Blue cheese + beetroot = coming to a chic eatery near you

Foodies take note - there is a new site called Foodpairing that allows you to explore food flavor networks and in turn, discover new recipe combos that might be the next big thing.

The site features 250 food products and their pairs via a visual map of branches that sort out flavors that share the same tastes and genetic food makeup. I think this is pretty cool - see what Josh Spear has to say.

The site encourages users to make new recipes by combining foods that have flavors in common. It even features an option to send in your recipe to recipe@foodpairing.be if you happen to come across something new and great. Maybe now we won't need a celebrity chef to tell us what is new and hip?

And those with a hit-or-miss spice rack (like me!) will enjoy the interchangeable foods section, which details best substitutes for herbs and spices. They base it on the idea that a food product has a specific flavor because of a combination of other different flavors, such as basil, which has a combination of linalool (so does corinader) and estragol (so does tarragon.) They say you can reconstruct the taste of basil by combining coriander, tarragon, cloves, laurel. Lot of work, but very cool!

I'm wondering if this site will guide an amateur bartender like myself to new creations. With all the trendy savory martinis out there lately, I was curious where "rosemary" might lead me. Turns out that basil, sage, all spice and nutmeg are pretty compatible, but so is peppermint and mandarin orange. That all sounds very interesting and worth a try with some top-shelf vodka.

So for better, or for worse, we now know that not only does coffee and raspberry taste great with chocolate - so would a radish or grilled pigeon. Shudder.