As someone who owns an unseemly number of waffle irons, I'm always looking for new ways to use this particular appliance, in order to better justify the fact that I possess so many. A few weeks ago, I discovered (thanks to the Kitchen Chick) that you can use a waffle iron to make French Toast (I haven't actually tried it yet, but it's on my list).

Chowhound has taken the concept of multi-tasking appliances a step further, using a waffle iron to cook up brownies, hash browns and breakfast muffins, as well as a slow cooker to make duck confit and a tender, fluffy soufflé.

What's your favorite appliance that you use in a way that is different from it's designed application?

The concept of a restaurant guidebook is becoming increasingly outdated. The books are rarely up to date and, although they can be carried around by travelers easily, just can't offer the user the same kind of immediate response - and an interactive one, at that - as online, user-driven restaurant guides. Chowhound, Yelp and Citysearch are some of the leaders of this genre, along with similar user-review driven online forums. Zagat, which was unique in the restaurant guide book field in that it based its "reviews" on user commentary, recently decided that it needed to move to a similar online format, where users could offer real-time opinions, in order to remain competitive.

Or, at least, to attempt to remain competitive.

Is there any more room left in the restaurant discussion board field for a newcomer? Given that people have expressed dissatisfaction with the way that Chowhound is run (and they way that the site looks), there just might be.

[via eater la ]

It's like a never ending food saga with Chowhound. First, Chowhounders worry about the purchase by the "big guy, CNet. Then when the extreme makeover on the antiquated site actually launches, they complain about the interface. Then Chowhound gets a little too Draconian with their post-moderating and sends some Chowhounders the way of K-Fed -- "ex."

The latest chapter in the Chowhound melodrama is that it has officially merged with its sibling site, Chow.com, and gone through a second makeover. Chowhounders are again, none too pleased. Occasional Chowhounder, EatingLA, short-lists a few pros and cons of the new layout, but a comment from LA Chowhounder Silverlake Bodhissatva seems to be the general feeling: "I haven't felt this bad about a piece of media since Whole Earth Quarterly went belly-up in the middle of my subscription."

Hey, I was just happy that they finally got rid of that pixelated logo of the dog.

Even before Chowhound became a part of the Chow network, users frequently had problems with deletions. Controversial posts and less than glowing reviews of certain restaurants were deleted without explanation and some users found that their posts were deleted with a high frequency, regardless of the topic. Since the message board is a public forum, it is perfectly appropriate for moderators to remove offensive content, but when non-offensive reviews of "off the table restaurants" and other posts relevant to the website were taken down without explanation, many users grew frustrated. The problems persist with the new Chowhound, leaving many former contributors to head to different, more open minded, websites.

It appears that Eater is one such site because they have just offered to post anything that has been inexplicably removed from the Chowhound site. They are able to do this because the "offending" posts are not removed from the Chowhound feed as quickly as they are from the site, so there is a window of time where it is possible to retrieve the posts. Of course, you will have to contact the staff to let them know if your post was stricken, but it will be interesting to see what types of pieces are selected for removal.

Worried about how to make it through the holidays with a (hopefully not too unruly) family? The NY Times shares some etiquette tips that should help get you through some sticky situations, but if everyone can just focus on the food and try to be polite - sharing any controversial opinions the next day - everything will go just a little bit more smoothly.

In a piece that rehashes some of Chowhound-founder Jim Leff's background, there is some discussion of groups that splintered off the main boards even before the site was bought by CNET. Some contributors moved to egullet.org and others can be found at Opinionated About Dining and Mouthfulsfood.

A lot goes into finding a really good sommelier. An applicant needs to have wine expertise, passion and enthusiasm - and all must be conveyed to the customers convincingly, but without obsession.

Here's a brief holiday food guide of sweets and savories, along with the names of a couple of mentions of places to find good cookware.

Frank Bruni dines at Porter House New York and gives it one star.

Looking for something really different to do with that raw turkey in the fridge? Mark Bittman, the minimalist, suggests turning it into turkey confit.

Our Daily Bread is a new documentary on the food processing industry. Whether you want to watch depends on what you still want to eat.

Fairground food competitions are time-honored traditions and exhibitions of home cooking at its finest, but the competitions are being revamped as modern tastes and trends show up to cook. Barbecue is a staple, as are pies, but biscotti and bagels are making an appearance. To increase their popularity even further, some fairs are opening men-only divisions and hosting "Iron-Chef"-style events. They may not be your grandmother's cooking competitions, but they're just as enjoyable.

Chef Zak Pelaccio mixes market-fresh fruits and veggies with offal, combining the peasant food movement of Mario Batali with the local and seasonal produce trend at 5 Ninth and Fatty Crab in NYC.

The NY Times examines the site chow.com and if its chowhound connection will be able to help it plant roots in the foodie community.

Here's the Times' take on ice cream machines (and here's ours).

Frank Bruni dines at Mercer Kitchen, giving it one star.

Mark Bittman, the minimalist, makes a tasty sounding mexican un-pizza, called a tlayuda.

