Mmmm, beaver! Bug Girl posted these beaver recipes from a 1960 pamphlet entitled Good Eating from Woods and Fields, which also includes instructions for cooking muskrat. Link -Thanks, ersatz soubriquet!

See more from the booklet in her Flickr stream.

This is a functional mug made out of woven strips of bacon, filled with melted cheese.

I have not yet been able to find the name of the genius responsible for this holy creation. Will s/he step forward and claim the appropriate adulation?

Link via Geekologie

Can’t decide what kind of pie to serve after Thanksgiving dinner? Make them all in one pie pan! Cakespy at Serious Eats experimented with pecan, apple, and pumpkin pie recipes to make this triple threat. The best results came from the pie divided into sections, as seen in the picture. The recipes are included. Link -via Unique Daily

This recipe for turkey stuffing calls for “18 White Castle hamburgers (no pickles), chopped into 1-inch pieces,” (or you can substitute bread, but it won’t be the same). I suppose if you live in the southern part of the US, you could substitute Krystals. Both brands are commonly called sliders. The recipe is a part of Thanksgiving for Chicago chefs Chris and Jill Barron, who share their Thanksgiving cooking schedule. Link to story. Link to recipe. -via Boing Boing

(image credit: Flickr user DaddyPlus5)

This clever candy is packaged to look like our favorite lucky cat, Maneki Neko! But open the cellophane and all you get are two white balls of candy. The cellophane is where the cat is at -in fact there are several wrappers with different cat expressions. Link -via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

I love this crochet Jägermeister bottle made by crafter Yummy Pancake. You can find more crochet goodness at PlushYou! where Kristin Rask of Schmancy posted an interview with the crocheter (a pharmaceutical project manager by day and uber crafter by night, mind you): Link – via Rue the Day and Craftzine

While I’ve noticed the Peeling Problem most distinctly with superfresh farm eggs, the eggs you buy at the supermarket could be getting fresher too. Most American eggs are produced and distributed by agribusiness concerns like Cal-Maine and Rose Acre, which each have more than 20 million hens cranking out eggs just for you.

Statistics on the time it takes for an egg to go from hen to supermarket have not been calculated, a USDA representative told Wired.com, but there’s some reason to believe that new production techniques could be delivering eggs to markets faster.

A 1998 report by the agency found that big consolidated chicken egg facilities, which wash and package the eggs on-site instead of sending them to a separate processing location, could reduce the time from farm to store from 100 hours to 53 hours. And, according to Cal-Maine’s SEC filings, the industry continues to centralize, squeezing out the old facilities in favor of the new ones.

So if you are going to use hard-boiled eggs in your Thanksgiving dishes, you might want to purchase your eggs soon. Link -via Unique Daily

But while beer’s popularity waned in the Middle East, it was gaining ground in northern Europe. People there somehow figured out brewing (perhaps via another soggy-bread epiphany) by at least 800 B.C., based on beer residues in a Celtic amphora found in modern Bavaria. Dornbusch says the Romans were the first to invent the modern brewing process—involving malting and mashing—based on the ruins of a 179 A.D. brewery discovered in a Roman settlement near what is now Regensburg, Germany.

Link | Image: US National Archives

This 11-month old baby isn’t even their youngest customer! The ad copy also says:

By the way, Mom, when it comes to toddlers- if they liked to be coaxed to drink their milk, try this: add 7-Up to the milk in equal parts, pouring the 7-Up gently into the milk. It’s a wholesome combination- and it works!

Click the picture at Kitchen Retro to see the full-size version of this and other vintage ads. Link -via J-Walk Blog

Using a new, high-tech material, German scientists Klaus Sedlbauer and Herbert Sinnesbichler have developed a coffee cup that will keep your drink at the optimum temperature for drinking. Phase change material (PCM) was already in use as a building and clothing material because of its temperature-regulating capability. Now it will keep your coffee from going cold!

