These Food & Reference Resources pages are maintained by John Zipay. If you have questions, suggestions, comments or problems with links, please send an email. That request also includes other food-appropriate or reference sites you’d like to share with this audience.

These pages contain more than 125 separate hyperlinks to websites. As is quite common on the Internet, a number of these sites will disappear over time and other links won’t be found because of internal reassignment or page deletions. The result is the dreaded ‘the page cannot be found’ message – also known in the trade as a broken link. If you encounter broken links or other errors that need correcting, please inform me and I’ll try to fix them. If you think you’re going to visit a particular reference again, just remember the red page number.

Before starting, are you aware of the ‘Find’ command on your PC or Mac? You can search for a phrase, full word or partial word with a keyboard shortcut. The PC uses Control+F; the Mac uses Command+F. You can activate Find on most MS-Word documents, MS-Excel files and many web pages. By clicking the ‘T’ (for text) button, you can use the Find feature on any Adobe PDF file. On many email programs, however, the Ctrl-F activates the ‘forward message’ command. Try the Ctrl+Shift+F instead. Remember to use the Find feature when you are faced with needle-in-a-haystack text that you don’t want to visually scroll through.

I believe the world is comprised of two types of people: those who eat to live and those who live to eat. Assuming you are in the latter category – as a foodie, chowhound or perhaps just visiting to evaluate Access 66 Catering for an event – here is a collection of Internet food resource and reference sites that hopefully you will find interesting and informative. If you want to refer to these pages again, please bookmark or add Access 66 Catering to your browser’s list of favorites.

The best compliment I’ve received regarding these pages was from a person who said he entered it on Monday and exited it on Wednesday. I’m sorry if this happens to you, but the sentiment was certainly appreciated.

One of the classiest food websites began as a one-man project by David Leite and is still maintained in-house. Both the site and author have won several national graphic and writing awards. Make your first stop the Resources tab at the top right of the menu bar. (Yes, I’ve modeled this page after his.) Here you will find a carefully selected list of links. On the Writings tab you will see humorous and informative articles by David and others. On the Recipes tab, click the pictures to display contents. This site is a primary destination for Portuguese cuisine.

Hiring a caterer may help you with the responsibilities of managing a successful event. But how many times have you planned your own event and forgotten to include items such as extension cords? Can opener? Marking pens? Here is a successful event checklist that could come in handy whether you use a caterer or go it alone. (If you’d like to add anything to this list, please let me know.)

One of the websites referenced on Leite’s Resources page deserves special note. Michael Britigan’s Recipe Site Review covers cuisines of the world (and the USA) and rates each one with a checkmark score. His commentaries are delightful as well. I certainly hope that this site is still being maintained because apparently it was last updated over a year ago.

I know that different search engines offer different results. But my first choice is Google – for good search results and no overt advertising. Even hardcore users are not aware of the full range of Google services. Check out Catalogs (searchable and viewable mail order), Directory (by topic in categories), News (from 4,500 sources), Images, Groups (discussion forums), Local (find businesses and services) and Froogle (shopping). Its newest child is Google Print, an Amazon-style e-commerce service that may dramatically affect marketplaces like eBay. Incidentally, Google is only six years old.

An obscure section of Google deserves mention. The Zeitgeist is a compilation of search patterns and trends reported annually and monthly. The Zeitgeist web page includes hyperlinks to year-end records for the last three years, search statistics related to 9/11 and other archived information. Very interesting.

A few years ago my neighborhood had severe hailstorms resulting in thousands of new roofs being installed. In the suburbs there were literally hundreds of dumpsters filled with scrap cedar shakes. During the same timeframe I ordered cedar-planked salmon at a restaurant. I wondered: Could I use these as cooking planks on my outdoor grill? After phoning several British Columbia wood mills, I was assured that as long as the wood origin tag did not say it was treated with preservatives, it was okay. Needless to say, I still have an ample supply of planks in my basement.

BBQ plank cooking requires only a few rules: soak the plank thoroughly, place over indirect heat (for charcoal grills that means a two-zone fire; gas grillers should turn a burner off) and keep the temperature at medium-high or below 400° F. The plank should sizzle and pop as it releases its oils and aromatics. Catherine Allchin’s article should be enough to whet your appetite. She says, “Once you’ve tasted food cooked on wood planks, you may never be satisfied with your plain charcoal or gas grill again.” Embedded in her text are two website references – PlankCooking and Chinook Planks – where you can find recipes and additional cooking tips.

In 2002 trivia lovers were treated to a best-selling British book titled Schott’s ‘Original Miscellany.’ (Ben Schott is a London photographer and designer.) One reviewer said, “This bizarre little book manages to be both totally useless and nearly indispensable.” With no apparent organization, it’s filled with random collections: how to tie a bow tie, clothes washing symbols, tongue twisters, ballet terms, shoelace lengths and the like. (Schott’s book was followed by the look-alike Shite’s 'Unoriginal Miscellany’ authored by A. Parody.)

His second book, released in 2003, was ‘Schott’s Food & Drink Miscellany,’ a compendium of all things epicurean. (At the Drink hyperlink, click on the Schott’s Miscellanies tab, pause to read the screen for a few seconds, then click Enter.) Included here are blessings for wine and bread, how to ask for the dinner check in 122 languages, Jelly Belly flavors, pasta shapes, diner slang and more. His third book is ‘Schott’s Sporting, Gaming and Idling Miscellany.’

