Posted by Sheryl Kirby in news and media, what's cooking on July 18, 2007 at 7:21 pm

Blueberries!!! It's blueberry season and Susan Sampson of the Toronto Star heads to Niagara-on-The-Lake to find out everything she can about the tasty and healthy blue orbs of goodness. There's also recipes for blueberry buckle, blueberry port sauce for meat, blueberry cornmeal pancakes, blueberry lemon bread pudding, and a blueberry primer with all the info you need on blueberries. What... no blueberry grunt???

Also in the Star, dietician Suzanne Carere looks at the dubious health claims of Starbucks Vanilla Frappucino.

That it was developed with the health of consumers in mind. Unfortunately, profit sometimes wins out over health. This doesn't mean, however, that the product wasn't intended for health-conscious consumers. See the difference?

By volume, this beverage would be similar to getting a small Tim Hortons coffee with one cream and four sugars. Refrigerate for two hours and serve your low-fat coffee beverage to friends for half the price!

Why not follow Jennifer Bain's lead and get your coffee at a real espresso bar, since they're popping up all over Toronto?

Meanwhile, Gordon Stimmell doesn't share the love of other Toronto wine critics for the Yellow Jersey brand. With food suggestions like "don't bother" or "pick another wine", methinks Gord's got a gripe with the grapes. Carola Vyhnak reviews the Japanese and Korean food at Shige, Susan Sampson's got a recipe for a cake from Ladybird Johnson, and tells us how to track down Ontario meat. And finally, farewell to RonCo. All you folks and your supposed need for those over-priced mixers and food processors have killed the Veg-O-Matic.

The fruit of the week over at the Globe and Mail is cherries (which taste great with those blueberries... and cream... mmm) and Chef Rob Feenie makes a cherry panna cotta.

Also in the Globe, they take a look at those new fancy vitaminized water$ - the newest entry into the dubious probiotic industry. Or, you could drink a glass of Toronto's well-respected tap water and take a multi-vitamin for considerably less cost. And in the theme of over-priced and dubious liquids, Beppi Crosariol looks at "Europlonk" - the process of blending weaker wines with better quality ones to make them marketable.

At the Toronto Sun, Elizabeth Baird cooks up some cherry jam. And there appears to be some sort of promo piece on Weber grills attempting to support the theory that BBQ cooking is healthy cooking that can assist with weight loss. Which would be true if people used their grills primarily for cooking vegetables and not spare ribs.