A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal ran a great piece to update consumers on when it makes sense to spend the extra money to buy organic, and when it doesn't. Their goal was to offer sound advice to shoppers who want to buy organic, but want to watch their wallets, as well. After all, with grocery stores stocking everything from organic oranges to organic beers, it is difficult to tell just from the label what is worth buying for the advantages that organics offer, namely environmentally friendly production and a lower level of pesticides in the final product.

Basically, they found that it is worth buying the foods that you eat a lot of and probably not worth buying things you only eat very occasionally. The "to buy" list includes: apples, peaches, bell peppers, strawberries, imported grapes, spinach, lettuce, potatoes, carrots, milk and other dairy products, meat, poultry and baby food. The "not to buy" list includes: broccoli, bananas, frozen sweet peas, frozen corn, asparagus, avocados, onions, processed foods that contain both organic and non-organic ingredients and seafood.

The vegetables were divided up by the Environmental Working Group's data from pesticide residue tests, though growers emphatically state that conventional products are safe. Seafood makes the "not to buy" list because there is still no standard for the production of organic fish, unlike the production of beef and chicken.

One of the best ways to practice portion control is to get into the habit of measuring or weighing your foods and the easiest way to do that is to add a kitchen scale to your countertop. Such a scale can be used for weighing ingredients for baking (useful if you like to use cookbooks from outside the US), but more importantly today, they can be used to measure portion size to ensure that you don't break your diet by over-estimating portions. There are even some new scales that come programmed with the caloric value of various foods so you can find out exactly what you're about to eat. The WSJ's Catalog Critic put several popular digital scales to the test to see what worked, what didn't, and which one is really going to work for you.

Three of the scales - the Soehnle Food Control Digital Kitchen Scale, Salter Nutri-Weigh Dietary Scale and the Escali Cibo - all provided nutritional data and all were deemed to be more difficult to use than the standard digital scales. While it was convenient to have the calorie/fat information right in front of you, the testers felt that the difficulty of use would prevent most people from actually using them on a regular basis. Additionally, the caloric contents didn't take into account cooking method, so the counts were not accurate in terms of what food was consumed.

The two top scales - the Cuisinart Precision Electronic Scale and Polder Digital food scale - were both easy to use, with large buttons and clear functions in both standard and metric measures. You'll get the proper portion size quickly and easily and you can always use a website to check the calorie count if you need to.

The competitors on Top Chef seem to endlessly complain when they have to work with an ingredient that they didn't make from scratch, repeating ad nauseum that they feel such things - namely, processed foods - are far beneath them. But using commercial ingredients isn't beneath all chefs, not even ones like Jean-Georges Vongerichten and David Bouley. Vongerichten serves his Two-Flavored Stir-Fried Shrimp in a sauce of Hellmann's Mayo and condensed milk. Bouley uses Heinz Ketchup in several sauces, including the one served with his Braised Hawaiian Yellowtail appetizer. Other secret ingredients in chefs' pantries include Gravy Master, Kraft Singles, canned creamed corn and Dr. Pepper.

How are high-end, starred chefs getting away with using ingredients that you could find at a convenience store? The answer is that they don't advertise it the same way that they highlight grass-fed beef and organic tomatoes on their menus.

A blade coffee grinder, which is the standard for most home coffee drinkers, has a food processor-like blade that swings around and chops up coffee beans. The grinders are usually fairly inexpensive and do the job of grinding up beans faster than you could do it with a hammer, but they are not necessarily very efficient, nor do they come close to getting the coffee beans evenly ground. Burr grinders, which are more expensive but crush the beans instead of chopping them up, produce even grounds and will generate the most consistent flavor in coffee - not to mention that they offer a range of sizes (from powdery fine to coarse) that work with different types of coffee makers, including espresso machines and french presses.

The Wall Street Journal's catalog critic sat down and tested a number of burr grinders to see which ones performed the best. The less-than-satisfactory grinders included the Capresso Infinity burr grinder, The Krups Burr Coffee Mill and the Cuisinart Automatic Burr grinder. The top performer was the KitchenAid Proline Grinder ($200), which produced grounds to exacting specifications and stored them in a nice glass container before use to eliminate the possibility of static charge making grounds adhere to the side of the container, as they sometimes did with plastic container models. The model given the "best value" designation was the Solis Maestro Burr Grinder ($115), which performed perfectly, but had a plastic grounds container that could have a minim static charge. In fact, it is the grinder that I use and it always does an excellent job - even with dark-roasted, oily beans that can jam up some other grinders. The KitchenAid would make a great Christmas gift "for coffee geeks," but the Solis is probably the way to go in terms of both price and performance.

In this week's Wall Street Journal, the ever savvy Catalogue Critic took on one of the most popular types of holiday desserts, cheesecake, to see if a good mail-order one could be found. Cheesecake may not sound like the perfect seasonal dessert, but more than one company that they interviewed reported that holiday sales had "increased in the double digits" over each of the last few years, and virtually all said that November and December were their biggest months of the year.

