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]

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]

• 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.

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]

• 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]

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]

• 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.)

We're not sure that we really "get" the whole steampunk thing. (If you happen to be a food-loving, MenuPages-reading, steampunk, please feel free to explain the allure to us!) That said, this video about steamed hot dogs, or "steam-bangers," does at least present the culture in language we speak fluently. It may not be the most 100% appetizing looking hot dog, but hey; a hot dog is a hot dog.

Unless someone out there has rigged up a steampunk hot dog steamer in their backyard, as far as we know, there's nowhere to find steam-bangers in Philly (yet). If watching this video has set off a Pavlovian desire for hot dogs, never fear! There are plenty of places around town where you can find more conventionally prepared, but no less palatable dogs. After the jump, some ideas!

• Ages and ages ago, Neal answered a reader question about where to find a "Texas Tommy". We stand behind the suggestions he made, and wish to throw in our own two cents about the splendor of the hot dogs at Moe's Hot Dog House. We tend to fancy the "PGW," which is loaded with baked beans and onions, but there's no going wrong.

• Five Guys may be a chain, but that's no reason to knock their wursts. Okay, so they're not exactly
wursts, but still: the nicely grilled hot dogs come on a terrifically absorbent bun, with a ton of options for toppings.

• The hot dogs at Bubby's Brisket are exceedingly straightforward, but also delicious. We say: keep things classic here with nothing more than relish and mustard.

Moe's Hot Dog House [MenuPages]
Five Guys [MenuPages]
Five Guys [Official Site]Bubby's Brisket

[Laughing Squid]

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]

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]

• 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]

A lot of the time, we can get pretty selfish about our food and easily forget that many people don't have the same access to food that we do, in terms of taste, quality, nutritional value, and variety. Then, articles like today's Inquirer piece about Philadelphia's homeless population come along, and snap things into sharp focus.

Apparently, the city of Brotherly Love kind of lives up to its name when it comes to homelessness, which is heartening! Where other American cities are dealing with rising homelessness by outlawing associated activities (loitering, sleeping on benches, etc.), Philly has taken a more laissez-faire approach, and doesn't treat homelessness as a crime. So. We're very glad to hear that our city isn't implementing draconian edicts that don't do anything to solve the problem. That said, once our moment of pride had passed, we got to wondering: if Philly is relatively tolerant of the homeless, what, if anything is going on to help feed them, as well as the just plain needy?

After the jump, the very, very tiniest tip of the iceberg.

Well, first, as context, we found out that the number of people receiving hunger relief in the Delaware Valley has increased 100% since 2005. This can either be read as good (more people who need food are getting it!), or sobering (the number of people who need food assistance is rising). The bright-ish side of things is that there are actually a number of hunger relief programs in the Philly area.

The most prominent one is probably Philabundance, which collects food throughout the region and distributes it to member agencies like food cupboards, shelters, and emergency kitchens. It's possible to volunteer with them, help run food drives, and donate money. We are most intrigued by their "Share The Harvest" program, which "asks local and community gardeners to grow extra fuits and vegetables or collect any surplus produce from their gardens to donate towards the fight against hunger." They also hold a "Canstruction" fundraiser, in which teams of architects and engineers build elaborate structures out of cans of food, and all proceeds go to Philabundance. (Yes, the pictured banana split is almost all-can.)

What else? The Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger provides education, outreach, and advocacy. SHARE Food Program is sort of like the ultimate food co-op. Finally, our CSA donates the inevitable surplus of veggies to a local church. We would bet that other CSAs do this as well, so if you have a share in one, now might be a good time to humbly pat yourself on the back for both supporting sustainable local agriculture and doing your part to fight hunger.

Phila. More Tolerant Of Homeless Than Other Cities [Philadelphia Inquirer]

[Photo: Mark Busse/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]

• 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]

Of the many joys of summer, we find that there is one in particular that reigns supreme. Is it hot dogs and baseball games you might ask? Not quite, although those two things together are beyond great. Outdoor and rooftop dining? Mmm, while we do love eating and drinking alfresco, that's not exactly what we mean either. So, it must have something to do with farmer's markets and the abundance of fresh produce, right? (Right?) Well, we might as well just come clean with it: although food is usually first in our heart and mind, as far as we're concerned, the frivolous summer movie is one of unparalleled thrills of the season. That off our chest, it's time for confession #2, which is that we saw Mamma Mia! last night and loved it. The music! The dancing! The breathtaking shots of the glittering Aegean sea! It was enough to make us want to burst into song as we left the theater.

