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Pizza beer? Well, maybe. Cheese perfume? Hmmm.
Mamma Mia Pizzabeer is the creation of Chicago-area brewers, Tom and Athena Seefurth. It's not quite as weird as it sounds, but is merely a beer that's brewed with tomato, oregano, basil, garlic and whatnot. For more information, check out the Web site or this profile from the Courier News.
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Here's another one for you bug eaters. The public radio show, Weekend America, recently aired a segment called Midwestern Nymphomaniacs. If you're keen to snack on some cicadas, listen and gather more info here, where they've kindly provided a link to Cicada-Licious: Cooking and Enjoying Periodical Cicadas, among other things.
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Insects are a great food source and people all around the world eat them on a regular basis and blah, blah, blah. But you know what? They're still bugs. No matter how nutritious they are, you won't catch me chomping down on a grasshopper or a handful of flies anytime soon. Maybe if I weren't a vegetarian, but even then I'm not sure.
Continue reading "Cooking Bugs: Essential Insect Cookbooks " »
Watermelon season is upon us. Which means it must soon be time for the 54th Annual Watermelon Thump. It takes place in Luling, Texas, from June 21-24, and the featured events include a Watermelon Seed Spitting Contest and a Watermelon Eating Contest.
The official site is here. For additional info, look here.
For "The most comprehensive listing of watermelon festivals held around the world!!", look here. The page is out of date, but some of the information may still be valid. And where else are you going to go for a listing of watermelon festivals?
For an assortment of watermelon-themed roadside attractions, check out this page from the always entertaining and highly educational Roadside America.
If you were planning to organize a three-day festival to sing the praises of milk, you should be aware that it's already been done. Not that that should necessarily stop you.
Harvard Milk Days is held annually in Harvard, Illinois. This year it'll be going on from June 1-3, so be sure to make your arrangements now. The organizers call it "the longest running festival in the state of Illinois," in case you were wondering.
It's apparently becoming trendy for well-off politicians to go slumming and attempt to eat like po' folk. Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski kicked things off in late April when he announced that he would limit his food budget to three dollars a day for one week. After which, presumably, he went back to eating like a governor. Read what the Houston Chronicle had to say about the stunt here.
The Washington Post reported recently that other lawmakers have taken up what they're calling the Food Stamp Challenge. This consists of putting themselves on essentially the same regimen as Kulongoski. After which, one must once again assume, they will go back to eating like wealthy politicians. And those trying to scrape by on a pittance will continue to scrape and we'll all turn our attention to the next fad of the week.
Not that I'm cynical or anything.
If Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of books has somehow managed to escape your attention up to this point, you probably should get out from under your rock a little more often. The humorous fantasy books have sold somewhere in the neighborhood of a 5.2 zillion copies by now, with all the attendant hoopla that comes with such whopping success.
The Discworld of the books is said to be supported on the back of a really, really big turtle. If you have a tough time imagining what such a thing would look like, click here for a look at Discworld in the form of a cake. That's right, a cake.
The creator of this clever bit of confectionery is one Jane Fisk, who made it for her daughter's wedding. Have a look at some of her other creations here.
If you've ever gotten a dab of peanut butter on something, whether it be clothing, furniture or whatever, then you know it can be a little tricky to clean up - to say the least. So try to imagine cleaning up a truckload of the stuff. If I may engage in some bad peanut butter punnery, it would hardly be smooth sailing.
According to a recent article in one of the Australian newspapers, a peanut butter spill in Melbourne disrupted traffic and generally made life a challenge for the local citizenry until emergency crews could be called out to save the day. No details on how you clean up a truckload of peanut butter or whether it was smooth or crunchy.
Ever hear of a Sproke, a Froke, a Fry Dog or a Triple Threat? Then you've obviously never visited the New Cuisine section of Fast Food Fever, where they've put together some strange and somewhat appalling combinations of everyday fast food selections.
Did you realize that when you put in an order at the fast food drive thru window you might actually be speaking with someone in Delaware? It's true. Read all about it in this article from Delaware Online.
After writing about the North Carolina Pickle Festival and pickle stores, I almost feel that I'd be remiss if I didn't keep you abreast of the latest development in the pickle world. It comes to us from the New York Times, a publication you may have heard of. Their slogan, of course, is "all the pickle news that's fit to print." I think.
The article reports on a pickle innovation that apparently got its start in the Mississippi Delta region. Rather than make pickles the traditional way there, with salt, vinegar, spices and whatever, they've taken to making them with Kool-Aid. Now that's some weird eats.
(Update)
Cocaine Energy Drink is being taken off the market, at least for now, and the manufacturer has posted an R.I.P. notice at their Web site. Plans are to put the product back on shelves again under a new name. Which seems a bit odd, since it seems that the gimmicky name was the point of the whole venture.
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If I were producing and marketing a product called Cocaine Energy Drink I probably wouldn't be too surprised if the FDA eventually took notice and came calling. Which is what they've done.
The Associated Press reports that Redux Beverages, the Las Vegas firm that makes the drink, has been contacted by the FDA and told to cease and desist making some rather colorful claims for the product. Failure to do so will presumably result in a whopping big rap on the knuckles.
Check out the manufacturer's Web site here.
