"twitter hour" news and stories

Strawberry milkshakes and juice boxes shaped like fruit: Two things that make us grateful for April heat waves.

Food & Wine's own Dana Cowin alerted us to this luscious milkshake on the Saveur Web site, accompanied by a recipe that calls for an ingenious combination of strawberry ice cream, strawberry sorbet and strawberry jam.

The juice boxes, meanwhile, are the brilliant invention of Naoto Fukasawa, a Japanese industrial designer who designed the boxes to mimic the look and texture of the fruit they contain: pictured here are banana and strawberry, along with soy, which rather uncannily mimics a block of tofu. We can't help but feel that these boxes blow the Capri Suns of our elementary school days out of the water, or at least the sandbox.

[Saveur via Dana Cowin]
[Via TokyoMango]

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By Pervaiz Shallwani
We're big proponents of buying local when possible and just spied some curious data about 5,500 iPhone users buying a $3 Locavore app (created by a Slashfood friend) in a mere month. It tells iPhone addicts what's in season, what's en route and where nearby farmers' markets are located.

Whoa. We wondered what other yummy things we could do if we got with the times and finally embraced an iPhone for our foodie needs. Boy, were we shocked. There are hundreds of free and paid downloads including one for beer, one for soda and a fast-food meal calorie counter.

Not only are food nerd darlings Serious Eats, Food Network and Yelp at our fingertips, so is the FDA with food recall news (though their freebie Twitter also works), a guide to finding cheap or free kids' meals at nearby eateries and Twecipe, which matches the dregs of those fridge contents to a recipe.

All this edible ammo available at the touch of a button makes us wonder whether Googling our munching needs is becoming just so 2008 and whether we should cave to the iFeed – er, iPhone -- trend. Have you?

Note: this post comes with a glossary.

"Twecipes¹" are the moment's micro-obsession and we ♥ the New York Times' Dining staff -- certainly active and useful Twitizens² themselves -- for flying into the eye of the storm in conjunction with today's profile of Twitter's marquee recipe condenser Maureen Evans, aka @cookbook. Still, must all prose now be condensed for optimal Tweetability³? Yup, it's been an addictively (though ADD) good time watching the 140-or-fewer-character Challenge responses stream into #nytrc⁴:

@betaphen Prep chokes w/lemon. Stuff w/zest, crumbs, parm, parsley, r-mary, garlic, carrot, capers. Roast in veg & liquid, covered @ 400 for 90

@rorycberger clean chokes stuff:lemzest/breadcrumbs/Parm/parsley/rosemary/garlic/carrot/capers/s&p. braise w/wine,carrot,onion,evoo @ 400 1.5 hr

We soundly applaud (and ever so slightly fear) their efforts, but our response was this:

@kittenwithawhip Sometimes the answer is just "Go here: http://bit.ly/bhf92" Not all recipes need be tweetable.

Perhaps it's terribly 2008 to think this way, but there's a near visceral joy in the reading of Melissa Clark's Stuffed Artichokes with Lemon Zest, Rosemary and Garlic recipe in its original form. The title alone (55 characters) vividly evokes the action and sensory experience of crafting, then savoring this dish in a way that spare, if technically correct Tweets can not. It makes for excellent editorial muscle flexing -- like a digital lipogram -- and it's an efficient way to circulate links, but we can't help but hope that Nigel Slater and his ilk of culinary poets never sign up for an @ handle.

Oh - and @pete_wells, serial tweets are for wusses.

1. Twecipe: 140 character recipe
2. Twitizen: Participant in the Twitter community
3. Tweetable: Expressible in a 140 character Tweet, or Twitter message
4. # : Hashtags are added in front of terms to make Tweets including them more easily searchable.

[via: New York Times Dining @nytimesdining on Twitter]

I've finally succumbed to the insanity: The Hungry Bride is now on Twitter. Follow me and get the latest updates about my final tastings with caterers, battles with in-laws (kidding, kidding) and general all-around wedding mania. I'll keep posting every Friday on Slashfood, too. This week: I'll need advice on the best starter cookbooks. Next week: Follow my step-by-step adventure as I have a final tasting with my caterer!

And hey, don't forget to follow Slashfood on Twitter for all food, all the time.

Are you on Twitter? Should I be following you? Please leave your Twitter names in the comment section or follow me on the site!

The Hungry Bride