Orders were placed at five bakeries and testers, including the executive chef of the Four Seasons, were enlisted to judge. They looked for "a firm outside, a creamy interior and a balanced flavor" in each of the plain/vanilla cheesecakes. Their two favorite cakes came from Eli's Cheesecake Company and Junior's. Eli's ($28) was rich and creamy, with a shortbread cookie crust, but had a lemon flavor that not everyone enjoyed. Junior's ($29.95) was picked as the "best overall," as it was creamy, not crumbly, and had a slightly moist sponge cake base instead of a graham cracker crust. They also noted that Junior's is adding 12 flavors to their holiday menu for anyone who wants more than plain cheesecake.

Incidentally, shipping was not a problem for the testers, as all the cakes arrived in pristine condition via overnight shipping, so the cost of getting the cheesecake to your door is probably going to be a bigger concern than what it will look like when it gets there.

It seems that more and more restaurants are offering prix fixe menus these days, a fact that the Wall Street Journal picked up on in their weekend edition. Restaurateurs and chefs like fixed prices because they can much more easily plan the labor and cost of what will be used for a meal, since everything will be timed and the menu options are limited. Diners who might have only had a main course and a dessert are now having salad, as well. For multi-course menus where the portions are small, a nice piece of duck that might have been one main course ordered à la carte, is now several smaller courses for multiple diners.

How can you, as a diner, tell if a fixed price menu is really a good deal? The WSJ suggests that a good place to start is by looking for "wide margin items," such as chicken, salads, pastas and salmon on the menu. They are foods that typically have a significant mark-up, which could be even higher behind the set price. Another thing to look for is tricky wording. For example, "tomato carpaccio" is really just thinly sliced tomatoes, though on the name alone some restaurants might up the price.

And what are signs that you're getting a good deal? Tasting menus that "bear no resemblance to à la carte offerings" often indicate that special time or care has gone into their preparation. And if the chef is well-known and you just want to "put yourself in his hands" the memories of the meal might be worth the price, no matter what it is.

Crab cakes are a favorite food of many seafood lovers. They are made with crab meat that is bound together with a small amount of filler then fried (or baked) until crisp. There are a huge number of variations on the basic cake, but the most important ingredient is, of course, the crab. Summer is typically considered to be crab season, but thanks to frozen and imported meats, crab cakes are available to most people year-round. The question is not whether you can get them, but whether they are worth getting. The week, the Wall Street Journal's Catalogue critic asked that very question and taste-tested five kinds of mail-order crab cakes.

All the cakes had to be cooked at home before serving and all but one was shipped pre-formed. The top choices were Philips Seafood and Chesapeake Bay Crab Cakes and More, which came in first and second with only the narrowest of margins deciding the winner. Third place was the Cadillac Crab Cake Co., the company that shipped the crab cakes unformed in a "loaf," allowing you to shape them according to your preferences.

The biggest drawback is that not only are the cakes expensive, but shipping is pricey, too, so keep that in mind when you decide you want a crab cake or three in the dead of winter.

We have an in-flight food guide that we posted a couple of weeks ago to help Slashfood readers know what they're in for food-wise on several major airlines this summer. This week, the Wall Street Journal actually took to the skies to taste-test some of the meal options on various airlines. Dubbed the "unfree lunches," since you now almost always have to pay for meals and snacks when you fly.

Many of the "snack" boxes contained little food for the shocking amount of calories they contained, and the exact calorie count could not always be determined, since single-serving "cheeses" were often unlabeled. Overall, you'd do best to pass on the "insultingly skimpy" snack box from ATA ($3), which garnered the "worst snack box" award. United Airlines Right Bite Box ($5), by contrast, was voted the "best snack box" because their selections were "smart," reasonably healthy and stocked with popular brands - including organics. Air Canada was praised for their excellent muffin ($2) and offering of Subway veggie sandwiches ($5). As for the rest? Let's just say that packing your own snack is always a good idea.

It's not surprising that a lot of celebrities lend their names to various products through endorsement deals, but the growing number of celebrity wines is a rather unusual trend. From sports stars to singers, it seems like everyone wants their own chardonnay these days, and the celebs aren't just putting their name on the bottles anymore. Instead, some are buying the wineries and having a say in the wine-making process.

In some cases, it turns out that celebrities should stick with what they get paid to do, whether it is acting or singing, because the wines are not worthy of the A-list, B-list or C-list, but there are more than a handful that are really excellent and worth a taste or two. Besides, who wouldn't like to have a celebrity join them at the dinner table once in while?

Compiled by the Wall Street Journal, here is the The Dow Jones Paparazzi Wines Index, with their picks for the best celebrity wines:

The Wall Street Journal was able to get a sneak peek at Chowhound's new interface, which will be relaunched in the next month or so by CNET, which acquired the message board back in March. Unfortunately, for us, there isn't a screenshot for us to check out yet, but the WSJ fills in a lot of blanks that Jim Leff, Chowhound.com's founder, left out when we first heard about the deal.

