Here's some other local food events:

3rd Annual March 4th! Logan Square Pub Stroll

The West Town Tavern is having a Fried Chicken Throwdown. "Join us as we welcome author and fried chicken expert John T Edge of the University of Mississippi for an evening of fried chicken, fried chicken lore and wines from Garretson Winery in Paso Robles."

Marcus Samuelsson will be doing a demonstration and book signing at the State Street Macy's on 3/21/07

The Chopping Block Cooking School has a few interesting classes coming up, including some beer things with Greg Hall from Goose Island.

The Making of a Chef Featuring Grant Achatz and Michael Ruhlman. "Grant Achatz, Chef and owner of Alinea, will be joined on stage by best-selling author and New York Times contributing food writer Michael Ruhlman to discuss the place of the "celebrity" chef in America, the Hypermodern food movement, and what defines excellence in an industry increasingly molded by media hype and image-making" If that isn't enough food celebrities for you, I'll be in the audience too.

Here's Ruhlman's run-down on his blog, with some links to some local interviews.

I can list food blogs from NY or San Francisco all day long, so here's a few from other places in the U.S.

bFeedMe Nashville.

Gastronomic Fight Club Mischief. Mayhem. Soup. Omaha, NE.

Native American Recipes "Recipes and information on Native American food. This is the food and recipes of food eaten preinvasion upto and including current popular Native American food." Montana.

The Slow Cook "An urban insurgent's guide to real food made by hand with care - and sometimes a little humor." District of Columbia.

Urban Girl's Almanac a city girl's guide to fabulous living. Boise, Idaho.

Another feeble attempt to keep the food blog list current with some additions.

Avenue Food Queens NY

Cooking with the Single Guy San Francisco

Dive "Join me as we go spelunking the culinary hole-in-the-walls, the greasy spoons, the lunch counters - all while constantly searching for that diamond in the rough." San Francisco

don't eat alone thoughts on food, faith, family, & friends. Massachusetts. Not totally about food, but his essay on demi-glace and faith should tell you he's worth reading. If you just want the food you can go to don't eat alone: the recipes bread for the journey.

A Finger in Every Pie Spanish Harlem, NY

Habeas Brulee NYC. Execellent photos.

The Short Exact Guide... to Fine Dining in San Francisco.

NZ fishermen land colossal squid "One expert said calamari rings made from it would be like tractor tyres."

A Grandchild of Italy Cracks the Spaghetti Code

Whole Foods to acquire rival Wild Oats

I need to make up for the fact that I missed National Drunk Blogging day last year.

There's a slew of beer and other drink blogs out there, but most notable at the moment is Seen Through a Glass "Lew Bryson's beer and whiskey blog: tasting notes, quick rants and raves, Philly area (and beyond) beer news, whiskey news, and all dat."

Lew has an important project - The session beer project. For those of you unfamiliar with session beers, it's best defined by defunct Schaefer beer's jingle: "the beer to have when you're having more than one". In today's trend toward extreme beer (see this article - Big beers pack a big punch for beers that push the limit), we often overlook good beer that was brewed to be drunk, not sniffed, swirled, and sipped from a snifter. We sometimes forget how lucky we are that most bars have fresh, distinctive, flavorful beer on tap, that haven't been brought in from Milwaukee or St. Louis by way of supertanker.

A couple of local Beer blogs:
Chicagoland Beer Reviews

Flossmoor Beer Blog "The best place to find updates about beers and events happening at Flossmoor Station"

Lots more beer blogs at really simple BEER syndication

And it just wouldn't be a Web 2.0 without a beer social networking site - Coastr. It's even got a decent beer bar mapping tool.

It's been months since I listed any food blogs here or did any real work on the food blog list. I was going to declare a sort of bankruptcy, like Lawrence Lessig's Email Bankruptcy in regards to the requests so far this year, by throwing them all out and starting from scratch, but I think I can get the emailed ones on the list. Here's some of them that have waited the longest.

Ceres and Bacchus New Paltz NY. She's been bribing me for months to get on the list.

Crumbs Upstate NY.

cucina nicolina San Francisco.

French Kitchen in America "American cooking with a French twist and French classics with an American outlook." Wisconsin.

A Foodie Froggy in Paris

Home Sick Texan, New York New York. My favorite among this list. Tasty photogrpahy and recipes that make me want to make them, except fo the Chocolate Frito pie, although it sounds intriguing.

Pork Tenderloin Sandwich Blog "Dedicated to the discussion of the deep-fried breaded pork tenderloin sandwich, the pursuit of them and whatever may come from the pursuit."

sf foodie the gluten-free culinary adventures of Jan and Micki. San Francisco. At the moment they're making me jealous with reports from New Zealand.

Writing At The Kitchen Table Essex, UK.

YummySF San Francisco.

Just in case anyone's thinking I'm not doing any eating around here, these are some recent shots.

Bacon and Cheese Strata. Probably from this recipe for bacon and egg strata, with the addition of some cheese.

A Boddingtons. One of a few on-tap beers I haven't reported on yet. This was from The Celtic Knot.

