"site" news and stories

In the past, we've posted about several social bookmarking and networking sites that focus on food, such as FoodCandy and Cork'd. Today Slashfood received a heads up about thisjustbrewed.com, a Digg-like site that describes itself as "social news for social beverages." True to its description, thisjustbrewed is a place where users can submit and vote for various news stories or sites that pertain to social beverages like coffee, tea, wine or beer. Scanning the site this evening, recent posts included a story about a type of bio-diesel fuel derived from beer by-products, news of $11,000 coffee machines, and a link to Bottletalk, another site where users can trade their own wine reviews. Most of the posts on thisjustbrewed are only getting a few votes each and none look to be more than a month old, so perhaps the site is still a bit new. With any luck, it will take on more users (I just joined), and become another good source for beverage-related news on the web.

[Thanks Ken]

After far, far too long a time with their slow-loading yet content-less website, Trader Joe's has upgraded to something worth visiting. The site now offers a complete look at the history and values of the privately-owned company, as well as the same information on new locations and copies of their latest "Fearless Flyer" newsletter.

The best thing about the site is that they now have a great display of their new items. Once you select your location from the drop-down menu, a page with pictures and descriptions of some of the new products in your area comes up. I already found that Cheddar with Mango, Chile & Lime is a new type of cheese ("one of the most unique cheeses (ever!)") currently being offered, a product I might not have noticed simply stocked on the shelves. They also have a useful FAQ that answers some questions about labels and nutrition, in addition to clearing up the ever-present concern of whether Trader Joe's products will turn you "into a superhero, a professional athlete or one of the great brainiacs of humankind."

Great job with the website overhaul, TJs. We love having a site that we can use!

Source

We posted about Pho Fever around this time last year, and appears that since then the pho site has added a forum where fans can discuss that ambrosial mixture of beef, broth, noodles and herbs. The forum isn't exactly booming, but there are about 50 users, and a healthy banter about pho recipes. With any luck, more people will check it out and share their thoughts. The site also has a sparsely updated pho blog, but for my pho blogging needs, I think I'll stick with the slightly more current Pho King.

Apparently it is no longer "Cool-2B-Real." Some of you may remember a site by that name, created a few years ago by the National Cattleman's Beef Association as a way to get teen and "tween" age girls to keep eating beef. That age group is rather prone to going vegetarian, says a Time article about the site. As this online petition against the site reminded me, Cool-2B-Real featured a survey with the question "What type of beef do you most like to eat with your friends?"  If I recall correctly, the site also featured a blurb from a young female figure skater that was somehow related to eating beef. I recently went to check up on the site, and to my surprise, I found Zip4Tweens. Using numbers instead of words is obviously still cool, but this kid-geared beef site isn't nearly as bizarre as Cool-2B-Real. There are still plenty of beef recipes and diet-related games, but damn it, it's just not as weird. I think I actually saw some salad recipes on there.

For those of you desperate for more information about tea, The Tea Page seems like a good place to go. This stripped down reference site, apparently maintained by one Birger Nielsen, has dozens of encyclopedia entries about tea, regional references, FAQs and a list of 246 tea-related books and 333 tea caddies. The book list has some decent reviews, although not for every book, of course. There are also several full articles and excerpts, some in Danish, others in English. While it isn't the easiest thing to navigate, there is a search function that could be of some use if you know exactly what you're looking for.