Slashfood

While the urge to guzzle Guinness on St. Patrick's Day may be overpowering, there's no need to follow the herd -- or subject yourself to (gasp!) green beer. These 10 stouts are every bit the flavorful alternative. And yes, if you ask nicely, we'll even draw a shamrock in the beer's foam.

Bell's Kalamazoo Stout:
The marvelous Michigan stout pours coal-black, with an aroma of roasted malt and a licorice-like flavor blended with bittersweet chocolate.

Rogue's Shakespeare Stout:
Inky with a fat brown head, Shakespeare tastes like mocha coffee reimagined as beer.

Sierra Nevada Stout:
This affordable, widely available stout doesn't disappoint, providing a creamy body with roasted bitterness and a little hint of hops.

The sons of celebrity chef Paula Deen hope their new magazine will inspire a lot of good old-fashioned home cooking.

The quarterly created by Jamie and Bobby Deen and published by Hoffman Media just launched its first issue -- which features almost 100 recipes. And while Deen Bros. Good Cooking aims to get men into the kitchen, it also wants to bring families together around the dinner table.

"The recession can have some positive effects," Jamie Deen, 42, told Slashfood. "It's going to force people to not go out and eat fast food. We think eating at home is one of the first changes. Get everybody's feet back under the same table."

In that vein, the magazine he co-founded with his brother Bobby, 39, offers a series of simple recipes made with affordable, easy-to-find ingredients – like cheese and beer dip, Creole shrimp, pesto sirloin steak, shrimp and mushroom pasta, tilapia piccata and a grilled banana dessert.

"We're just showing people easy ways to cook good food that's good for you," Deen said. "We keep it real simple."

Three more companies are recalling foods that may have been contaminated with Salmonella-tainted hydrolyzed vegetable protein made by Las Vegas-based Basic Food Flavors.

Procter and Gamble is recalling Restaurant Cravers Cheeseburger and Family Faves Taco Night Pringles. Nestle Professional North America issued a recall for about 6,000 pounds of ready-to-eat bacon, and Ruiz Foods is recalling ready-to-eat beef, Food Safety News reported.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a massive recall of HVP products from Basic Food Flavors last week. HVP is a a salty and savory flavor enhancer used in many processed foods.

If you watched the Oscars on Sunday night, then you'll know that the The Cove won for Best Documentary for its unflinching expose of the Japanese coastal town of Taiji, where fishermen hunt and slaughter dolphins.

But the makers of the film have not finished uncovering marine abuse. According to the New York Times, the filmmakers (who include actor Fisher Stevens) initiated a sting operation on a Los Angeles restaurant (ironically called "The Hump") after hearing from friends that whale was on its menu.

Americans today tend to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with platefuls of Irish fare and pints of Irish stout, but the pseudo-Gaelic menu's actually a relatively recent addition to a holiday long marked by dyeing food green.

St. Patrick's been on the Irish calendar for more than 1,000 years, honoring the fifth century Brit who led the first full-scale Christian mission to the Emerald Isle. A resolutely religious occasion, the only treat associated with the celebration in Old Ireland was bacon and cabbage, since Lenten prohibitions on meat were waived for the holiday. Food and drink were such minor considerations that Irish law shuttered bars on St. Patty's Day through the 1970s.

The holiday acquired its jollity in the U.S., where Irish immigrants in 1762 began expressing their patriotism with raucous parades and parties. While a bigoted populace initially shunned the festivities, the sheer number of Americans with Irish roots spurred a 20th century surge in Irish-American political power and ancestral pride. By the 1930s, Americans of all backgrounds were joining in the Mar. 17 fun, cheering on parade participants and cooking holiday meals.

• New York coffee, long relegated to the B-list, is now emerging as a first-run star.
• Meanwhile, those 2007 wines are elusive, says vintner Aubert de Villaine: "They are like women." Ooh la la.
• Strip House is gaining respect with age. (We're talking steak, folks -- not the other kind of stripping.)
• Feeling too poor for steak? Head to the East Village for a roundup of cheap and tasty spots.
• And for dessert, this chocolate pudding recipe confirms what everyone already knows: Nutella rules.

What if walking into a coffee shop were more like stepping into your local wine store? Imagine if you could peruse brews from different regions, processed and prepared by different growers and roasters -- just as you can scan the bottles for a spicy Spanish red or a crisp French Riesling. Would you feel empowered or overwhelmed?

Some boutique coffee shops are banking on the idea that more is more, with cafe owners adopting almost a curator's eye toward the caffeinated offerings. But is this a passing fad or the next wave in coffee connoisseurship?

Read on after the jump to hear what some coffee people think.

You can take your coffee after your meal, or, like photographer and cook stinkkatze, take your coffee and put it in a marinade. Based on a recipe from Good Eats host Alton Brown -- who uses good strong coffee, cider vinegar, molasses and mustard to tenderize and flavor pork -- our blogger uses chicory, which is naturally non-caffeinated. The marinade is later cooked down as a glaze for the meat. Here it's served with sweet potatoes and onions.

A terrific source for all things porcine (as well as for another killer coffee-molasses marinade) is the Complete Book of Pork: A Guide to Buying, Storing, and Cooking the World's Favorite Meat, by Bruce Aidells.

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