"Food and Wine Magazine" news and stories

Food & Wine released its new iPad app last week (YumSugar had the scoop on release day, October 7) and, aside from a few complaints about download time, it's been well received, including by those of us here at Slashfood and KitchenDaily who've had a chance to play with it. The free app includes redesigned features from the magazine, recipes (with gorgeous photos for each) and videos with celebrity chefs such as Mario Batali.

Easy to navigate, with multiple ways to delve into each topic, the app makes it fun to flit around the issue. I especially like the Buying & Pairing Guide, which has various ways to explore 100 bottles of wine, with photos of each bottle, info about the region, grape and producer, and a recipe suggestion for each bottle (a $9 Merlot to drink with Easy Short Ribs Braised in Red Wine).

The November issue of Food & Wine is about to hit newsstands with the magazine's list of "40 Big Thinkers 40 & Under." These wunderkinder, say the editors, are "changing the way Americans eat and drink," which seems a tad exaggerated. (Though who knows, maybe 34-year-old entrepreneur Siggi Hilmarsson really will give Greek yogurt a run for its money with skyr, the yogurt of his native Iceland.)

Inevitably, depending on how old you are and what mood you're in, these lists are either inspiring or depressing. Either way, based on our reading of this current list, here are some tips that just may help you get on next year's:

• Do Something Green: It's no surprise that the same words that pop up on restaurant menus across the country (eco, local, sustainable) also crop up in this awards list, from a 39-year-old "urban-farm pioneer" to a 40-year-old "eco-wine" importer.

The foodie Twitterverse spread quickly with sad news yesterday of food legend Michael Batterberry's passing late Wednesday. Batterberry was the founder of Food & Wine magazine as well as Food Arts magazine, and was honored with a lifetime achievement award at this year's James Beard Foundation Awards. "A very sad loss for the food world," tweets Ruth Reichl, former editor in chief of Gourmet. Head over to The New York Times for the official obituary for the Manhattan resident.

What, like you thought the host of "Top Chef" was gonna haul his cookies cross-country in a Kia? Porsche handed Tom Colicchio the keys to a brand new Panamera 4S -- into which he promptly stuffed his assistant Liz and Craft's executive chef Damon Wise. The trio set off on a 1,200-mile, six day food odyssey stretching from Atlanta to Columbia, Charleston, Chapel Hill, the Chesapeake, Washington D.C., rural Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and back home to New York.

Said Colicchio in the inaugural post of his six-day stint on Food & Wine's 'Mouthing Off' blog, "It was about paying visits to some of the food producers who make my restaurants what they are, and discovering new ones the old-fashioned way. On this trip, the stops were the destination."

Yo, Tom? Next time, we call shotgun. The ham is welcome to sit on our lap.

[Via: Mouthing Off at Food & Wine]

Photo: Amazon.com

'Quick From Scratch Italian Cookbook'
Recipes from Food & Wine Magazine
Photographs by Melanie Acevedo
Food & Wine Books -- 2009
Buy it on Amazon

Whether you're an avid subscriber to Food & Wine or you visit the website once in a while for a recipe, this is the book to add to your kitchen shelves. "Quick from Scratch Italian Cookbook" provides cooks of all levels with satisfying and healthy recipes. Classics are translated into practical weeknight meals with basic step-by-step instructions and there are recipes for every season.

And what would an Italian meal be without wine? There's a no-fuss wine-pairing recommendation for each and every recipe to take pressure off the cook.

Boasting everything from antipasti, soup and pasta, to fish, poultry and steak, recipes like linguine with cauliflower, garlic and bread crumbs and baked rigatoni with spinach, ricotta and Fontina will keep everyone at the table content. Finish the meal off with one of many tantalizing desserts such as honey-baked figs with ice cream or espresso granita with whipped cream.

See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.