"partnership" news and stories

Endorsements are usually left for top-tier athletes and movie stars, but now chefs are in the mix too, endorsing things like stock pots, muffin tins and...automobiles? Yup. Thomas Keller, chef-owner of the revered French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley, has signed on with BMW to enlist a fleet of the company's new ActiveHybrid 7 car (priced at $102,300), for the restaurant's new concierge service, reports Bloomberg.

The partnership is also being honored with a BMW-inspired menu at the restaurant, featuring a Four Story Farm apple-fed pork loin with bratwurst, braised red cabbage, apple dumplings and grain mustard sauce. It's German, get it?

While the restaurant-automobile deal is new, it isn't entirely out of left field -- the French Laundry and BMW share a similar (well-to-do) clientele. "Our guests at the French Laundry are people who have BMWs or are looking at BMWs," says Keller, as reported by Bloomberg, while BMW is vying for the top spot against Lexus, which "remained the sales leader through August," above BMW and Mercedes, Bloomberg notes.

Plus, Keller does have a couple in his garage -- a 5-Series wagon for daily use, and a 1978 BMW 320i, the first car he ever owned, which he lovingly restored four years ago.

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week.

• YumSugar wants to know if you're making edible gifts to distribute this year.
• Get dinner on the table quickly with this recipe for Gemelli with Broccoli Rabe and Anchovies.
• Hanukkah is nearly here, so bone up on your latke skills with these recipes.
• Need a last minute gift for the gourmet in your life? Look no further!
• Starbucks is teaming up with Subway to sell coffee along side the sandwiches.
• When you're prepping bread for a party, make sure to save the bag for easy transport and leftover storage.
• Change up your standard holiday punch with this Sparkling Shiraz Punch.
• A Manhattan buffet is now charging patrons for the food they leave behind, in order to prevent waste.

With so much good food content popping up on the interwebs every other minute, it's sometimes hard to know which sites to turn to for the best in recipes, polls, product reviews and other food-related goodness. We know you love Slashfood, but what's a foodie to do on those occasions when you've devoured everything Slashfood's got and there's still half an hour of the work day still to kill?

How about checking out our buddies over at YumSugar? They consistently offer high quality content covering all things tasty. We like them so much that starting tomorrow, we'll be offering up a weekly round-up of some of our favorite YumSugar posts from that week. They think we're pretty nifty too, and so will be doing a round-up of our stuff on Thursdays as well. Hooray for food blog buddies!

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