Everything always ends up circling back to food for us though, and this morning, we found ourselves pondering that sparkling sea, and not just because of its beauty. No. We started pondering the wealth of seafood right below the surface, and how much we could go for Greek seafood tonight. Fortunately, there is no dearth of terrific Greek restaurants here in Philly, and our craving can be satisfied pretty easily.

• New BYOB Kanella has been getting raves right and left, and with good reason. The restaurant serves truly authentic Cypriot fare, and the owner is fastidious about quality and freshness. The fish changes daily, so it's hard to point to a specific dish, but if the dorado is the fish of the day, it shouldn't be missed. We haven't had the chance to try it yet, but by all accounts, it's grilled to perfection.

• Effie's is a tried and true option for excellent Greek food in the city. If we were going tonight, we would ask to be seated in the patio garden, and order the armonia (sauteed shrimp, mussels, calamari in a spicy tomato sauce over pasta). The lack of a sea breeze, and definitely not the food, is what keeps us from feeling transported to the Greek Isles, instead of a garden in Philly.

• Lastly, we feel that no round-up of superlative Greek seafood joints would be complete without mention of the Dmitri's on S 3rd. We tend to get evangelical about this place, both around people who have been (it's a chorus of ringing endorsements), and those who haven't (we fear we might get overly pushy). The fare is the picture of simplicity: grilled fish, octopus, shrimp, and so on, with very little by way of embellishments other than olive oil and lemon juice, but with food this good, there is no need for more.

Effie's [MenuPages]
Effie's [Official Site] Kanella [MenuPages]

[Photo: Foodaphilia]

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]

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]

• 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

We're not trying to be your social engagements secretary, but if you're looking for a pleasant way to spend a summer eve, here's one: Shakespeare in Clark Park, from now through August 3rd. "As You Like It" is the play, and verdant and vital Clark Park is the site. One of the lovely things about outdoor theater is that there is no fussy theater district to deal with or pricey pre-theater prix fixe menus. No, indeed! With this kind of event, you can be as casual as you want to be, and show up with nothing more than a picnic blanket, some chairs, if you are fancy like that, and some awesome food to munch on while you take in all the culture. So, without further ado, here's what we might go for as our take-out "pre-theater" meal.

• Beloved Koch's Deli is but a few blocks away, and will satisfy the most ardent meat-eaters in the audience. The fare isn't exactly refined, but oh my goodness does it taste good. They often give out samples of cold cuts or cheeses for those waiting in line, so you can find out what you're getting into before ordering your sandwich. We haven't been to Koch's in a while, because of that whole trying-to-be-heart-healthy thing, but if you're going to indulge, we should admit that we think about the "Lou Koch Special," which involves lofty layers of roast beef, turkey, and chopped liver more than we'd like to say.

• Gojjo is a hop, skip, and a jump away from the park, and a good bet if Ethiopian food sounds just right. Some might call it too messy for take-out, but we don't see any need to be prim about this whole affair! The fact is, that besides being thoroughly toothsome, Ethiopian is good for sharing, and we would be happy as a clam digging into one of the combination plates from Gojjo, especially if one of the dishes was the flavorful okra. Plus doesn't it seem fittingly Shakespearean to eat with one's hands?

• Finally, before we ever sunk our teeth into a banh mi, we were completely obsessed with the tofu hoagies at Fu-Wah Mini Market, which is right up the street on Baltimore and 47th. The fried tofu comes on a crispy hoagie roll and is topped with a generous dose of sriracha sauce, as well as a smattering of jalapeños. It is truly the stuff of dreams.

More info on the production is available at Shakespeare in Clark Park.

Koch's Deli [MenuPages]
Gojjo [MenuPages]

[Photo: freeformkatia/flickr]

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]

• 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]

As great as it is to eat out and constantly embark on culinary adventures, there are times when doing so becomes a bit of a strain on the wallet, and even the most frequent restaurant-goers among us require a pause. We can push this gloomy thought to the back of our mind though (at least around the time of our birthday), because there a some restaurants out there kind enough to shower birthday wishes upon us - at least in the form of free food!

