Recently I attended a female-only cocktail competition hosted by Nirvino. While I've been to many cocktail competitions, I always look forward to Nirvino's monthly contest because the crowd gets to taste each cocktail and ultimately decides the winning drink. Nirvino is an exciting social networking community where drinking is the common denominator. You can rate drinks, bars, bartenders, wine, beer, and different kinds of liquor.

Its a fun concept that makes for an interesting event. After tasting each cocktail everyone gets on their iPhones or Blackberrys to rate the drink. This competition featured Square One Cucumber vodka and the winning bartender was Brooke Arthur from Range restaurant in San Francisco.

Her Fall Fizz delightfully combined the fresh flavors of cucumber, apple, and pear. Lemon juice adds an acidic balance and a dusting of cinnamon gives this drink a holiday feel. Like the gin fizz, it includes egg whites. I can't promise you won't get salmonella, but your drink will be deliciously frothy! To check out Brooke's recipe and a video of her mixing at the competition, read more

To keep things easy, serve a no-mess, no-utensil dessert on election night. At LibertySugar and my party, we'll be offering guests sugar cookies! Not just any sugar cookies, I plan on decorating the cookies to look like CitizenSugar's checked box symbol. I'll roll out Paula Deen's classic sugar cookie dough and cut out squares.

After baking the square-shaped cookies, they'll be covered with white frosting. Blue frosting will be used to outline a box shape and red frosting to make the check mark. Feel free to great creative and decorate with your favorite patriotic design! For the recipe, read more

I love Ike's Place so much that I could start a 'Wich of the Week spinoff devoted solely to sandwiches from Ike's. I was hesitant to write about my new favorite sandwich place in San Francisco, since the lines are long enough already. But keeping the enormous, palate-entertaining creations to myself wouldn't be in the spirit of sandwich love.

Opened a year ago, Ike's is a tiny storefront in the Castro neighborhood, barely big enough to accommodate its sizable staff — making sandwiches this well is no easy task — and massive menu of 50-plus sandwiches with playful names like Nacho Boy (hot roast beef, mushrooms, avocado, and swiss) and the Paul Reubens (a take on the Reuben with poppy-seed coleslaw). Priced between $7 and $9, these are some of the largest sandwiches I've ever eaten; if I have one for lunch, I'm hardly hungry for dinner. But that's not even a taste of why I like Ike's. To count the ways, read more

• Celebrate the Day of the Dead with a vivacious feast. — Los Angeles Times
• One writer's campaign to create election-night food traditions. — Washington Post
• Opt for chicken thighs over breasts for a cost-effective, versatile alternative. — San Francisco Chronicle
• Mustard isn't just a condiment; it also makes for the ultimate flavor enhancer. — Chicago Tribune
• Forget the kitchen: The laboratory's the new testing ground for experimental food. — New York Times
• Italian cooking pioneer Marcella Hazan on her latest memoir. — Boston Globe
• Consider stocking up on wine during tough economic times. — Star Tribune
• Filming is complete on the movie Julie and Julia, about the late cooking star Julia Child. — New York Post

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Next month, number one fast-food giant McDonald's will unveil a redesign of all its food products around the world. In what the corporation calls "the most comprehensive rollout in the brand's history," all 118 countries with McDonald's restaurants will launch new designs that advertise the chain's high-quality ingredients. The packaging, developed by UK marketing firm Boxer, draws attention to fresh ingredients and preparation: The new Big Mac box includes images of an onion, slices of cheese, a head of lettuce, and a freshly made hamburger, with the words "100 percent beef" and "all-beef patties" inscribed on the box. The containers will hit the US, UK, and Ireland first. Mary Dillon, global chief marketing officer for McDonald's said:

Our new packaging is a fresh way of sharing McDonald's food quality story with our customers. The more people know about our food, the more they'll love it.

What do you think of the new designs? I think they're refreshing, and McDonald's is counting on them to boost its reputation after it will have to break the news to consumers about switching its Double Cheeseburger to a McDouble burger with only one slice of cheese. Do you think the redesign will cast McDonald's in a more health-positive light?

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When preparing mussels most people abide by the rule that any mussels still closed after cooking should be thrown away. However, some scientists claim this is simply an old wives' tale and that the rule is actually a myth. Nick Ruello, an Australian fisheries biologist, cooked and ate more than 30 batches of mussels for a seafood report. Of those mussels, 11.5 percent were still closed after cooking, but Ruello found he could safely eat each one of them after forcing the mussels open with a knife.

The abductor muscles in live mussels keep the two halves of the shell together. When the shellfish are cooked, the heat denatures the proteins of (pardon the pun) mussels' muscles, so they come unstuck from their shells. However, even if the abductor muscles refuse to disintegrate in the heat, the meat has been cooked at a high enough temperature that it is safe enough to eat.

The one exception? If mussels are open before they've been cooked (and don't close up tightly when tapped), then they're dead, and not fresh enough to eat under any circumstance. Have you ever pried open a cooked mussel that was closed shut? Will this new piece of information change the way you eat the shellfish?

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Yesterday on his personal blog, Michael Bauer, the restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, made a very interesting point. According to Bauer, salt has gone missing from restaurant tables: "In the last week I've been to three places where I had to ask for salt." When I started to think about restaurants I recently visited, I realized he was right! It's no longer standard for a salt and pepper shaker to be on each table. Chefs may argue that the salt is missing from tables because the dish is properly seasoned, but Bauer begs to differ:

It smacks of arrogance on the part of the chef. This implies that the chef knows what's best, and the customer should accept it. It also subtly implies the chef doesn't care if diners are pleased.

Although I don't mind if a table lacks salt, the debate is pretty interesting. What do you think of Bauer's claim? Have restaurants in your neck of the woods banished salt? Does a chef's decision to remove salt from the tables make him arrogant?

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