As one of the commenters says, well, now that we know she's Roma and poor, she's not really "the right kind of angel" anymore, right? Sheesh.
Bulgarian officials confirmed Friday that the pale, blonde Roma child taken from her darker complexioned guardians is the child of a Bulgarian Roma woman, reports the AP.
While endless debates about the practice of tipping food-service employees rage all over the Internet, most people agree on one thing: if you’re happy with the service you received, you should leave some kind of tip. Some diners at a Kansas Carrabba’s restaurant allegedly made their own exception to that: “unless you disapprove of the server’s personal life.”
There are a lot of questions still unanswered about this incident, like how the customer was 100% certain of his server’s sexual orientation. Here’s what was reportedly written on the credit card slip:
Thank you for your service, it was excellent. That being said, we cannot in good conscience tip you, for your homosexual lifestyle is an affront to GOD. Fags do not share in the wealth of GOD, and you will not share in ours. We hope you will see the tip your fag choices made you lose out on, and plan accordingly. It is never too late for GOD’s love, but none shall be spared for fags. May GOD have mercy on you.
This sounds over-the-top until you remember that hey, Kansas is the home of the Westboro Baptist Church, a group that uses similar rhetoric.
The waiter himself hasn’t come forward and talked to the media, but the customers’ message spread through social media sites. Supporters have been visiting the restaurant, asking to be seated in the waiter’s area, and giving him extra tips.
Carrabba’s, for their part, has only said that they don’t support discrimination against or by employees or customers. “We embrace diversity and believe in treating everyone with respect,” company management in a statement. And tipping. They definitely believe in tipping.
A frequent knock against fast food chicken is that it’s dry and overcooked. But a leathery slab of chicken would be preferable to this pink-in-the-middle sandwich some unlucky Wendy’s customer bit into.
How does this happen? One likely answer comes from another Reddit reader who explains that when people use the regular french fry deep-fryer to cook chicken, they sometimes forget to press the appropriate button, thus resulting in undercooked chicken. Another suggests that the chicken was pulled out of the fryer when the “shake basket” alarm went off, meaning it did not go back into the oil to continue cooking.
Whatever the case, it’s put me off chicken sandwiches for at least the next couple hours.
This devil-sheep is the best thing on the Internet. I will stand by that statement forevermore. This audio-visual mosaic of the devil-sheep is the second-best thing on the Internet.
The siren smells of the mall food court can weaken even the most determined healthy eater worn down by a day at the mall. With the aroma of Auntie Anne’s tickling your nose and stirring a rumble in your tummy, it ain’t easy to avoid a calorie fest. Good thing our benevolent benefactors at Consumer Reports are on the case. The snack beat, as it were.
Chow down at Starbucks on some tasty breakfast items and grab a pretzel dog around lunch and suddenly you’ve had more calories than you should eat in a day. But where there’s a healthy will, there’s a way.
Prepare before you go: Sure, part of the fun of the mall is eating mall snacks. But if you don’t want to leave heavier than you started, eat a meal at home before you shop.
Make the smart choice: Going for reduced fat or light options can help, points out Consumer Report. For example, getting the reduced-fat blueberry muffin at Dunkin’ Donuts will spare you 50 calories and 5 grams of fat that you would get with the regular version.
Don’t overload on toppings: Yes, candy and nuts are nice, but adding fruit to frozen yogurt will help you save on calories and fat. Just say no to butter and salt at Auntie Anne’s to cut 30 calories and 590 mg of sodium and give yourself the gift of 150 fewer calories by passing on the melted cheese dip. Cheese. Sigh.
Check nutrition figures online before you go: Just because something has fruit or veggies in it doesn’t mean it’s definitely the healthiest — a fruit smoothie can cause a calorie avalanche and Starbucks’ zucchini walnut muffin comes with 490 calories of potential regret.
For more tips and a handy table of common options you can swap out at many mall food courts, check out Consumer Reports’ guide in the source link below.
Last Sunday was the 9th Annual Bucktown Apple Pie Contest here in Chicago, and this year, they titled it "The Clash of the Pietins." For me, it's one of the more fun events every year because the contest showcases home cooks rather than professional ones. And of course, it's a true onslaught of apple pie. There's more pie than the eye can see—two gymnasiums full! Attendees sampled hundreds of different homemade pies (some have the best names ever), and watching the crowd is always as fun as enjoying the pastries.
