Proctor & Gamble has announced their new "Pringles Prints" product which is their classic potato crisp snack with food coloring printing on the crisps displaying fun facts, animal prints, or questions from Trivial Pursuit Junior.

"Pringles is the leader and founder of the stacked crisp category and now we're taking it to a whole new level," said Jamie Egasti, vice president of the firm's North America snacks division.

I can say with confidence that I have been quietly waiting for someone in the stacked crisp category to take this step. This is not only a revolution in the stacked crisp category but possibly in the entire salty snack master category. HIP HIP HOORAY! HIP HIP HOORAY!!! More words and pictures printed on salty snacks!!! HIP HIP HOORAY!!!

Etichettando.com tells us how to find organic food and avoid GMO! But this is all UK-based, does this work in the US? The site says the PLU is used here. (Sarah, tell us the secrets of Whole Foods!)

I recently went to the Vita Cafe on NE Alberta to have a "fancy goodbye dinner" with my boyfriend, who is in Chicago for five days. Now, I have been to the Vita any number of times during my 10 years in Portland, and I have always found it to be a pleasant atmosphere and delicious food. They also have tons of vegan desserts, such as cheesecake and this amazing apple/marionberry torte thing. The waiters and waitresses are all really attractive in that very particular blend of Hot Unwashed Portland Ambiguous Sexuality" that I find irresistible and am always seeking to emulate. They will sit down at the table with you and chat about their favorite menu items, which helps if you sometimes have a hard time deciding, like a certain Yours Truly.

On this visit, however, something was different. The menu had changed! Our waitress, who Andrew insisted looked like Katy Davidson, informed us that they are switching to a "rotating seasonal menu." I was very excited to hear this. Seasonal eating is much tastier and more healthy, and I am glad to see my favorite restaurant adopting this method! Eating seasonally means that you use vegetables and fruits when they are in season. I don't really have a handle on which are in season at which times, since in this day and age we can get almost all kinds of fruits and vegetables at the store any time we want. But for example, fruits like apples get really mealy and not as crisp and delicious during this part of the year, because apples are a fall fruit, and so in order to have them in May, they have to be shipped from a long way off, or grown in non-ideal situations.

The new menu we sampled from was the tail-end of their winter seasonal menu, and it features items like vegan eggplant parmesan (amazingly good), a spinach pasta with a white bean and sage sauce (also excellent), various types of polenta, and an amazing burrito stuffed with winter vegetables.

I am interested in eating seasonally. It's easy to do if you get one of those memberships to a place like Organics To You, where they deliver a crate of locally grown fruit and veggies to your door once a week. Then you only get what's in season. So all summer long you get blackberries and watermelons and corn, and in the winter you get potatoes and eggplants, and in the spring you finally get amazing, beautiful strawberries. The Vita cafe has inspired me to look more seriously into this lifestyle, and to learn the seasons for all my favorite foods, all of which come from our wonderful Planet Earth (except for soy bacon. I don't know WHERE that stuff comes from).

"P.F. Chang's decor blends classic Chinese design with a modern bistro look to create a dramatic visual effect." -P.F. Chang's Takehome Menu

"It looks like a Disney Restaurant." -Anonymous Patron

The first thing I noticed about P.F. Chang's China Bistro is that it looks like a chain. That is because it is. P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Inc. owns two "restaurant concepts" in the Asian niche. Of course P.F. Chang's, as well as Pei Wei Asian Diner. PF Changs (I'm tired of writing the extra punctuation) has 83 locations in 28 states, and is planning on opening 15-17 in 2003. I am guessing our own Portland is one of those new 15-17. PF Changs also trades on the NASDAQ (46.64 as of right now).

The next thing I notice is that is VERY busy. We are given a "beeper" and told it will be 20 minutes. A beeper? Hmmmm... That Disney comment is beginning to ring true. There also seems to be a small army of young cute girls massed around the front desk. After 20 minutes we are seated and given a PF Changs briefing. See, at PF Changs, the salt is soy sauce, and the pepper is hot sauce, because in ancient Chinese times they only had sauces... Oh, and there is some vinegar to tone down the spice. Do we want Mango Iced Tea, Coke, or Amstel Light? Those are my only options? Maybe those are the recommended options? I feel like these are the "sponsored" drinks. Water is fine. Then our server proceeds to use spicy mustard and chili sauce to create our table it's own "special sauce" to our taste.

The menu is full of favorites, recommendations, and all kinds of helpful hints. We end up getting the "addictive" lettuce wraps, hot and sour soup, crispy honey shrimp, orange peel chicken, kung pao chicken, and double pan-fried noodles. The lettuce wraps are self-serve style, making their popularity seem sort of novelty based. The flavor is fine, but other than the weird novelty aspect, I doubt I would order them again. The soup was good. I like hot and sour soup, and this was exactly what I expected. Then came the main course. The honey shrimp was the best, because it was the only thing that really stood out for me. The kung pao was fine, but Sungari's is better. The double fried noodles I thought were boring, and the orange peel chicken was interesting, but not great. The amounts were typical "american-sized" portions, meaning the four us were quite full.

But we decided to get dessert anyway. The Great Wall of Chocolate and the Banana Spring Rolls. Before dessert I check out the restrooms. The room was dark and cool. The music (which was terrible cheesy pop) was too loud, and i went to wash my hands I was disappointed. The water was a nice warm jet that was activated by motion (pet peeve) that poured into a big sink. I liked the one big sink for two faucets. I didn't like the lack of temperature controls, because I like cold water when i wash my hands. Warm feels nice, but cold feels clean and sharp.

Back to dessert. These things are not meant for one person, especially the "Great Wall". This thing was a six layer choco cake with choco frosting and choco chips, served with raspberry sauce. Again, it was fine. The cake seemed to be a box mixture of fluffy standard chocolate cake. But it was big, it was warm, and it was chocolate, so it's hard to complain. The Banana Spring Rolls were better. It's banana wrapped in "spring roll" and deep friend. Yeah. Served with coconut ice-cream and some sauces and a few decorative berries.

I left thinking just one thing, "Not as good as Sungari." Plus it was higher priced, over-staffed, and over-themed. I ended up feeling the same as I did before I went, PF Changs is an upscale chain restaurant for the un-adventurous.