I was just wandering the web when I stumbled across an article on Yahoo Finance about Shortcuts, a new service of AOL. This is a totally paperless, online coupon program linked to store loyalty cards. Shortcuts makes it easy to click, shop, and save; on the products you buy every week.

The way it works is that customers go to the Shortcuts website and link coupons for products to their customer loyalty cards. then when your card is scanned the coupon automatically is applied to your purchase. It's a fantastic idea that makes it easy with no coupon cutting and remembering to bring them with you. There's also the "green" aspect of the program in cutting down on paper use and waste.

So far the service is only offered to Kroger's and affiliate stores customers, but that should change soon. For a growing list of all the partner stores click here.

Broccoli forests sprouting from powdered cumin soil. A cauliflower coral reef. A pea pod boat drifting on a sunset sea of pink salmon.

London photographer Carl Warner constructs elaborate landscapes made completely of food, from mozzarella clouds to an entire village sculpted from chunks of Parmesan. There's a photo gallery of his work up on the BBC website. It looks look ultra-time consuming and amazingly cool.

We clearly have a deep-seated fascination with edible landscapes - think about the candy testing room in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, with its lollipop plants and chocolate river, or the lunch pail trees in Return to Oz. Or remember the town of Chewandswallow, where it rained juice and snowed mashed potatoes in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, a seminal text for the (4-year old) budding foodie?

Anyway, check out the photos. They'll have you gnawing on the nearest tree limb.

Back in April, we noted that Reader's Digest bought Allrecipes.com and there was some speculation that they might change the user-friendly site for the worse, especially since they said that they planed to use it as "the main portal to its other magazines and websites." So far, there really have been no major changes to the site, but it appears to have just undergone a major facelift. The new site (there is a site tour so you can figure out how to use it) seems to have given a much more prominent space to affiliated magazines and advertising partners and also seems to put more emphasis on the few top-rated recipes from every category. The biggest change is in layout. Instead of the fairly well-spaced pages that we were used to, where all of the non-recipe content was grouped on the right side of the page, it now seems that every bit of the screen is utilized, drawing attention away from the recipe.

They still have a great recipe database, though, so whether you like the new layout or not, there are still plenty of reasons to use the site.

After far, far too long a time with their slow-loading yet content-less website, Trader Joe's has upgraded to something worth visiting. The site now offers a complete look at the history and values of the privately-owned company, as well as the same information on new locations and copies of their latest "Fearless Flyer" newsletter.

The best thing about the site is that they now have a great display of their new items. Once you select your location from the drop-down menu, a page with pictures and descriptions of some of the new products in your area comes up. I already found that Cheddar with Mango, Chile & Lime is a new type of cheese ("one of the most unique cheeses (ever!)") currently being offered, a product I might not have noticed simply stocked on the shelves. They also have a useful FAQ that answers some questions about labels and nutrition, in addition to clearing up the ever-present concern of whether Trader Joe's products will turn you "into a superhero, a professional athlete or one of the great brainiacs of humankind."

Great job with the website overhaul, TJs. We love having a site that we can use!

Food bloggers love food to the point where they have made a hobby out of not just finding, cooking and eating it, but out of sharing it with the world. Melissa, at The Traveler's Lunchbox, came up with a brilliant way that food bloggers could share their recommendations on the very best of what and where to eat in the world with the The Foodblogger's Guide to the Globe. The Guide is a meme in which every participating food blogger chooses their top five things to eat before you die. The original post has a shorthand list of all the suggestions, with links to their full descriptions on individual blogs.

The only problem is, of course, that there are so many food bloggers that you might never be able to try them all - or if you decide to start, you could find yourself jet-setting around the globe in search of food.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

We've mentioned the new Netscape here on Slashfood before. In case you haven't heard, what used to be an alternative web browser to Internet Explorer, netscape.com, got an extreme makeover in mid-June and has become a social bookmarking site, similar to del.icio.us, digg (technology) or flickr (photos), but for news. In case you're not familiar with social bookmarking, it is the concept of users collecting bookmarks of their favorite websites, and sharing them with the community. Users can collect, categorize, and "tag" bookmarks, which makes it easier for other users to find similar bookmarks. On sites like digg and newsvine, users can "vote" on each others' stories.

Over on Netscape, it's mostly about news, but users can also submit stories in a number of "channels," or categories - from Art & Design to Careers & Jobs to Health & Fitness to Popular Videos. It goes without saying that Slashfood's favorite channel is Food & Travel, but we'll get into more detail about that shortly.

