Mother's Day is Sunday, May 11th and whether your mother is a meat-eater or a vegetarian, a fantastic home cook or an expert in the art of ordering out, we're here to help. We'll be featuring an assortment of Mother's Day gift guides this week, along with ideas for brunches, picnics and dinners that will make your mothers, grandmothers and any other maternal types in your life feel special and celebrated. Check back often so that you don't miss any of our useful advice.
I have a love/hate relationship with my kitchen, my stove in particular. My apartment used to belong to my grandparents and so just about everything in the kitchen has been there since 1966 when they moved in. They never cooked much to begin with and in the last ten years of their lives, they ate out exclusively.
I put the counter top you see to the right in last summer, when the old one started to crumble into pieces and the building replaced the dishwasher last fall when the old one lost the ability to clean anything. However, the stove is untouched and it makes my cooking life frustrating on a regular basis. I have five burner settings, which makes any nuance in heat difficult. And do you see the way the oven overhangs the stove? Well, that makes those two rear burners nearly impossible to use when there's stuff on the front, because it's hard to reach without burning yourself. And the underside of the oven is always dirty because it on the front line, catching all the bubbles and splatters from the stove top.
On the plus side, my oven bakes perfectly, heating evenly and always exactly on temperature (not bad for four+ decades) and I never worry about messy projects, because my kitchen is very far from pristine.
Now Slashfoodies, it's your turn. Tell me what you love and what you hate about your kitchen. Take pictures and upload them to our Slashfood Flickr group, so we can all get a peek into the most used room in your house.
The San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau wants you to have the greatest dining experience possible on you next trip to the Bay Area. They've added Taste as an additional website to the official visitors bureau site, and it's completely dedicated to food.
I was particularly interested in Taste, as I am going to San Francisco later this summer and I want any dining info I can get. Taste does offer plenty of dining information, especially of you have plenty of cash to spend on your trip. There's a mini blog, Foodie 411, and a calender of upcoming food events. Also, you can check out restaurants based on different categories like 'price', 'dining adventures', and 'al fresco', even the area of town. Overall the site is interesting and east to navigate.
There is one area that I think Taste is deficient in. Taste has a section dedicated to drinks, and it is awful. There is only one brew pub listed and no wine bars, even though they have several wineries listed. I'm not sure what's going on with that, but my guess is that the brew pubs didn't sign up with the visitor's bureau. Either way, if you're planning on going to San Francisco this website can help with dining choices, but definitely use as many resources as possible for the food aspect of your trip to San Francisco.
We've had more than a week's respite from the never ending flow of food recalls, in which no news was good news. Unfortunately, the recall hiatus wasn't meant to last.
White Wave, the maker of Silk soymilk beverages, has issued a recall on 11 ounce, single serve bottles of the chocolate flavor soymilk because, of all things, the product may contain actual milk. So if you're drinking the soymilk due to lactose intolerance or allergies, you need to switch to something else for the time being.
The bottles in question have a UPC code of 2529360028 and a "use by" date of 05 07 08 (May 7, 2008). If you have questions, you can call the company at 1-800-587-2259. Otherwise, just return the carton to the point of purchase for a full refund.
Mambo Sprouts, a magazine dedicated to health and organic food as well as coupons for you, has put out a call for original recipes. They're looking for original recipes in four different categories, each utilizing different sponsored products.
You can enter any and all of the categories: Bake it organic, Asian exotic, chocolate craze, or salt of the earth. If you are interested, you can check out the rules and requirements here.
If you like to cook and create your own recipes, check out this contest. It could be a chance to win some useful prizes and get your creations out into the world.
It's Earth Day today, just in case you haven't been keeping up with it. Our friends over at Not Martha have a great way for you to celebrate today and do your part. It's the RUMe grocery bags, which stands for ReUseMe, and there's even a chance for you to win some (you have to go to Not Martha.com to find out how).
I know that reusable grocery bags are not exactly a new concept. Every grocery store I've been to lately is selling their own, but the RUMe bags are so much more stylish, don't you think? Not Martha gave them a great review as far as comfort and practicality go, so apparently the bags are as functional as they are stylish.
Even if you already have some reusable grocery bags, these might make a great addition to the team. Also, they'd be a great start if you don't have any reusable bags yet. If you shop at Whole Foods Supermarkets, you're going to need them. You have heard that Whole Foods isn't going to offer plastic bags anymore, as of today, right? Happy Earth Day!
Last week, I read that the domain name Pizza.com was being sold at auction, and was expected to fetch a hefty price. This morning I read the results, and I'd call $2.6 million a hefty price.
Apparently, the seller had bought the domain name in the early 1990's, when a lot of really common domain names were snapped up. He sat on his investment for quite some time, but when he heard that some other domain names were being sold for big bucks he decided to see what he could get for pizza.com. I think it's safe to say that his investment paid off big time.
I only wish that I had been smart enough as a teenager to be a computer geek, maybe I'd have a nice $2.6 million payday too. Unfortunately, I heard the siren song of the comic books, ahem, graphic novels. By the way, for those of us who didn't buy any domain names in the beginning days of the internet, read this article about why this sale was ridiculous. It's smart and funny, and it will make you feel not so bad for having not been an early buyer of domain names!
Well, today is March 15th and if you know PETA, then you should know what day it is. Yep, it's Eat a Tasty Animal for PETA day.
Oh, you thought I meant the other PETA. Nah, I meant People for the Eating of Tasty Animals. You can look them up on Face Book. The group even posted an event page for the occasion.