CM is able to absorb and maintain heat or cold for long periods of time. It melts when warmed and solidifies when cooled. Different PCMs have different melting points. If a hollow-framed mug were filled with PCM that becomes liquid at exactly 136.4 degrees Fahrenheit (the ideal drinking temperature for warm beverages) and the mug’s reservoir filled with a warm beverage, the PCM would absorb excess heat, bringing the liquid down to drinking temperature and keeping it there long enough for you to enjoy your coffee.

Sedlbauer and Sinnesbichler are looking for a manufacturer and distributor for their coffee cup. Link – via babycreativeblog

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Babycreative.

(L) Banana Juice Water Bottle (R) Pickle Brine Water Bottle – $11.95

Being environmentally friendly doesn’t mean that you have to lug around ugly water bottles. Here are 4 new stainless steel water bottles with funny designs that will make you instantly hip. From the Neatorama Shop: Link

The milk industry clearly doesn’t want chocolate milk to go the way of the soda can in schools. Sure, a serving of chocolate milk has 60 more calories, but kids love it, so they’ll drink more milk if it’s an option instead of other sugary drinks, the campaign contends. The National Dairy Council and the Milk Processor Education Program are spending between $500,000 to $1 million to get the message across.

But no amount of money will convince people like Marlene Schwartz, deputy director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, that chocolate milk needs to be in schools. She told the AP that kids get needed calcium elsewhere and do not need yet another source of sugar additives that contribute to obesity. Ann Cooper, director of nutrition services at the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado, notes in the same story that kids "happily drink white milk" when it’s the only milk available at school. The "renegade lunch lady," as she calls herself, also said that the extra 40 to 60 calories on top of the 110 calories in a typical 8-ounce serving of white milk "could add up to 5 pounds of weight gain over the 180-day school year." Her district does not offer chocolate milk.

So, should schools ban chocolate milk? Will kids revolt if they did? Link

This Thanksgiving, after fighting the long lines at the airport, navigating the parking lot that used to be called freeways, and defusing family tension at the dinner table, everyone could use a little humor. So wear this T-shirt and hope that your family sees the humor in it and give you an extra serving of turkey!

From the Neatorama Shop: Link

Design by the talented Chris Murphy

She suffers from a fear known as lachanophobia, which leaves her sweating and stricken with panic attacks at the merest sight of a sprout or a pea…

“People might think it is a bit of a laughable affliction but I have a genuine fear of greens it’s not just that I dislike the taste of sprouts or broccoli, but the actual sight of them fills me with dread and I could never touch them.”

The unusual fear affects just a few thousand people in Britain…

The fact that she has gone public with her affliction shows that she does not have gelotophobia.  You can find your phobia here.

Link.  Image credit to 365 Halloween.  For a scarier creation see the “Vegetalien” of digital artist Till Nowak, and for a less frightening one, see Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s work.

(image credit: Flickr user lindaaslund)

Photo: Dalia Birske

Martynas Birskys of the Vilnius-based design studio DaDaDa sells slippers made out of bread. For your comfort, you can select from various sizes and grains. It’s hard to argue with his sales pitch “eatable…dries itself… made from bread…first in fashion…needs no pressing…feels good in dry climate …won’t sag.”

Link via GearFuse

After all these years of eating chicken wings, it turns out that I’ve been doing it all wrong! Chef John of Food Wishes reveals the secret of eating a flat wing: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube clip]

Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest. Alex Creamer, a student at the University of Central Lancashire, UK, came up with this brilliant idea of a New-York centric packaging for spaghetti:

"I created this spaghetti packaging for a university project last year. The brief was to package one of 5 difficult items i.e. eggs, a rose, custard powder, spaghetti or marbles. I chose spaghetti. The spaghetti sits on a 3d model of the chrysler building that was modelled on CAD by my friend Ben Thorpe. And then modelled out of high density foam at uni. Creating a spaghetti model of the Chrysler building!"