Do you ever need help translating acronyms – especially those TLAs (three-letter acronyms)? Try Acronym Finder with over 362,000 selections. Need to go even deeper into technology lingo? Try the website called What Is. Want to know How Stuff Works? This site teaches you how ‘everything’ works. Want to know How Things Work? This site explains the physics of everyday life.

Speaking of technology, are you aware of chat jargon and text messaging shortcuts used by cell phone youth? IMHO, one of the best sites to start your learning experience is at SWALK – ironically named after a popular WWII acronym. (Boy, I wish these resources were around when I was writing school term papers.)

So you need a recipe from the Internet? You enter some key words into your browser, find a few results, print your copy and start cooking. So what if it’s an untested recipe from an unknown source. You’re happy you found something. Here’s an alternate approach that directs you to specific sites and lets you choose from thousands of recipes. You may have already used cable’s Food Network site. (At one time they claimed over 20,000 recipes, but their policy is not to archive everything.) Have you used Recipezaar (over 96,000 recipes shared since year 1999), Chef2Chef (280,000 recipes and 30,000 culinary sites) or RecipeSource (approximately 70,000 recipes)?

If you’re interested in buying a book, what do you do? Do you drive to one of the major chain stores and buy it at retail (plus sales tax and gas money)? Or do you only go to Amazon and buy with a higher-than-normal shipping cost? Here are some suggestions for the thriftier shopper. Your first stops should be FetchBook (my favorite because it’s fast and has a great directory), AllBookstores and AddAll. All three will give you similar, but different, results. Plug in your appropriate shipping destination and you’ll see lowest price culled from hundreds of sites and tens of thousands of booksellers. Yes, you pay shipping but no tax or gas money.

Now that you know your bottom-line price, go to Amazon to evaluate customer reviews and see if the ‘look/search inside’ feature is activated. If you’re really penny-wise, go to eBay and, if available, bid on those items where you open the bid and sit tight. (Remember, fewer than half of eBay’s items are sold through each bidding cycle.) Your book is not listed here or at too high a price? Add your search to eBay’s Favorites and click in the ‘email me’ alert box. Remember to always combine the product price with shipping and handling costs for a true price.

If you’re interested in hard-to-find books and reference information, you need to know about Marylaine Block. This link directs you to her homepage. Explore here before you read the article titled ‘How to Find Out-of-Print Books’ at the BookBytes square.

The Chef2Chef site noted earlier has another special header bar titled Top 100. Here you will find linked lists under ten ‘Top 100’ categories – culinary sites, wine and beer sites, chefs’ books – plus two additional categories. Please note that only the first 25 items are listed; activate the buttons that bring up the next 75. You’ll note that this is an interactive site asking for your opinions.

If you browse the cooking magazine selections in larger bookstores, you’ll see Cook’s Illustrated. It’s thin, mostly black-and-white, issued ten times a year and relatively expensive. (Think of it as a Consumer Reports for food. And like CR, it claims unbiased ratings and reviews because it accepts no advertising.) Cook’s book publishing, television and Internet arm is America’s Test Kitchen (ATK). At this website you can sign up for free recipes from TV shows over the last three years. Almost all of the 100+ recipes printed in ATK books are free from this Internet site. Why do people rely on ATK? It’s because of well-researched recipes, unbiased product testing and hand-holding instructions. Look for the weekly ATK show on a public television channel in your area usually on Saturday afternoon.

Do you ever receive a re-re-recopied email from a friend asking you to forward the message to all of your friends? (You know these: Swiffer/Febreze kills pets, canola oil is toxic and acids in Coke make it harmful to drink.) So what do you do – accept the message as fact and blindly forward the email? Wrong! First check out the accuracy of the chain letter, hoax, rumor, myth, etc. And you do that by going to Snopes, probably the best urban legends site. If the message is really false, I believe it’s your solemn duty to forward mail to all of the affected recipients while citing the Snopes reference. (I wonder why nobody emails me these messages anymore.)

Tapping the side of a soda can releases pressure = FALSE; German chocolate cake originated in Germany = FALSE; Twinkies have an indefinite shelf life = FALSE; eating turkey makes people sleepy = FALSE. Here’s a comment from Snopes: “Experts say chicken has higher levels of tryptophan than turkey does. If tryptophan were truly the sandman’s henchman, we’d be falling asleep at the wheel on our way home from KFC.”

Which of the following was a real person – Chef Boyardee or Betty Crocker? Hector Boiardi, despite being associated with no-respect food in a can, was a highly regarded Italian chef; Betty Crocker, I’m sorry to tell you, was a fictitious person invented for advertising purposes.

A great summertime party activity might be preparing pizza on your outdoor grill. (Grilled pizza sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it?) Check out the 44-page online booklet from Weber authored by The Surreal Gourmet. If you want the restaurant recipe that started this phenomenon, go to this Al Forno reference.

If you love wordplay as much as I do, are you familiar with Mardy Grothe’s book titled ‘Oxymoronica’? There are 14 chapters containing over 1,400 entries. One of my favorites is: “I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous.” Go to Grothe’s website to find out more. And, to set the record straight, the plural of oxymoron is oxymora.

If you need an unusual kitchen utensil or cookware item and can’t find it at any of the kitchen stores in town, then you need to know about Bridge Kitchenware. Bridge is acknowledged to have the most complete line of these products in the country. Madeleine pans, Charlotte molds, pâté terrines and flan rings galore. The online site lists 2,500 items, but their NYC store carries over 20,000 items. From the website you can order the printed catalog that includes the full inventory. The $3 cost is redeemable with your first order.

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