KFC’s recently launched Go Cup, which combines the thrill of eating fried foods with the exhilaration of being stuck in traffic on the way home, is just the latest from the attention-seeking food-marketers at Yum! Brands who brought you the Double Down, the Doritos tacos, and cheese on donuts. But Stephen Colbert thinks KFC could still make it even more convenient to clog your arteries while clogging the intersection.
On last night’s Colbert Report, the host admitted that KFC’s “new potato-and-poultry Big Gulp… is a good idea, but it could be gooder.”
“Last time I checked, the cup-holder is still an arm’s length away from the ol’ grub chute,” continued Colbert, “and it’s not like you can put the Go Cup between your legs because that’s where the tub of Ben & Jerry’s goes.”
Colbert then generously suggested what he believes is an improvement on the Go Cup — the Wheel Meat, “A one-piece, circular macro-nugget that mounts snugly onto your steering column.”
No more reaching for that snack while you’re enjoying your evening commute. It’s right there in your hands, along with sauces that automatically coat the Wheel Meat as you steer. You don’t even need to take your hands off the steering wheel, as you can just lean forward and chow down directly on the Wheel Meat.
Of course, reminds Colbert, safety first: “Remember, it’s hands at 10 and 2, mouth at 12.”
the whole thing makes me so uneasy. Are they only DNA testing the blonde girl? What of the other children in their care? Who cares, they're not white, right?
Last week, Greek police, searching a Roma family's home during an unrelated criminal investigation, came across a pale, tow-headed little girl among the family's gaggle of dark-haired, dark-skinned children. Immediately, they were like, "HOW DID THIS GET HERE," and swept the girl up into protective custody. DNA tests confirmed that the child was not biologically related to her Roma family, but the parents claim they adopted (or, were "given") her legally.
Girl, you’re a star. Don’t let anyone try to make you do that boring choreography. “How will I inspire the world, then?” ask them. “If I’m doing the same boring dance as the no-brain next to me, no offense, how will the world be reminded that the most fun is had by those who think for themselves? By those who quite literally dance to the beat of whatever drummer they want?” And if he or she persists, telling you that you have to learn the rules of dance before you can break them, ask them, “Have you broken them? Have you inspired an auditorium full of bored parents to laugh, their eyes wide with joy, at your distinct expression of yourself? No. You’ve learned the rules, stuck to them, demonstrated your ability to follow them over and over again, and for what?” For nothing, girl. For nothing. (Via DailyPicks.)
Meanwhile we can build any bomb we want. Blank check!
Millions of American families could face a sparse holiday table when food stamps benefits get reduced in November, and that could be just the start of deeper cuts to the program to feed poor families.
It's bittersweet when we move firmly into autumn, once and for all saying goodbye to the stone fruits and melons for another year. The cool weather is a relief, though, and a bracing, sweet yet tart glass of apple cider is a true pleasure once we've let summer go. Long ago, orchard-rich New Englanders figured out a way to preserve the autumn lure of apple cider by reducing it into a syrup, as dark as maple and just as appealing.
It's called boiled cider and the recipe for making your own is about as simple as the name. It's a classic reduction, an ideal way to concentrate the sweetness and tang of a well-balanced cider. A true preserve, boiled cider used to be a pantry mainstay in New England, but as cane sugar became more widely available and local orchards gave way to housing developments, people grew out of the habit of using it. There are plenty of delicious reasons to make your own, though.
Boiled cider syrup can be used to add depth to barbecue or baked beans as easily as it can become a glaze for an apple cake or homemade apple fritters. Mixed with hot water or seltzer, it makes a great apple toddy or spritzer, and it's fantastic splashed into a salad dressing or as an option for your home bar.
To yield any quantity, it bears starting with a considerable amount—at least a gallon—of fresh, minimally processed cider, and if you're going to bother canning it, you might as well make an even bigger batch than that. You will also require your largest non-reactive pot, a wooden spoon, and several hours. There are just a few ingredients to make it, and the one of key importance is time. For best results, seek out cider that doesn't taste watery. It should instead have a full-bodied sweetness and a pronounced sour note. You'll need that tart edge to balance out the sweetness once you concentrate the flavors.
