In 2009, British chef Jamie Oliver visited Huntington, West Virginia, and was appalled at the processed food the schools were serving. He brought in a test kitchen and developed recipes that used fresh produce and a variety of ingredients (for the TV show Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution), but got little in the way of thanks. For one thing, the kids did not like the food. Another problem was that his dishes did not meet federal nutritional standards for the school lunch program. Besides, there was a set budget for meals that schools could not afford to step over. What to do? Cabell County food service director Rhonda McCoy went to work, and made it happen.

But to understand the difficulties in serving good food, that kids like, that meets federal nutrition standards, within a budget, in a school kitchen, you have to know a little about the changes the U.S. school lunch program has undergone in its 70 year existence. It's a story of differing goals, conflicts of interest, lobbying, budget cutbacks, subsidies, and grants. You'll get a good overview of McCoy's work and why it will be hard to replicate everywhere, at Highline.

(Image credit: Sam Kaplan)

The Mandarin Oriental hotel in Las Vegas believes that some people are inclined towards certain cocktails based on their zodiac signs. That's why they've developed a whole cocktail menu based on the signs of their customers -like the lover's potion for Aquariuses and the werly cup for Geminis below.

They were nice enough to share the recipes on Travel and Leisure, so if you want a cocktail based on your birthdate, don't miss the full list.

(YouTube link)

Scientists study food because food is very important to all life. However, some of the experiments that have been done about food are strange, different, and something we certainly want to know about. For example, scientists who did the research would like us to know that toast doesn't always land butter-side down. Maybe it's just me- mine always lands butter-side down. John Green tells us about 24 food studies in the latest episode of he mental_floss List Show.  

You can already buy packages of pre-cut salad or vegetables at your supermarket, but it might not be chopped the way you need it, and who knows how fresh it is? At Whole Foods in Manhattan, you can get yours custom-chopped by the new Produce Butcher, professional food cutter for fruits and vegetables. Then it will be done right, just the way you want it. But it's a bigger benefit than that to some folks.

This looks to be perfect for people who want fresh, large items like watermelon, or pineapple, and don't want to risk getting hurt prepping it. The elderly, or folks with disabilities could probably benefit greatly from this.

And then there's the rest of us, who are just lazy and want our dinner prepared quickly. Read about the Produce Butcher at FoodBeast.  -Thanks, John Farrier!

A new restaurant in the Philippines is completely LEGO-themed, down to the hamburgers they sell. Brick Burger in the Pasig City area of Manila sells hamburgers with buns shaped like LEGO bricks, that come in several bright colors! The entire interior of Brick Burger is decorated with LEGO toys, constructions, fixtures, and even walls covered with the familiar LEGO studs. Diners can even play with LEGO sets while they wait for their orders. Get a pictorial tour of Brick Burger at TVOM.

Neatorama is proud to bring you a guest post from Ernie Smith, the editor of Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail. In another life, he ran ShortFormBlog.

(Image credit: Flickr user Yelp Inc.)

When the bar closes or the house party is broken up by the cops, college food suddenly seems like the best thing ever. Check out these dorm-room favorites.

“You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here,” Grammy award-winning songwriter Dan Wilson frequently sings to the unwashed masses at many a college town bar around the country. (Fun fact: He won that Grammy not with Semisonic, but for writing a Dixie Chicks song.) And often, they don’t go home. Instead, they go to restaurants made for easing the next morning’s hangovers. Or they do go home, but then they order late-night food that gets delivered to dorm rooms so fast, they freak. Today’s Tedium looks at the cottage industry of college-town food in all its dark alchemy.

The Pizza Place Where Gumby Still Lives

The saddest part about the evolution from traditional animation to 3D might be the fact that once impressive hand-crafted techniques for creating eye-popping visuals suddenly seem old hat.

Which means that Gumby is a forgotten icon of youth that rarely comes up anymore. The claymation bellwether hasn’t regularly been on the air since the 1980s, when it had a brief comeback on the back of an iconic Eddie Murphy sketch on SNL.

(Hollywood is full of blockheads, clearly.)

One place where the memory stays alive, however, is on college campuses, where Gumby’s Pizza menus have been sitting on mini-fridges since the ’80s. (In one case, however, Gumby’s declining name recognition actually led the local franchisee to change its name entirely. Sorry, Gumby.)

The Yelp reviews of the pizza and capital-I Important sides say it all: Gumby Pizza is perfect drunk food. Especially the Pokey Stix. Especially.

There are a lot of foods out there that may taste great and may actually be popular but are still pretty darn disgusting when looked at from an outsider's perspective. Foods like SPAM musubi, ambrosia salad and hot beef sundaes seem totally normal to those who love them, but to those from other regions, they may seem a bit gross -even if it's that kind of "eww that's terrible for you but I still want to try it" gross.  Thrillist has compiled the grossest dish from each state and the results are fascinating. 

While some things like carne adovada will seem at least worthy of a try to most readers, some of the items are hotly contested, like Cincinatti chili -which features either chocolate or cinnamon inside a thin chili and served on spaghetti. Of course, many readers disagreed with the choices, which only makes these kind of lists more fun. I, for one, have never even heard of "goop" and I've lived in California my whole life.

So feel free to discuss your state's grossest food in the comments after you check out the whole list here.