Chowhound will not only get a software upgrade, but it will become part of a CNET food website called Chow.com. Though the old Chowhound site will still be accessible, the new one is aiming to attract more people from across the country, not just in big cities. One of the biggest changes is that, instead of being able to post anonymously, anyone who wishes to post will have to register.

CNET says that it doesn't want to alienate any of the old users, which is an understandable position because the huge foodie community is the main reason it purchased the site in the first place. Whether it will happen or not, even though Jim Leff is still working on the site behind the scenes, remains to be seen.

Some people have to avoid butter in their diets and to the die-hard butter fans, this seems like a sad thing. There are many valid reasons to do this, though, such as a doctor's orders to reduce cholesterol intake. There are also some people who simply prefer the taste of margarine, but though it might make an acceptable substitute on toast, margarine can't really compare to butter in baked goods - particularly in a butter cookie. Or can it? The Wall Street Journal baked up a few batches to find out.

The butter cookies made with real butter, the Land O'Lakes Ultra Creamy, came out on top. Land O' Lakes stick margarine came in second place, with a reasonable approximation of the taste and appearance of the real cookie. Unfortunately, the Land O' Lakes tub margarine did not fare as well, and though it had a similar texture to butter, the taste was nowhere near the real thing. Promise stick margarine did not do well, either, producing a cookie with little butter flavor.

I have actually had good results using Earth Balance "buttery spread" when baking, but the clear the solution is to stick to butter - not margarine - when it comes to baking.

The core market for Dunkin' Donuts is the segment of the population that feels uncomfortable with the word "panini." To accommodate them, the company changed the name of one of their new sandwiches to "stuffed melt," but this isn't the end of their push to make customers more comfortable.

In an article (subscription only) in the Wall Street Journal, the marketing and branding teams of Dunkin' Donuts revealed their research has shown there are two main groups in their potential customer base, dubbed "tribes." In the first tribe, there are people to frequent Starbucks. They like the atmosphere there and want their coffees with a couch; Dunkin' locations are too bare-bones for them. The second tribe is the Dunkin' tribe. These make up the core audience for Dunkin' donuts and are "bewildered and turned off by the atmosphere at Starbucks." When they do, perchance, wander into a Starbucks, they "don't get it." 

To keep the existing customers happy while bringing in new ones, Dunkin' Donuts is making some changes. In addition to renaming some of their products, they are bringing in new foods, like dough-wrapped pork and "Dunkin' Dawgs" to encourage customers to come in at lunch time, as well as cookies and other baked goods to bring them in in the afternoons. The pastry cases and espresso bars will be revamped to look flashier, but there will still be no couches. They don't want customers to feel too comfortable because it actually, according to their research, makes the Dunkin' tribe uncomfortable.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal this weekend, scientists think that “picky eating’ may have developed as a survival trait that kept children, and perhaps adults, from snacking on poisonous and unknown foods during the hunter-gatherer stage of life. Unwillingness to eat the unfamiliar until it becomes a safe, known quantity is a good survival tactic. Modern humans (with the possible exception of the roadkill chef) do not have to worry about survival in this manner because to most of us, safe food is readily available; survival of the species is no longer a major factor. So what is it that makes some people turn up their noses at cheese or sushi?

A recent study of 50 extremely picky adults at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia seemed to indicate that texture, more than flavor, is what turns people off. They hate surprises or simply don’t want to learn how to eat them. Many parents try to overcome these fears in their children, but the problems can be more difficult to deal with in adults. Most adults can avoid the foods they don’t enjoy, but if they travel on business, for example, encounters might be inevitable. The WSJ offers a few tips from eating consultants to wary business travelers: take a lot of foods you like (rice, potatoes) and don’t even ask what unknown foods are. Either take a little and “kind of nibble a little bit” or just push it around on the plate.

We mentioned the growing market for yogurt and how it is being included in products from toothpaste to cereals. This week, the Wall Street Journal did a quick taste test of three of the new yogurt-coated breakfast foods: Total Vanilla Yogurt, Life Vanilla Yogurt Crunch, All-Bran Yogurt Bites. They point out that none of the cereals contained live cultures, instead relying on dried nonfat yogurt and yogurt powder to add color and flavor to the cereals. Most of the flavor came for the sugar that was added in addition to the yogurt, though, and the WSJ tasters found the Life and Total cereals to be far too sweet. The All-Bran version was the favorite, as it didn't have the overly sugary taste of the others, though the tasters commented that they could have used a few more yogurt bites.

I tasted Kellogg's Cran-Vanilla Crunch, which has cranberries and yogurt-oat clusters. It might have been a bit on the sweet side for breakfast, but I still enjoyed it. And it made a great snack or topping for plain, non-cereal yogurt.