One of life’s greatest challenges is loading a fork full of the exact right amount of pasta without those golden strands slipping away.  Like you, I’ve often thought “Jeez, they can put a man on the moon, but fer cryin’ out loud, please someone make a utensil that makes spaghetti eating easier!!!!”  Well, our prayers have been answered, my friends, the new pasta fork is here!  And available in several lovely color combinations!

Finally!  Spaghetti twirling perfection at your fingertips!  And if your loved one isn’t a spaghetti fan, you can always gift the latest on cutlery technological evolution, the KNORK.

Really, it’s been decades since the Colonel introduced us to the

SPORK.

GO SMALL:

Like Jeff Houk from the Tampa Tribune, who concocted an entire Thanksgiving meal in an Easy Bake oven.  The portions weren’t big, and it took some time, but in the end the little lightbulb heating appliance worked! Check it out here!  And if you really have a hankering to get back into Easy Bake world, here’s a link to some specifically portioned Easy Bake Oven recipes.

GO VEGIE:

Sorry, as much as I appreciate the choice to go vegie…this(above)…just doesn’t look as good as this (below)

The TURBACONDUCKEN, as featured in Bacon Today.  To make your own turbaconducken, click here.

More to come……….

And we thought we’d run out of tasty topics!  Not when we’ve got the world’s greatest, most snack savvy listeners in the world, constantly tipping us off to the latest and most delicous junk food jaunts!

For our 50th show, we went to the never ending fount of food fodder - BACON.  Who knew that there were even more ways to enjoy meat candy!  Introducing a new condiment that will always have a solid spot in my pantry:  BACONNAISE. 

Check out their site, there are many lovely gift packs available for the bacon lover on your holiday shopping list.

Another amazing gift idea is the new WOW bacon fryer.  God I love technology!
And if you STILL can’t get enough of meat candy, here are a couple of links you’ll want to check out:

http://baconshow.blogspot.com/ one bacon recipe a day, every day, forever(!!!!)

http://bacontoday.com/ a daily update on the World of sweet, sweet bacon

Of course we’ve been well aware of the magic that happens when you add bacon to sweet stuff, but there are even new forays into the bacon dessert world, like a new recipe for bacon ice cream.  And Ronnie Sue’s Pig Candy, recently introduced at the New York Chocolate Fair.  Deep fried crunchy bacon dipped in Callebaut dark or milk chocolate.  It doesn’t really get any better than that.

Cheesus

Who doesn’t love cheese?  I seriously could consider being vegetarian if it was possible and affordable to live on cheese without getting even fatter than I already am.  So many delicious cheeses, so little time.  On this episode Leo and I got to speak with the CHEESE GURU OF CANADA, Gurth Pretty.  He mentioned a buncha sites he is either affiliated with or heartily endorses, here are a few:

http://cheeseofcanada.ca/

http://www.allyouneedischeese.ca/passionates/audionewsletter/microsite/

http://www.cheesesociety.org/

We also talked about the amazing Troy Landweher, who recently sculpted The Alamo out of cheddar.  Unfortunately I can’t get the picture to load properly, so here’s another cheese sculpture for you,…imagine The Alamo…okay…

The Declaration of Independence...in cheddar

Of course we all appreciate the velvety texture and complex flavors of cheese, but who knew cheese was also a personality trait?  Forget the zodiac, let’s talk cheese compatability!

And just when I’m getting the hang of home made fondue, Leo proclaims the RACLETTE as the new communal cocktail food.  Guess fondue is soooooooo last millenium.

SCORE!!!!

I know we did a candy’cast with Cybelle May about a year ago, but I cannot let the Holiest of all Candy Holidays go by without notice.  Plus the NCA, the National Confectioners Association, have launched a very worthwhile blog and so we had a good long chat with Candy Queen Susan Fussell.

Susan contributes to the Candy Dish, and it’s quite a worthwhile read, a regular stop on my surfin’ route now.

Leo and I also talked about manly vs. feminine candy:

I don’t even care that Yorkie bars are not for girls.  They aren’t very tasty anyway. Now if Snickers or Almond Joy copped that slogan, well then I’d be lawyerin’ up big time.

Speaking of Brit candy, one of my Twitter pals twitted me this site: Cybercandy.co.uk

where you can score this kinda stuff:

Cybercandy.co.uk

And if you want to shop closer to home, there’s always

good ol’ Powell’s.

More to come!

Seriously.  Have  you been grocery shopping lately?  Even fast food is up dramatically.  There are two main places I order pizza from here in San Francisco, and between the gas costs for home delivery and the dough it costs them to make the dough, ordering pizza has become an extravagance saved for a special occasion.  Like college graduation or a wedding.

So if you’re living close to the bone like me, here’s some food..for thought.

The Hillbilly Housewife has a bleak but nutritious grocery shopping plan.  $45 to feed a family of 5 for a week.  That’s breakfast, lunch and dinner people!  Lotsa beans, rice, cornbread and other starchy stuff; hardly any meat, fruit or veggies…but it’ll fill you up,  Y’all can go git a possum if ya’ want meat!

granny

And as long as we’re talkin’ hillbillies, during these difficult times, you may have to curtail your top shelf habit and set to makin’ some moonshine.  Hey, if it’s even half way tolerable, you might make a little foldin’ money on the side selling it to friends.  Or give it away, we’re all in this depression boat together, we may as well toast our misery in unison.  We played a little bit of one of my favorite bluegrass tunes “Mountain Dew” which was a big hit for Grandpa Jones of Hee Haw fame.  I learned it in Brownies though.  What a song to teach second graders!  A song about moonshine!  Come to think of it, another Girl Scout song I learned a bit later was “Long Black Veil”, a lovely ditty about adultry.  Guess it beats the heck out of “100 bottles of beer on the Wall.”

Anyway, back to the show.  Here are a couple links that could help you through the hard times:
cheapskate cuisine
memoirsofacheapskate.blogspot.com
http://www.realsimple.com/realsimple/gallery/0,21863,1844394,00.html

Good luck.  And happy munching.  We can all live on spam and popcorn til this blows over.

Slowly, but surely, we will get this site back up and loaded with all the high calorie info you crave.  This poor site has been hacked, cracked and ransacked a buncha times in the last few months and it’s been HARD to catch up.  Guess there’s no better place to start than with the current episode….HALLOWEEN COCKTAILS!

Personally, I like to begin celebrating Halloween on October 1.  Mostly because so much blood, sweat and tears go into the decor, and it all comes right down on November 1, and I like to get my money’s and effort’s worth.  Kids get all the candy, and they don’t have to worry about dimpled thighs, spanx and cholesterol.  So let’s toast the bewitching season adult-style,…with COCKTAILS…NOW!

DOES THIS NOT LOOK DELICIOUS???!!!  Thanks to one of the many Sugar websites for this recipe.

And no Halloween party would be complete without the Halloweeniest of adult beverages, BLAVOD.

goth vodka,...or gothka

If you go to the BLAVOD site, you will find a mummy’s tomb full of delicious Halloween libations.

More links to sites with groovy spooktails:

Recipezaar

squidoo

and Drink of the Week which is currently featuring a totally tantalizing drink called the Black Widow.

It’s all about presentation, ya know, so if you’re looking for impressive, or spooktacular, glassware, dig this!

witchglass

Jeez, all this typing, I could use a drink!  Happy Halloween, and drive safe, y’all!