Author and tomato farmer Tim Stark shows Harry Smith some of the season's best tomato picks. Tim Stark is a farmer, blogger for Gourmet and the author of a book named Heirloom. NPR has an article about Tim Stark.
Moby's in the kitchen. Here he is preparing his favorite vegan pancakes with berries. Moby also makes some vegan sausages. The pancakes aren't quite as big and fluffy because they are vegan but they should be tasy especially with the help of the berries.
Science Daily reports that European scientists have invented an electronic tongue that will tell you the grape variety and vintage of wine at the press of a button. The device is said to be cheap, fast and portable.
Designed for quality control in the field, the device is made up of six sensors which detect substances characteristic of a certain wine variety. Components such as acid, sugar and alcohol can be measured by this detection, and from these parameters it can determine the age and variety of the wine.
The tongue was invented by Cecilia Jimenez-Jorquera and colleagues from the Barcelona Institute of Microelectronics, Spain, and is reported in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal The Analyst.
Wine industry specialists told the researchers they lacked a fast way to assess quality of wines - it takes a long time to send samples to a central laboratory for processing.
This new tongue is not only swift, but also portable, cheap to manufacture, and can be trained to "taste" new varieties as required.
It might seem a small matter to some but this piece in the Guardian's wordofmouth section explains that the electronic wine taster could help the wine industry battle fraud.
There is one big reason why we need a machine with a more precise ability to identify wine than any human palate, and that is to detect wine fraud. If a grape other than the stated variety or vintage has been inserted in your glass or mine, it makes precisely bugger all difference - if we're enjoying the glass it's as relevant as the provenance of the oranges in our morning juice - but to those who've invested many hundreds of thousands of pounds in supposedly important bottles it's crucial.
There is likely a market for this device among those who collect expensive wines. The device could help them discover they have the real deal or that they have been tricked.
Campbell Soup Acquires Wolfgang Puck's Soup Business
Last month, the Campbell Soup Company announced recently that it acquired the Wolfgang Puck soup business from Country Gourmet Foods. Campbell has entered into a master licensing agreement with Wolfgang Puck with an option to extend the brand into other related categories and channels. Wolfgang Puck is one of the leading organic soup brands in the United States.
Campbell currently offers several organic products, including "Campbell's" tomato juice, "V8" vegetable juice, "Prego" pasta sauce, "Pace" salsa, and varieties of "Swanson" broth.
The move is a big signal that organic food is a growth area that major food brands want to quickly move into. You can read AP's take on the news here.
Last month, the 