Street vendor food takes all shapes and sizes... but it seems in South Korea that this little delicacy was inspired by the carnival fair we have stateside. Don't you hate when you have to walk around with a hot dog AND french fries separately? So... some genius decided to encrust the hot dog with the french fries and deep fry them both - on a stick! Those crazy Koreans!

Actually, this is really a handy solution! Now you can eat an entire meal while pushing your stroller, or carrying your groceries or talking on the phone. You can get your veggies, meat and daily dose of street vendor grease all at once. If I didn't have to worry about heart attacks, clogged arteries, strokes or my BMI, this wouldn't be a half bad idea. We all know everything tastes better fried on a stick, now don't we? 

Source 

Rattlesnake is the oft-forgotten meat available all over those dry, dusty areas of the country. I've seen a few in my day... gotten a little too close for comfort at the odd softball game. If you're lucky (?) enough to escape alive when you run across one of these noisy-yet-stealthy creatures, you can fix it up for a complete dinner. Why not try Southern-fried rattlesnake with a rattlesnake cocktail to wash it down? Here's how you can make it happen...

Southern-fried Rattlesnake

INGREDIENTS:
1 egg
salt to taste
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 tsp. seasoning salt mix
3/4 cup milk
1 tsp. pepper
flour
1 rattlesnake

INSTRUCTIONS:
Clean, skin and cut snake meat into 4 inch lengths. Beat egg and milk. Mix spices with  flour in a separate bowl. Preheat deep fat fryer with cooking oil. Dip snake into egg mixture and then in flour mixture and place it in hot oil. Cook until golden brown and crispy like fried fish. Serve with french fries.

Rattlesnake Cocktail

Make sure it's shaken, not stirred! (ha!)

INSTRUCTIONS: 
Shake all ingredients with ice, strain into a cocktail glass, and serve with a cherry.

I found a groovy little list of candy profiles in my morning paper (the Houston Chronicle) and had to share. Basically, it defines your personality based on your sweet tooth. Do you almond joy or bit-o-honey? It could be the difference between being happy-go-lucky and two-faced. What flavor are you? I'm a Three Musketeers and my husband is a Twizzler. Scary combination!

Three Musketeers: Does well in groups but is somewhat pompous. Prone to fancy costumes and arcane weapons. Wears hats in public that are ill-advised. Created in 1932 by Mars, the candy bar got its name because it originally had three pieces in one packet: vanilla, strawberry and chocolate.

Almond Joy: I'm going to put aside my aversion to coconut in praising these folks as happy-go-lucky. Introduced in 1946 by the Peter paul Candy Manufacturing Co. in New Haven, Conn. It's a companion to the Mounds bar which arrived in 1920.

Bit-O-Honey: They have contradictory personalities, hoping to express generosity but also having the passive-agressive desire to damage the fillings of trick-or-treaters. The honey-flavored taffy was first manufactured in 1924 by the Schutter-Johnson Co. of Chicago. It is now made by Nestle.

Butterfinger: Evasive, slippery, not necessarily to be trusted. Invented in 1923 by the Curtiss Candy Co. of Chicago, the crunchy bar wrapped in chocolate is now made by Nestle.

Candy Corn: Purely deluded people.  They don't get that candy shouldn't attempt to imitate other food groups, particularly corn. Invented in the 1880s, it was first manufactured commercially by the Wunderle Candy Co. in Philadelphia and by the turn of the century at the Herman Goeliitz Candy Co. in Cincinnati.

Good & Plenty: Optimistic, perhaps overly so. A little bit of Weimar energy. Strong advocate of gay rights; acquainted with the bitterness at the center of most lives. The licorice candy was first produced in 1893 by the Quaker City Confectionery Co. in Philadelphia and is considered the oldest branded candy in the country.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups: Generous souls. Those who understand the salty in life, as well as the sweet. Created by Harry Burnett Reese in the 1920s. Reese was a former dairy employee of Milton Hershey, founder of the Hershey Co. in 1963, the Reese candy company was sold to Hershey for $23.5 million.

Snickers: Just going with the crowd, the safe candy choice, guaranteed to please the masses. Not ambitious, but dependable. Created in 1930 by Mars, Snickers bars sold for a nickel. The Fun Size was introduced in 1968.

Twix: Both brittle and supple in social situations; sort of trapped between personality types. A Mars product, caramel-and-cookie Twix bars were created in the United Kingdom in 19967 but weren't sold in the US until 1979.

