"blogs" news and stories

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week.

Highlights from the San Francisco chocolate salon: bacon chocolate, a drink called "choffy," apple pie truffles.

Fashionable tips for the perfect party (think lots of glitter) from MTV's House of Style.

Celebu-chef Jean-George Vongerichten has plans for a worldwide empire of restaurants, with plans to open 50 in the next five years. Will they be the "Applebee's of haute cuisine"?

Are we in the middle of a food revolution? Examining the claims for the recent New York Times story.

What spring vegetable are you looking forward to most -- a quiz. Choices are artichokes, asparagus, carrots, peas and fennel.

How do you feel about mandatory coat checks? Apparently, Yumsugar readers do not like them so much.

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1. Prepare a dish of your choosing that has a connection to a published literary work (novel, novella, short story, memoir, bio, poem).
2. Publish a post about it on your blog by Saturday April 4, 2009 (midnight, Pacific Time), referencing the Novel Food event. Include a link to Lisa's or Simona's announcement. If you wish, you can use the Novel Food logo.
3. Send an e-mail to Lisa (champaigntaste AT gmail DOT com) or to me (simosite AT mac DOT com) and include your name, blog name and blog address, and a permanent link to your post. Please, include the words Novel Food in the email subject, so we can more easily retrieve the message in our inbox.
4. Non-English submissions are fine. If possible, include an introduction in English.

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Bee Yinn Low has something to say to those who plagiarize from food blogs: Stop!

Back in 2007, Low, the blogger behind the popular Rasa Malaysia food blog, posted a photo she'd taken of an elegantly plated sliver of miso-marinated black cod (pictured), which she'd made with a recipe from her Nobu cookbook.

Almost two years later, she spied the very same photo on the email advertisements of Florida-based Rosas Farms, advertising their sustainably farmed black cod. Low might have been surprised, but this was not the first time this had happened - she had discovered Rasa Malaysia photos and stories being passed off as other people's work everywhere from food blogs to eBay seller sites to the awning of a Malaysian cafe.

Neither Rosas Farms nor any of the other sites had credited Low as the creator of the photos, breaking the terms of her Creative Commons license. The photos, like the rest of Rasa Malaysia's content, are also protected with Copyscape, a service which helps prevent plagiarism by searching the web for sites that have been using your content.

So Low finally decided to fight back. Under a post titled "An Open Letter to My Thieves," she posted screenshots of the offenders. The topic clearly hit a nerve, with more than 60 commenters wring in to express sympathy and share their own plagiarism stories. One commenter even suggested starting a food bloggers union with a lawyer on retainer!

Blogger Pim Techamuanvivit of Chez Pim has also written about post plagiarism in the past, and has linked to a site advising bloggers what to do when someone has used their writing without proper credit.

Have any of you food bloggers out there had your work plagiarized? What did you do?

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Yesterday I wrote about Foodimentary, an award-winning Twitter which offers interesting food factoids every few hours. As a new Twitter user myself, I'm trying to find other good food-related Twitters to follow. Here are a few I've added so far. Please tell me your own favorites!

The home team: Slashfood (of course) and Slashfood Tips.

The other food websites: Epicurious, Culinate, CHOW.

The national newspaper food sections: New York Times Dining & Wine, LA Times Food Section.

The popular food bloggers: Amateur Gourmet, Rasa Malaysia, Chez Pim, Gluten Free Girl, Chocolate and Zucchini, The Delicious Life, The Food Section, Smitten Kitchen, Serious Eats, Wasted Food, Tastespotting.

The food media personalities: Gourmet editor and memoirist Ruth Reichl, New York Times food writer Amanda Hesser,New York Times food editor Pete Wells, the Minimalist Mark Bittman, Southern food expert John T. Edge, cookbook author David Leibovitz.

The ridiculously useful recipe suggester: Twecipe.

The random: Bacon Salt.

What food-related Twitters would you like to add to the list?

I have to admit, even after devouring all of Ruth Reichl's memoirs, it's pretty odd to read what's going on in her head moment-to-moment as she's walking around Paris with her husband. But odd in a good way, I think. Definitely feels like spying.

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Check out this delightfully disgusting new blog, This is Why You're Fat (subhead: "Where Dreams Become Heart Attacks"). Readers are encouraged to send in pictures of their most grotesque fat-on-fat food creations: Corn dog pizzas, seven-pound breakfast burritos, Krispy Kreme bacon cheeseburgers. Some actually look rather tasty - candied bacon ice cream, Frito pie, nacho burgers.

Others border on post-modern art - the Tower of Babel-like "Mega Double Stuff Oreo" with the creme fillings of three dozen or so regular Oreos stuffed precariously between two cookie halves, the "Turboconucken" - a chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey. Wrapped in bacon. A commentary on the gluttony and greed of contemporary American society. Or just delicious?

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