CK Friday Links--Friday December 27, 2013

Links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!

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The 100 greatest cooking tips of all time? (Food Network) PS: Interesting to see Paula Deen first.

The FDA will restrict the use of antibiotics in livestock. (New York Times)

The impact of rising corn prices on meat costs is significantly overstated. (Jayson Lusk)

A less than stellar customer service experience at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant in London. 15 minutes late? (Aicha Qandisha, via Daniela Tovar)

Experts say experts can’t be trusted. (Calorie Lab)

Stop everything and follow Nicholas Taleb on Facebook (he’s the author of Antifragile
and the brilliant book The Black Swan). (Business Insider)

Irony Alert: A well-meaning blogger stomps all over James Altucher... to make a point about how we shouldn’t stomp all over people. (Medium)


Got an interesting article or recipe to share? Want some extra traffic at your blog? Send me an email!






How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Share YOUR Best Post of 2013!

Did you write an article or a recipe for your blog during 2013 that you're particularly proud of? Would you like to put it in front of a wider audience?

Then share it right here at Casual Kitchen!

One of my goals at CK is to connect good readers with good things that need to be read. I've been running this feature at CK for a few years now, and every year I've been overjoyed with how many great posts readers have shared here. So, today, I'm giving floor over to you, readers. Use the platform here at Casual Kitchen to get the word out on your best work from the past year. It's my way of thanking you for your incredible support.

Here's how to participate: Just paste a link to your favorite post or recipe from the past year in the comments section below, and, if you like, add a sentence or two on what it's about.

That's it! It can be your most popular recipe of the year, a great piece of food writing, or even something from outside of the world of food blogs.

PS: If you don't have a blog (or if you're one of the infinitesimally few bloggers who don't want new readers), feel free to share a great post from someone else who you'd like to support.

Finally, as Casual Kitchen wraps up its seventh (!) year, let me thank you, my incredible readers. I can't tell you how grateful I am for all your support, insights, feedback and comments.


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

CK Friday Links--Friday December 20, 2013

Links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!

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The case against multi-vitamins grows stronger. (NPR)

Looking for baking substitutes for butter, milk or eggs? Here you go! (Vega Blog)

Do this simple test and you'll be shocked at imprecise your oven is. Also: it helps to think like a scientist sometimes! (Beyond Salmon)

Great conversation starters for a holiday dinner. (Owlhaven)

The best pork tenderloins you’ll ever have: Brined, Grilled and Basted Pork Tenderloins. (Food and Fire)

Say what you want about his crappy software, but Bill Gates is a reliable source of good reading. Here are his favorites books from 2013. (Gates Notes)

Five reasons why 2013 was the best year in human history. (Think Progress)

Mentally strong people avoid each of these 13 things. (Forbes)

Got an interesting article or recipe to share? Want some extra traffic at your blog? Send me an email!


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

The Very Best of Casual Kitchen 2013

Every year at this time I share the very best articles of the past year--and thank readers for joining the conversation at Casual Kitchen.

I can't begin to describe how profoundly thankful I am to you, dear readers, for reading, participating and being here. You've supported me by clicking through to the site, by making purchases at Amazon.com via the links here, and even by giving direct donations to Casual Kitchen. And along the way you've added thousands of thoughtful and insightful comments. Thank you. You're why Casual Kitchen exists.

So without further ado, here's the very best of CK 2013. Once again, thanks so much for reading. I'm grateful.

PS: Next week, I'll give YOU a chance to promote and share *your* best post of 2013. Stay tuned!!

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The Best of Casual Kitchen 2013

10) The 4-Hour Chef: An Extended Review of a Terrible Book
Readers, what makes a writer credible? What makes us trust a writer enough to rely on what he or she teaches? This post explains why Tim Ferriss's The 4-Hour Chef was one of the worst--and least credible--books of the year.

9) The Paradox of Cooking Shows
It's hard to believe, but millions of people spend more time watching other people cook on TV than actually cooking themselves. How can this be? See also the intriguing debate in the comments.

