"on the blogs" news and stories

Next Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET/PT, the Food Network will premier Chopped, its new chef-competition series with host Ted Allen. On the Food Network's site, you can check out the contestants of the show, many of them coming from the NYC restaurant scene. On Allen's blog, he defends the need for another "cook-off show" by explaining that, unlike existing shows, on Chopped, there are four new chefs that compete on each episode. The one that wins that episode receives $10,000; the one with the worst food is "chopped." Since each episode features new contestants, there is none of the drama and sleep deprivation present on shows like, 'Project Runway'.

Alright, so Chopped is not entirely based on shows like Top Chef. Nevertheless, after watching its video promo I couldn't help but to view it more like an Saturday Night Live satire of Top Chef and Project Runway, than as a serious TV show. Clips of contestants panicking and asking "what am I going to do?" and saying "my worst nightmare" seems slightly ridiculous if host Allen is going to state that the show is so different than previous chef-competition series. "This January, a new kind of competition." Really? At the end of the clip, Allen, in Heidi Klum style, states "you have been chopped." While the show seems to borrow several elements from other reality based competition shows, we'll have to wait until next Tuesday night to judge whether this a fresh concept or more of the same.

I hate it when I lose any kind of food products, whether they are forgotten in the back of the fridge, hidden beneath a couple new rolls of parchment paper in the bread drawer or pushed to the back of the cabinet behind several boxes of cereal. In the best-case scenario, they are old and stale when I find them and, in the worst, they are truly "icky." Alanna, from A Veggie Venture experienced neither situation when she came upon a 10-month old loaf of Wonder Bread that had been long since lost in the depths of her bread drawer. It didn't have a speck of mold on it and smelled fine, with no indication that it might be past its prime. Based on this unintentional experiment, Alanna concluded that Wonder Bread "is truly-truly dead and lifeless cardboard."

I wasn't buying Wonder Bread before and I doubt I'll be changing my shopping habits any time soon. Unless, of course, I'm shopping to replenish my emergency disaster kit and want foods with a really long shelf lift.

Source

Was just clearing up my food blog list and stumbled upon Culiblog. Have you looked at this site recently? I have a list of 300 food blogs so forgive me that I dont read each one every day!

Refreshingly different from your recipe listing sites - design in the food world appears to be the focus. Recent posts include making bowls from vegetable waste as shown at the Design Academy Eindhoven MFA show, Then there are details of collection of chocolate objects designed in collaboration with the autistic employees of a Belgian chocolate factory. It is not all design and design concepts; recipes appear too. Have a look at the wounderful looking Terrine Geologique.

Culiblog - its great!

Source

Despite a quieter time on the blog front - what with it being the height of summer in the northern hemisphere - there is plenty of great posts across the food and drink-blog arena that you shouldn't miss:

1. Try the original scone recipe via Baking for Britain
2. Cream Puffs in Venice is geting all berry-fied with a Triple Berry Coffeecake 
3. Stephen Cooks on the other hand is playing with Baby Turnips and Sugar Snap Peas
4. And World Cup fever has hit San Francisco as Sam gets all excited by the French and tells us all on where to watch the matches
5. Monkey Gland has admitted to a Raw Obsession
6. Catavino reports on a grand sounding Spanish Wine Dinner
7. Food In The Main has details of Tomato-coriander thokku a superb sounding chutney.
8. and finally a Radish and Peach Sandwich graces Just Braise for that great summer feeling (pictured)

The editor of Epicurious, Tanya Wenman, has been busily blogging away at the Epi-log for some time now. As of this week, the editors at Bon Appetit have launched their very own blog, as well. It's called the BA blog. Though there are only a handful of entries up at the moment - and none as immediately engrossing as the ones that SF Chronicle Editor Michael Bauer started out his blog with - it sounds as though they'll be blogging about "where they ate last night, what they cooked, what they drank, where they're traveling. In other words, all the stuff that really matters in [their] world." Sounds promising to me!

My only complaint is that when you leave a comment, you can't leave a link back to your own e-mail or blog, just the name you're registered with at Epicurious. How are they ever going to expand their blogroll that way?

Source