1. Forbes Traveler has put together a list of what they consider to be the 11 Classic American Dishes. Included on the list are the Philly cheesesteak, pasta primavera and the overstuffed burrito.
2. Have you ever been challenged by the task of pouring the perfect pint of beer? For their feature, You're Doing it Wrong, Chow has put together a video the details all the nuances of the perfect pour.
3. The Illinois Food Bank has laid down a challenge to the residents of their state: Can you eat on just $25 a week? Citizens took on the challenge and respond. Amy, of Cooking with Amy, recently did a similar challenge and blogged her experience.
4. Elise of Simply Recipes reminds her readers how satisfyingly simple it is to make your own vanilla extract.
5. Just in for our current economic crisis! Depression Cooking with Clara! [via Vegan Lunch Box]
6. The Old Foodie ruminates on the history of toast.
7. Dinner with Julie offers up a recipe for bean-fortified oatmeal cookies.
8. Bacon Today lists ten other bacon sites you should be reading.

The name of this recipe immediately brought to mind Chinese food, of course, and I've never thought of fried rice as a particularly breakfast-ish food. But if you think about it, a lot of fried rice has eggs and onion in it, so why not? And this one goes one step further and includes bacon.

The recipe is from Chow, but the picture is from flickr. It's a different recipe (ham instead of bacon and no soy sauce), but I couldn't find a pic of the Chow recipe, which is after the jump.

A french fry is much easier to eat than a lobster, and for many other foods it is simply a fact that some are easier to eat than others. Some, like the aforementioned lobster, are simply difficult to get into. Others are difficult to maneuver into your mouth gracefully (giant burritos, salads with huge lettuce leaves ) and still others are messy to the point where many diners simply avoid them (ribs) unless they have a very high comfort level with their dining partners.

Chow took on the task of identifying some of these foods are offering readers some tips on how to eat them without the food getting the upper hand. Their suggestions include angling tacos over a plate and pinching the edges of the tortilla together to prevent/direct drips, aiming to eat sushi in two neat bites, spear peas with a fork instead of scooping them and deboning a fish using a banana leaf (or a fork).

I would also suggest a few more food-fighting tips to get your through dinner. First, keep a napkin handy to deal with messes and try to eat sloppy foods either very slowly or very fast to minimize the chances of contact with clothing. When possible, cut your food into bite-sized pieces, even if you think that the piece on your plate will probably fit into your mouth. Finally, try to get you dinner companion to order the same type of food that you did, so that in the event you get messy or eat awkwardly, you won't be the only one.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to recount all the great food moments of an entire year, but Chow set out to do just that with their Year in Food feature. Divided up into nine individual themes, their picks cover the top trends. Cookbooks and books about cooks were big. Huge, in fact. The Omnivore's Dilemma got people thinking and the 75th-anniversary edition Joy of Cooking got them back in the kitchen. Food went high tech with the continuing popularity of molecular gastronomy and the ever-expanding realm of food blogs. And everyone was drinking, whether his or her beverage of choice was an energy drink, wine (possibly in a box) or a luxe new liqueur. Breeze through the rest of Chow's year-end picks for a cheat sheet on the last 12 months of food, but if you happen to have a lot of time on your hands, you can always browse through our own archives for news, recipes and lots and lots of food porn.

I'm not the most regular reader of Chow, so it took me some time to notice that they have been interviewing all of the contestants from this season of Top Chef as they get eliminated from the competition. So far, they have spoken to Chef Tom, who chats about the previous season's cast and Suyai, who was eliminated in the first episode; Otto, who was eliminated after an infamous lychee incident; Emily, whose food didn't wow the firemen in episode three; Marissa and Josie who were eliminated after their trio of palate cleansers failed to impress; and Carlos, the contestant who left after the most recent episode.

It is definitely interesting to hear the perspectives of the different competitors and to hear what their experiences were like. Some seem like genuinely nice people, while others seem to have a bit of resentment over the way their time on the show went. Type-A personalities working in cramped quarters in record-breaking Los Angeles heat is a recipe for conflict, to say the least. It is also interesting to get another perspective on the chefs and their personalities without Bravo's editing and to see if you still think that the judges made the right decisions.

The Wall Street Journal was able to get a sneak peek at Chowhound's new interface, which will be relaunched in the next month or so by CNET, which acquired the message board back in March. Unfortunately, for us, there isn't a screenshot for us to check out yet, but the WSJ fills in a lot of blanks that Jim Leff, Chowhound.com's founder, left out when we first heard about the deal.

Chowhound will not only get a software upgrade, but it will become part of a CNET food website called Chow.com. Though the old Chowhound site will still be accessible, the new one is aiming to attract more people from across the country, not just in big cities. One of the biggest changes is that, instead of being able to post anonymously, anyone who wishes to post will have to register.

CNET says that it doesn't want to alienate any of the old users, which is an understandable position because the huge foodie community is the main reason it purchased the site in the first place. Whether it will happen or not, even though Jim Leff is still working on the site behind the scenes, remains to be seen.