Slashfood

According to BaconToday.com, Neil Caldwell, a graphic designer and bacon lover, has created a "color wheel of bacon." For now Caldwell's staying mum on how he gets the bacon strips to transform into shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet, and how the color stays true even after cooking.

For more on the colored bacon phenomenon, check out the full article on AOL News.

I often say that a bartender should be a little bit of a magician. Taking a fresh slice of orange peel and drawing out the oils from the skin via a lit match makes a nice spark in a darkly lit bar, and always captures guests' attention. Besides introducing flavorful orange oil into your cocktail, the trick also releases the delicious scent of orange into the air.

This trick is baby play compared to the antics of the grandfather of bartending, Jerry Thomas. To entertain his guests back in the late 1800's, he'd pour flaming high-proof whisky back and forth between two mugs. Cocktail historian David Wondrich (author of a book on Thomas' life, called IMBIBE) has taught many bartenders how to make a famous fired-up drink called the Blue Blazer. He even has an instructional video on You Tube. Slow Food NYC's Slow Drink Week has featured a Blue Blazer competition with some of the biggest names in the business, including Gary Regan, Dale Degroff, and Mr. Wondrich himself.

The only flamed drink I was taught in my early bartending days was a Flaming Dr. Pepper: A shot glass of amaretto topped with Bacardi 151 rum, lit on fire and then dropped into a glass of beer somehow tastes like the a Dr Pepper soda.

Seattle is giving Portland, Ore., a run for its money when it comes to being the most eco-forward city in the Pacific Northwest.

With a ban on Styrofoam in restaurants and grocery stores going into effect on July 1, the city's Metropolitan Market chain and other businesses have come up with a clever packaging solution -- compostable meat trays made of corn, KPLU reported.

Made by Illinois-based Pactiv, the tan trays can be used for meat, fish and poultry and then tossed into the compost pile along with other food waste, the radio station reported.

Pactiv also makes Hefty products. The company launched its EarthChoice brand of nearly 80 sustainable packaging products including cups, hinged-lid containers, plates, and straws in May.

San Francisco officials say the city's fast-food litter has gotten out of control. Thousands of impromptu picnics on bus benches, in public parks, and on city sidewalks have left the landscape riddled with abandoned wrappers, napkins and bags.

The question is, who should pay to clean it all up? San Francisco politicians want to add a fee at the restaurant register to cover the costs of fast-food trash removal. It's a potentially lucrative proposal: A similar tax on cigarettes of 20 cents a pack was added to offset the cost of cleaning up cigarette litter, and that fee will generate about $2.5 million during the fiscal year -- not exactly chump change.

"Fast-food wrappers are really the next biggest identifiable source [of litter]," Department of Public Works Director Ed Reiskin told the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee in a report published in the San Francisco Examiner. The proposal will be considered in the next few months, officials say.

Why so glum, Ronald McDonald?

First, officials in one California county banned toys in fast-food kid's meals, Happy and otherwise (setting off a nationwide trend). Then there was that flap over McDonald's cadmium-contaminated Shrek glasses.

Now a public advocacy group has issued an ultimatum to the Golden Arches: Get those toys out of all Happy Meals, or we'll sue.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest announced yesterday that it will take McDonald's to court unless the fast-food giant immediately stops including toys in any meals (the plastic baubles no doubt constitute some sizeable portion of our trade deficit with China). The group charges that the toys lure children into a lifelong cycle of unhealthy eating habits, obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

After reporting yesterday on KFC's Double's Down newest rival, Friendly's Grilled Cheese BurgerMelt, we had to try one for ourselves. This glorified patty melt consists of a Friendly's Big Beef burger with lettuce, tomato, and mayo and, instead of a bun, two grilled cheese sandwiches -- we can't make this stuff up.

The complete review after the jump.

• Bachelor parties are increasingly turning to a new celebration of the flesh -- that of suckling pigs and ornate indulgent feasts.
• Though America is not universally lauded for its gewurtztraminers, writer Eric Asimov reveals a "thin field" of varieties that "would make almost anybody fall in love with this unusual, idiosyncratic grape."
• In the continued trend of porcine power, new varieties of bacon hit the U.S. market.
• Ten years and one fire later, Annisa rise again.
• Subway reaches new heights atop the growing 1 World Trade Center.

You probably don't realize it, but you're already familiar with Harbor Fish Market. It's picturesque, historic storefront has served as a backdrop for numerous print and television advertisements, and it's the subject of countless paintings, photographs, and post cards. If you still can't see it, just close your eyes and imagine your ideal New England seafood shop: family-owned, rustic and quaint, packed full of uber-fresh maritime varieties, all lurking sleepily over a concrete floor, under wooden beams, and behind an unimposing facade that hasn't changed in forty years, free of all that is chic and fashionable. That is Harbor Fish Market -- the ideal shop for the salty sea dog that values quality above all else.

We recently caught up with Ben Alfiero who, along with his wife and two brothers, runs the business his father opened in 1969.

Read more about the family and fish market after the jump.