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Most boxed chocolates come in a variety of flavors. The chocolates might be all truffles, each infused with a different herb or liqueur, or a simple mix of creams and nut-filled chocolates in milk or dark coatings. The blends are great when you want to share and have people who like different flavors, textures and consistencies, but when you have a box mostly to yourself, it's a waste to have the box half-full of chocolates that you don't like. The best way to get exactly what you want is to head to your nearest chocolatier and pick out an assortment that fits your tastes.

If this isn't an option for you for some reason, you're in luck because there are two online retailers that will allow you to choose an entirely custom assortment without ever setting foot in a store: See's Candies and Russell Stover. See's lets you choose from 75 different candy options, then adjust the percentage of each type that will be found in your 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5-pound box. A 1-lb mix is $17.50. Russell Stover gives you three different types of boxes ranging from 1/2-lb to 5-lb. You can't get quite the same variety as See's offers, since you are limited to a set number of types per box size, but there are still plenty of options. A 1-lb, heart-shaped box is $11.96.

Even before Chowhound became a part of the Chow network, users frequently had problems with deletions. Controversial posts and less than glowing reviews of certain restaurants were deleted without explanation and some users found that their posts were deleted with a high frequency, regardless of the topic. Since the message board is a public forum, it is perfectly appropriate for moderators to remove offensive content, but when non-offensive reviews of "off the table restaurants" and other posts relevant to the website were taken down without explanation, many users grew frustrated. The problems persist with the new Chowhound, leaving many former contributors to head to different, more open minded, websites.

It appears that Eater is one such site because they have just offered to post anything that has been inexplicably removed from the Chowhound site. They are able to do this because the "offending" posts are not removed from the Chowhound feed as quickly as they are from the site, so there is a window of time where it is possible to retrieve the posts. Of course, you will have to contact the staff to let them know if your post was stricken, but it will be interesting to see what types of pieces are selected for removal.

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When Allrecipes redid their layout back in October, the design was met with less than positive reviews from users, who complained about the readability of the text, the number of advertisements and the difficulty of actually locating the main recipe on the page. Epicurious, one of the other leading online recipe sites, is now testing out a new look for their recipe pages. Fortunately, they don't seem to be going to extremes with their makeover.

The old view had a banner ad at the top of the recipe and put the user ratings, menu suggestions and related links down the left-hand side of the page. The new layout eliminates the top banner ad and moves the user reviews onto the right-hand column. The ads that used to appear in the sidebar have been eliminated as well and that space is now occupied with links to reference guides and the Epicurious recipe feed link. Along the top of the recipe, there are several tabs that make it easy to switch between the photo, reviews and the recipe itself without relying on the browser's back button.

Overall? The changes look good and it probably won't be long before Epicurious switches over to the new layout completely.

[thanks, alanna!]

In this week's Wall Street Journal, the ever savvy Catalogue Critic took on one of the most popular types of holiday desserts, cheesecake, to see if a good mail-order one could be found. Cheesecake may not sound like the perfect seasonal dessert, but more than one company that they interviewed reported that holiday sales had "increased in the double digits" over each of the last few years, and virtually all said that November and December were their biggest months of the year.

Orders were placed at five bakeries and testers, including the executive chef of the Four Seasons, were enlisted to judge. They looked for "a firm outside, a creamy interior and a balanced flavor" in each of the plain/vanilla cheesecakes. Their two favorite cakes came from Eli's Cheesecake Company and Junior's. Eli's ($28) was rich and creamy, with a shortbread cookie crust, but had a lemon flavor that not everyone enjoyed. Junior's ($29.95) was picked as the "best overall," as it was creamy, not crumbly, and had a slightly moist sponge cake base instead of a graham cracker crust. They also noted that Junior's is adding 12 flavors to their holiday menu for anyone who wants more than plain cheesecake.

Incidentally, shipping was not a problem for the testers, as all the cakes arrived in pristine condition via overnight shipping, so the cost of getting the cheesecake to your door is probably going to be a bigger concern than what it will look like when it gets there.

There is a new website geared towards those who, like so many of us, spend a lot of time shopping and looking for that one great deal on an exotic sea salt, a rare olive oil, or a really decadent dessert. One Gourmet Goodie spotlights one gourmet food item every day and offers it at a discount price. The downside is that the selection is limited and the offer only lasts for 24 hours, but the upside is that this results in a fairly substantial discount. There are sites that offer this "deal of the day" type of service for other goods and services, but this is the first one that I've encountered that does so with things just for foodies.

Past items included a Halloween Cake sampler from Black Hound Bakery in New York (pictured), Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies from Simply Divine Heavenly Brownies, Chocolate Wine & Liqueur Sauce 2 Pack from Anette's Chocolates Napa Valley and an assortment of Cheddars from around the World. There are five new items each week, with the Friday item available throughout the weekend.

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