Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Stuff Yer Face is awesome! Great stromboli. We went there all the time when my wife was in grad school. Can't get good 'boli where I am now.

Pierce's Pit is really good. They're located just outside Williamsburg, VA. Going back this summer... can't wait. We'll totally buy another case of sauce before heading back north.

OK. I guess I understand from a convenience point-of-view, but authentic Buffalo wings hot sauce is melted butter and Tabasco. At least authentic as far as the Anchor Bar is concerned - which my dad (the former Buffalonian) says is the real deal. Really easy to make so I'm not sure why you'd want to drop the cash on a bottled version. To each his own I guess.

Astronaut Ice Cream. Apparently it wasn't ever sent into space. Just a marketing gimmick.

Burritos. Some canned black beans, onion, garlic (if in a huge rush use dried), ground beef and lots of spices. Wrapped in a tortilla it can be on the table in about 15 minutes if you do it right.

Seven layer. There's just something comforting about it. And you get frosting with every bite.

I may be totally off base here, but I was under the impression that the older the cheese the better for folks who are lactose intolerant because of the cultures in it - much like yogurt.

I keep hearing different views on this. Some say freeze... some say never freeze. Some say refrigerate... some say that's no good.

I dunno. Until I read hard, scientific evidence one way or the other I'm just keeping my beans in a cool, dark place in an airtight container.

Meh... it was clean typography and simple design that was completely inappropriate for the product. It isn't enough for something to look nice. Branding exists to sell the product, not the designer. Typical these days, really. Some over-eager corporate type pairs with an overblown design agency to ruin what had been a perfectly good package and logo design. Pepsi got along fine by separating the soft drink and fruit juice lines for years (seriously... Coke drinkers seemed perfectly alright crossing the line to go to Tropicana over Minute Maid despite brand loyalty in soda). Why in the world do they feel it is necessary for them to share the same typeface now and stress the connection? That and it became virtually impossible to differentiate one Tropicana drink from another if you didn't notice the different color stripes at the top.

Oh well... sorry about the rant. In any event... the juice tastes the same in the end, I guess.

Good point, Daniel. Your post has a toothsome quality that has excellent mouthfeel without being cloying. Perhaps these purist restaurant critics should consider a go-to, tried and true thesaurus for their holiday gift list (sorry... that was sad).

My reaction to the headline:

"aw... maaaan!" Why DOESN'T it shoot a turkey? If Ben Franklin can electrocute them to culinary perfection (seriously... look it up) why can't we fire one across the dining room table's bow?

www.penzeys.com

Dried, anyway.