Dakigokochi are far from being an age-old Japanese tradition. They were, ahem, conceived by Naruo Ono and his wife, Yukiko, who own the Yoshimiya rice shop in Kita-Kyushu. The popularity of the pair's wedding favor – a packet of rice, adorned with a picture of the happy couple – inspired them to create the unusual birth announcement. Even though their own son, Sota, is now four months old, the Onos haven't had a chance to send out their own dakigokochi. Guess they've been too busy fulfilling orders for other proud parents.

[via Boing Boing]

• Hey, don't use rice...use pasta!
• The paper went to several area grocery stores and taste-tested rib-eye steaks.
• Boston's Restaurant Week is coming, March 4 to 9.
• I've never heard of Chicken Ballotine, but it looks quite good. (Though I don't agree with the line " chicken is often dismissed as dull and ubiquitous, but chefs feel compelled to keep a version on their menu." Chicken is only dull if you make it that way, and not having some chicken dish on a restaurant menu is kind of silly. I mean, "compelled??")
• Thomas Keller and other chefs cooked for a benefit this past week in Boston.
• Do you use a mortar and pestle?
• This week's recipes (very choco-centric): Warm Chocolate Cakes with Dulce de Leche, Fruits and Nuts in Chocolate, and Tunnel of Fudge Cake.

Red beans and rice doesn't sound like a very exciting dish, but the staple of Louisiana cuisine can actually be elegant as well as delicious, as long as you put as much care into making yours as BWJones did with his version of the dish. His recipe calls for rice, red beans, onion and a lot of spices, including sage, thyme, bay leaf, cayenne pepper, garlic, paprika and chipotle. His is topped off with crawfish, seasoned generously with Old Bay (not to be confused with Old Spice), although some would say that sausage (andouille, in particular) or ham sets the standard for the dish. The meat can be left off entirely for a less expensive or vegetarian version of the dish.

This is an easy recipe to master and an extremely versatile one. Not only can you play around with the spices, increasing and decreasing the heat, but it can work both as a side dish and as a main course.

To renew interest, brewers are turning more and more toward premium sakes and cutting-edge ad campaigns, not unlike the ones commonly seen for beer or luxury spirits, to attract younger drinkers to their products. They don't want the trendsetters of the nation to see sake as "what grandma and grandpa drink" or as "what your boss forces you to drink in a smoky pub in a sticky glass." In pursuit of hipness, they are also touting the drink as being low in calories and a good stress reliever.

The gene that is responsible for the this submerged survival has been known or about fifty years, but it has only been in the past decade that scientists were able to isolate it and figure out how it worked. One of the primary goals is to bring the rice into areas that are at high risk of flash flooding, particularly in rural areas in Asia where the population could be devastated by a ruined crop. Another main goal is to take advantage of the ability to keep crops underwater for extended periods of time to keep weeds under control without increasing the use of pesticides or herbicides on the crops. This reduction in the use of potentially harmful chemicals could result in cleaner water supplies as the floodwaters run off the fields, less expensive rice production and higher yields. The new strain will also appeal to organic farmers, who will be able to reap the same weed-reducing benefits.

Forget the Tofurkey. Susan, the amazing vegan cook behind Fat Free Vegan Kitchen, has come up with a much more appetizing vegan alternative to the omnivore's turkey dinner. She made Tofu Stuffed with Brown Rice and Mushroom Dressing. The dish has the classic elements of stuffing and gravy, but is missing, of course, the meat. Susan marinates her tofu so that it absorbs some flavor before cooking, but it is pretty clear that the bulk of the flavor comes from what is inside the tofu. The stuffing has rosemary, sage, garlic and onion, along with nutty brown rice and mushrooms. The gravy is thickened with tofu, but has similar seasonings, along with a bit of nutritional yeast, which is often added to vegan dishes to give them an ever-so-slightly cheesy flavor. Her post also includes detailed photo instructions for cutting the pockets in the tofu to hold the stuffing.

Vegan or not - this sounds like an appealing fall meal for any Sunday dinner.

For years, the "Tofurkey" seemed like some sort of make-believe food item and I pictured blocks of tofu stuck together and carved into a giant turkey shape. This particular mental image was smashed the day I first spotted an actual Tofurkey at the market. The product is a 100% vegan roast made out of tofu and vital wheat gluten (this is the combination, with seasonings, is known as "Tofurkey"), stuffed with a brown rice stuffing and accompanied by a side of "giblet and mushroom gravy," which contains more Tofurkey, mushrooms and a variety of seasonings, oils and thickeners.

I decided that I'd give it a try and see what it was like. After all - how bad could it be?

There are many people who use their rice cookers for making plain rice and nothing more. This is fine when you like a lot of plain rice, but if you want to get more use out of the machine, or at least expand your repertoire, The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook might be the best resource you can add to your library. The book has over 250 "no-fail" recipes for just about every rice dish you can think of, including risottos, puddings and pilafs, not to mention that it also has a wide variety of non-rice recipes that take advantage of the machine's cooking capabilities. And there is nothing that we like more than an appliance that multi-tasks.

Since it is a book about a type of appliance, the first thing that it covers is some basic information on the different kinds of rice cookers and how they are used. After that, it dives into the recipes, which include Asparagus and Mushroom Risotto, Salmon Stuffed Japanese Rice Balls, Corn and Black Bean Tamales, Hummus and Maple Cinnamon Rice Pudding. Even if you don't like all the recipes, there are sure to be at least a few that you enjoy and trying some new techniques could help you get more mileage out of the cooker in the long run.