"dining and wine" news and stories

• Brooklyn is the epi-center of a food revolution, where anyone with passion, dedication and a little know-how can become an artisanal producer.
• Harold McGee challenges the long-held belief that you need to boil 6 quarts of water for every pound of pasta you're cooking.
• The newest thing in California cuisine - the mobile Korean taco truck.
• Eric Asimov encourages ethnic restaurants to tend more carefully to their wine lists.
• Buttermilk Channel is one of the hottest restaurants in Brooklyn at the moment and Frank Bruni finds that it has much to recommend it.
• Julia Moskin makes new restaurant Seasonal sound homey and appealing.
• The struggles over the coat check, poor tipping and the general resistance people have towards checking their coats.
• There's little that's better than a soup made with long simmered stock from the bones.
  
• The Minimalist is enamored of a starter made from sliced oranges and black olive paste.

• Mark Bittman says put down those sweet breakfast cereals and instead try whole grains with savory flavors for your morning meal.
• More and more, those clever restaurant pastry chefs are turning to breakfast classics for dessert inspiration.
• The Upper East Side restaurant Sette Mezzo caters to the very well-heeled and in this economy, they seem to be doing fairly well.
  
• What the decor at the new Chinese restaurant Shang lacks in visual appeal, the food more than makes up for it.
• Eric Asimov samples a number of wines from the Côte Chalonnaise region of France and finds some true winners as well as some that should be avoided.
• Melissa Clark says she goes for odd combos when cooking alone, although this Roasted Cauliflower and Peas with Chutney Cheese Sauce doesn't sound anything but delicious.
• The Milano sisters all quit their corporate jobs to start a baking company and are now creating delicious cookies. With a name like that, how coul they not.

• Home cooks from around the world adapt their traditional dishes to be speedier and incorporate the foods that are available in U.S. grocery stores.
• Power brokers are feeling the economic pinch and avoiding picking up the tab at restaurants.
• Two stars for The John Dory, the newest restaurant from the team behind The Spotted Pig.
• Eric Asimov explores the world of good Italian wines that one can pick up for $10-20.
• Restaurants across New York are pulling peanut butter-based desserts off their menus (who knew they used Skippy in their recipes!) because of the salmonella outbreak.
• Chicago chef Missy Robbins has picked up where Andrew Carmellini left off at A Voce and all signs point to her doing a masterful job.
• West Village bar Wilfie & Nell get praised for their tight bar menu, devoted to unadulterated pub food.
• A restaurant starter that transforms the plate into a veritable garden.
• Firefly's Sweet Tea Vodka takes the Southern classic beverage and turns it into something boozy and delicious.
• Melissa Clark goes on a quest to make a dairy-free hot chocolate for her lactose-intolerant husband and settles on coconut milk as the carrier for the cocoa.
• The Minimalist offers an easy take on the chocolate souffle for his readers to make for Valentine's Day.

• The Philadelphia restaurant scene has an unprecedented number of female chefs running kitchens and owning their own restaurants. In a male-dominated industry, Philly's on the cutting edge.
• Home cook James Chan has been making his Peanut Vinegar Chicken for years and loves to share the recipe. Rick Nichols tries it out and finds that it quickly becomes a dinnertime staple.
• This week, the Market Basket has got "chocolate scrapple," locally roasted Blue Water coffee and insulated shopping bags.
• Craig LaBan rounds up some of the newest restaurants in town.
• Inky staff writer Joseph A. Gambardello remembers his dad's signature dish, Spaghetti with Crabs.
• The Rush Hour Gourmet is cooking up a new version of the old classic, Salad Nicoise.

An article in today's New York Times Dining and Wine section addresses the question of differing diets in relationships (just in time for Valentine's Day!). The piece opens with a vignette from Shauna James Ahern (aka the Gluten-Free Girl) about a man she dated before she met her husband, who ended things because he loved bread too much and she was unable to eat it. The article then moves on to tell stories of other relationships that ended because of diet differences, before giving examples of people who've been able to overcome their mixed menu situations (including Philly based Urban Vegan aka Dynise Balcavage).

I admit that I would struggle being in a relationship with someone who's eating style differed drastically from mine but I admire the people who are willing to be flexible and able to make it work.

How about you, Slashfood readers? Are you willing to be in a relationship with someone who eats a substantially different diet from the one you follow?

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