About the Author: Emily Teel is a food writer and recipe developer in Philadelphia. Follow along on Twitter @brotherly_grub and see more of her work at EmilyTeel.com
Winnie, a mixed-breed dog from Mass., ate two pounds of frozen onion rings while her family was out. When they returned, they found both the empty bag and a very guilty-looking dog.Had Winnie known better, a look of worry might’ve also crossed her face.
Typhoon Francisco skirted west of Guam on Friday following the same path as Typhoon Wipha, which killed 17 people in Japan this week.The U.S. Pacific island remained on highest alert with most government functions shut down as tropical-storm-force wind and rain lashed its west coast.At 11:20 a.m.
This is why we don’t take candy from strangers. This creepy Halloween candy is brought to us by artist Andrew Bell. Part of his ongoing series, The Creatures in my Head, the scary candies include Kisses of Death and Kill Kats.
So, remember kids, always check your candy on Halloween before you eat it. You might live in Andrew Bell’s neighborhood.
Florence was nice, Sienna is beautiful, but i totally agree w/ Budapest in the top 10 (#2) because it was such an incredible wonderful city, I'd go back in a heartbeat. Rome though? Ehhh... no.
How many have you been to? And do you agree with the rankings?
Employees of a Price Chopper in Troy, N.Y. noticed something kind of strange in the wee hours of the morning: a customer stuffed steak and seafood in his pants, then walked out of the store. Police followed the man on a four-block car chase with lights and sirens, ultimately capturing him and the meats when he drove into a pole.
The man fled the scene of the crash on foot, but officers caught up with him. He was charged with petit larceny, speeding, leaving the scene of a property damage accident, unlicensed operation, and resisting arrest.
To longtime Consumerist readers, this won’t seem very strange: shoplifters love to work with what’s at hand and shove things down their pants. Often those things are meat or seafood. Or both. An entire turkey breast?Some steaks? It’s been done. Maybe the meat-down-pants shoplifting method has succeeded…but we wouldn’t know that it was successful because the perpetrator was never caught.
A new report from a special U.N. investigator says drone strikes have killed far more civilians than U.S. officials have publicly acknowledged – at least 400 in Pakistan and as many as 58 in Yemen – and chides the U.S. for failing to aid the investigation by disclosing its own figures.U.N.
There will always be people out there picking weird names for their kids, but when you look at the choices that make their way to the top you'll see that Americans tend to play it safe. The maps above, based on data from the Social Security Administration, show the most popular baby names for girls by state, for babies born from 1960 through 2012, with the colors representing the most popular single name for that year.
“Some little kid was about ready to walk down here and die and Glenn saved his life by getting the boulder out of the way,” the cameraman is heard saying. “So it’s all about saving lives here at Goblin Valley.”
Plus, it was a lot of fun! Did ya see that sucker fall! BOOM! Job well done! But is their concern for hypothetical little kids winning them the plaudits they expected? No, instead, a bunch of fascist nature-huggers in the Utah State Parks department wants them prosecuted, which is about what you’d expect from a bunch of Nazis.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that state officials are planning a reception, of sorts, for the Civic-Minded Three:
“It is not only wrong, but there will be consequences,” said spokesman Eugene Swalberg, noting that a criminal investigation is underway by State Parks authorities.
“This is highly, highly inappropriate,” he said. “This is not what you do at state parks. It’s disturbing and upsetting.”
Geologists date the rock formation to about 20 million years ago, which suggests that no children were in immediate danger, though who knows, maybe a gust of wind with the approximate force of a big guy pushing really hard could have knocked the boulder down onto a passing child with no warning. (Also, we know that the formation can’t actually be any older than 4000 years ago, the time of Noah’s Flood. Duh.) Because really, isn’t it about time that somebody would just please think about the children?
Glenn Taylor said Thursday afternoon that he was the man who pushed over the formation, while Dave Hall filmed and Dylan Taylor looked on. According to Taylor, he and Hall are leaders for a local troop of the Boy Scouts of America. Hall added that the men also were acting as Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints youth leaders.
Taylor said he knocked the boulder to the ground after seeing a family walk by on a nearby popular path. When he touched the rock, Taylor noticed it was loose.
“I put my hand on a rock and it moved,” he said. “While we were sitting right there we thought, ‘Man if this rock falls it’ll kill them.’ I didn’t have to push hard.”