• Popular Indian restaurant Tiffin, will give you a totally free dinner on your birthday. Yes, you read that right! All you've got to do is sign up for a "Tiffin Card" (which is 100% free of charge and also gives you heaps of other discounts), and once your birthday rolls around, mosey on over for your appetizer plus main course. We always want to try everything on the menu, but perhaps a birthday merits something as tasty as the wonderfully tender and spicy lamb chops. (A quick note while on the subject of Tiffin: the Mt. Airy location is set to open this Thursday, the 24th.) [via Phoodie]

• For those of you on the Main Line, or willing to hop on the R5 for upscale food, Tango Bistro in Bryn Mawr has a similar deal. Enroll in the "preferred guest program," which also gets you a gift card, among other things, and when you go in within 14 days of your birthday, they will take $17 off the check. Okay, so it's not quite as free as the special at Tiffin, but having had a delectable meal there, we think that it's still a very nice deal. The grilled swordfish with sauteed spinach, potato gnocchi, marinara, and citrus caper butter seems pretty birthday-worthy to us, but really, you have the pick of the menu!

Tiffin [MenuPages]
Tiffin [Official Site]
Tango Bistro [MenuPages]
Tango Bistro [Official Site]

[Photo: stOOpidgErL/flickr]

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 today discussing how terrific it is to send our laundry out to a wash-n-fold service despite the fact that we have a completely free washing machine literally three feet from our bedroom, simply because it is so much more convenient to have someone else do it for us.

If we're willing to contract out our laundry for eighty-five cents a pound, to no ultimate global benefit, who are we to smirk at someone who allocates a portion of their disposable income to increase the demand for local produce, ethically-raised meat, and seasonal deployment of ingredients? Not to mention the jobs that it creates (and sustains): gardeners, small-scale farmers, responsible restauranteurs and chefs. And let's not forget that the people with enough money to outsource their virtuousness are the same people with enough money to subsidize community gardens, greenmarkets, food pantries, and get-kids-to-eat-their-veggies initiatives &mdash all good things, all things we wish we spent more time working to further, but don't. Quite possibly because we are so lazy we can't even be bothered to fold our own t-shirts.

So, um, where exactly was that part worth mocking, again?

A Locally Grown Diet With Fuss but No Muss [NYT]
Op Ed: Is Eating Local Earnest or Elitist? [The Food Section]

[Photo: CSA crop, via mikaela_'s Flickr]

Could this lean economy mark the beginning of the end of the homebody hipster — the college-educated, post-feminist indie-rocker with her baking pans and knitting needles and house cats? Maybe so.

A story on Marketplace last Friday explored the sharp decline in the popularity of knitting, which took off just as rapidly in the high-stress years after 9/11 terrorist attacks. "Worried women knit," one commenter said. But it seems the belt-tightening required in most households has left little room for that kind of hobby.

Similarly, the Associated Press reported yesterday that the long-running cupcake trend is, well, "slimming down" would be a weird phrase for it, but something like that. The new twist: Frosting shots. Get rid of all that annoying, costly cake and just give us the hard, sweet stuff for a buck and a half:

“It's kind of the cut-to-the-chase evolution of cupcakes,” says Tanya Steel, editor in chief of foodie Web site Epicurious.com. “I can imagine it being at parties. It's a great thing to have at an office party. It provides just a little bite of sweetness and yumminess without going whole hog.”

So maybe we're entering a new era of (figuratively) leaner, less-ironic/symbolic food trends, and hobbies (hopefully) borne of interest, rather than fear. Straightforward burgers seem to be holding steady, and large plates are making a comeback. This is a good direction. Just don't take away our lolcats. That hilarious meme needs to stick around forever. You can have the word "meme" back, though.

Knit 1, pearl 2, point and click [Marketplace]
Bottoms up: Frosting fans line up to take shots [AP/San Diego Tribune]
A Hamburger Today [Serious Eats]
Large plates make a comeback [SF Gate]

[Photo: via Kscakes lolcat builder]

• Finally! One lone salmonella-tainted pepper has emerged in Texas. But the mystery continues... [Discover/80Beats]

• Poor regulation of Chinese food production has U.S. Olympians worried about what they eat in Beijing. [ABC News]

• L.A. wants to close 400 fast food restaurants in order to save the obese from themselves. [WSJ]

• Food banks take a page from The Book of Ruth, start setting up gleaning programs. [USAToday]

• Want to eat sustainably and locally without actually doing anything? You lazy locavores are not alone! [NYT]

"I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free..."

