Specialty Food: Hot trends from last week's Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco: heritage grain products (quinoa, amaranth, chia) proliferate in snacks and pastas; pickling of beets, carrots, peas, okra and fruits is increasing; oats and almonds are coming to juice drinks; coconut is in everything, and the gluten-free category is expanding rapidly (gluten-free granola, anyone?). - Glenn Collins SF Weekly: Artisanal pickles are your Plan B? You might want to rethink that, pal. - Jeff Gordinier The Village Voice: Leering elves, a sickly-green giant, a gluten-bloated doughboy with dead eyes - and, of course, Little Debbie. A rogue's gallery of the 10 most disturbing food mascots. - Patrick Farrell Mail and Guardian: Sustainable urban farming picks up steam in South Africa. - Julia Moskin The New York Times: Population of the jack mackerel, a crucial food fish, has crashed in the last 20 years, and it may foretell a collapse of fish stocks everywhere. "This is the last of the buffaloes," one scientist says. "When they're gone, everything will be gone." - Eric Asimov Bloomberg Business Week: Stacking up the health claims of today's soft drinks against those of yesteryear. Did you know that 7-Up used to contain lithium citrate? - Nick Fox The Press Democrat: California wine shipments rose by about 5 percent in 2011, the most growth in a decade or more, with the greatest growth coming in sweet wines that bring in new consumers. - Eric Asimov Tasting Table: American drinkers and bartenders are starting to rediscover an obscure spirit that was originally created by far-flung and thirsty Swedish sailors. - Jeff Gordinier The New York Post: The Paula Deen feeding frenzy heads into the cheese course: Page Six reports that her sons wanted to bolt the family management over Mom's deal to hawk a diabetes drug; they worried about her switching to the new drug from a medication that had been working just fine. - Patrick Farrell Centives.net: Lehigh University students set up an online tool to calculate how much of a markup Domino's charges for each pizza topping. They say it averages 260 percent for the first one. This device cannot be used to calculate why anyone would want to buy Domino's pizza in the first place. - Nick Fox Gaz Regan: May I suggest, if you are the partaking kind, beginning your Friday evening with a sidecar, one of my favorite cocktails? Gaz Reagan examines the background of the sidecar, offers variations and generously links to the recipes of other cocktail mavens. - Eric Asimov The New York Times: A new variation on rotten tomatoes: tacos, delivered to the mayor of East Haven, Conn., after his bland response ("I might have tacos when I go home") to federal allegations that local police officers had beaten and harassed Latino residents. - Patrick Farrell Bloomberg Businessweek: Chipotle Mexican Grill reaches No. 18 in the new Bloomberg "Top 50 Consumer Stars" list of companies, with $2.2 billion in revenues and expansion to Paris and London. And there's that new Asian-themed restaurant, ShopHouse, in Washington. But higher menu prices are looming, to offset rising costs of beef, chicken, cheese, and sour cream. (Click on the Chipotle image for text.) - Glenn Collins Texas Monthly: Texans are amused by Brooklyn offerings of breakfast tacos. Perhaps they are unaware that in these parts Texas is known as Brooklyn South and Portland as Brooklyn West? - Eric Asimov The Guardian: Felicity Cloake on the high art of making ginger cake. - Jeff Gordinier Food Republic: Beyond basil, there are a passel of more interesting pesto alternatives: artichoke, cilantro, roasted corn, lemon-pistachio and mint. Get that blender warmed up. - Patrick Farrell Details: Things you might find in your cocktail these days: mushrooms, miso paste, blue cheese. - Jeff Gordinier The Daily Meal: Colman Andrews continues his reports on the Madrid Fusión food conference: Day One, Two and Three. - Nick Fox Zagat Buzz: Attention, unattached New Yorkers: Valentine's Day, otherwise known as Single Awareness Day, approaches. Here are 10 bars where you can meet your ideal date, from "well-to-do hipster" to "an "American Psycho" type." ... The Atlantic: ... And while you're there, impress your new friend with your mastery of the new wine lingo, like "biodynamic" and "sustainable." - Patrick Farrell Spenser Magazine: The magic of foraging for mushrooms on the California coast. - Jeff Gordinier Gourmet: Yeast has given rise to many things, including Peter Reinhart's career as a master bread baker. In a tight little package, he lays out all you need to know about the magical stuff. - Patrick Farrell YouTube: No night of surging "90s nostalgia would be complete without the Presidents of the United States of America and their propulsive paean to peaches. - Jeff Gordinier