8) How To Be Fooled By Expensive Wine
If wine experts are easy to fool, then regular wine-buying consumers are hilariously easy to fool. Read this post, and don't get needlessly separated from your money when you buy wine. Related: The Cork Debate: Does Good Wine Really Need a Cork?

7) The Current State of Individual Blogging
It's getting harder and harder to be a blogger these days, as your traffic stats, your earnings, and your ability to reach new readers slip increasingly out of your hands. This post explains two things: why I keep writing anyway, and why "Swiss Chard" teaches you everything you ever needed to know about search.

6) A 30 Day Voracious Reading Trial
I did a 30 day trial of intensive reading in August, and it turned out to be a life-changing experience. Here's why I did it and what I read. One of the years' most popular posts.

5) Consumer Empowerment: How To Self-Fund Your Consumer Products Purchases
Believe it or not, there's an easy technique you can use to get companies to pay you to buy their products. Oddly, there are exactly zero comments on this post--striking given this post's high pageview count. PS: See also how a reader tried to make me feel guilty for sharing the idea at all.

4) Did Newark Mayor Cory Booker Really *Try* With His Food Stamp Challenge?
Does a Stanford/Yale/Oxford-educated politician have an obligation to help others learn? I wrote this post after Cory Booker bungled a food stamp challenge, squandering an opportunity to teach the fundamentals of how to eat healthy on a small budget.

3) Ethanol Hurts the Poor
It's bad enough that our country's idiotic ethanol policy wastes more fossil fuels than it replaces. Worse, it also drives unnaturally rising prices throughout our entire food supply--hurting our very poorest citizens the hardest. This post explains why you should never support the use of ethanol as a fuel.

2) The Cure for Worry Porn
Have you noticed the explosion of alarmist articles and reports showing up everywhere in our media? It seems like there's a cancer risk or some other unnerving danger lurking everywhere these days: in our homes, in our neighborhoods--even in the linings of our canned food. This post destroys the entire edifice of alarmist worry porn. Several readers wrote in to thank me for writing it.

.... and the top post of 2013!

1) When It Comes To Banning Soda, Marion Nestle Fights Dirty
How I lost most of my respect for one of our country's most important food policy activists. Read this if you care that our food policy issues are debated fairly, rationally and honestly. By far my most widely read post of the year, and a post I was at first afraid to publish.


Best Recipes of 2013:
Readers, you might notice a common theme in 2013's recipes: E-A-S-Y. As always, I pride myself on bringing readers healthy, inexpensive and truly easy-to-prepare recipes. Enjoy!

Easy Slow Cooker Beef and Barley Stew -- Rich barley, tangy tomatoes and a mild hint of dried thyme make this hearty stew truly unforgettable.
Easy Chicken In Tomato Sauce -- A laughably simple and delicious recipe that costs as little as $1.25 per serving.
Easy White Bean Spread -- A healthy and hilariously inexpensive appetizer. This recipe is so easy I felt like a doofus for waiting so long to share it.
Easy Beet "Pesto" -- A striking pesto spread that's so good your guests will literally inhale it.
Easy Curried Chickpeas and Tofu -- You can make this flavorful recipe in under 20 minutes and for just over $1 per serving.

Honorable Mention:
The Risotto Blogroll: 20 of the Internet's Easiest and Most Delicious Risotto Recipes
What's the Link Between Dietary Cholesterol and Blood Cholesterol?
The Food Industry Should Only Sell Bad Tasting Food
Dispute This! Negative Self-Talk And Better Health
To Kill a Good Idea Part 1 / To Kill a Good Idea Part 2
Banning Food Advertising Won't Do What You Think It Will Do
The Extreme Reach Fallacy


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Ask CK: More on Emergency Funds

A reader comments on last week's The Stoplight Rule For Creating An Emergency Fund post:

Define "emergency fund." What if you have "over-saved" for retirement, as in: "I will be wealthier in retirement than before retirement." Does continuing to put more money into a retirement fund constitute an emergency fund, but one that actually has returns? I've always been bugged by putting money in a place with no substantial returns (like a savings account).

