All the food that's fit to eat

Them tasty nuggets of food news, boys, it's time to round 'em up!

The plague of coupons seems inescapable. Like the Egyptian captors of the Israelites, we are smitten by Biblical misfortune. (What have we done to offend thee, Lord? Ah, yes, we have been too greedy. It was Walmart's promise of low prices, wasn't it? Our warped sense of entitlement, our selfishness? Will we ever recover from this self-inflicted plague?) So, to deal with coupons, restaurant strategies are evolving.

First, proactive, targeted coupons and deal-searching software. Three recent ones: Foodcaching, BiteHunter and SnapFinger.

Second, dueling restaurnt promotions. We're in the middle of a monthlong Dine Around featuring some 50 subscribing eatieries, $15 at lunch, $30 at dinner. Coming in April, ten days of Restaurant Week, in which 150 restaurants (not all the same ones) put out 3-course dinners for $28.

Seattle's homegrown FareStart is a big winner in the James Beard Awards this year: it's been named the organization's Humanitarian of the Year.

All is not well in the food universe. Thundering Hooves, for example, which just last month told Cornichon it would slow down its growth, has, instead, simply keeled over. Ironically, Thundering Hooves was being taught in business schools as a model for a sucessful family business.

Elsewhere, Jack inda Box is (literally) rolling out a food truck on the streets of LA.. Taco Bell says its campaign on behalf of the "beef" filling in its tortillas is working. Starbucks is about to celebrate its 40th birthday with hints it will buy California-based Peet's Coffee. And in Italy, home of Slow Food, there's a conference coming up called Slow Fish. Last year the focus was on endangered ocean species. This year's conference is about an equally endangered species: the fishermen whose livelihoods depend on the vanishing resrouce. Without fish, society loses their skills.