| The Melting Pot Reveals Recipe for Valentine's Day Romance
TAMPA, Fla., Jan. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- This Valentine's Day, The Melting Pot (www.meltingpot.com) fondue restaurants offer a recipe for romance and tender tales from Lover's Lanes (secluded seating areas for couples) to ignite or reignite the romantic spark. The Melting Pot's experience certainly establishes it as an authority on romance. Each year, its 129 restaurants host more than 500,000 couples celebrating wedding anniversaries, 21,000 prom and homecoming dates and nearly 13,000 marriage proposals. This year, many locations offer a special Valentine's Day menu that includes starters like champagne Swiss cheese or crab imperial cheddar fondue; a strawberry almond or Caesar salad, a main course with Maine lobster tail, filet medallions or vanilla rum chicken and a choice of flaming turtle chocolate or white chocolate with a raspberry heart fondue for dessert.
Budget entertaining: A make-your-own pizza party
A build-your-own-pizza party is a terrific opportunity for a low-cost hands-on get-together, where everyone gathers in the kitchen and creates an edible masterpiece. Got friends who don't cook? Make French bread pizzas with baguettes. Got friends who are closet chefs? Let them prepare crusts of the gods. A pizza party can be as basic or elaborate as you like. "Think about it," says Ed Levine, author of Pizza: A Slice of Heaven (Universe Publishing, $24.95). "The essence of good pizza is melted cheese on warm bread. ... Everyone loves melted cheese on bread." At the other extreme, don't expect to re-create restaurant pizza at home. .
Follow the Reader 2007: The rest of the world, from Bali to Scottish ...
We've rented cottages four times in Devon, England's southwestern county noted for clotted cream, gorgeous countryside, famous seafarers such as Drake and Raleigh, and now local organic foods. One cottage was a thatched, 13th century granite farmhouse on the edge of Dartmoor National Park; two were in Chagford, a village surrounded by wonderful hiking country and small shops supplying high-quality foods. Our most recent stay in April was in an 18th century thatched cottage in Budleigh Salterton, a small seaside town on the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage site. All the cottages have gardens and are well equipped and comfortable. Chagford is a lively village with a 14th century church. Most traffic is on foot, and you're as likely to hear horses clopping down the street as automobiles.
Get the most flavor out of your herbs
Follow these rules to get the most out of herbs. Basil (best fresh): "You taste fresh basil in your nose more than you do on your palate," says Ellen Ecker Ogden, author of "From the Cook's Garden." That's why it's best added at the end of a recipe, such as pasta sauce, or used as garnish. Chopped fresh basil is excellent sprinkled on sandwiches, salad, pizza, eggs, steak or veal. Or mix it into softened butter for spreading on biscuits. In a food processor, blend leftover fresh basil with olive oil until it forms a paste. Keep in the freezer for instant fresh basil flavor for finishing soups or rice dishes. Reserve dried basil for adding at the beginning of soup and stew recipes, and in tomato sauce. Ginger (usually best fresh): Fresh ginger has a sweeter, lemony flavor than dried versions, which can be hot and spicy.
Blades cut Wanderers out of FA Cup
Wanderers 0, Sheffield United 1. GARY Megson's gamble of fielding a weakened side against against Championship opponents failed as Wanderers crashed out of the FA Cup to Bryan Robson's Sheffield United. Megson made seven changes to the side that beat Derby County in the Premiership in midweek and paid the penalty as David Carney's 42nd minute strike put the Blades into the fourth round. Wanderers' first home defeat under Megson was a bitterly disappointing affair in which visiting keeper, Paddy Kenny, was never seriously tested. .
In the land of french fries, Americans are loving 'poo-TEEN'
Restaurateur Martin Beaudoin wanted to try something different with the menu at Red Dot when it opened last year in Milwaukee. So the Quebec native offered his customers a treat from back home: poutine. Some called it a gamble. But Beaudoin thought selling the dish at $4.25 was a risk worth taking. "It's been getting fantastic results," he said. "There are actually three or four restaurants in town that have copied it. They just saw we were getting publicity with it and it was selling well, and they put it on their menus." .
John Mayer Says Don't Mess With Jess's Texan Pride
How do I love John Mayer, let me count the ways. . . . With all the flack that Jessica Simpson has been getting lately, her ex-boyfriend John is not the first person I would guess to come to her defense (well, to be fair I guess Eva Longoria did first, but she was kinda just talking about herself). However, John Mayer took to his blog last night in an incredibly sweet way to defend Jess and her Texan prize. He said, in an entry titled "Don't Ex With Texas": Dear Dallas and Surrounding Areas, This isn't a sports blog, and it isn't a publicity stunt. (but have at me if it feels right.) This is about doing what I think is right as a person, in this case speaking my mind. I have never known anyone to have more pride in their home state and their upbringing in it than Jessica Simpson has in Texas.
|