Recognizing that television is not the sole media source that children are exposed to, British ministers are wondering whether a proposal that bans junk food ads on television will be effective. As a result, they are now considering whether to add restrictions to the ad content of websites, computer games, cinemas and packaging, as well as corporate school sponsorships. Such measures "could be voluntary or compulsory depending on the response of the food industry." Strict measures like these are being supported by the Labour Party and various parent groups.

The Food Standards Agency, backing the ban, has devised a "nutrient profiling system" to identify "junk foods" according to their nutritional information. It could be used to determine whether or not a food product could be advertised if a ban becomes legislation.

Ofcom, a television regular, thinks that measures like this seem too strict. A pre-9pm television ban alone would cost networks and advertisers at least £141 million, but there is not telling what the cost of essentially prohibiting "junk food" ads would be.

Is anyone a fan of Dave Lieberman? The Food Network is counting on what they believe is his appeal with younger audiences to make his newest ventures, Dave Does, a success. Dave Does is a web-based series that is launching on the Food Network's website in August. This is the second internet-only show for Lieberman, who starred in a series titled Eat This a few months ago. Unlike Dave Does, the previous show only ran for a few episodes, though Food Network reps say it was very popular. The new show will deal with the latest food trends, gadgets and "insider" restaurant locations in cities including Boston, Philadelphia, New York and Portland in each of its thirteen, 5-minute episodes.

Lieberman is entertaining in small doses, so the "webisode" format works well for him. The unfortunate thin about the show is that it is not a cooking show. That makes this just another example of the Food Network moving further away from people who like to cook. How many shows can they have that feature "insider restaurant locations"?

Taking their media empire online, Reader's Digest has just announced the purchase of Allrecipes.com for $66 million. The publisher had only 7 magazines in its organization eight years ago, but today they have 20 in publication, as well as 40 websites. Their magazines include Taste of Home and Everyday with Rachael Ray, in addition to their flagship magazine, Reader's Digest. A company spokesman said "it instantly gives us Seattle cool and online credibility." The sale also gives them a large advertising revenue, as the major source of income for Allrecipes.com was through advertisements placed on their site.

Reader's Digest plans to make Allrecipes.com the center point of its online operations, the main portal to its other magazines and websites, potentially taking content from it to put into some of its printed media. Though spokespeople from the company denied it, the move is a fairly obvious attempt to attract younger readers to the pages of Reader's Digest.

Allrecipes.com is a user-supported community comprised of 1.8 million members, the majority of whom are home cooks. Membership, which is free, allows users to create online profiles, share recipes and leave feedback on the recipes that other users have posted. In February, it was the third most popular food site on the web in terms of page views, behind the Food Network and Kraft Foods.

The Independent Food Festival and Awards is an online event dedicated to the idea that people should share their favorite foods and food experiences to help rekindle a love of and interest in food in general. Judging by the fact that the event seems to be several times the size of last year's festival, this second annual event seems to be a success so far. 

You may have seen their logo on some of your favorite food blogs last year, when 30 well-known blogs were selected to act as jury members and contribute a favorite food-related thing to the online festival. Every jury member creates their own award and awards it as they see fit. The bloggers' awards are being announced over the course of five days, since there are quite a few more participants than last year. Since all the categories and awards are independently generated, it is difficult to say what you might expect to find amongst the nominees, but it is certain to be something delicious judging from the entries so far.

If you asked me what it takes to blog about food, I would say that the necessities include a computer, an internet connection and a desire to read and write about the same kinds of things we like here at Slashfood. Once you get started blogging, however, it can take on a life of its own because the most important ingredient is passion. Some people blog about specific subjects and some blog recipes each and every day. Tea and Cookies is a food blog that started only at the beginning of this year and its author has extensively documented her journey to becoming, as she calls it, a mad food blogger. Food is delicious, fascinating and, once you're looking for it, just about everywhere. With the colorful commentary of her day-by-day descent into the addiction, it's easy to see how one can quickly become mad about food blogging. Perhaps not everyone has the same thoughts, but the post still gives some interesting insights into how the mind of a blogger can work.

It's not that the Vietnamese government has anything against grapefruit per se. Rather the powers that be have banned the URL www.buoi.com.vn because of a confusion that arises from the Vietnamese language's use of markings to indicate one of six pronunciation tones, reports the BBC. Without the proper accent marks, buoi reads the same as the slang for penis. Unfortunately for the grapefruit wholesaler in Ha Tinh province who tried to register the name there is as yet no way to indicate such diacritical marks in Web site addresses.