Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Thank you all.

ooh. and just read the comment. there's one by the motherjones editor.

@schmonsequences: The different mineral contents of various waters give them different flavors. I think a lot of people would say "Water's water," but if you compare different bottled waters side by side—as I'm sure you did with your office water—you really can taste the differences among them.

Jeffrey Steingarten actually has a whole chapter about bottled water in his book The Man Who Ate Everything. He somehow establishes an ideal composition/flavor profile for water (I don't quite remember what his criteria were), then tries all the bottled waters he can get his hands on. In the end, I think he ends up declaring that Volvic is the water that most tastes like "water."

I, too, prefer Volvic to the other bottled waters I've tried (Evian, Poland Spring, Dasani, Aquafina, Fiji, Deer Park, Calistoga, and various generic brands you only find at convenience stores). But I rarely drink it anymore; with the greenfolk negging on bottled water's carbon footprint, combined with its cost, it's a convenience item I can do without. Now mostly drinking Brita-filtered tap water and the Poland Spring water from the office water cooler.

I'm not making a political statement, just telling you what my taste buds tell me. Fiji water tastes better than other water. My coworkers didn't believe me when I complained about the office switching from Crystal Rock to Poland Spring water. I held a blind taste test and everyone agreed there was a taste difference. One which I could easily identify.

Just because the bottled water industry has been stigmatized (probably rightfully so, and I drink filtered tap water 99% of the time anyway), it doesn't mean our taste buds cease to exist, and on a board mostly devoted to the enjoyment of taste I think it's a valid point to say that I prefer the taste of Fiji water to all others.

I also drink fermented grape juice shipped from all over the world. And I eat animals that consume tons of grain and produce methane gas. If you're a vegan localvore, good for you. Are you?

This is why I laugh at the self-righteous left-wing, tell me I am a horrible person for shopping at Wal-Mart or eating at McDonalds, but then suck down bottle after bottle of water produced by exploiting a nation and polluting the enviroment.

they're smart in their marketing. make fiji water the choice for all who's hip, cool, and powerful, and you'll win.

in terms of the article, yeah... for traveling to fiji and exploring their plants, the article itself had very little knew information. just a lot of random stuff that was aggregated from other pieces of info you can find on the web. did she actually learn anything new when she went except learning how to get harrassed by cops in a 3rd world country? (yeah... that's a new one for any tourist...)

anyways, I've long stopped drinking fiji, and most other bottled water - especially imported bottled water. Do I really need to drink bottled water that's shipped around the world? that's ok.... my filtered tap tastes fine to me.

Yes, I just went in and read further down on the "backstory" and it says the $3,000 was added as an April Fool's prank. So given that, the rest of the ticket looks reasonable.

Feta cheese with tomatoes fresh out of the garden and kalamata olives sprinkled over a round of dough brushed with olive oil, minced garlic, greek oregano and a thin layer of mozzarella cheese is one of my favorite summer time pies. Even better when it's done on the grill.

No pepperone, love it uncooked with cheese & crackers or antipasto, but not on pizza, overpowers everything else. Same thing with bacon. Good sausage meat or plain cheese for me. And don't even start with those cowpies from Chicago!

I agree. Why is pepperoni the default ingredient?? I just think it's the most fun to say. Pepperoni.

To me, it's a much larger issue than cleaning, number of uses, etc. but it definitely affects the final taste result, which is very important to me, personally. (I'm bummed I missed this until now, because I've had this discussion many times with good cooks, who are every bit as good a cook as a professional chef--and like to use garlic presses--as opposed to trained chefs (like myself) who have explored many different ways to prepare garlic and find we don't prefer the result.) Using a garlic press does not give you chopped, minced, mashed garlic or garlic paste (which are generally what are used in gourmet cooking), but gives you some of the clove with a lot of the garlic oil which tastes more pungent than if one had the whole clove together. I think this dramatically affects a dish, and is only good for certain purposes, like certain garlicky pasta sauces or mild red salsas (when that type of garlic aftertaste combined with tomatoes and some sugar is very pleasing). To me, each way to prepare garlic, whether slicing, chopping garlic into brunoise or mince or making it into a paste (mince the garlic and then sprinkle some kosher salt onto it, then rub it back and forth with the back of a knife until it's a pulpy mass) all give a different taste to a dish.

People always ask me to bring spicy cheese dip, and I rarely ever bring it back home!

My New Orleans pecan pie never lasts too long once it's out of the oven...