"take away" news and stories

Thanks to Sarah, we now know which universities the Princeton Review thinks have the best on-campus food, but most college students will be happy to tell you that off-campus food is almost always better. With schools starting up right and left, students need to be prepared to find those places because greasy pizzas and pb&j gets boring pretty quickly. CampusFood.com is a website that allows users to search for lists of off-campus eateries and order their food online from the menus published on the site. Their ever-growing database includes independent restaurants and chains. Delivery is up to the individual restaurant (some only allow pick-up orders), but not only is this a boon to college students who want to really streamline their days, it is good for small restaurants whose primary business comes from college student, making them more accessible to their tech-savvy (and hungry) customer base.

By the way, the services offered by the website are not limited to college students - anyone can order food online as long as they are near enough for either delivery or pickup.

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I am disturbed that the slogan for The Fizz Cup is "Buy it. Try it. Die for it."

The cup makes root beer floats and no matter how good a root beer float is, it is hardly worth dying for.

The Fizz Cup screws onto the top of soda bottles and, using a straw that extends from the bottom of the bottle, though the cup and into your mouth, you can suck the soda up and create an instant root beer float. The advantage of using the cup is that it is highly portable, unlike a traditional homemade float in an open cup. Another selling point, according to the company, "It lets you have fun watching the soda and ice cream mix inside the dome lid, just like a volcano. Experience the science of fizz making with this special treat!"

Is a soda volcano worth dying for? No, and a mentos fountain is probably more exciting. Worth $10 + $6 S&H for a pack of 6? Maybe if you really need to take your floats to go.

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In January, the city of Oakland, California, just across the bay from San Francisco, instituted a tax on businesses that they believed created the most litter in the city. The city council felt that businesses needed to be more socially responsible for their customer's actions, while business owners opposed the measure, saying that packaging is necessary to sell goods - particularly food items - in a safe and sanitary manner.

Now, city businesses have to change the way they package their food, in addition to paying for it, because the city has just banned styrofoam food packaging.

Due to take effect in January, the measure says that all food packaging must be biodegradable when composted with food waste. Supporters of the law point out that 15 percent of the litter collected in storm drains is styrofoam/polystyrene packaging. They gained additional support from the fact that there are 100 other cities, including Portland and neighboring Berkeley, which have similar bans, and San Francisco is expected to join that list later this year.

The city will use fines ranging from $100-$500 to enforce the measure and businesses that still use styrofoam will have have to find another way to keep their food warm.

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If you thought that the country most likely to have its residents eat pre-prepared food was the United States, you would be wrong. While the sheer number of people dining out in the US might be greater than in most countries, the average Briton will eat 365 meals a year out of home - one every day. In comparison, the average person eats out only 306 times per year in the United States, coming in third after Italy, where the Italians dine out 308 times each year. Also high on the list were the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, France and Germany.

The survey, conducted by the group Datamonitor, showed a link between a stronger work ethic and the likelihood of eating outside the home. The reasoning for this is that in countries where employees work longer hours and seem to have trouble tearing themselves away at the end of the day, the employees eat out more frequently. They also show a stronger inclination for fast, snack and pre-prepared foods that can beat eaten on the go or at a desk, as opposed to choosing to dine restaurants.

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Frank Bruni dined at Del Posto this week, Mario Batali’s newest venture in New York City. Apart from the official review, Mr. Bruni waxed philosophical about the marks of a celebrity-staffed restaurant. First and foremost is visibility, because to capitalize on the recognition that a celebrity has, they must be seen. This means that the chefs will often spend half their time wandering around the dining room and not necessarily in the kitchen. But celebrity can spark other unusual things in a restaurant. For example, diners at Del Posto were given a bag of breadcrumbs as they left. No, customers were not expected to make a trail back to the restaurant. They were given a sheet of information on how breadcrumbs are used in various dishes so they could try cooking them at home.

Never having been confronted by a phenomenon such as this, I cannot say how I would react. Clearly the purpose is to further the celebrity of the chef by inspiring cooking at home based on his or her recipes and not necessarily to further the reputation of the restaurant. After all, if they wanted people to eat out more frequently, shouldn’t they discourage them from cooing at home?

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