Are you for or against the increasing amount of technology in the kitchen?

Blog DVICE seems to think that over the long-term you can save money on eating out by purchasing nine specific kitchen gadgets, like plates that cook. As exciting as these gadgets sound, just how necessary are they and will they actually help you save money?

The adjustable measuring cup (see the photo above) can measure up to two tablespoons with the small cup and up to a half-cup with the larger one. While this device costs $18, it functions as both a measuring cup and spoon. And, the price is similar to that of both measuring tools and can take up less space.

But are these gadgets worth it? Find out after the jump.

The video above is part of a promo for the "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" on NBC. Fallon appears to "accidentally" light Rachael Ray on fire. Oops! The best part is at the end when Fallon states, "we'll be right back cooking lobsters with Rachael Ray," and Ray yells out, "scallops!" The promo is overall hilarious and makes me think that Fallon's show might have potential.

While I'm unhappy to see Conan O'Brien move down to the tonight show and to watch his time slot be replaced by Jimmy Fallon, I think there might be some hope for the "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon." A hope inspired by an image of Rachael Ray set on fire and yelling "scallops!"

What do you think?

According to a report just yesterday from MSNBC, Girl Scout troops selling their cookies in Washington state are the latest victims of fraud. They have lost $100 so far due to fake $20 bills. This comes at a particularly rough time for Girl Scout cookie sales.

According to The Consumerist, a troop leader states that sales are down by as much as half. As The Consumerist states, "Girl Scout Cookies are not recession-proof." Apparently, they are also not safe from the fraudsters that seem to be sweeping our country, like Bernard Madoff and Robert Allen Stanford. As a result, troop leaders are defending themselves with counterfeit detecting pens. This specific troop of Girl Scouts in Bremerton, WA plans to sell more cookies this weekend, but with a cautious eye and a defensive pen.

Continue reading on AOL Food.

Instead of having to cut butter with a knife, you can use a butter dispenser (pictured to the right). Or, better yet, why not try out this new device that creates butter ribbons? You don't even have to exert energy to spread the butter on your toast. As ridiculous as this sounds and looks, how can you not be mildly intrigued?

Fellow blog Dvice explains that all you have to do is insert a stick of butter, twist the handle, and out comes a paper-thin ribbon of butter. Another blog, Bookofjoe boasts that it can turn each stick of butter into 10 feet of butter ribbon. But, don't fret, you don't have to use it all at once. You can leave the stick of butter in the dispenser and place it in your refrigerator.

The device also works with margarine. It's dishwasher safe, and it can be purchased from Amazon for just under $15. So, if you're concerned about accidentally cutting yourself when slicing butter, this is the perfect alternative. Forget sharp knives and decorate your toast in butter ribbons!

Just yesterday, a NYC maple syrup mystery was solved. For several months now, there has been a mysterious smell over Manhattan that's been identified as maple syrup-like. Scientists in New Jersey and New York examined chemical registries, air samples, weather reports and 311 call logs. So what is the cause of this stink? Mayor Bloomberg states - New Jersey.

Frutarom factory in North Bergen is responsible for what the New York Times calls an "aromatic mystery". Mayor Bloombery assured reporters yesterday that the smell is harmless. The factory produces this smell on nights when it processes fenugreek seeds. To see what these seeds look like, check out AOL's coverage on the story. So, what's the deal with these seeds?

Fenugreek seeds are often used as a spice in Indian cuisine, in particular curry. Interestingly, in the U.S., fenugreek is often used as a flavor in industrial less expensive maple syrups. In the Middle East, it's used in many sweets. And, in Egypt, it's made into a tea and sold at coffee shops. For me, what began as an intriguing story over a syrup mystery has spurred an interest in discovering this aromatic spice and herb.

Brittany Murphy is the American noodle princess in the film The Ramen Girl. Media8entertainment gives a plot summary of the film explaining that it's about an American girl who gets dumped by her boyfriend and finds solace in her neighborhood ramen shop. She eventually persuades the Japanese chef to take her on as an apprentice. Brittany Murphy's character then decides it's her lifetime goal to become a ramen chef.

Josh Friedland of The Food Section states: "this might sound like a bizzarro "Saturday Night Live" skit (or just a bad dream). But, it's apparently for real, as this trailer for the film will attest." Serious Eats asserts that the film is Tampopo meets Lost in Translation. Tampopo is Juzo Itami's 1985 cult comedy that as Friedland describes is "a 'noodle Western' interspersed with a series of satirical vignettes about food culture."

The film is already playing in theaters in Japan. When will it come to the U.S.? I have to admit...I'm sort of dying to see it. Make sure to check out the trailer, which is embedded after the jump.

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.

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!

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?

Gawd knows how many blogs cover the foodie sphere these days... here are a few posts from my browsing that look superb, i.e. I plan to give the recipe a try out.

28 Cooks has an Upside Down Gingerbread and Cranberry Cake.... for the vegetarian there is a Curried Vegetable Bisque from A Veggie Adventure... for the baker Andrea's Recipes has Oatmeal Cream Scones which look delicious... snacks and nibbles appear from Sweden's Cooking Diva Anne of Anne's Food Spicy Almonds (pictured) and from England's resident Austrian blogging cook, Johanna the Passionate Cook, with Feta, Melon, Olive and Mint Skewers.

While Johanna continues her skewering Chubby Hubby asks us to Try This At Home with his take on Baked Cod with Miso... while Cindy abandons all hope of maintaining her svelte-like figure by devouring the "richest cake I have ever made", a mouthwatering Chocolate Torte. And then back to Sweden for Blå Jungfruns muffins from Clivis's Cuisine. More sweetness over at English Patis with a Banana Date Cake.

Blimey, how am I gonna make all these?! Still more in my "must try file". Kalyn's Kitchen has Pork Chops with a Balsamic Glaze and finally, if only because I have a huge wodge of chorizo in the fridge, there is Chickpea and chorizo stew from Taste Everything Once.

So there you have it - nibbles, main courses, snacks, appetizers and more cake and dessert than is healthy. If you have a great post you would like to share complete with recipe and quality photography why not drop us a line via our tips page?

 

At last I have a spare moment to catch up on the best wine writing on the internet via my RSS reader...

 

Derrick (Obsession with Food) is looking at Zinfandel and worries over the high alchol levels found in this Californian classic. To me, if the wine has enough weight - and most are very big and chunky, then high alcohol doesn't bother me. Derrick seems to think otherwise...

Staying in the single varietal vein Beau, with little forethought, plonks a bottle of Merlot in his shopping basket. Can't see why there is such an anti-Merlot movement myself. I couldn't do without a decent St.Emilion once in a while, although of course Merlot here is generally blended with other varieties. Beau goes Italian with his selection.

Apart from the odd rum I generally don't experiment with spirits. But that doesn't stop me following the Scotch Blog. Plenty of news and notes from the American angle; he has just set-up a whisky forum Whisky 101. I have even less time at the moment to look in on forums but for the whisky lover this might be of interest.

Another thing I am hopeless at is regularly following the wine podcasts pumped out by GrapeVine (the latest covers Pinot Noir) and Tim at WineCast. The latest cast is co-hosted with Alan Baker of the RatCast Podcast. A new one to me and another to add to the list of stuff I really would like to do/listen to but never seem to have the chance...