The next Iron Chef America could be from Seattle!

I spotted an interesting blog post today on the "Eat All About It" blog:

The Food Network released the names of contestents for The Next Iron Chef, and Holly Smith is on the list. Smith, of Cafe Juanita and Poco Carretto, joined nine other top chefs in five weeks of worldwide taping, flying ‘from Los Angeles to Japan to New York to compete in the food fight of their professional lives.’

"New Orleans is drinking better"

This is one of the interesting news snippets you get for friending New Orleans on Facebook: An article in the LA Times titled "New Orleans is drinking better lately". And the obligatory teaser:

Anyone invoking the world's great drinking cities has to place New Orleans pretty close to the top.It's the birthplace of Peychaud's bitters and Southern Comfort, of the Sazerac and the Ramos gin fizz. And it has a long-standing absinthe legacy, including in 2007 being the first port of entry for the liquor since it was outlawed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1912. Not a bad inheritance.

However, the cocktail revolution sweeping New York, San Francisco and Chicago -- the speak-easies and fedora-sporting bartenders alchemizing booze into transcendent mixology -- has been slow to come to town. But a new crop of bars and bartenders are giving the Big Easy's drinking scene a decidedly upscale flavor.