VegNews magazine has announced the winners of its 2007 Veggie Awards, and the results of 20,000 readers’ votes in 50 categories are in. Best faux meat: Boca Ground Round. Best soymilk: Silk. Most veg-friendly city: New York (sorry, Chicago, you hog-butcher for the world). Look for results in the November/December issue now on newsstands.
Elsewhere in print: Everyone else is talking turkey, as might be expected in Thanksgiving issues. Food & Wine offers best menus “from exotic to classic”; Saveur’s touting “A Splendid Feast” and “How to Roast the Ultimate Thanksgiving Turkey.” Meanwhile, Gourmet’s cover blares “How to Cook a Giant Turkey” — but we never could find the story. Vegetarian Times’ cover, with turkey conspicuously absent, still looks pretty tasty. Consumer Reports gives Ghirardelli double chocolate and Hershey’s Mayan Blend its top ratings, and the December issue (on newsstands now) also lists some best buys in wine.
On the tube: Martha Stewart hosts two holiday specials in November and December on the cable channel Fine Living TV Network. “Martha Stewart’s Thanksgiving Special” airs at various times through Nov. 22 (check local listings or online at fineliving.com), and “Martha Stewart’s Christmas Special” airs at 1 p.m. Nov. 24 and 25, then repeats at different times through Dec. 22. Or watch online at fineliving.com.
On the Web: Already feeling guilty about holiday excesses? Visit caloriecount.about.com to see just how guilty you should feel; there’s a database of 70,000-plus foods there. Actually, the site’s not about guilt; a free membership opens a portal to bulletin boards, custom-diet design, journal space, exercise suggestions and more. The food recommendation tool learns members’ preferences and then suggests similar foods with higher nutritional value — choose sushi instead of fried fish fillets, for example.
Elsewhere on the Web: You’ve heard of the Butterball Turkey Talk Line, but Butterball’s gone all up-to-the-minute with turkey podcasts through November. Visit butterball.com and look for the podcast tab beneath the picture of the beautiful bronzed bird … Users of the Web site epicurious.com, which features Gourmet and Bon Appetit recipes, might be interested in a new partnership with Tastebook.com, which lets you (for a fee) assemble and print professional-looking recipe binders … Supercook.com is an incredibly cool site that helps you find recipes based on what’s in your kitchen right now, showing you recipes that use those ingredients and suggestions for recipes that need one or two additional ingredients. It has a database of 250,000 recipes.
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rjenkins@tribune.com