Further, how do you compensate for the job stability you have (or do not have)? I'm extremely income stable (benefit comes with lower than market value income). Shouldn't there be an adjustment in how much should be saved/available?

I'll take these questions in reverse order. If you really have a stable, un-loseable job, yes, you can get by with fewer months of expenses in your emergency fund. Just promise me that you aren't rationalizing this decision. :)

Your first question, however, is the wrong question. Two things:

1) Putting money into retirement accounts (like an IRA or a 401k--in other words money you won't have access to for many years) cannot be equated to having an emergency fund. No way.

Emergency funds are:

* liquid funds in a money market fund or in a checking/savings account,
* not put at risk, and
* funds you can access instantly, or near instantly.

2) Yes, it may bug you to have money set aside that is not earning "substantial returns." Many, many retail investors say this. The problem is, this is simply not the purpose of emergency fund money. Don't confuse investment funds with emergency funds.

Finally, quite often there are times when it is literally priceless to have a lot of extra liquid cash--even beyond a generously funded emergency fund and a generously funded retirement fund. See, for example, the 2008-09 crash, the spontaneous 15% selloffs we had mid-year in both 2010 and 2011, or the interest rate spike in 2013 that sent most medium-term and long-term bond funds down as much as 15-20%. I encourage you to read some of Warren Buffett's writings [free PDF] for more context on this idea.

With our investments here at Casual Kitchen, I *always* stay more rather liquid than less, and accept that, sometimes, I'll be "missing out" on some incremental returns. That is simply the cost of safety.


Related Posts:
Money Sundays: Is Looking For Tax-Efficient Investments Icky? Or Intelligent?
Consumer Empowerment: How To Self-Fund Your Consumer Products Purchases
Money Sundays: Get Your Big Ticket Purchases Right. The Rest Takes Care of Itself
Money Sundays: What Would You Do With An Extra Ten Grand, No Strings Attached?
Money Sundays: Is All That Insurance Really Worth It To You?


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

CK Friday Links--Friday December 13, 2013

Links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!

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The only study linking GMOs to cancer… gets retracted. (Takepart)

What is flexible dieting? (Healthy Eater, via 50by25)

"Combating the budget-breaking allure of the sights, sounds and sensations of holiday shopping is as simple as being aware of their effects." (Psychology Today)

Here's yet another way to combat the budget-breaking holidays: 50 highly affordable gifts for Christmas on a budget. (The Costume Blog)

Do we all speak like Valley Girls now? "Uptalk" has moved from the malls of San Fernando Valley into the mouths of perfectly competent adults all around the country. (Pacific Standard Magazine)

If Wal-Mart is supposedly such a horrible place to work, then why do so many people want to work there? This post is an excellent critical thinking exercise. (Carpe Diem)

Is the new diabetic kid in South Park offensive to you? (A Sweet Life)


Got an interesting article or recipe to share? Want some extra traffic at your blog? Send me an email!


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Thoughts On Recipe Development

Readers: a quick update: next week, I'll run the best of CK 2013. Look for it!
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It never crossed my mind that I could create my own recipes.

I used to think recipe development was something "experts" did. You know, qualified people. As in cookbook writers. Chefs. Nutritionists. People with test kitchens and training in food science. Normal people are supposed to follow recipes. We don't just... make up our own. Right?

Well, wrong. I’m here to tell you that yes, we normal people can make up our own recipes. And if I can do it, trust me: you can too.

Look, I’m no expert at recipe development. Not yet. So don't worry: I won’t unleash my inner Tim Ferriss on you and pretend to have expertise I don't have. Consider what you’re about to read as the thoughts of an advanced beginner.

But as you’ll see, it’s a surprisingly small leap to go from simple improvisational cooking activities that any home cook does regularly to creating recipes that are unique--and all your own.

