If you’re wondering why there have been dragons roaming Chinatown all week, let me lay it out for you: it’s Chinese New Year. Also known as Lunar New Year, the 15 day celebration signifies the end of Winter and beginning of Spring. At Panda Express, Chinese New Year means one thing: the return of Firecracker Chicken.

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See this?

You’re looking at Giada’s Roman-Style Chicken, made by yours truly. The florescent lighting in my kitchen and sub-par iPhone camera don’t do its beauty justice, but trust me, this recipe was a work of art – a combination of everything good in Italian food. I encourage you to click on the link to see what it really looked like.

Look at all that great stuff floating around in there. Garlic, red and yellow bell peppers, mushrooms, thyme, oregano…all those little pungent ingredients that add up to one delicious, full-bodied bite of exquisite taste sensation.

This Thursday’s question is: what is your favorite ingredient to see in an Italian recipe? I threw a few standard answers down there but this poll is a little more open-ended by nature so I encourage you to choose “Other” and tell us the Italian ingredient that really hits home for you.

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Think of a food or ingredient that you hate. Think hard, can you taste it? Do you get a visceral reaction to that taste ? I know I can trick myself into sense memories for a variety of things, mostly terrible ones. For example, tongue depressors or Popsicle sticks. As I sit here and type those words my lips are puckered, my tongue is curled up inside my mouth and I can feel my skin crawl. Chocolate is the food item that gets me. The smell of chocolate is enough to make me leave a room. Oddly enough, the taste of  it may not be so bad for me ( I had some chocolate bacon cheesecake last week, and I liked it, I just couldn’t eat the chocolate sauce), I can’t get past the smell.  According to a Huffington Post article the top 10 most Polarizing foods are:

• Cilantro
• Celery
• Black Licorice
• Green Pepper
• Marzipan
• Mayonnaise
• Blue Cheese
• Vegemite/Marmite
• Coconut
• Liver

As an aside being a super taster must be one of the worst super power ever.

Cilantro in particular has had numerous studies done on it to see what there is about it that makes people either love it or hate it. Turns out it may be more smell than taste.  I’m sure you have met someone who has complained of cilantro tasty soapy or other similar descriptions. next time you have them feeling agreeable have them hold their nose and taste it, see what they think.

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• McDonald’s turns up the heat in the dipping sauce wars.
• Soothing nicotine lozenges for kids. Cough, Cough.
• Man arrested for carrying around booze soaked Gummi Bears.
• Jolly Rancher introduces new line of crunch and chew candy.
• People still take the phrase “Drive Thru” too literally.
• Top 10 dumbest Fast Food related crimes.
• Fired woman sues snack food employer over her fake Ding Dong.
• Snacks all the cool people eating at Sundance Film Festival.
• Ancient popcorn unearthed. Preserved by fake theater butter.
• Food Porn from the Fancy Food Show 2012.

(Click to enlarge)

• Taco Bell revamps its menu to include more fresh food.
• Hitlers personal silverware lands in NYC.
• USDA proposes streamlining poultry inspections
• South Korea has resumed food aid to North Korea.
• Illinois schools are trying to better prepare for food allergy emergencies.
• The foods of Coachella.
• The 10 most polarizing foods.
• Chia seeds are gaining popularity.

The latest addition to Taco Bell’s repetitive menu is the Beefy Crunch Burrito. It was re-released last month after being originally introduced over a year ago. I can’t say I’ve ever been excited about a new menu item from Taco Bell. I did eat quite a few Beefy Melts before they got rid of them last year, but other than that it seems to me like anything “new” they come up with is just combining their existing ingredients in different ways.

Enter the Beefy Crunch Burrito. This burrito actually does include a new ingredient: Flamin’ Hot Fritos. Not to say I was excited to try it, but at least it’s something different. As shown in the commercial, it’s a beef burrito with rice, nacho cheese, sour cream, and Flamin’ Hot Fritos. For $.99, it seems like a bargain. Was it worth it?

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One of the last places you would probably look for art is the supermarket. But as you can see from the picture above, there are stores out there that feature some of the most original creativity around via soda displays.

I’m not sure if these displays are made by store employees or the folks from the soda companies, but they are cool. The primary driver of these displays seems to be sports, especially football, and really seems to bring out the best in these artists.

I can’t imagine the precision is takes to pull this off, or how many people have been injured by a tumbling mountain of 12-packs, but I like it. I also don’t know if this has anything to do with selling soda, but I do know that you don’t want any part of the disassembly.

Have you seen any of these displays in your local store? Anything nearly as elaborate? Would this influence your soda-purchasing decisions?

H/t to Darren Rovell for the top photo, then to Last Angry Fan and @TheMostRealKung.

It’s finally here! The holiday we’ve all been waiting for. I know it’s been difficult making your way through Christmas and New Year’s Eve with this little gem on the horizon, but now you can celebrate because it’s finally National Popcorn Day!!!

Now, I know everyone celebrates this revered day a little differently. Personally, my family burns an effigy of Jar Jar Binks on our lawn, throwing un-popped kernels into the fire and seeing whose pops first. The winner gets possession of the family salt lick for a year. After that, we use those special microwave bowls to make a giant mound of air-popped popcorn for each of us, salting it with special buffalo wing-flavored salt but no butter (I know the “no butter” part doesn’t make much sense, but then again, neither do most holiday traditions).

I’d ask you guys how you celebrate National Popcorn Day, but I know the answers would just be too varied for a poll. So instead…what’s your favorite way to eat popcorn? Do you have a favorite brand? Or do you revel in the hands-on nature of stove top popping? Maybe you prefer the guilt-free aspect of air popped popcorn. Vote on your favorite popcorn below, and explain in the comments!

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I’d sworn off McDonald’s baked pies for some time now. Admittedly, I was bitter after experiencing the taste bud Armageddon that was their heinously artificial tasting chocolate banana pie debacle. The fact it replaced the thoroughly life changing, albeit short lived peach pie offering was a gloved slap in the face and with that, Ronald’s pastries were dead to me.

Much to my fast food geek delight, I gazed up at the drive thru order board heavens one morning, to be greeted by a deluge of signage heralding the birth of the new Oreos Cookies ‘N’ Cream baked pie. Joy! My giddy excitement turns to nervous apprehension. Would it surpass their S’mores pie from last year and its sweet-tooth imploding sugar overkill?

Only the snack food Gods & my window jockey Dwayne could provide me with the answer.

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