Several weeks ago, I covered my co-worker's wedding in Louisville, Ky., and raved about how she doubled her wedding cakes as centerpieces. It got me thinking: Everyone attending our wedding knows that both Jon and I are serious foodies. I want to incorporate food into our decor too, but I don't want to overdo it (and believe me, that wouldn't be hard!).
With the cost of food eternally increasing, I need to come up with other ways to incorporate our passion into our cocktail hour and reception. With the help of eBay and Amazon, I think I'll be able to pull it off. I have a vision of filling up old crates with bright, white hydrangeas and placing them by the bars.
Taking that idea one step further, I started a search on eBay for wine crates and stumbled across an antique Dad's Root Beer crate, which just so happens to be one of Jon and my father's favorite root beers. Five days of bidding and this puppy was mine!
'Giada's Kitchen: New Italian Favorites' Recipes by Giada De Laurentiis Photos by Tina Rupp Clarkson Potter -- 2008 Buy it on Amazon
Giada De Laurentiis, known for her simple fare on the Food Network's "Everyday Italian," brings new light into America's kitchens with her fourth cookbook. De Laurentiis redefines the classics with dishes like Linguine and Prosciutto Frittatas, Pastina with Clams and Mussels, Turkey Osso Buco and Prosciutto Lamb Burgers.
Takeaway tips: Cooking and eating are meant to be shared experiences. Whether you're gathering your family at the table for a week night dinner or having guests over for a special occasion, the meals should be easy to prepare, enjoyable and delicious. Kids are increasingly helping out in the kitchen, and De Laurentiis dedicates an entire chapter to the little ones that features simple, easy meals they won't be able to resist.
See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.
Amazon.com, the Seattle-based juggernaut that revolutionized the way America buys everything from books and CDs to Le Creuset cookware is at it again. This time around it's set its sights on fresh foods.
Last week it announced that it will begin selling farm-fresh produce and meat online. True to form, one of the products on offer is a loss-leader: a 5-ounce steak for $1.99.
Lest you wake up tomorrow morning in Peoria thinking that this new service is available everywhere and log on to Amazon to order a dozen eggs, allow me to clarify. The new service, dubbed Amazonfresh, is a pilot program that, for now, is only available on Seattle's Mercer Island.
While we occasionally post about products on Slashfood, whether cool gadgets, beautifully designed dinnerware, or some other hot new item, we very rarely talk about actual shopping.
Amazon is selling gift certificates to restaurants that range in value anywhere from $10 to $25, but selling them for a fraction of that value. For example, a $25 gift certificate for the New York Deli in Century City (Los Angeles) is only $10. The certificates are provided by restaurant.com and are for quite a long list of cities.
They might not be the highest end restaurants out there, but the places that are participating are decent enough for a good meal. There are some restrictions on the certificates, e.g. "dine-in only" and/or "weekdays only," but for the most part, it doesn't seem like a bad deal.
I wonder if they'll ever have one for The French Laundry.
Now that Amazon.com is selling groceries online, a whole world of opportunities has opened. Obviously, your day opens up since you don't have to spend time driving to the grocery store, pushing a cart around the store, waiting in line at the register, and perhaps even fighting with your kids about what flavor Pop-tart to get.
But an interesting thing has popped up with the Amazon.com grocery store. Customers are rating grocery products,just as customers rate books, CDs, and movies. This gallon of Tuscan Whole Milk has over 350 customer "reviews," also shows what other customers bought when they bought the milk. Hey, if they can tell you that customers who bought the DVD V is for Vendetta also bought Ultraviolet, Amazon can tell you that fellow customers who bought the Tuscan gallon milk also bought bananas, grapes and fresh vine-ripe tomatoes. Good to know.
As if it wasn't already the world's largest retailer (aside from Wal-Mart, of course), Amazon.com has added groceries to their ever-expanding list of "stores." I remember back when online groceries and home-delivery was first introduced with PeaPod and WebVan. Both of them subsequently tanked, but perhaps the idea was ahead of its time. Amazon must believe that now is the time. Currently, they are only offering over 10,000 non-perishable items like breakfast cereal, microwave popcorn, and boxed macaroni and cheese.
Has anyone used it? Do you find that it's any cheaper? Faster? I imagine the convenience factor is likely the most attractive feature, but if you have to go to the market anyway to buy perishable items, I can't see that there is much convenience there anyway.
It's a popular week for the release of new cookbooks and cooking-relating
memoirs. A quick look at Amazon's
list of pre-ordered books notes that the Food Network's
Giada De Laurentiis has a new book out today, while there's also a new memoir from Julia Child, edited by
her grandnephew. Additionally, Amazon's list of summer 2006 books includes a book by Bill Buford, the former
fiction editor of the New Yorker. In the very well-reviewed Heat,
Buford befriends Mario Batali, and offers a insidery look at the cooking world.
Amazon is now selling gourmet foods--a great idea, I might add. Soon, we'll be
able to get everything off of Amazon. But, I was suprised to find out that they also sell bologna.
Yes, you got that right: you can now get all your bologna fixes straight from the internet at Amazon. The comments are
also quite amusing. And really, do they really need to rate this? It's bologna!
Via the Cooking for Engineers Deals Blog comes this list of kitchen items on sale at Amazon.com. For those not familiar with CfE, the main site is definitely worth a look, if only for the unique recipe layouts. The flowchart-like format is a little odd at first, but after you recognize how the steps progress, it becomes a pretty useful way to get a handle on the basic procedure of a dish—shepherd’s pie, for instance. Also usesful is a built-in unit converter in the top right sidebar.
This interview on Amazon with Gourmet editor-in-chief and former NY Times food critic cements her even more firmly on my ultimate foodie dinner party guest list. Reichl loves food, appreciates food, even lives food but she's not hung up on it. Her writing always comes from this place of accessibility that makes you feel like you could cook for her without breaking into a nuclear sweat. My favorite detail from the interview is the elaborate disguises she used to avoid being spotted when reviewing restaurants. I haven't read her latest book yet but it sounds like a lot of fun.
'Giada's Kitchen: New Italian Favorites'
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It's a popular week for the release of new cookbooks and cooking-relating
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Via the Cooking for Engineers 
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