Spiral-Cut Hot Dogs with Spicy Cherry Relish

Café Gratitude, a small vegan chain from California, has an interesting concept to improve the future of our planet. Meatless Monday deals and offerings across the country show no signs of slowing down. Growing concern over both the quality of mass-processed meats along with climate change and the humane treatment of animals, is inspiring folks to adopt vegan habits, at least part-time anyways. The café took a step ahead by offering 50% off on their most popular dishes every Monday for a limited time, as an incentive for diners, while trying to motivate other restaurants to follow the model. Café Gratitude’s motto “Be plant rich” means they want you to live a rich life mostly on plants.

Kimchi has conquered the world! Most people know this popular Korean side dish as fermented cabbage, but the truth is you can kimchi pretty much any vegetable and fruit. Food explorers seek it at restaurants and/or specialty stores. This fermented delicacy is an immune-system boosting probiotic food, that includes "healthy bacteria". In the season finale of CHOW-TO, Atoboy's chef de cuisine YeongSoo Lee teaches Guillermo the basics on how to make the Korean staple. There is not one right recipe, here we learn the principles, and the idea is to make it your own. Kimchi is so customizable, that traditional Napa cabbage is just the start. YeongSoo shows us a couple of other variations for inspiration. Move over pickles, time to do some fermenting at home.

What's the difference between French Press and AeroPress coffee? To find out, we visited Cafe Devoción in Brooklyn, NY to speak to their Director of Education, Allie Dancy, about the similarities and differences of the two brew methods. Allie walked us through the correct way to brew each, demonstrating every step of the process. We covered things like the correct coffee to water ratio, the correct water temperature for brewing, the best coffee grind for each brewing method, and much more.

Have you ever tried one of these hot dog variations?

CHOW.com's Blake Smith shows how the simple technique of cutting a spiral pattern into your hot dog before grilling it will not only improve the wiener-eating experience, but will also transform the dog into a conversation starter.