Deep-fried oysters. From the Celtic Knot. Perfectly cooked - fried oysters should be damn-near raw and still juicy.

Some Mac and Cheese. Based on Alton Brown's recipe, but I'm usually to lazy and/or hungry to bake it for very long. I make a flour roux, add the milk, melt in the cheese and add the pasta. It goes in the oven for a few minutes, really just for ceremony.

Lamb Vindaloo and Keema Samosa (lamb stuffed pastry). Delivery from Mt. Everest.

Hot dog from Portillo's. The big tourist one downtown on Ontario. I had never been there before. I all the years I've worked in that area, I had never thought to try them for something quick to eat when working late.

I don't eat much candy, but I lucked out with a slightly broken candy machine when working late. I got about 5 bucks worth of candy for a buck and a half. But when did candy start coming with a warning?

Check out Bourdain's rant about food Network during a recent guest spot on Ruhlman's blog. "A recent Hawaii show was indistinguishable from an early John Waters film. And the food on a par with the last scene of Pink Flamingos."

While down in Bloomington IL, I really didn't have the time to go galavanting around searching for beer, so I'm sorry that I didn't get to the two microbreweries in the area - Illinois Brewing Company in Bloomington or John S. Rhodell Brewery in Peoria.

I did find Fat Jack's, a bar in downtown Bloomington. Jack's might turn in to a college hang-out later, but after work, it seemed a comfortable bar, with a big comfy loungy area to the side and a friendly and experienced barkeep. I was there for the wide choice of tap beers, figuring I could add another rare one to my list. I choose a Breckenridge 471 IPA, one of the new over-hopped, double IPAs getting popular. Malty and caramel sweet, with a powerful but not over-the-top hop bitterness. Almost completely hides its 9%, except for a nice warm feel.

I also had a Boulevard Pale Ale, a nice bright fruity Pale. A fine ale, but nothing highly complex even though I liked it alot. Would make an excellent session ale.

My only other beer adventure was at the Chateau - an ex-Jumer's hotel, full of medieval decorations. At the bar and restaurant, called Le Radis Rouge I had one of my favorite styles - but made more approachable, typical of larger Wisconsin breweries - Lienenkugels' Big Butt Dobbelbock. Not nearly as rich and malty as more expensive or more alcoholic 'real' dopplebocks, it's a more drinkable version of the style. Served on tap, it has a much bigger head than from the bottle. It might be that I hadn't had it on tap before, but it seemed better than last years version. People often disrespect Lienenkugel, but this is an example of their fine product, which as always, is devoid of excess pretention or price with the emphasis on drinkability, not complexity. Probably better called a bock than a dobbel though. All that said, this is one of those beers I'll buy again, even though it's crossed off my list.

I only had time to stop for one beer, but the guy next to me at the bar got one of the largest freaking steak sandwiches I've ever seen. It looked like a two inch thich steak on a loaf of bread. I'll have to try one of those next time I get down there.

Poles and Slovaks in cheese stink Poland and Slovakia are engaged in a European Union row over the right to register a traditional smoked cheese, called oscypek.

Dining Out With Celiac Disease and Food Allergies "Good eats can be had in Chicago — if you do your homework." A Gapers Block article with some good suggestions.

985,000 Easy-Bake Ovens sold since last May have been recalled

Language, truth... and wine "I've had to give up on so-called facts. They don’t exist. It took wine writers to prove this to me. Nothing is ever knowable for what it is. Admit it, you can no more say what a taste is than you can say what a colour is or what a feeling is."

I was down in Bloomington-Normal for a few days last week and got the chance to eat a few things I remember from going to college at Bradley - namely Avanti's and Steak N' Shake. I didn't have time for anything fancier anyway.

Avanti's was perfect college food - simple, cheap and filling. A tub of pasta or a longer than foot long Gondola sandwich was affordable, fast and probably healthier than some of the choices in the dorm cafeterias back then.

A Gondola is a simple ham, salami, American cheese and lettuce on unique, fresh bread. The bread is slightly sweet and is what makes it good. No condiment is needed. An added plus is the bread seems to have a bit longer shelf life than most fresh bread - it's fine the next day after a night in a dorm fridge - or these days - when a friend brings them up from down there during camping trips.

It's only slightly different from what I remember - I recall it being a little sweeter, and of course it was college-student cheap back then, something like 2 bucks, but I guess that much food is still a value at 5 bucks now.

Steak N' Shake is now a wide spread franchise operation, and has suffered slightly with the enforced uniformity of its products. We remember the real 24-hour diner feel we'd get, when we made the trudge over to exotic East Peoria to the older location to get cheap, good food, and now they're too slick, burgers and fries sized down to fast food portions while becoming slightly more expensive then their competitors. However I still love them, they have a great quality food, so I don't mind the price, since you're paying for the quality, not something super-sized. Also, everyone seemed to be happy to be working there, putting smiles on all the customers faces too. Not something you see from the other trudging fast food grunts that bark 'Next! Can I help you? (Damnit!)' at you.