"chowhound" news and stories

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.

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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.

Source

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.