For what it’s worth, he feels kind of bad about it now, and wishes he had contacted a park ranger. But he’s a man of action, and saw a deed that needed doing. You know, like they say in the Boy Scout Manual: “Nature is the Enemy, and Must Be Vanquished By Manly Men.” (We could be paraphrasing.)
“Glad we did it, wish we wouldn’t have done it,” he said Thursday of his feelings about the incident.
America, fuck yeah.
If convicted of a crime in vandalizing a state park, the men may be barred from continuing as scout leaders, which seems totally unfair because they’re probably not even gay.
how would you feel having sex under the smirking gaze of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis?
Name: Hallie Glennie Location: South Loop, Chicago, Illinois Size: 1,000 square feet Years Lived In: 2 years; Owned
From the rustic wood ceilings crisscrossed by painted red duct work to the castle-sized windows surrounded by floor-to-ceiling exposed brick, her loft is the real deal — that sleek, urban look that suburbanites (like myself) often try to emulate with faux brick panels and prepackaged beadboard, but can never quite capture for lack of authenticity.
Like so many people who simply haven’t had time, what with their “lives” and other excuses, The Wire star Idris Elba has yet to watch The Wire, what with his being way too busy starring on The Wire. “I’ve never watched The Wire,” Elba admits in his new Playboy interview. “I’ve seen a full episode at screenings but never at home. I’ve never watched an entire season. I’ve not seen any episode of season 2, most of season 3, and none of seasons 4 and 5.”
As the interviewer admirably does not immediately interrupt with a monologue on how he could maybe see skipping season two—even if it is underrated—but that he has to watch season four, at least, it’s incredible, and man, Idris Elba, wait until you see what happens to Idris Elba’s character in season three, Elba was allowed ...
Former Alaska governor and current ??? Sarah Palin, who has a rare condition that renders her incapable of improvement, appeared on Megyn Kelly's show on Fox News yesterday. And it was... even more of a shitshow than most Sarah Palin appearances. Even Megyn Kelly — tough, no-nonsense host Megyn Kelly — had trouble reining her in. Let's watch.
Are you ready for your blood to boil? Like, literally start bubbling beneath your skin and come out of your eyes and ears as it reveals your red hot rage? Well, then, do I have the video for you!
Five years ago Ian Purkayastha, then 16, took out his life savings ($100) to buy Burgundy truffles on eBay, only to turn around and sell them at sky high prices to chefs in his home state of Arkansas. One year later he opted out of college to become the US president of the Italian truffle company P.A.Q., importing fresh truffles into the American market.
Now Ian is 21 and living in Brooklyn, where he works as a full-time food salesman, making fat stacks hustling fresh (and expensive) food products through the back doors of Michelin-starred restaurants around NYC. He's got an impressive client list of over 300 restaurants nationwide that includes well known chefs like Sean Brock, Daniel Boulud and Jean-Georges Vongerichten. On any given day, you can find Ian b-lining straight through the back door of fancy kitchens, toting a chilled down backpack filled with $60,000 worth of white truffles, Moscow millionaire-quality caviar, and nondescript packages stuffed with a gamble of strange items—trout placenta, anyone? He almost always has legal seasonal shrooms on hand, like blue chanterelles and bears tooth, that can be hard to find beyond the floors of his delivery van, unless you're tight with a mushroom forager in the Pacific Northwest.
Like an uncanny blend of Raymond from Rain Man and Stringer Bell from The Wire, Ian’s always one step ahead of chefs with his scope of food knowledge, rattling off both scientific and odd facts about the "species and sub-species," of whatever he's selling. His artfully smooth sales pitch and high quality product offerings allow Ian to move caviar, truffles, wild fruits, and mushrooms out of the back of his delivery van so quickly, product vanishes with the blink of a back alley (of the restaurant) deal.
In the interest of filling our bellies with the most delicious and obscure foods in the world, we decided to give Ian a column called Dealers Choice. Every week he will tell us what top chefs are stocking their kitchens with, and drop us scrumptious morsels from his encyclopedic knowledge of specialty food items. We’re kicking off this series with Ian’s cheat sheet on the gateway fruit pawpaw. It's the oldest fruit native to North America, and pretty hard to come by, unless you give him a ring.
