Archive: Food on the Web
Eco-Bite: Nibbles From the Green Eating Blogosphere
This week's Green Plate Special is a selection of eco-minded food blogs, which are cropping up like wild mint. Here's what's catching my eye (and whetting my appetite): "Eat your greens" is the mantra of Envirovore, a new addition to the rapidly expanding EcoGeek family. Written by a trio of women in Montana, the blog is a collection of newsy items from around the country, with a politics-policy bent. To wit: yesteday's post is all about the dairy industry's pursuit of a more sustainable image. Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group is the force behind Mulch, a daily report of what's going on in the world of agriculture and food policy and what the media -- and media makers -- are saying, spinning, spewing. A must-read for Farm Bill drama followers. Underwater sustainability is the primary focus of Sea Notes, blog home for Monterey Bay Aquarium, but author...
By Kim ODonnel | May 7, 2008; 09:55 AM ET | Comments (4)
Mixing Drinks (and Cooking) From Your iPod
How would you like your digital, downloadable margarita -- straight up or on the rocks? That's the gist of a cocktail recipe book now accessible on your iPod. Originally published as a 128-page hard-cover book in 2006, "101 Margaritas," by drink minx Kim Haasarud, is the latest addition to Raybooks, a line of digital, iPod-able books offered by Durham, N.C.-based Modality, Inc. A photo from the iPod version of "101 Margaritas." (Kim O'Donnel) It brings a whole new meaning to iPod mixology, n'est-ce pas? I've just downloaded Haasarud's book to get a sense of the look, feel and functionality, and I must say, the interface is impressive. It's readable, clear and easy to navigate and includes all the photos from the original book. Pricewise, a Raybook is a tad more than buying the two-year-old print version via amazon.com, where it's presently listed as $10.85, but then you've got to pay...
By Kim ODonnel | May 1, 2008; 11:00 AM ET | Comments (7)
Sustainable Catch of the Day on Your Phone
The wireless gadgetry that I love to hate (I refer to Mister MA's BlackBerry as his "girlfriend.") has just earned its way back into my good graces. Remember when I was lamenting just a few weeks ago about what a pain it's become to be a seafood shopper? You practically need a degree in marine biology to decipher (and remember) the constantly changing health and eco advisories for all of your favorite fish, a daunting task when all you want to do is grill up some salmon steaks and call it a day. Friend of the Sea's eco-update on cod, via SMS. (Kim O'Donnel) But if you own a cell phone (I think most of us do) or a PDA "girlfriend," your seafood counter confusion may soon be a thing of the past. For basic cell phone users, getting the 411 on tonight's shrimp can be easy as sending a...
By Kim ODonnel | March 27, 2008; 07:55 AM ET | Comments (9)
Who's Cooking What Online
The big wide world of the Web is in constant motion, which means you practically need running shoes to keep up with the latest greatest sites, blogs and multimedia extravaganzas. Who would have thought just a few years ago we'd need "bookmarking" tools like del.icio.us to keep us Web-organized? The online food universe is no exception; in spite of my Web-surfing vigilance, I often find myself up to my eyeballs with new designs, site navigation, whiz-bang databases and embedded videos. Below, a short list of Web kitchen destinations that have caught my roving eye over the past few months. It takes a village to stay hip and Web-groovy, so please share your online food faves in the comments area below. Today is chat day; join me at 1 ET for What's Cooking Vegetarian. You can use the Web to find a date, a dog sitter or a plumber. Why not...
By Kim ODonnel | February 21, 2008; 10:58 AM ET | Comments (6)
The Veggie Blogosphere
It's that time of the month, which means you, me and other assorted veg-heads gather together 'round the online countertop today at 1 ET and talk about meat-free cooking, eating and shopping. The idea to offer a vegetarian-only chat spawned six years ago as an experiment, but it immediately became clear that there was a hunger for this kind of information and conversation. But what about the other days of the month? How do vegetarians and vegans learn to be better cooks in our online universe? Six years ago, the pickings were slim. Now, the Web is more veg-friendly than ever, particularly with the explosion of food blogs in the past few years. To wit, if you go to blog search engine technorati.com and search for "vegetarian cooking" in its blog directory, you get a search return of 223 blog destinations. So, with such an overgrown garden, how does one...
By Kim ODonnel | April 26, 2007; 10:40 AM ET | Comments (15)
The Noblest Beans
"You can tell where someone is from by their attitude about beans," argues Steve Sando, owner/founder of Napa, Calif.-based Rancho Gordo New World Specialty Food. "Californians and Southwesterners understand that you have a pot of beans like any other veg," Sando explains. "Eastcoasters are freaked out by beans and need a recipe. And if you're from the Midwest, there's zero bean culture." A work of art: Rancho Gordo's Rio Zape beans before cooking. (Kim O'Donnel) Generalizations aside, Sando knows of what he speaks; his life has been nothing but beans for the past 10 years. To be specific, Sando's business is heirloom beans; according to the USDA, the term heirloom plants refers to a) those planted from seeds that have been passed down for more than 50 years and b) open-pollinating, meaning that in addition to sowing seeds of a previous generation, they disperse naturally, by wind, rain and insects,...
By Kim ODonnel | April 12, 2007; 11:57 AM ET | Comments (13)
Del.icio.us Food
For wonkie Web types, this blog post may seem like old newswrap (digital, of course), but I'll take my chances. For the rest of us still trying to catch up with instant messaging and the constantly changing world of Internet technology, del.icio.us may very well be a new item on the menu. Earlier this year, "tag this article" links began to appear on article pages of washingtonpost.com. What this means is that rather than "bookmarking" a url with a Web browser (IE, Firefox, Safari) that appears in difficult to find laundry-list fashion, you "tag" it with del.icio.us. It's Web bookmarking on steroids. Described on its Web site as a "social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, manage and share Web pages from a centralized source," del.icio.us works like this: After setting up a free account, you get a personal page for storing Web bookmarks. There's room to make...
By Kim ODonnel | August 16, 2006; 09:56 AM ET | Comments (1)
A Blogging Diet
Even a blogger needs to forage for her food. A blog cannot live on one blogger's keystrokes alone. Let's face it; the blogosphere is one enormous communal table, at which bloggers break bread and mooch off each other's plates. To wit, the Web site of Food and Wine magazine features a weekly "Blog Watch," a list of links to five food blogs considered peruse-worthy. Here's a sampler (in no particular order) from my weekly virtual diet, each blog offering unique gastro-literary nutrients and sustenance. Although updated only once, maybe twice a week, Saute Wednesday is an important part of my diet, as it provides a tasty stew of food news, original essays by blogger Bruce Cole and stuff that people are debating in the food world. I feel imbalanced if I don't check it regularly. It's based in San Francisco but has a strong national flavor. The Food Section gets...
By Kim ODonnel | June 26, 2006; 08:55 AM ET | Comments (5)
