Dine daily on a full serving of fresh news every morning.  Why?  Because it’s cheaper than your morning latte and more informative than your average nutritional label.

Thursdays Come Thirsty

• Good Girl Dinette makes good, giving us a glimpse into the powers of good blogging.

• Super Mario and Luigi take on the hamburger thugging Ronald McDonald.   This video game segment aptly reminds me of why my irrational fear of clowns really isn't all that irrational. 

• Interesterified fat.  It's the new trans fat, y'all.  Except it's worse for your health.  What's scary about this - aside from lowering good cholesterol and hiking up glucose levels (hello, diabetes) - is that it will most likely NOT be on the list of ingredients on the back of that packaging.  As a fat that keeps well without going rancid, it's also highly likely that it's being quietly ushered in my restaurants.  
  

• Not a fan of Yelp?  Pizzeria Delfina demonstrates that when it comes to making tshirts, a little bit of snark goes a long way.
  

• Homemade Nutella - though, I think it might be a bit more convenient to buy it by the jar.  Is the Celtic sea salt really necessary, though?

• A conundrum: Why would you want to make pancakes in the shape of waffles?  There's nothing sadder than a floppy, soggy waffle.  

Photo courtesy of Adventures in Bentomaking.

-Alice Shin

It's a pig eat pig world.

Dine daily on a full serving of fresh news every morning.  Why?  Because it’s cheaper than your morning latte and more informative than your average nutritional label.

Welcome to Wednesday

• Which food holds up to sitting out for extended periods of time?  Though Chinese food fails in this department, Indian and Korean tends to fare quite well.  Find out why after the JUMP.
  

• Christian salt - Kosher salt's rival and arch nemesis?  Me thinks not.  Sea salt blessed by an Episcopalian priest is still just sea salt.  Oh well.  At least the rectory now has an official table salt for all those church picnics.

• My, oh my... how college food trends have changed in the past 20 years.
  

• Girl Scout cookie sales face a low blow - someone's been using counterfeit money to purchase their Thin Mints and Caramel Delights.  For shame!
  

• Recession ramen.  100 yen (roughly 1 dollar) ramen and curry is sold to comfort the masses of young, recently laid-off employees in search for part time work.  Sure beats eating Top Ramen.
  

• Auugh!  Pigs eating pork!!! 

• Is that affordably priced apple REALLY organic?  I wouldn't be too sure, because sure enough, faux organic food is on the rise.

Photo courtesy of Eat Me Daily

-Alice Shin

Mmmm... beer and pretzel cookies! 

Delicatessen opened unabashedly last July to one heck of a party and more than a little hype. The design was striking: contemporary and architectural; half futuristic, half wood paneling. The menu, photographed by Terry Richardson, was rife with surefire new classics from Chef Doran Wong like Reuben fritters and cheeseburger spring rolls, all brought to the table by a staff outfitted in Charlotte Ronson. But the sun seemed to be setting on Delicatessen and its José Heredia-muraled courtyard all too soon. Poor reviews and neighborhood troubles bombarded the spot and Chef Wong was removed in October–ostensibly the easiest fix among the two.

Enter Michael Ferraro, recently hired at the  acclaimed Tribeca seafood restaurant Fresh…until the restaurant was sold suddenly after four months work behind the kitchen (“from lack of business after the stock market”). He was out. Delicatessen asked him in. Ferraro is a seafood man, which is why his arrival at Fresh seemed so befitting but one moves on. There was no time between changeover: one day Wong was there, and the next Ferraro, his kitchen staff of nine from Fresh alongside him, doling out breakfast, lunch and dinner (yes, all-day dining) to a consistently hungry crowd. Less than one month after Ferraro’s installation police activity was reported not once but twice at the eatery, both break-ins/attempted robberies. Ferraro remains coy about details: “There’s no tame restaurant. Whether it’s…a break-in or a restaurant can’t pay the bills. There’s always something going on...There’s never a dull moment.”

Dine daily on a full serving of fresh news every morning.  Why?  Because it’s cheaper than your morning latte and more informative than your average nutritional label.

Take Me Out Tuesdays

• Yeah, here's some further evidence that government is NOT turning into one giant corporation: FDA teams up with Disney to peddle its faulty food pyramid to the youth.

• I don't know about you, but I really don't want to hear about how broke we are as a nation when eating out.  Hard Balls in the Soft Economy roasted chicken, anybody?  No joke.

• Crenshaw Blvd's 99-cent Soul Food Express menu.  Now THAT's tasty.  Take notes, NYC.
  

• Orange juice.  It's just juice.  Squeezed from an orange.  Right?  RIGHT???!!  (Wrong.)

• Part of this complete breakfast: Corn Cheddar Bacon Pancakes and Mini Breakfast Pies.

• I'D EAT IT: beer and pretzels escape the local pub and find sweet, sweet sanctuary in the confines of some baker's oven.

 Photo courtesy of ButtermilkBakeShop

-Alice Shin

CAKE SODA = TASTY