Useless, or Useful Information
Pawpaw was Thomas Jefferson’s favorite fruit, so much so that he planted his own grove of them at Monticello. Some slang terminology for these (if you're trying to buy them off the street from some random forager) include the “Indiana banana,” “Hoosier banana,” “Poor Man's banana,” or the hardcore scientific name, “Asimina Triloba.”
There are over 27 varieties of pawpaw scattered throughout the US. It grows rampant in 25 states in the East, ranging from northern Florida to southern Maine, growing as far west as eastern Nebraska. The pawpaw is a tropical fruit that is found almost exclusively in the wild, but there are also a small number of commercial orchards that sell cultivated varieties. My main pawpaw connect is a guy with a pawpaw orchard in an undisclosed location.
The majority of species I find in the forest are a variety known as the Shenandoah, but the orchard that I work with in Maryland has the Allegheny, Shenandoah, Pennsylvania Gold, Susquehanna, Potomac, and Wabash varietals.
Taste Flavor wise, it tastes like a cross between a mango and a banana with a vanilla, custard-like texture. The Shenandoah has the firmest texture, which can be used for picking and slicing. Other varieties are more custard-like, and can be used to make ice cream or some sort of dessert.
The Scent(s) Without cutting into it, pawpaw doesn’t smell like much. Once you’ve opened it up, the scents that waft into your personal zone depend on the variety you’ve got on hand. A Shenandoah pawpaw smells like fresh, yeasty bread, while a Pennsylvania Gold drops a stink bomb like a bad fart. The scents can range from flatulent-like sulfuric notes to instant creamed corn, onion, and ripened bananas. I ate a Shenandoah pawpaw today and my entire delivery van smelled like garbage, which is OK because durian fruit smells exactly the same, and everyone loves durian fruit, so whatever.
What to Do with a Batch of It You should cut it in half and eat it with a spoon. A grapefruit spoon is ideal so you can pry off the pulp from the seed without wasting any of the meat. Eat it by itself, bake a pawpaw pie (with a meringue topping, like banana cream pie), whip up a frozen sorbet, or create some sort of custard or pudding with the purée.
Appearance When the pawpaw ripens, the skin begins to bruise and has black spots all over, but it’s perfectly normal. It looks funky, but that’s a good thing.
Getting It They’re really difficult to find, and there’s not a whole lot of people who know about them. I don’t understand why no one has sold them on a commercially sized scale, because they’re not very difficult to grow. One in four chefs hates them, but this September I moved 1,300 pounds of pawpaw over the span of a two-week season. So maybe I’ve gotten enough of them hooked on the product to change some opinions around here.
The Deal Breaker The skin and seeds are inedible. If you eat them, they will give you intestinal issues pretty quickly. The guy I source my pawpaws from told me that when you ingest the seeds or the skin, you get what’s known as “scratchy asshole syndrome.” I guess your butt gets super-irritable and itchy, like irritable bowel syndrome, or symptoms close to hemorrhoids. I don’t know. I’ve never swallowed a seed before, but I’d advise against tempting fate and avoid eating them altogether. And don’t try consuming unripened pawpaw fruit, because it will have the same effect. I tried telling one of my clients—a chef who is really obsessed with pickling unripened pawpaw—about this, and he didn’t want to listen. I’m pretty sure that his diners have been shitting themselves for the past three weeks with the pawpaw special that’s currently running on his menu.
A Florida man is suffering serious second-degree burns following a Halloween prank gone wrong.Ron Nielson, 50, was setting up the prank with his wife outside their Palm Bay-area home.
While endless debates about the practice of tipping food-service employees rage all over the Internet, most people agree on one thing: if you’re happy with the service you received, you should leave some kind of tip. Some diners at a Kansas Carrabba’s restaurant allegedly made their own exception to that: “unless you disapprove of the server’s personal life.”
A frequent knock against fast food chicken is that it’s dry and overcooked. But a leathery slab of chicken would be preferable to this pink-in-the-middle sandwich some unlucky Wendy’s customer bit into.
KFC’s recently launched Go Cup, which combines the thrill of eating fried foods with the exhilaration of being stuck in traffic on the way home, is just the latest from the attention-seeking food-marketers at Yum! Brands who brought you the Double Down, the Doritos tacos, and cheese on donuts. But Stephen Colbert thinks KFC could still make it even more convenient to clog your arteries while clogging the intersection.
There is a whole lot of funny headed toward Chicago this weekend. [ 