The Veil Brewing takes dessert beer to the next level. 'Hornswoggler' Choco milk stout, aged on Oreo cookies. There's even icing chunks pic.twitter.com/z9FOqjRsQW

— Beer Street Journal (@BeerSTJournal) January 30, 2017

The Veil Brewing Co. of Richmond, Virginia, has unveiled a new brew called Hornswoggler Chocolate Milk Stout with Oreos. Head brewer Matt Tarpey says it's selling like hotcakes.

“We made 64 cases and quickly sold out within a few hours last week,” Tarpey said.

The Scott’s Addition brewery, located at 1301 Roseneath Road, has a small amount left on draft which will be available for the next few days or until it runs out.

I dunno, when you think of "two great tastes that taste great together," beer and Oreos are not the first things that comes to mind. -Thanks, John Farrier!

At some restaurants, you sit down and they cook you some food. At others, you pick up the food and take it home. Now there's a restaurant in Helsinki that turns that idea on its ear. Take In doesn't even have a kitchen, but you sit down to eat take out food ordered from any of 20 other restaurants.

With no kitchen, guests at Take In choose from a curated selection of dishes from roughly 20 restaurants via an app called Wolt, the other sponsor of the pop-up. Guests eat their dinner in the Take In dining room. Take In offers bar service, and “hosting service,” helping get orders to the correct table. Guests who just want to drop in for a drink are welcome to do so. While it seems like a concept designed for solo diners, a Wolt spokeperson tells Monocle that the restaurant offers a solution for groups who can’t decide on what they all want to eat. The Take In pop-up started at the beginning of November, and will run through April 2.

It sounds like a fancier version of what we'd call a food court. Read more about this odd concept in dining at Eater.  -Thanks, John Farrier!

World of Warcraft adaptations are an inevitable byproduct of the game's success, and so far the board games, movie, comic books, etc. that have come out make perfect sense for the franchise.

But South Korea has taken their love of WoW in an odd new direction- by creating the first ever World of Warcraft themed cooking show.

The show is called "Wow! Recipe? The Meal Is Ready", it's hosted by celebrity chef Choi Hyun-seok, an avid Warcraft player, and it debuted on January 20th.

(YouTube Link)

It's hard to tell where Warcraft fits into the show from the clip, but according to GameAbout "Choi a known WoW player, will cook dishes like 'Hell Hound Sweet and Sour Fish' and 'Murloc Soup' while guests share stories from and about the game."

Nothing says "Mmmmm!" like Murloc!

-Via endgadget

It's a question that has plagued no one, but at some point in their lives tens of millions of people have wondered to themselves "why does my sandwich always come with a pickle?"

These people have the right to know why there's always a pickle with their sandwich, and why deli pickles are so delicious you kinda want another one after you finish the first.

The pickle and sandwich connection can be drawn directly back to the Jewish delis in New York around the turn of the 20th century, when standard sandwich practices were being introduced.

(Image Link)

These delis included a homemade pickle with the sandwich as a palate cleanser, but pickles soon became such a popular snack food that the Pickle Wars went down in the Lower East Side.

And since NY's Jewish delis had so much influence on all the other sandwich shops, delis, grinder and sub shops to come the pickle-sandwich pairing continued until it became the norm.

Read Why Does Your Sandwich Come With A Pickle? at mental_floss

Just in time for the Super Bowl, Tostitos has released new bags that can help detect alcohol on a person's breath and if they have been drinking, the bag will bear a "don't drink and drive" warning and even provide the user with a $10 credit. The company does want to make it clear that the bag is not a breathalyzer and cannot detect alcohol levels, just alcohol consumption. Even so, it's a great way to add a little more safety to your Super Bowl party.

Via That's Nerdalicious

Christine Ha was the winner of the cooking competition show MasterChef season 3. She is also blind. Ha and her husband John now co-host the Canadian cooking show Four Senses. Here, she shows us by GoPro how she maneuvers around the kitchen by memory, feel, and a little adaptive technology.

(YouTube link)

You can follow Christine at her personal website or her cooking blog, The Blind Cook. -via Nag on the Lake

Everyone has their own favorite dessert, but there are just some places that everyone rants about. Since you probably aren't going to go around trying every dessert in your entire state though, even with local favorites, you likely won't find the best dessert on your own. 

Fortunately, Livingly managed to find the best dessert in every state by looking at reviews on Trip Advisor, Yelp, restaurant websitees and more. The ones seen above are from the Humungous Banana Split from The Poky Dot, West Virginia and the Peanut Butter Push Pop at Citizen Public House in Scottsdale, Arizona. So find out what your state's favorite dessert is here -and feel free to disagree with their choices in the comments.

(Image Link)

The worst part about drinking red wine is the way it stains your teeth and lips, and nothing ruins a good buzz like people staring at you because you've got a serious case of wine mouth.

You could use a straw, but if sipping wine through a straw ain't classy enough for you then you need some Wino Sippers, the wine glasses shaped like a pipe.

Wino Sippers let you slurp down the vino without staining your teeth, and they make you look more respectable than those barbaric folks who use a straw to drink wine out of a plastic cup. Can you even imagine?

To be honest, Wino Sippers are just Port Sipper Glasses in a swanky package, but the package gives you permission to drink any kind of wine out of them, so they're far more useful than a glass reserved for Port.

Besides, I prefer to drink Port straight out of the bottle...

-Via Metro