"seriouseats" news and stories

Chefs say that canned or boxed chicken stock is an abomination and that you're better off just substituting plain old water instead. However, what's a home cook to do on those occasions when you want something more than water (even if it's fresh, nicely filtered H2O) and you used up the last of your frozen stock when you made risotto a week ago?

Over at Serious Eats, Michele Humes has done the research, tasting and testing every canned or boxed stock in her local market, trying to determine which are a doable substitute for the real thing and which are better left on the shelf. She found that the all-around winner was Kitchen Basics Natural Chicken Stock. To see all her winners and losers, check out the full post.

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Last October, we learned that Mother's Cookies, the iconic west coast cookie maker who baked up those cute little pink and white frosted animal cookies, was going out of business. People who knew and loved their cookies were heart-broken, so many of us grew up eating those be-sprinkled cookies and couldn't imagine a world without them in it.

Happily, we no longer have to mourn the passing of those cheerful cookies, as the Kellogg Company announced on Wednesday that they will buying the Mother's brand and will be bringing back their most popular flavors, incorporating them into their snacks business unit. Oh happy day!

[via Serious Eats and Married with Dinner]

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As a documentary lover, I am so excited about two food documentaries coming out this fall. Both Flow and Food, Inc. deal with the way two basic necessities, water and food, are handled by big industry.

Food, Inc. sets out to expose the truth about the food industry. Most of it will probably be familiar to anyone who's read anything by Michael Pollan, who is featured in the film. The film delves into who makes food, how it's made, and what the consequences are to various groups of people. Eric Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation), Gary Hirschberg (the head of Stonyfield Farms), and Joe Salatin (the head of Polyface Farms) are also featured.

Flow looks into similar issues with water. I heard about this the other day on Bob Edwards' Weekend on NPR, and saw that it is opening in a few weeks at my local art cinema. It is about issues surrounding water and whether it should be a public asset or privately controlled. Flow also delves into what is in our water, what is in the bottled water, and what local communities are doing to take back their water supply.

[via Serious Eats and Bob Edwards]

While we strive to cover the food scene on national and worldwide level here at Slashfood, occasionally our regional biases come out. If you've been reading for awhile, you'll know that I live in Philadelphia and that I'm a bit partial to the food scene coming out of my city. However, I'm not the only one who's a fan of the local edibles, there've been a couple of interesting "Food in Philly" stories lately and I thought I'd take a few minutes to point them out.

Last Thursday, Serious Eats posted the second installment in their series of city guides and this one was dedicated to Philadelphia. Written by Joy Manning, Philadelphia Magazine restaurant critic, it compiles a number of city 'Bests,' including Best Bargain Lunch and Best Pork Sandwich (I second her suggestion of DiNic's roasted pork and greens, it's amazing). I feel like she missed a few great places like Plaza Garibaldi (queso fundido con chorizo!), Lee How Fook and the Nanzhou Handdrawn Noodle House. However, if you're planning a trip to Philly or you're local and in need of some new restaurant suggestions, her piece is chock full of solid suggestions.

In the September 30th issue of Wine Spectator, Philadelphia got not one, but two nods for our fabulous cheese shops. They called out Di Bruno Brothers (a must-visit for cheese loving tourists) and The Chestnut Hill Cheese Shop (where my great-aunt Doris used to buy all her cheese and gourmet tidbits in the 1980s). My only complaint is that they left Claudio's, my favorite South Philly cheese vendor, off the list. [via Phoodie]

Many of you have, by now, heard of Twitter, the social networking tool used to post short messages to your friends about what you're doing at the moment. Loads of people use the service, and you can even follow Slashfood. But can you share a recipe in 140 characters or less (140 being the maximum amount of characters Twitter allows)?

Well, Cookbook sure thinks so. If you're on Twitter, you can follow Cookbook for regular recipe updates. For the most part, the recipes seem fine. In order to share a recipe in that number of characters, though, you've got to use as many shortcuts as possible, and that does make some of the recipes hard to follow, in my opinion.

Overall, though, it's a pretty neat concept. It's kind of like the Cartoon Kitchen on Serious Eats, only it's delivered right to you. What a way to bring cooking into the 21st century.