Twizzlers: Sickos. Truly demented. Plastic people living plastic lives. The Twizzlers brand was introduced in 1929. The red licorice strips are manufactured by Y&S Candies, a company established in 1845 that is now a Hershey subsidiary. 

Listen up college co-eds. I've got the perfect brain food for those late-night study sessions or orgies... or for both. Cheap and cheap... this snack will load you up on sugar and carbs. It comes from the folks at Campus Squeeze - check out more Ramen Noodle madness. I think I feel my teeth gettin gloose just reading this recipe.

Hyperactive Candied Choco-Ramen Noodles

INGREDIENTS:
1 block of Ramen
¼ cup Brown Sugar
¼ cup Chocolate Sauce (Hershey’s… or whatever)
Powdered Sugar
Optional: ½ teaspoon Vanilla
Optional: Whipped Cream

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Fill pot with 2-3 cups of water, and mix in ¼ cup of Brown Sugar. Also, if available, a ½ teaspoon of Vanilla (too much vanilla would make it tastes crazy… like Godzilla… be careful).
2. Cook Ramen block when sugar-water boils. Cook until soft and quite ‘noodley’.
3. Strain Ramen until most water has left the pot and gone down the drain.
4. Pour in a few dashes of Brown Sugar, and ¼ cup of Chocolate Sauce. Make sure to mix it well, until the noodles are a nice golden-brown color.
5. Dump Choco-Ramen onto a plate, preferably NOT a paper plate. Then sprinkle as much powdered sugar as you desire upon the Choco-Ramen. This makes it look cool, and taste more awesome.
6. If you’re super-fancy, try adding a large mountain of Whipped Cream upon your Choco-Ramen creation.

If you do not have chocolate sauce, melted chocolate chips make a tasty substitute. Also if you don’t like chocolate, try using caramel sauce.

The Chafing Dish Cookbook by John & Marie Roberson is chock full of recipes for group gatherings - the kind that you need a giant bowl of food for. I guess that's what cracks me up about this recipe... firstly, how many people could actually "like" Lamb Kidney sauté... and secondly, how much of this slop could those people actually eat? Not to mention, that I'm not sure I would want a gathering of all of those folks in my house at the same time. If they'll eat lamb kidneys, they might eat me!

 I must also note that this recipe comes from a chapter called "Let's Not Go Out". Who needs a chafing dish when eating at home with the family. Who spreads dinner out of the length of your average wedding reception? Anyways... try this one if you dare... or if you know where to find lamb kidneys. This recipe is recommended as part of a menu that includes baked potatoes and bananas flambée. I love my bananas and kidneys together. Mmmmm..... blech.

Lamb Kidney Sauté with Wine Sauce

INGREDIENTS:
6 lamb kidneys
salt and pepper
flour or crumbs
1 dozen blanched almonds
1/2 dozen stuffed olives
2 strips bacon
1/2 clove garlic
1 tomato (or 1 tsp. tomato paste)
1/4 - 1/2 cup white wine

INSTRUCTIONS:

Behind the Scenes - Cut lamb kidneys into halves. Rinse in boiling water and drain. Carefully trim out bits of fat and membrane. Salt, pepper and flour the halves. Blanch and skin the almonds. Cut bacon strips into bits. MAsh garlic to fine paste. Skin and cut tomato quite small.

At the Chafing Dish -  Fry out the bacon bits in blazer pan of chafing dish until crisp and brown. Add prepared kidneys and turn until delicately browned all over. Add almonds and brown. Add olives (whole or cut into pieces). Add garlic paste and tomato. Add wine. Siommer gently until blended. Then continue until sauce is of desired consistency. Adjust seasoning with additional salt and pepper, if necessary. Occasionally a dash of sugar is necessary.

Don't be fooled by Paula Deen's down-home charm. She may look like your mother, but she's seriously trying to kill you. This recipe from her "Paula's Party" show on the Food Network is for FRIED BUTTER BALLS. Yup, that's right, the butter's not enough, it needs to be deep-fried in heart-clogging oil to do the real damage. She's no dummy, she knows how to get the job done. Try this one if you dare....

