Around The Culinary World

Good evening everyone! It’s Monday once again and quickly approaching the Christmas season. It’s hard to believe that 2011 is drawing to a close, the holidays are here and 2012 is knocking on the door. Our culinary stories for this week are well aware of the impending calendar change – we’re fans of ‘best of’ lists and ‘worst X of 2011’ lists, so this week seemed like a great time to feature a few glances back at 2011 fast food disasters as well as a showdown between the American favorite – French fry. We’ve got a few other stories in there for good measure (as always!) Here’s all the news that’s fit to blog about this week:



The Daily Meal is a food news blog that puts themselves in some…interesting situations at times. For example, I would not want to have been the writer responsible for their feature on 2011’s worst fast food dishes. Some of these dishes look like they would kill even a healthy human (via instant clogged arteries). Personal favorites (if you want to call them that) the indigestible Domino’s cheese stuffed cheese bread and the Denny’s maple bacon sundae. If you can stomach those, congratulations – your arteries or stomach (maybe both) must be made of steel. Check out the full list of ‘winners’ HERE.


Although we do not advocate the frequent consumption of this product, even your health conscious cooks from Out Of The Culinary will admit, fast food French fries are quite the guilty pleasure. While we’re partial to a few of the smaller joints offerings (specifically Smashburger and B-Bops) most of the country likes to duke it out amongst the ‘big 3’ fast food joints. Wendy’s, Burger King and McDonald’s. So, who can lay claim to king of the fried tater? Check out the results HERE.

Channeling their inner Breaking Bad apparently (Side note: if you haven’t watched AMC’s amazing drama about a chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with cancer, given a few months to live and subsequently decides to cook meth as a way to make money for his family to survive on after he passes – DO IT. This is the best show on television. You can buy seasons 1-3 on DVD now and season 4 is on the way. You will not regret the time spent in front of this amazing drama) some criminals decided they had the greatest idea when it came to smuggling drugs across the border. How did these ‘brilliant’ individuals attempt to smuggle nearly $140,000 in meth across the border? Check it out HERE.

Remember, as a child, when your mom was making cookies and all you wanted to do is eat the cookie dough straight from the bowl? (If not, I pity our cookie free and adventure free childhood…I really do). But mom always warned “Don’t eat that, you’ll get sick!” Turns out, she wasn’t lying. Check out the facts behind the worlds most dangerous dough (not really) HERE.

Do you have a chef on your Christmas list this year? Are you struggling on what to buy them for the holiday season? Cathy Erway has a few suggestions…of things NOT to buy the chef in your life. Check out the ‘don’ts’ HERE.




Norway has a butter shortage. Try to remain calm – it’s tough news to take, but somehow we’ll get through this. In a state where we construct entire COWS out of butter...it's hard to process someone running OUT of it. Seriously though, I have no other commentary to add…the title sort of speaks for itself. (Someone..arrange for a few extra Wisconsin cattle to be sent overseas...ASAP!) Check out the full details HERE.

That’s all the culinary news we can serve up this week. Be sure to stop in tomorrow night when Maggie takes to the kitchen with a brand new recipe. I’ll follow her on Wednesday night with a completely new dish of my own. Until tomorrow night,

~Cheers