Sometimes a thing happens that you don't want to happen, so you use your right to free speech and assembly and you make a ruckus and let the powers that be know of your position, and sometimes it actually works and you create a change, and that big national chain doesn't take over your beloved local cafe, or that international corporation stops funding human rights abuses in the name of profit.

And sometimes, just sometimes, the result you hope for is that your favorite Starbucks store remains open in the face of 600 planned closures. Why would you use your right to free speech and assembly to effect this change? Because you are a dork. Seriously, don't even talk to us. From the Wall Street Journal:

In towns as small as Bloomfield, N.M., and metropolises as large as New York, customers and city officials are starting to write letters, place phone calls, circulate petitions and otherwise plead with the coffee company to change its mind.

"Now that it's going away, we're devastated," said Kate Walker, a facilities manager for software company SunGard Financial Systems who recently learned of a store closing in New York City.

We defy you to claim that Starbucks is your only coffee option, whether you live in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Florida or yes, even Bloomfield, New Mexico. All of these cities had coffee shops before the inception of Starbucks and all will continue to have them after these stores close. And of all the letter-writing and petition campaigns in the world, this might be the least valuable. Really? This is worth getting into activism for?

This is not even a thing against Starbucks. They're just doing what they have to do in these lean economic times. If you really are "devastated" about the loss of your local green giant to the point that you will petition to keep it open, you, sir or ma'am, are a total dork.

Though now we know how it must have felt to be derisive of those who petitioned against these stores opening willy-nilly in the first place.

Full List of Store Closures [Starbucks]
Starbucks Gets Pleas Not to Close Stores [Wall Street Journal]

[Photo: People protest a Starbucks opening in New York via Yoonabomber/flickr]

We grew up with crepes as a special Sunday treat, but quickly learned to make them ourselves so that we could have them for say, breakfast on a Saturday with a simple fruit spread, or dinner on a weeknight folded around some kind of savory delight. All this to say, we are devoted and voracious crepe eaters, and although we are able quell our cravings in a pinch, there is nothing (nothing!) like an expertly composed crepe from a true-blue creperie.

Lucky for us, Philly is home to Creperie Beau Monde, which is basically as delicious and authentic a Breton creperie as you will find outside of Brittany. Not only do they offer the more commonly found sweet crepes made with wheat flour, they also have buckwheat flour crepes, which will totally revolutionize the way you think of savory crepes. The light nutty flavor, and heartier mouthfeel pair so well with cheese, eggs, vegetables, mushrooms, and pretty much anything salty that you might want in your crepe.

You could go for, oh, a midday snack (we're not saying we've done this, but neither are we saying we haven't), but why not make a night of it? See, not only is Beau Monde an excellent dinner stop, with mouthwatering options like the buckwheat crepe with andouille sausage, ratatouille, and caramelized tomato sauce (so rich with flavors) or the grilled chicken breast with leeks, olives, goat cheese, and lemon butter (alternately creamy and sharp), it also happens to have a killer selection of wine and cider. Feeling especially carefree and celebratory? The upstairs is home to L'Etage, a cabaret with live entertainment on most nights.

Let's just say that the number of crepes that we make at home decreased exponentially once we found out about Beau Monde, and leave it at that.

Creperie Beau Monde [MenuPages]
Creperie Beau Monde [Official Site]

[Photo: cathydanh/flickr]

Hello there! My name is Elsa Marvel, and for the time being, I'm filling in for the inimitable Neal Ungerleider. Although Neal will be missed, and following in his footsteps is a daunting task, I'm very, very excited to pick up where he left off! I'll be keeping my finger on the pulse of dining and food-related happenings in our fair city, and posting my findings on openings, closings, good things to eat, great things to eat, and whatever else may come up, a couple times a day.

And who am I, you ask? Well, before anything else, an unrepentant eater: I grew up in a family of foodies, and spent my formative years eating everything from wild boar, to ceviche, to all sorts of veggies. Originally a Yankee from up north, I came down to Philly in 2002 and fell head over heels in love with this city. The beauty of the place and all the super awesome things to do around town helped, but what really did it for me was the food, from as lowbrow (but delicious) as scrapple and cheesesteaks, all the way up to Le Bec-Fin.

When I'm not thinking about what to eat next, I can be found reading, writing, obsessively watching The Wire, besting my Scrabulous opponents, and plotting out outfits for the week. I really love reality show villains, almost any food involving poached eggs, and impromptu dance parties. Questions? Comments? A burning desire to say hello?! Send me a note!

So! On to business as usual here on the MenuPages blog!