My first tentative (and accidental) steps
How did I get started creating recipes? More or less by mistake. At first, I was simply experimenting with recipes I already used, thinking about how I might make them better, easier, less time-consuming… and of course, less expensive. One of my first major recipes I tinkered with was Chicken Mole, one of the most popular recipes in CK’s entire recipe index.

My mole recipe is very, very distantly derived from a recipe I found in an ancient copy of Bon Appetit magazine. At first, I took that recipe and dramatically simplified it, stripping out steps and simmering time in order to make the recipe less time-consuming. Next, I started tweaking the spices, just for fun. I added cayenne pepper, increased the quantity of chocolate (how could that be a mistake?) and made other changes, all with the intent of making the recipe better, easier, and more interesting.

And then, a terrible accident happened. One day, while I was making a batch, I (for whatever idiotic reason) stepped away from the kitchen during Step 2, where you heat the spice mixture in oil. For a few crucial minutes, I forgot all about it. When I realized and sprinted back to the stove, the spices were blackened and burnt, and I was convinced the recipe was ruined.

And yet it wasn’t ruined. I finished making the recipe anyway, and it came out the best it ever tasted. Smoky, sweet and nuanced, like nothing I’d ever eaten before.

In other words, months of tinkering--combined with a moment of pure dumb luck--collectively added up to a change so drastic that my mole sauce wouldn’t even recognize the recipe it descended from. This recipe had become mine.

Thus, in one sense, a helpful way to think about recipe development is to consider it nothing more than a significant act (or series of acts) of recipe modification. At some point you've changed up someone else’s recipe so much that, well, it becomes yours.

Becoming generative
My Mole Sauce experiment (mistake?) gave me confidence, and I started to make a habit of tweaking and adjusting other recipes too. Of course, not all my improvements and adaptations worked (some of them were clearly “unimprovements”), but I got better at it as I practiced.

Which took me to the next step: Instead of merely adapting or changing existing recipes, I tried to be more original and generative in my recipe development. I tried to come up with my own ingredient combinations from scratch, without the influence of an already-existing recipe.

I started asking myself things like what ingredients haven't I seen combined that might go well together? What dishes might make use of these flavors?

For example: take a standard Middle-Eastern spice mix (say, cumin, coriander and cinnamon). Which types of meats (chicken? Beef? Pork?) would work well with this spice mix? Add, perhaps, lemon slivers and olives... and now you’re looking at something like North African Lemon Chicken.

In fact, years ago I created a tool for making new and original pasta salads that performed exactly this generative exercise. I called it the Pasta Salad Permutator. Back when I wrote that post, I didn't know quite what I was doing yet, but I was onto something. Essentially, I was asking: which of these ingredient combinations might “work" together? Could they be the foundation of an original recipe? What else can I add? These are the basic, fundamental questions behind new recipe creation.

This is a skill that I'm sloooowly developing, and each time I try a new recipe idea I'm always surprised by the result. And not always positively! Often, ingredient combinations that seem good in theory just... aren't. Likewise, the flavors of a recipe don't always render in real life the way you expect them to in theory. That's why most new recipes require repeated adjustments and changes before they're ready for prime time. An example: I had to make three separate test batches of my Garlic Sundried Tomato Soup--which I tried out on three different sets of very patient dinner guests--before I was confident enough to put the finished recipe in front of readers.

Of course, every once in a while the stars align and a recipe comes out perfectly on the first try (like my Easy Chicken and Tomato Sauce for example), with no adjustments at all. Then again, some of my new recipes suck and need to be discarded. Fortunately, dear readers, those recipes never make it to the blog.

What makes a recipe yours? Musings on intellectual property
A final word on intellectual property with recipes. What makes a recipe "yours" compared to "somebody else's"?

Honestly, I'm not 100% certain. But let’s start with a few things that are certain. There are, for example, specific copyright rules for recipes. For example, a list of ingredients isn't copyrightable. This might come as a surprise to many readers.