Fried Butter Balls

INGREDIENTS:
2 sticks butter
2 ounces cream cheese
Salt and pepper
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg, beaten
1 cup seasoned bread crumbs
Peanut oil, for frying

INSTRUCTIONS:
Cream the butter, cream cheese, salt and pepper together with an electric mixer until smooth. Using a very small ice cream scoop, or melon baller, form 1-inch balls of butter mixture and arrange them on a parchment or waxed paper lined sheet pan. Freeze until solid. Coat the frozen balls in flour, egg, and then bread crumbs and freeze again until solid.

When ready to fry, preheat oil in a deep-fryer to 350 degrees F.

Fry balls for 10 to 15 seconds until just light golden. Drain on paper towels before serving.

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Hell Cheese is on the menu in Finland. Although it doesn't actually sound like it's from Hell, per se, the Finnish must have sensitive palates. Down here in Texas we'd feed this to the kids at the day care. A little chili and tomatoes... that's nothin'. Finnish pussies.

What is the food in this picture? Who in the hell knows?!?

This Flickr set of printed ephemera from around the world contains this colorful  cookbook cover..... exotic and mysterious.... I have no idea what I'm looking at. Apparantly it is a 1938 Swedish cookbook cover featuring all sorts of tubes and pots of delicacies that you too can make into an unappealing appetizer tray of your very own. As fun as that sounds, the only thing I recognize in the whole picture are the peas and carrots in quadrant 4, therefore, I wouldn't know where to start.

If you recognize any of this mess, leave a comment and clue me in. I'm not sure I eat anything out of a tube unless it's cake frosting.... but never say never!

I was relieved to find out upon actually reading this recipe that no actual ice cream is involved... but seriously, isn't beef and aspic bad enough?? This recipe comes to you courtesy of one of my kitchen shelf favorites, The new, New Can Opener Cookbook, by Poppy Cannon.

It's the opening recipe for a chapter called "Can Opener Parties!" Come on, ladies, when was the last time you had a proper can opener party? Shame on you, I'm sure it's been way too long! Poppy says, "For a buffet supper in summertime nothing could be more appealing than this simple-as-can-be version of one of the most delightful of Parisian specialties." Damn the French for bringing us Aspic of Beef a la Mode. Serve it at your next party along with Trout in champagne, Fruited breast of chicken and Sukiyaki "Chain-store" style. Mmmmm... here goes: 

Aspic of Beef a la Mode

INGREDIENTS:
roast beef or leftover pot roast
fresh or dried tarragon
carrots
green and black olives
unflavored gelatin
canned consommé
tarragon vinegar
Tabasco sauce

INSTRUCTIONS:
You may start with cold roast beef from the delicatessen, or you could use leftover port roast cut in slices about 1/4" thick. Arrange 16 slices of beef, overlapping slightly, in a shallow serving dish or a deep platter. Sprinkle with 2 Tablespoons of fresh tarragon or 1 tablespoon dried tarragon. Garnish attractively with very thin slices of carrots and green and black olives.

Now make an aspic by softening 4 envelopes of unflavored gelatin in 1 cup cold water. Heat 2 cans consommé. Add the softened gelatin and stir until dissolved. Flavor with 2 tablespoons tarragon vinegar and 3 or 4 drops of Tabasco sauce. Cook until the aspic mixture is syrupy. This will take about 30 minutes in the refrigerator or about 10 minutes in the freezer; but be sure to time yourself if you use the freezer, because the aspic will get grainy if it is kept too long in the freezer.

Pour aspic over the beef slices, being careful not to disarrange the decoration. Chill until set. This will take about 2 hours in the refrigerator. 

Jolene Sugarbaker - the Trailer Park Cook in the know - brings you this tantalizing taste-bud teaser, Oatmeal Raisin Asparagus cookies. Now that the kiddoes are out of school... you'll need some scrumptious snack ideas! This funny clip is entertaining regardless of whether or not you have the cojones to actually try this one. I'm not thinking I'm ready for Asparagus cookies. Anyone wanna try it?

My husband doesn't like cake. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's true. He doesn't like cupcakes, cheesecake, pound cake, coffee cake, sacher cake, birthday cake, or angel food cake. Even with this precedent of prejudice already set, I have a sneaking suspicion he might like a big, beefy meatcake.

There's nothing like slicing through the fluffy mashed potato frosting through a juicy meatloaf center. It's extra special when the baker delicately decorates the confection with peas or carrots or even sliced tomatoes in an attractive pattern. What a treat! Take a look at this gallery of glorious meatcakes.  Mangia!