How could ThisNext not go head over heels for GearFlogger, an outdoor adventure blog that i.d.s itself as “a way for us to wax poetic about gear we love, and to vent our collective spleen about gear that failed us in our moment of need”? We’re especially into the handy-dandy “Denali Approved” stickers, featured most recently on Wiley-X SG-1 V-cut goggles, Marmot Evolution gloves, and Outdoor Research Accessory Straps. And any blogger who can turn a soft shell review into a Flashdance-referencing, slightly-dirty-word-dropping snarkfest wins our hearts forever. A salty little taste of GearFlogger’s Mammut Laser Light write-up:

“I love me a soft shell, and I’m a slut for Schoeller Dryskin Extreme. Still, I was in a pissy mood when the Mammut Laser Light jacket came in the door. The tag said the Nano-Sphere fabric was highly stain resistant, so I figured fine, I’ll fix your wagon, you Swiss bastards.”

Pairing wine can be tricky. For example, what wine should one drink red or white when listening to Coldplay? Or to celebrate a promotion? Wine site redteeth purports to connect you to the perfect wine for practically any occasion. With ratings ranging from “One-Night Stand” to “The Reddest” (“Transcendent” falls in between, interestingly), we’re relieved to have such a handy and irreverent reference at our fingertips.

I have to confess: I am not a camper. It’s not that I don’t like nature (though what has she done for me lately?), but the very word conjures up thoughts of sleeping on the hard ground, swarms of bloodthirsty mosquitos and, worst of all, lackluster food poured out of cans and burnt to cinders over an open fire. “Campfire Cuisine” may change my mind, though. This pocket-sized guide not only contains recipes, but a comprehensive guide on what to buy both for gear and goods, how to store it for maximum safety and convenience and how to cook it all well and simply for maximum flavor. But still, I think I’ll try these recipes out in the backyard first.

Via Juliette Rossant’s superchefblog.  

What can we say? We’re crazy for the cheap wine blogs. Quaffability offers up not only reviews of cheap wines, but has a particular rating system as well: It’s a price-to-quality ratio. So if a $6 wine tastes like a $6 wine, it gets a 100% rating. If it tastes worthy of a $12 wine, it gets 200%. Woe be to the wines that come in under 100%, especially considering the price points.

Mostly wine, mostly under $12, mostly from Trader Joe’s. We’re mostly down with that. 

Few restaurants command attention on a global scale, and fewer yet from within the good old U. S. of A. But perhaps second only to French Laundry, Chicago’s Alinea stands out as one of the greatest marriages of culinary expertise both for the palate and the eyes. Chef Grant Achatz, himself a protégé of French Laundry’s Thomas Keller, creates quirky, abstract dishes that utilize unusual elements. The results sometimes look like they’ve been transported from the mother ship, yet food bloggers come to concensus: Alinea takes all. Check these reviews, paired with stunning images of the dishes.

• Skillet Doux
• Gastronomie
• Confessions of a Restaurant Whore
• MegNut
  

My heart goes out to The Girl Who Ate Everything, who is one of the unfortunates afflicted with asthma. But so long as she’s reading instead of cooking, she’s sharing some good reads to add to your summer book list: “Garlic and Sapphires” by Ruth Reichl, and “Heat” by Bill Buford. Actually, I’ve read Garlic and Sapphires, and it’s a very interesting read indeded, following her exploits as restaurant reviewer for the New York Times, when she would go in costume to avoid being recognized. I may just have to take up the other book on her suggestion as well!

For busy guys and gals on the go, the microwave is a virtual necessity, but so much nuker-ready food comes out mushy, bland or just plain bad. HeatEatReview.com sends it all through the nuker and reports back on what’s worth your $2.99 and five minutes of mike time, like this Lean Cuisine Three Cheese Stuffed Rigatoni. Crispy vegetables, firm pasta and delicious cheeses, all under five bucks and five Weight Watchers points. Sign us up!

Tea and wine are more alike than most people realize. Both have a strong tannic structure and complex aromatic notes that can convey flavors that have little or nothing to do with the original ingredients. And vintage matters for tea as well as wine, too. Phyll Sheng applies his exceedingly sharp palate to both beverages, and his descriptions and gorgeous images are almost as good as sitting down with a nice hot cup of 2006 Gopaldhara Estate Spring 1st Flush Darjeeling.

We love it when bloggers share our interests and enlighten us. So, our neverending pursuit for the best cheap wines around is made that much easier since our discovery of Box Wines. Now, before you get your full sneer on, please note that they review wines of all kinds, in all types of containers (including box). All that matters is that they are affordable. Thoughtful tasting notes and a handy rating system put each wine in its place. So even if the bad-boy label and $10 price tag weren’t enough to grab our interest on Montevina’s Wild Bunch, Box Wines’ 8.5 rating sealed the deal.

We like to be thorough, and we’re glad to see we’re not alone in that regard. Meet Andreea, an expat who’s lived in Belgium for over a decade. Andreea has a passion for food and wine, but lives in a country of beer. She is, as far as we can tell, determined to drink every beer in Belgium, one at a time. She’s got 68 under her belt so far, but with over 450 varieties of Belgian beer out there, she’s got her work cut out for her. Because she’s a wine drinker at heart, Andreea pays close attention to detail when sampling these beers, not least making sure that each is drunk from its appropriate glassware. Cheers to her!

