Mmm, pie! A new website, Penelope Pies, knows that we can’t resist the baked combination of a flaky homemade crust with a yummy fruit filling or — my favorite — a delectable key-lime concoction with graham-cracker crust and loads of whipped cream (never meringue!) piled on top.

Star Tribune photo by Steve Rice

Penelope Pies, which popped out of the cyber oven on Oct. 1, aims to provide an online resource for people who love to bake and eat pies. Although the site has a relatively small amount of content so far, its cheeky approach bodes of tasty things to come. Penelope, you see, is not real. She is the creation of site cofounders V.C. Garmel (a former ad-agency writer) and Lillian Laserson (a lawyer). And, so, while some recipes come from readers, others come from Penelope’s fictional life and often include a little story as a setup, such as that fateful Thanksgiving when Penelope’s Aunt Lee came up with the bright idea of adding sour cream to the pumpkin-pie filling. Gentle humor abounds, too, such as in a pre-recipe story recounting an outburst from a teenage daughter who let loose after her mother (a reader) reminded her one time too many that the steam vents in the crust don’t have to be cut perfectly. Penelope concludes, “Apparently steam vents also come in different ages.” 

Penelope Pies’ glaring shortcoming is that the site doesn’t have photos, which are handy for recipe-triers who want to see their ultimate goal. Besides, when the site says in its Pie Place of the Week that a Miami eatery has “the creamiest, tangiest key lime pie,” I’d like to see what it looks like without having to follow a bunch of links. (And if the site is going to note that you can have said pie shipped to you, it’s also worth noting that it will cost almost $70 to do so.)

But those are just some annoying crumbs. Penelope Pies is a treat no matter how you slice it.

You might be sick and tired of Peyton Manning by now. The Indianapolis Colts quarterback seems to be in yet another TV commercial during every program break, and, of course, he was in the NFL’s overhyped “game of the century” Sunday against the New England Patriots. But an online extension of one of Manning’s many TV endorsements — this one for a major credit card — actually is a lot of fun and worth sharing.

Peyton Manning delivers a pep talk.

Called Priceless Pep Talks, the online feature allows you to get “personalized” video tips from Manning on dealing with life’s doldrums. Another year older? Get a birthday cake that looks like a football field. (”The endzone’s the best part.”) Can’t stop eating? Spend some time with defensive linemen. (”Next to them, everybody looks tiny.”) Dumped again? Get back into the dating game. (”There’s no riding the pine in the game of love.”) There are 10 pep talks in all.

But the really fun part is that Manning will reasonably garble your name at the beginning of each 20-second video clip. Just choose your moniker from a lengthy list. If your name isn’t offered, you can pick from generic aliases such as “compadre,” “dude” and “lady.” You can even send personalized pep talks to your friends by email or as a video to their phone.

I’d like to send Manning a pep talk. Unfortunately, there isn’t one for losing the big game.  

Spider-Man? Ha! Superman? Lame. Batman? Please. They’d be vanquished in one day if they were part of The Superest, a fun online competition between Philadelphia cartoonists Kevin Cornell and Matthew Sutter to see “who is the superest hero of them all.”

The rules are simple, as the new site explains succinctly:

“Player 1 draws a character with a power. Player 2 then draws a character whose power cancels the power of that previous character. Repeat.”

(c) 2007 Matthew Sutter

The battle of one-upmanship began Oct. 16 and has escalated continually since then, sometimes with multiple postings in one day. You won’t find licensed characters such as Spidey and the Man of Steel; the Superest is solely a battle between the original creations of Cornell and Sutter — and occasional invited guest artists. It began with the Un-Oppose-Inator, who “will win every battle provided there’s no opposition.” He was easily vanquished by Someone, whose brief description — like all of them, just long enough to justify why he’s superer — says, “He’s not no one.”

Creativity abounds. It’s a treat to see what Sutter and Cornell will come up with next. My favorite was when the broccoli-like Brocco-Lee (”taste bitter defeat”) was defeated (or eaten?) by the cooking monk Deep Friar, whose breading and vat of hot oil “makes everything taste good!”

Super! Or superest. Whatever. Check it out.

If you’re stuck in a rut when it comes to booking travel online, give the plucky website Kayak a try. Kayak might not be new to travel veterans, but it’s worth bringing to the attention of occasional travelers who always head first to the biggies such as Expedia, Travelocity, Hotwire and Priceline.

Unlike those other sites, which are basically online travel agencies, Kayak doesn’t actually sell anything. Instead, its powerful search engine scours the sites of airlines, hotels and other travel providers to find the best deals in airfare, lodging and car rentals. Its main asset is flexible filtering. You can, for example, choose to:

• See only flights that take off in a certain two-hour period.
• Find out if there are better deals up to three days before or after your search date.
• View pricing trends based on other users’ searches.

There’s also an email service that lets registered users (it’s free) set all kinds of parameters to be informed when prices reach a certain level for specific destinations. For posterity, Kayak can even show you what the other major travel websites show for the same search.

Kayak shouldn’t be the only travel website you use. But if you make it your first, you’ll be better served when you go to the usual ones.

What’s your favorite travel website?