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...