city hall or school district fund-raiser will probably rent a cotton candy machine or sno-cone cart and you'll get your fill of what is basically straight sugar then. Save it.

• Soda pop: See above.

• Why must every bastion of cart-based, hot-dog-dominated junk food such as the fair or the ball game also contain pizza? Unless you're getting it from an actual parlor, or at least a restaurant with a legitimate oven, pizza never any good. In fact, the fair variety is almost guaranteed to be undercooked and doughy and lame with like four pepperonis. Will America ever learn?

• Those huge lollipops are going to be fun for about two minutes and then they will become a burden. Resist.

Top Five Things To Do At The County Fair

[Photo: Funnel cake with M&Ms via ajagendorf25/flickr]

Ah, Grandma's house. The smell of mothballs, the endless supply of Kleenex stashed up her sleeve, the sofa covered in plastic to protect from impending Metamucil spills. Well as much as we miss our Grandma, we appreciate a living room with a more relaxed ambiance. Enter The Living Room, located in the Mercantile Wharf Building in the North End. Not only can you sink into their plush sofas and rest your drink on the community coffee tables, but this is one living room where eating and drinking on the furniture is encouraged.

Choose from their list of over 30 martinis ranging from flavors such as Tiramisu to Pomegranate. Our personal favorite, the Key Lime Martini, tastes just like a slice of grandmas key lime pie. But then again it's better, because it'll get you tipsy like Grandma won't. And with an extended dining room featuring a 150 gallon saltwater aquarium, plus a spacious patio that overlooks the beautiful waterfront, the living room proves to be the perfect spot for dinner and drinks. Just don't pass out on the couch after too many martinis. The bouncers will kick you out, and we're pretty sure Grandma wouldn't approve either.

The Living Room [Official Site]

[Photo: The Living Room]

• Slow Food is hoping to put on the "Woodstock of food" in San Francisco this Labor Day. [NYT]

• Grocers are now pulling jalapeno peppers from shelves in the next salmonella scare. [LA Times]

• Lack of preparation, poor record-keeping — there are a million things wrong with our food safety system. [WSJ]

• Grocers are adjusting to new consumer spending habits, thanks to inflation. [Star-Tribune]

• A proposed law would ban any new fast-food restaurants from opening in a 32-mile area of Los Angeles. [LA Times]

But. There's always a but. The gently mocking tone in the article ("what won't these rich people pay people to do?!") nagged at something in the back of our mind, and we weren't sure quite what it was until we ran across this op-ed in The Food Section. Here's the thing: what, essentially, is the difference between hiring an organic backyard vegetable garden consultant (which we are happy to make fun of) and, say, hiring a landscape designer and the requisite team of college students on break in order to lay out and mulch your zinnias (which we accept as totally okay)? Where's the real difference between buying a share in a CSA and asking The Fruit Guys to add you to their roster?

Because as much as we're inclined to make fun of the folks who contract out their contributions to sustainable agriculture, we can't really look past the fact that (a) we are not exactly out there getting our hands dirty ourself, and (b) we spent a good portion of our lunch hour