If the posts that Ellen and I wrote earlier this week about the International Berkeley Water Competition got you thinking about the quality and taste of your own local water, then our friends over at Green Daily have a whole bunch of stuff for you to read. They have put together a feature that tries to answer the question, "What's in our water?" They explore what's safe, what's not and what you can do about. If these are questions that have been plaguing you, head over and give their piece a scan. I'm certain that you'll find it enlightening.

When you think about moving to a new city, you might take into account the school districts, the job market, the home prices and the property taxes. But do you spend time thinking about how the tap water tastes? Probably not. However, thanks to the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting, you can now factor in the taste of a municipality's tap water in your move decisions.

This last Saturday, the panel of independent judges tasted water samples from 120 sources and determined that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves Los Angeles, and the town of Clearbrook, British Columbia tied for first place in the tap water category.

For those of you in Los Angeles, do you think your tap water is award worthy? For the rest of you, how does your tap water stack up?

[via CNN.com]

Let's face it: if you take a glace at the rapidly expanding chocolate section of almost any store, there is bound to be at least one product that needs a second (and much closer) look just to figure out the label. In this case, I'm not referring to products with unusual flavor combinations, but to those marked with a cacao percentage.

Consumers and manufacturers alike have gone crazy over chocolates labeled with their cacao percentage in the last year or so, and even though the numbers themselves are clear, not everyone understands what those numbers mean. Often, the percentages are equated with the quality of the chocolate, leading to the idea that the darker the chocolate, the better it will be in spite of the fact that the darkest chocolate - usually unsweetened, 99% cacao- is actually quite unpalatable.

The cacao percentage indicates how much of a given product, by weight, is made up of cocoa solids from the cocoa bean (cacao), like cocoa butter and cocoa powder. The rest of the bar is made up of sugar, vanilla and/or other ingredients, including milk and the occasional emulsifier. This basically means that a bar of chocolate with a higher cacao percentage will usually have more chocolate in it and a stronger cocoa flavor (i.e. it will be more bitter) than one with a lower percentage, but that doesn't necessarily mean that bars of equally high percentages will taste alike.

Kosher food is a new trend in stadium food. Over the past couple of years, exclusively kosher stands have been sprouting up at more sports venues, offering food that even very strict Jewish people, those who follow the dietary laws of kashrut, can eat. The glatt kosher hot dogs and other meat products are held to a different standard from ordinary ones and, of course, do not involve pork products. They are proving popular in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, despite that fact that the stands are not typically open on the two busiest times of the sporting week: Friday nights and Saturdays. One other risk of selling the kosher food is that it is typically more expensive than the nonkosher offerings at stadiums and since stadium food is not inexpensive to begin with, this can mean that consumers might be paying as much as 25% more for kosher products. That being said, the slow and steady success of such vendors indicates that there is a market for kosher products in these settings, from both those who keep kosher and those who, like some fans, "like the taste better [and] assume the quality is better."

Intelligentsia Coffee is on a mission to get the best beans money can buy, and they have an unusual strategy for getting results. Instead of seeking out beans and trying to get the at the lowest price point possible, they seek out direct trade relationships with growers, help them to grow the best coffee they can and then pay them far more than the going rate for the beans. In fact, they pay growers over 25% more than the Fair Trade coffee prices. They charge their customers a fair price, too, and no one is complaining.

Their goal is "to create a culture of quality" on "the grower side and the consumer side."

Why isn't Fair Trade's standard good enough for Intelligentsia? "Fair Trade relates to working conditions, not the quality of coffee beans." And while the working conditions are important, it is the beans, not the workers, which flavor the coffee. With the growers, Intelligentsia offers financial incentives and trains them to improve their growing methods, producing premium beans. They also help communities develop coffee tasting centers and teach them to evaluate their own products, because Intelligentsia pays individual farmers based on their products, not a flat rate to a production company or co-op. Furthermore, one of their guarantees to their growers is that their rates will only increase over time.

The company's promise to consumers is some of the best coffee in the world.

They supply coffee to restaurants like Alinea and sell their blends online, as well as at retail stores in Chicago.

In Sunday's New York Times Magazine, there was an interesting article by Mark Bittman about the franchising of great chefs. The article covers how world renowned chefs, including Alain Ducasse, Joël Robuchon and Daniel Boulud, are expanding into restaurateurism, trading on their name and the cooking that is represented by that name.

It is not that there is anything wrong with the branding that the chefs are doing because it is financially a good move for them and, in some cases, good for diners who have world-class cuisine more readily accessible. For the chefs, opportunities like these are outstanding.

Papa John's is planning to roll out pizza to consumers in 10 minutes or less! The third largest pizza delivery chain in the United States is releasing what will be the fastest made-to-order pizza ever. Guaranteed.

Basically, Papa John's is promising that its Papa's 10 Minute Carry-out Customer Guarantee will have your pizza made-to-order and completely ready for handoff in not more than 10 minutes or it will be free. The offer will apply only to carry-out orders during lunchtime, but a company spokesperson said that they are in the process of upgrading their ovens in one third of their stores, cutting total pizza baking time from 6 to 4 minutes. The company is currently missing the 10-minute mark less than 1% of the time at its test stores. The move is designed to allow thechain to compete with fast food establishments like Jack in the Box and Wendy's, where customers can spend an average of 10 minutes in line at the drive-through. 

A Pizza Hut spokeswoman said "In our experience, freshly baked, high-quality pizza takes more than four minutes. And we think it's worth waiting for." If the Papa John's promotion fails, it could be costly for the company. If customers don't perceive a change in the quality of their pizzas, though, this could en enough to make other pizza companies reevaluate their timing, too.