However, process steps and written instructions are copyrightable. And obviously, photographs, musings, text and articles that accompany a recipe are clearly copyrightable property. As someone who’s had entire posts stolen and copy-pasted onto other sites, I can say the following with total authority: If you steal these things, you're a plagiarist and a thief. Uh, and a jerk.

Also, even if you've gone ahead and adapted a recipe beyond recognition, it's still excellent form to say where you got the recipe from. This is why, occasionally, you’ll see citations here in Casual Kitchen like:

Borrowed and modified without permission from our friend Karen

or:

Modified beyond recognition from an old issue of Bon Appetit Magazine

or even:

Modified, but not beyond recognition, from Taste of the Middle East by Soheila Kimberley

Those are my thoughts on the discipline of recipe development. Readers, what are yours? How have you gone about developing your own new recipes? Where do you get your ideas?


Related Posts:
Seven Ways to Jazz Up Your Morning Eggs
Applying the 80/20 Rule to Diet, Food and Cooking
Cooking Like the Stars? Don't Waste Your Money


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Money Sundays: The "Stoplight Rule" For Creating An Emergency Fund

Readers, here’s a piece of personal finance wisdom so useful... that I decided to steal it. It's a set of rules for how to think about your emergency fund (or cushion, as Your Money Or Your Life devotees would say). It’s courtesy of the Aleph Blog:

The Stoplight Rule for managing your emergency fund:

* Less than 3 months expenses in the savings fund? Red light. Defer all discretionary expenditures.

* 3-6 months expenses in the savings fund? Yellow light. Some discretionary expenditures allowed, so long as you don’t dip back into the red light zone.

* More than 6 months expenses in the savings fund? Green light. Discretionary expenditures allowed, so long as you don’t dip back into the red light zone.

I’ll add a few of my own opinions to this stoplight metaphor. First, I’d double all of these metrics. I believe six months is a bare minimum to hold in an emergency fund--nine months to a year’s worth of expenses is better. And an admittedly aggressive goal very much worth striving for here is two years of expenses.

Yes, it's an ambitious goal to save two years' worth of expenses in your emergency fund, no doubt about it. But it will also be an incredibly freeing place to be once you reach it. It's enough to protect from an extremely long period of unemployment. It's enough to support you through a significant career change, a trip back to grad school--even a long sabbatical.

And there is enormous psychological value to being able to last two years without any income. It may very well transform how you think about work. Petty dramas like office politics or unlikeable coworkers will seem totally unimportant--as they should be. The implied freedom of two years' worth of dough in the bank puts all that silliness in proper perspective. But importantly, a buffer of this size will liberate you to take intelligent risks with your career. After all, what’s the worst that could happen? You might lose your job, of course. But then you’ve got two full years to find a new one.

For us here at Casual Kitchen, hitting the "two years of expenses" benchmark helped us believe that we could take things further--and it laid the groundwork for us to hit a three year buffer, a five year buffer, a ten year buffer and so on. [For more on this, see my post Extreme Savings.]

A final word. Don't beat yourself up or indulge in feelings of inadequacy if you're carrying a smaller emergency fund than some personal finance blogger says you should. As you can see above, opinions differ on this issue. But here's the thing: most people never get around to having an emergency fund at all. You're already far, far ahead of the game if you're deciding how much should be in yours. Keep going!

Related Posts:
Money Sundays: How To Make the Tax Code Work For YOU
Dispute This! Negative Self-Talk And Better Health
Money Sundays: Get Your Big Ticket Purchases Right. The Rest Takes Care of Itself
Money Sundays: Save Money! Create an Emotion vs. Reason List
Here’s How to Pay High Fees, Be Totally Undiversified, and Own the Same Consensus Stocks as Everybody Else


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

CK Friday Links--Friday December 6, 2013

Links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!

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An agriculture economist visits the company caught up in the “pink slime” controversy. He comes back impressed. And depressed. (Jayson Lusk) Bonus: Thoughts on the USA’s plan to ban trans fats.