ThisNext knows when there’s more to tech than just the specs and how it looks - there’s what real people who’ve tried it have to say.  Over at Krunker, they’ve rounded up some great reviews of everything from iPod docking stands to this new Fuji FinePix V10. Best part for those of you who like to skim or jump to the end of books - the “verdict” is always in a grey box.

Life is far too short to waste valuable calorie intake on bad candy. So when a sweet treat gets a coveted rating of 10 - Superb on Candy Blog, you know it’s worthy of your sweet tooth’s attention. Unfortunately, these Pink Grapefruit Mentos, already popular with Europeans and Canadians, are not available in stores in the good old U. S. of A. (Don’t fret: they are available online stateside.) With the help of bloggers like Candy Blog, we can all make the world a sweeter place. (Photo credit: Cybele May)

There’s more to the alphabet of root beer than just A&W. In fact, according to avid root beerologist Luke Cole, the great initialled one doesn’t even make the top 10. Cole has combed the United States to ferret out the best brew for you, and has produced a comparative list each year since 2001. Mom-and-pop operations tend to lead the pack, perhaps unsurprisingly. And lest you become despondent over the inability to get a frosty mug of, say, Gale’s from Chicago, there’s even a handy page with places you can source some top-notch quaff.

We never believe in settling for second-best, and clearly neither does Luke!

(via Chow for Now. Photo by Debra Jane Selzer. Yes, that’s her real name.)

I know I do. But Hot Sauce Blog has got a penchant, nay a passion for all things culinarily incendiary. The whole site is mouth- and eye-wateringly chock-full of chile-based chatter. Be sure to check out their numerous reviews of hot sauces, lest you waste valuable time and money on subpar sauces. They’re all put to the test on crackers, eggs and, um, pancakes and rated accordingly. Hotness is the new hottness — you heard it here first.

I like wine. I like cheap wine. But even cheap wine is no bargain if you end up pouring it down the drain. Cheap Fun Wines takes the mystery out of selecting your next bottle, provided you want to shell out less than $20. But that was a given, wasn’t it? For those of you with easy access to a Trader Joe’s, long a bastion of great, cheap wines, CFW even calls out wines specifically available there. We love that someone’s out there looking out for us, tasting bottle after bottle of cheap wine, so we only get the good stuff. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.

New York may be one of the great dining epicenters of the world, but the best the city has to offer isn’t necessarily served over white tablecloths. Pizza is the iconic dish, and there are literally thousands of pizzerias throughout the five boroughs — and beyond. So if you’re in the Big Apple, before you drop some dough (heh) on a piece of ‘za, check out Slice, the definitive resource on all things pie-related in the city.

It takes a rare form of dedication not only to sift through the sheer enormity of information on the New York pizza scene, but to suffer the slings and arrows of public opinion on it. Few foods inspire such fiercely held opinions. But Adam is out there, pounding the pavement and consuming slice after slice, to make sure you get the best pie possible. Be sure to check out the handy pizza Google map, or download piPod and have all of New York’s pizzerias at your fingertips on your iPod.

Hungry? Want something to snack on, but tired of the same old same old? Tap into Junk Food Blog to see what’s just hitting the shelves of your local supermarket, be it the latest snack cracker, candy bar, cookie or energy drink. JFB is an equal-opportunity blog, covering snacks even if they are sugar-free, organic or bizarrely colored. Mostly you’ll find just announcements of new products on the market, but the occasional review will let you know whether you really want to pick up that Tijuana Mama Pickled Sausage.

The Red Wine Haiku Review offers an alternative way to review wines: No numbers, no highfalutin talk about tannins, no swishing and spitting. Each bottle is summed up in 17 Zen-infused syllables. The reviews range from the petulant to the poetic, but you always come away with a taste of the wine in question. To wit:

Pellegrini Vineyards North Fork Merlot 1999 (Long Island, NY)

Barbecued handbag

Carpet cleaner marinade

Finishes like Scope

I adore Real Girl Beauty blog. When I first clicked to it, link hopping, I thought I was checking a Real Girl Beauty site along the lines of Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaigns. And though I admire that campaign for its marketing brilliance and celebration of uniqueness, I absolutely have no problem watching Mischa Barton pimp me Neutrogena face wash, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that Real Girl Beauty isn’t so much about reconciling image issues as keeping credit card debt to a minimum.

Says Real Girl:

 

Who am I? I’m someone who must schedule my Sephora visits, lest I breeze inside and automatically be $100 poorer. I’m someone who uses 6 hair products from the time I step into the shower ‘til the time my hair is dry. I’m someone who will not go to sleep at night without slathering my face with antioxidants.

 

But more than her hyper pro-consumerism, I love Real Girl’s real recommendations: she blogs about products she uses, how she uses them, and why they work. Her blogged praises of Magiff manicure products don’t just include product images, but she shows you the before and after image of her own nails.