Check out GD for tons of food-related info...it's amazing how often the topics of environment and food overlap, especially as farmers explore greener methods and more food goes organic.
Whether you grow it, sell it or drink it, coffee is now more than just a hobby or your favorite drink - it's also your ticket to new friends, new information and a serious gateway to procrastination.
I'm referring to Barista Exchange and Barista Connection, two new additions to the sorta-recent explosion of social networking sites. But unlike Facebook and MySpace, these two cater to a specific audience, and the content revolves around everything java.
On Barista Exchange, you create a profile (first, define yourself by any number of coffee-related personas, including a barista, a farmer, or simply an enthusiast), and then gain access to thousands of similar-minded peeps. The name of the site describes one of its primary features: members can use their connections to facilitate an actual coffee exchange, which consists of baristas changing places for a week or so to experience the coffee culture in each others' city.
There are a lot of holiday's happening this month. One of the things that can connect them all is bread. It sure does seem like a universal food.
If your holiday has a special bread, or if you're using bread to celebrate a holiday in any way, you might want to share with everyone else. The folks over at Wild Yeast are hosting a blog event this month celebrating holiday breads.
Log onto the site and access over two million reviews from both professional wine critics and average wine lovers to choose the perfect accent to tonight's dinner.
You have to sign up to be a member if you want to write your own, but anyone can search for reviews. The simple interface makes it hard to screw up - just type in your search term and you're immediately inundated with dozens of potential choices.
Not sure what to search for? Snooth suggests using terms like "Cab Sauv," "good with pork," or "spice," and if the responses are too overwhelming, you can further narrow your results by price, year, type, region, or varietal.
...But don't blame us if you walk away more indecisive than when you started.
I am in heaven. First I find flame decals for my Kitchen Aid. Now I've found the best web site ever, at least in my opinion.
Pastry Chef Central has everything a pastry chef (or geek) could ever want! The site is basically split up into two sections: tools and ingredients. The tools section has several categories each filled with wonderful, beautiful toys, I mean tools. The ingredients section doesn't have any sub-sections, but it doesn't need any as it's choc full of lovely and fantastic things necessary for all manner of delicious desserts.
There's a third section, actually. It's a resource area with recipes and an "Ask the Chef" link.
The site is great. It's easy to read and follow. It's neat and clean, as any pastry web site should be. Best of all, Pastry Chef Central has lots of pictures! Can you actually see me drooling? Does anyone have any other pastry/baking websites to share?
This has got to be one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. I just came across a link to a site that sells flame decals for Kitchen Aid mixers!
The website, FlameKA.com, carries a wide variety of decals that will fit Kitchen Aid classic, the Artisan 4-6 quarts, and the Pro 600. They claim that the decals won't interfere with any attachments. They're also supposed to be easy to apply, long lasting, and great looking. The decals range from $15.95 to $36.95, so they're pretty reasonable also.
I hinted to Santa that I wanted a metallic pink Kitchen Aid with flame decals (I was only joking because I knew it wouldn't happen). The mixer I got was, and still is, awesome and pink. Now I know how to fulfill the rest of my wish.
*Full disclosure: FlameKA.com offers a 10% off coupon for anyone who links to the site. I'm not going to mess around with trying to redeem it, though.
Roasted chicken with fried yucca root was the obvious winner for judges at the Food Network's Ultimate Recipe: Chicken Showdown (just so we're clear, the contestants were battling it out, not the chickens). Grand Prize Winner Amparo Alam of Syracuse, Utah, swept the competition, winning 99 out of a possible 100 points for her original dish.
The recipe, listed here, uses ajies (Peruvian chilies) and huacatay (a Peruvian herb) to enhance the flavors of both the bird and the veggie.
What do you think? Do these recipes sound good to you? Or could you do better? Put your money where your mouth is and submit your recipe by March 31 for the next competition.
It sits alone and untouched at the end of a long buffet table -- a bowl full of apples and bananas, maybe a seedy orange tossed in as an afterthought. Don't let your fruit salad meet this awful fate, spruce it up instead!
The San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau wants you to have the greatest dining experience possible on you next trip to the Bay Area. They've added Taste as an additional website to the official visitors bureau site, and it's completely dedicated to food.
We've had more than a week's respite from the never ending flow of food recalls, in which no news was good news. Unfortunately, the recall hiatus wasn't meant to last.
Mambo Sprouts, a magazine dedicated to health and organic food as well as coupons for you, has put out a call for original recipes. They're looking for original recipes in four different categories, each utilizing different sponsored products.
Well, today is March 15th and if you know PETA, then you should know what day it is. Yep, it's Eat a Tasty Animal for PETA day.
Here's a synopsis of the latest food products and politics news being covered by our fellow bloggers over at Slashfood sister site, GreenDaily: 
Whether you grow it, sell it or drink it, coffee is now more than just a hobby or your favorite drink - it's also your ticket to new friends, new information and a serious gateway to procrastination. 
There are a lot of holiday's happening this month. One of the things that can connect them all is bread. It sure does seem like a universal food.
Snooth.com will flock to your rescue.
I am in heaven. First I find flame decals for my Kitchen Aid. Now I've found the best web site ever, at least in my opinion. 
This has got to be one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. I just came across a link to a site that sells flame decals for Kitchen Aid mixers! 
Creating the ultimate Mother's Day gift for the carnivorous mom
Create less clutter with your Mother's Day gifts
Gifts for the vegetarian (or vegetable-loving) mom