Back in January, I got a letter from CHOW Magazine, telling me that they were temporarily stopping the publication of their print edition in order to regroup. In the interim, their website, Chow for Now, put together some good content. Today I got a small card in the mail telling me that (a) CHOW has been acquired by CNET Networks, Inc., the same folks responsible for the recent facelift of Chowhound.com, and (b) that the rest of my subscription to CHOW would be fulfilled by a subscription to Intermezzo, a food, wine, home and travel magazine. I've leafed through a few issues of Intermezzo in the past, but was never compelled enough to actually buy a copy. Sigh. So far, I think the new Chowhound site is great, mainly because of the searchable forums with RSS feeds. I'm assuming that sometime soon a blend of Chow and Chowhound will take shape. Chow.com is still pretty much vacant, aside from a place to leave an email address for launch news. With any luck, the type of content that made CHOW such a great publication will begin show up online.

As an old-school Chowhound, cut my teeth as Canchito and then changed my identity to Joey Deckle, I was glad to hear months ago that Jim Leff found an angel in C-Net . Now the site that started as a sprawling food forum and evolved exponentially into a labor of savor would now be recognized and monetized by an organization of like mind and like palate.

I knew that Chowound 2.0 was about to hit the street any minute thanks to my fellow Slashfoodies' coverage. But nothing prepared me for clicking on a familiar link at 3AM yesterday and seeing something completely different. A mere six hours earlier, I was scrolling through the site's old-school bulletin-board listings.

I guess never got the press release. All of sudden I found an alien universe looking back from my monitor. As a benchmark, I entered a smorgasbord of topics that had been written about into the site's search field. Sure enough, natto, churrasco and vestedde all turned up. So far so good. But it took me more than a few minutes to find the regional boards and ultimately realize that  the hot  posts (a summary of all the boards' latest posts)  had been folded into the front page.

More than anything my late-night  discovery of CH's new launch reminded me of my first experiences with the site. There's a lot of delicousness to be discovered/shared here, I just need to figure out how to serve it up.   

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.

At Chowhound, there is an interesting discussion going on about dinner invitation etiquette. The question is whether you should extend an invitation to someone who probably will not be able to make it to the event. The chowhound who started the thread had a friend who was offended that she was not invited to a dinner, though she admitted that she probably would not have come anyway. On one hand, you might think that if she wasn't going to come, it does not matter whether she was invited. If she had decided to show up, though, it could have caused problems for the group, which was dining at a restaurant.

Excluding large events, like weddings, most dinner parties at restaurants or at home have a lot that depends on the dynamic of the group. When you are planning the party, you want to make sure that everyone will get along and that you have a good mix of people. You want to invite people who will get along and you have to know in advance how many people are coming in order to place a reservation or make the appropriate amount of food.

Personally, I think that the friend was out of line. Do you have to be included in every single thing a friend does? No - and if you're not going to come anyway, don't complain about it.

If you do any sort of research before you go out dining about town, then you're probably familar with Chowhound, a collection of messageboards focused on various geographical regions with thousands of users who read and contribute opinions about food and restaurants.

Well! The Alpha Hound himself, Jim Leff, has announced that CNET has agreed to purchase Chowhound and will be rebuilding the online chow community on new software and giving it a badly-needed facelift. Just how soon it'll all go down isn't clear, but thank God. If you've actually used the messageboards, whether to find out information about the "must order" or "stay away from" items of a menu, or to contribute or own $0.02 about horrible service at the newest joint on the corner, then you know that the site is an atrocity from a user's perspective, still maintaininng an all text, 1980s bulletin board look and feel without even a simple search functionality.

LA blogger, Professor Salt, has posted an interview he did with Jim Leff, in which the founder answers some questions about the deal.

 A Boston Globe reporter was recently treated to a two day food tour with Jim Leff, founder of Chowhound.com. Joined along they way by a few other chowhounds, the pair made their way around the city, sampling everything they could get their hands on, from ackee with codfish, the national dish of Jamaica, to Brazilian feijoada.
Chowhounds are notorious for their persistence in seeking out great food, particularly at restaurants as opposed to preparing it at home, and Leff is the self-proclaimed "Alpha Dog" of the bunch. Some 800,000 people frequent the site each month and post their opinions and reviews of various restaurants, as well as posting recommendations in response to the queries of others. While it may seem to be just another random online bulletin board, some of them take their duties as a chowhound very seriously, including the 'hound known as Limster who accompanied Leff and the Globe's reporter, and cover their faces to protect their identity from restaurateurs. Leff himself has a dog mask that he wears when appearing in photos or on TV.
Though there were a few allusions to Leff's obsession with finding food that is better than the best and the rest of the chowhound community is referred to as a cult, the article was, by and large, a fun and flattering account of their excursions. Because Chowhound is a free site with no advertising, they have had some money problems in the past, running servers to keep the site operating for its regular users as well as the thousands of visitors that stop by for recommendations. Leff revealed that he had some plans as to how to make the site more self-sustaining, but has not yet revealed what they are.