Around The Culinary World

Good Morning Everyone! Welcome to another Monday here at Out Of The Culinary. Whether this story finds you at work, finding a distraction from the usual or sitting at home having survived another return to the work week, we're here to provide a little entertainment. This week was a fairly quiet one as far as culinary news stories go. In fact, every story we have this week is of the quirky or unusual variety. Most of the culinary stories this week centered around Super Bowl food and parties. What mixes with this, how to make the best version of this...etc, etc. Being as today is a day AFTER the Super Bowl, I really didn't think these stories would be all that useful for anyone today! So, let's dive into this week's (slightly odd) Around The Culinary World:


The only real culinary news from this week that doesn't involve something odd or humorous was the announcement of the new dietary guidelines. Every five years, the USDA and the USDHHS (US Dept. of Health & Human Services) get together and release a new set of standards for 'healthy living'. These include recommendations for daily levels of vitamins in a diet, the amount of salt they recommend you take in, all the way down to what your diet should (ideally) be composed of from a item by item perspective. This time, there were some major adjustments to the guidelines. For the first time the report recognized the importance of vegetables in a diet (emphasizing the health benefits that vegans and vegetarians see from their eating habits). The report also emphasizes the reduction in sodium from your everyday diet - something that is just starting to be tied to weight loss and healthy living (on a more widely accepted scale). This report has to be taken with a grain of salt, however, (see what I did there?) due to the biggest problem government agencies have - bias. It seems that lobbyists have made their way into this report - while the report specifically lists foods that are good to eat, they list the foods that are bad to eat by their chemical and fat scientific names - E.g. no specific calling out of red meat - but listing the chemicals that make red meat bad. In addition, the report calls out in great support of the dairy industry, but fails to mention that some of the very chemicals they are calling out against are in said dairy products - or that there are other alternatives out there to supplement the nutritional value of dairy products without all of the fats. It's an interesting report - but like most government products regarding food, it has issues. It still has it's benefits though - Read the full story HERE for more information.

When I say wine country, what comes to mind. The French countryside? California hillsides? Perhaps, the Rhine in Germany? How about India? Not so much huh? It turns out there are more than a few 'unique' wine growing regions across the world. Read about a few of the most unique, unusual wine producing countries HERE.

Speaking of wine, have you ever found yourself craving a bottle of wine - say where you're at a picnic or out wandering the streets of New York - but found yourself without a corkscrew? (No - me either, but those two seem to be the only realistic reasons why you'd need some of these wine opening tips!) Regardless, the Daily Meal has a collection of interesting ways to open a wine bottle without a corkscrew. Here's a free tip - the article doesn't really mention that each topic has a video, simply click on the title of the tip and it will take you to a video of someone preforming this miracle liberation of wine from bottle. It's not really practical, but it is humorous. Check it out HERE.

Corkscrew? No thanks, I've got my shoe

Finally this week, well...this article is hard to introduce. I'll just keep it simple. What we have for you here is a collection of odd beverages -

Because I want a beer gut - but a HEALTHY beer gut!

No - stranger than that. What we have here is collection of beverages ranging from beer flavored milk (or is it milk flavored beer?) titled - obviously Bilk (duh!) to turkey and gravy flavored soda. There are two questions with this article - why make this product and, more importantly, who the heck drinks this stuff!? Check out the full list of grossed out drinks HERE.


That's all we have for you this week - I told you it was a light (but odd) week! We're scheduling another full week of recipes, I'll take the kitchen over on Tuesday and Wednesday and Maggie will finish off the week on Thursday. With Maggie's surgery coming up next week - this will be our last full week of cooking for at least a week, maybe two.

Also, we have run out of space to store images and posts for the blog. We're allowed only a set limit and after close to a year of blogging 3 to 5 days a week, we've maxed out that space. In order to keep old posts from being taken down when new ones go up - we have to purchase more storage space. Help us fund this expansion by purchasing our cookbook (now on sale for $23). Follow the Blurb link on the righthand side of the blog to get yours today. We'll use the proceeds to upgrade the site and keep all of the old recipes up in the archive for you to reference anytime. Your help in this situation would be greatly appreciated!

That's all we have for you today. Check back tomorrow evening to see what I've got cooking. Until then,

~Cheers