fine dining

The sluggish economy and high unemployment rate mean that many of us won't be splurging on exotic vacations this year. But a staycation doesn't have to mean a boring bout with cabin fever. The key to being a successful local tourist lies in looking at your region the way an outsider would.

England wasn't traditionally known for gastronomic delights, but last week London was the setting for a fascinating culinary extravaganza called "The Complete History of Food," an unusual tour of food through the ages. Take the tour on video.

The recession has turned us into a people who brunch. It makes sense that in hard times, a restaurant outing that combines two meals into one would become as hot as jalapeno-cheddar frittata. Brunch traffic rose in 2009 while traffic for all other meals was down.

In these trying times, when most things are either constant or sliding down the graph, crabs are slowly climbing up. Phillips Foods Inc., the global seafood processing giant announced recently that crab meat is an increasingly popular option on restaurant menus, despite the Recession. The...