Link

And, whoa, Yosemite Road is quite the bargain: Says the press release, both the Chardonnay and a Cabernet Sauvignon will sell for $3.99 a bottle. Who needs a Trader Joe’s, anyway?

"We prefer to think of it as value," says 7-Eleven spokesperson Carole Davidson, when Unfair Park said of the Napa Valley-produced product, "Wow, that sure is cheap." She also laughed. "But, yes, it is inexpensive. …

$3.99? Apparently, they’ve never heard of Two Buck Chuck! Link

Preparing food is probably a mere child’s play for master chef Julia Child, so here’s something a little more challenging: cooking up a batch of primordial soup.

This delightful video of Julia Child in her kitchen boiling up a batch of primordial soup was made for the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum and shown in Life in The Universe gallery from 1976 until the exhibit closed.

Julia Child explains primordial soup

Recession? What recession? Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich dropped $47,000 on food last Friday at Nello’s in New York City. Note that a lucky waiter/waitress got a $7000 tip: Link

Perfect for Halloween, this dish is a regular meatloaf made into the shape of a hand! Not Martha has the instructions for several different versions, depending on how badly you want to creep out your dinner guests. Link -via reddit

Looking to torture your four-legged friend with the sound of squeaking balloons and the feeling of extra bumpers that prevent him from getting comfortable? Look no further than this adorable, yet highly unfunctional dog grape costume.

Link Via Craftzine Image Via Doggie Stylish

You will need a couple of these if you plan to eat any of Jill’s brain cake…

This brain cake looks terrifying, but the process to create it is pretty cool. The brain folds are simply made of frosting and the blood is only food coloring. I think a simple way to make things even more delicious would be to used a raspberry puree in place of food coloring.

Link Image Via kiffakitty

According to The Empire Strikes Back, there’s no smell in the galaxy as bad as the inside of a dead Taun Taun. When Chris and Julia Trevas got married, they hired Food Network baker Courtney Clark to make the cakes. The groom’s cake was in the shape of a dead Taun Taun, complete with Luke Skywalker inside! I would guess the authentic smell was not included. Link -via Boing Boing

(image credit: mod4)

John Harrison

No wonder he’s smiling. John Harrison is, and has been for many years, the official ice cream taster at Dreyer’s Ice Cream and on a daily basis approves or rejects ice cream according to its many different varieties of flavour, colour and texture. It’s a difficult job but someone’s got to do it, and that someone just happens to be John, a man who uses a gold spoon (there’s no aftertaste) to judge ice cream in order to pay the bills. Unsurprisingly, his taste buds are insured for £700,000.

More about the strange world of taste insurance: Link | John Harrison’s website at Dreyer’s – Thanks Dave!

These are the kinds of wine that people buy just for the name. Are they good? Who knows? No one wants to open a bottle, they just want everyone to see the name on their wine shelf! The wine pictured was named (Oops) because it was made from grapes that had been mislabeled for years. Link -via Blame It On The Voices

To me these solid chocolate skulls are an example of both confectionary making and art. They are cast from REAL human skulls and come in a choice of chocolate including Fair Trade 80 per cent cocoa. There is also their bone chocolate – blended Belgian milk and white chocolates, resembling the colour of freshly cleaned human bones.

Link – via cakeheadlovesevil

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by cakehead loves evil.

In the lab, adult teeth soaked in white wine for a day had a loss of both calcium and another mineral called phosphorus to depths of up to 60 micrometers in the enamel surface, which the researchers say is significant.

The effect is pH-mediated, and is most noticeable with Riesling wines, and was exacerbated by brushing the teeth soon after drinking wine.  Red wines were noted to be much less damaging to teeth, and the researchers suggest that the deleterious effect of white wine might be mitigated by the ingestion of calcium-rich cheese.

BBC link.  Photo: Bacchus (Caravaggio)