Slashfood

Hot days, white cotton dresses, ice cream, and strawberries are forever laced in my memory of childhood summers, when I'd go with my grandmother to her church's ice-cream social. And when I spotted blogger fakeginger's strawberry-cheesecake ice cream, it got me thinking: Whatever happened to the ice-cream social, that vaguely Victorian ritual of summer? A good place to start is to mix up a batch of this strawberry-cheescake ice cream (get Amanda's recipe here), get funky with it, and make pumpkin, crunchy buttermilk, or taffy-apple flavors. Invite a bunch of people over, and let it flow.

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool for a shot at having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.

Rating 10 TV Chefs: Who Would You Want Teaching You How to Cook? [TV Squad]
A House Made Out of Meat? [Shelterpop]
Bon Appétit's Current Digital Strategy [Eater]
The Five Grossest Stadiums in America to Buy Food [Asylum]
Why You Should Stop Drinking Bottled Water [HuffPost Food]
Cereal Slogans: Test Your A.M. IQ [Delish]

Chelsea Clinton isn't tying the knot with her fiance Marc Mezvinsky until this weekend, but the wedding has already become the event of the year, at least by gossip-rag standards. Questions abound: Who's invited? (Hint: Not many.) What will she wear? (The smart money, as always, is on Vera Wang.) What kind of ceremony will it be, anyway? Thanks to the publicity-shy bride, there are few confirmed details. One thing's fairly certain, though: The caterers will accommodate the former first daughter's vegan diet.

Despite her father's famous predilection for fast food, Chelsea has reportedly been going meatless for more than a decade, even asking White House chef Walter Scheib to teach her to prepare her own vegan meals, according to the Vegetarian Star. By all accounts, Chelsea is a highly intelligent, ambitious woman who doesn't do anything halfway, and her kitchen training was no exception; she worked with Scheib for six weeks prior to leaving for Stanford, earning a "Walter Scheib cooking school certificate" at the end.

Consequently, "insiders" have told Life & Style magazine, the food for the big day "will include vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free dishes." (That'll put the caterers through their paces.) Lest anyone accuse Chelsea of being doctrinaire, however, the wedding menu will also please carnivorous guests. According to those same insiders, there will be a beef entree as well -- grass-fed and organic, naturally.

Processed chicken nuggets, syrupy chocolate milk, heaps of salty French fries: It's no real secret that the state of American public school lunches is a mess. But things are even more depressing than you thought: Inmates – yes, actual criminals behind bars – are probably eating better than our kids.

In a recent article for the Tennessee's Herald-Tribune, reporter Tracey Hackett investigated what comes out of the kitchen at the state's Putnam County Justice Center. She found that each inmate gets two meals a day, breakfast and dinner. (Inmates can buy lunchtime snacks if they have an account, as many do). Hackett found that inmates were typically eating from-scratch, balanced meals -- a far cry from the frozen, chemical-laden processed food our kids are getting.

Sarah Parsons at Sustainable Food, a division of Change.org, makes no bones about it, writing that "When you take a look at the school lunches kids receive in America's cafeterias, jail food looks like a meal at a five-star restaurant."

According to a recent blog post on The Stir, many of the smoothies that fast-food chains are selling these days are anything but healthy.

"Even the new McDonald's Wild Berry Smoothie and comparable Jamba Juice Berry Yumberry Smoothie are just okay -- they are relatively low-cal (210 and 230 respectively) but still pack mega grams of sugar."

Head over to The Stir to see the five worst offenders and find out which smoothie comes in with a whopping 960 calories and 23 grams of fat.

• It's an east-meets-west love story: tacos, Korean-style.
• A different east (the Ottoman) meets a different west (London) as chef Silvena Rowe takes over the May Fair Hotel restaurant.
• When you're mixing drinks, adding water doesn't always mean watered-down taste. Chemistry lesson to follow.
• The Lion receives but one star -- and that's not counting chef John DeLucie.
• Meanwhile, the Commodore "feels like the bar next to the bus station, only without the daytime drinkers and sticky floor." And that's a good thing.

Summer means grilling season -- burgers, steaks, hot dogs, and chicken are the usual suspects. So what's a vegetarian to do? The good news is that there are lots of meat-free products on the market -- from "hot dogs" to garden burgers, even faux chicken patties. Problem is, they can vary wildly in how good they are.

We invited a few friends over, fired up the grill and taste-tested meat-free burgers and dogs. We opened up 16 products: a mix of varieties and brands.

Our top nine picks are below (including our favorite), taking into consideration the texture, flavors, seasonings and overall taste in each.

Keep reading for the seven products that did not pass our taste test -- and why.

Popovers just sound like good-time food. Their name hints that any minute they're going to jump off the dessert plate and do a flip. And these relatives of the Yorkshire pudding are so light, doughy, and yet crispy on the outside, they probably could do a few pirouettes if given half a chance. However, the popover is made even more of a good-time Charlie when you add a coconut cream filling, put a dollop on the crown, and add a generous handful of fresh blueberries. See norwichnuts' Flickr stream for the recipe for the coconut cream, and a Kitchen Daily recipe for basic popovers.

And if you're more partial to the airiness of a cream puff over the more solid popover, try this recipe.

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool for a shot of having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.