"OakRoom" news and stories

• As the economy has gotten tighter, restaurants have gotten a whole lot friendlier and more solicitous, all in the hopes of getting and keeping your business.
• The show The Biggest Loser showcases the problem that most Americans don't know how to cook for themselves.
• The peanut butter salmonella scare has led people to wonder about the safety of nearly everything they put in their mouths.
• Frank Bruni reviews the Oak Room at the Plaza Hotel and finds that it's heavy on atmosphere and light on dependably delicious dishes.
• After experiencing a couple bad years, Eric Asimov declares that the barolo is back to its former glory.
• For inexpensive Indian food in Manhattan, you can't go wrong at Dhaba.
• Andrew Carmellini is teaming up with Robert De Niro to take over the restaurant in the Greenwich Hotel.
• Mark Bittman takes a standard cracker recipe and tarts it up with cheese, butter and cream for a richer result.
• Most recipes for braised rabbit require lots of fat to keep the lean meat moist. Melissa Clark has figured out a way to keep the meat tender without making it heavy.

Did you know that states have "official" foods. Yup, and Massachusetts is no exception. The foods include Boston Cream Pie, cranberries, baked beans, chocolate chip cookies, and corn muffins (corn muffins?).

Gridskipper takes that list of foods and tells us what restaurants in Boston serve the best ones. For example, though Boston Cream Pie was invented at the Omni Parker House Hotel (also home of the Parker House Rolls), you can get the best one at The Oak Room at the Copley Plaza Hotel. For beans, head on over to the Blue Ribbon BBQ. They're not traditional baked beans, but they're great (and I can vouch for this place - best BBQ I've ever had. If they were closer to my house I'd probably eat there twice a week).

[thanks to Jade Walker]