This review of Tao Downtown restaurant in Manhattan is by far the cruelest I’ve read all year. (Bloomberg)

Foolish mortals, why do you refrigerate your eggs? (io9)

“I read blogs because I am interested in ideas. I do not want to read politically correct articles devoid of opinion.” (Early Retirement Extreme)

The stock market is at all time highs… except that stock ownership is at record lows. (Business Insider) PS: Readers, believe it or not, this is bullish.

You can’t deal with ignorance if you can’t recognize its presence. (Farnam Street)

Recipes To Try:
Delicious, easy and low-glycemic! Slow Cooker Southwestern Beef Stew with Tomatoes, Olives, and Chiles. (Kalyn’s Kitchen)

Dal aur Sabzi: Lentil Kale Soup in the Pakistani Manner. (Spice Spoon) Bonus: Pakistani Egg Curry.

Got an interesting article or recipe to share? Want some extra traffic at your blog? Send me an email!


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Deep Fried WHAT?

I mentioned the other week that on my cross country road trip I had the distinct experience of eating deep fried Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and deep fried Oreo Cookies at the Texas State Fair.

It was a mess-with-your-mind culinary experience--one that I simply had to share.

I know, I know. “Deep Fried” has become a thing now. Everybody’s doing it. Even at the Texas State Fair--where (arguably) the idea of deep frying bizarre things originated--every food vendor outdoes themselves now by deep frying weirder and weirder stuff.

And when I say weird, I really mean it. You can find anything from deep fried cheesecake, deep fried bubble gum, deep fried butter, even deep fried spaghetti and meatballs now. *shudder*

If you don't find deep fried spaghetti and meatballs at least somewhat weird, you're not... normal.

I'm not normal either, but thankfully, all of these extra-weird deep fried items were beyond my ability to eat, for the simple reason that after I'd finished a couple of deep fried Oreos and a deep fried Reese's, I'd blown past "full" and entered a state of existential fullness. I was so full, I literally couldn’t imagine eating anything else… ever.

Speaking of not normal, one quick anecdote about my Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. The instant I bit into it, a woman standing near me started asking me, “Well? Doyoulikeit, doyoulikeit... DOYOULIKEIT? How’s it taste? Does it taste good?”

This went a bit beyond normal Texas friendliness. Either way, I couldn’t answer. I simply couldn't wrap my mind around what I was tasting. It was too ...weird. But I wanted to be polite, so I answered, mouth full, “I… I don’t (mmph) know. (Mmph) I'm just not sure!”

She turned away, disappointed.

But I really wasn’t sure. What I was eating defied description. Intellectually, I understood what it was: a Reese’s covered in a thick, mildly-sweet batter (if you’ve ever been to a state fair and had a funnel cake, the batter was like that). It was right-out-of-the-fryer hot, yet the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup inside was still structurally secure, perfectly warm, and only just starting to melt. And to top it all off there was powdered sugar and a splash of chocolate sauce on everything.

Again, intellectually, I knew what a Reese’s tasted like. And I guess I knew what deep fried batter was going to taste like too. But the combination of the two was an altogether new and different taste sensation. My mind was literally melting as I chewed and tried to process what was happening in my mouth. A couple minutes later, I had decided: I really liked it.

But that lady? She'd already left.

Readers, what’s the weirdest food you’ve ever tried? Share it in the comments!

Some of the details of this story may have been exaggerated. A little.


Deep fried brownies? Pshaw. That's not weird.


...the deep fried stuffed olives looked really good.


Yes, you're reading that correctly: Deep. Fried. Butter.


Admit it, you're curious about this one.


The deep fried Snickers bars were really popular.


People really line up for this stuff!


Cake balls and chicken skin, baby!


This one? Don't even get me started. No way would I try this.

Related Posts:
A Can of Bud
Fake Maple Syrup
How to Team Up in the Kitchen
Wait... You Can DRINK An Apple Pie?

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.