Talk about your potted pork! Bucking Boars Ranch, a longtime vendor at Seattle's Pike Place market is now selling meat from pigs that have been fed with marijuana plants.
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At holiday time, food pantries abound with donations from big-hearted, charity-minded citizens. The rest of the year can be a lot leaner.

But that doesn't stop the 460,000 people (including 178,000 children) in the Maryland Food Bank's service area from needing to eat for the other 11 months of the year. To call attention to the shortfall, the group teamed with local architecture firms to create eye-catching sculptures out of stacked cans of food. The results are currently on display at a popular shopping mall as part of the AIA Baltimore 2013 Canstruction design competition.
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Many locals experience a shock the first time they visit Liu Yang’s shop: they’ve never seen something quite like this before.

Some just pass by, merely peeking in the windows of his tiny, two room workshop.

“I think some people before they come by prepare themselves psychologically,” says Yang. “Maybe they’ll come back, maybe they won’t. We won’t get disappointed because of this. Most Chinese people are not used to cheese culture.”
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Chefs with Issues is a platform for chefs and farmers we love, fired up for causes about which they're passionate. Allison Robicelli is the co-owner (with her husband Matt) of Robicelli's, an award-winning cupcake business in New York City, and author of the upcoming "Robicelli's: A Love Story, with Cupcakes." Follow her on Twitter @robicellis.

My husband and I lost our first business in the fall of 2009. There were a billion contributing factors: a collapsing economy, a rent hike, a horrific family tragedy and a crumbling marriage that needed to be saved. Talking about it four years later seems like a trivial footnote in our story - some sort of inciting plot device that occurred offstage, scarcely remembered by the time the curtains closed. They hustled, they persevered, they became Q-list food celebrities and they all lived happily ever after.

No matter how far into the story we get, like a broken bone that never quite heals, I can still feel those initial moments of fallout as if they were yesterday: the fear of truly having lost it all; the jarring realization that in an instant, everything we had built may be gone forever and we might not not be strong enough to rebuild. I recall looking at my children and wondering how we let this happen, if we could have prevented it and how we can protect them when we couldn’t even protect ourselves.

It was worse than terror; it was a life without hope. A life I thought of ending more than once.

While we survived, I have been unable to purge the memory of what I felt in those months. The feeling rose again and turned into empathy in the days after Superstorm Sandy, and again this week watching a tornado destroy Moore, Oklahoma.
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While you're frying up some eggs and bacon, we're cooking up something else: a way to celebrate today's food holiday.

Sometimes getting back to the basics is just what we need - especially in the middle of a long week. Vanilla pudding is the perfect antidote to the mid-week doldrums: it’s simple, easy to make, but satisfying as all get-out.

Sure, you could make your pudding with eggs. You could separate them, whisk them until smooth and then temper them into a perfectly thickened custard. You could definitely do all that...or you could use a little cornstarch and save yourself some time (and eggs).
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We are utterly thrilled when readers want to hang out and talk – whether it's amongst themselves or in response to pieces we've posted. We want Eatocracy to be a cozy, spirited online home for those who find their way here.
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This is the thirteenth installment of "Eat This List" - a regularly recurring list of things chefs, farmers, writers and other food experts think you ought to know about.

Everybody eats. We may all come from different places, belief systems, political affiliations and football divisions, but at least once a day, every last one of us puts food into our bodies to fuel us for the road ahead.

We also all suffer loss, both on a global scale and in the gut. At times like these, eating might seem like the least important, most impossible task on the planet, but it can feed so much more than the stomach.

A shared meal, a dropped-off plate of cookies or a raised glass can add a much-needed note of normalcy in an overwhelming time. As groups like Operation BBQ Relief and Team Rubicon speed toward Moore, Oklahoma to feed and assist tornado victims, here are eight stories of times when food helped people find a little bit of respite in a world turned upside town.
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Despite unemployment being close to 12%, Italians are snubbing traditional jobs like pizza-making.

While you're frying up some eggs and bacon, we're cooking up something else: a way to celebrate today's food holiday.

Mmmm...dreamy. May 21 is National Strawberries and Cream Day!

How could we forget one of the most obvious uses for all those strawberries you’ve been picking? We speak of course, of strawberries and cream.

The beauty of the dessert lies in its simplicity – it really is just strawberries and thickened cream. Kitchen types aren’t known for leaving well enough alone, so there are a few ways to dress up this basic dessert.
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Previously on Parts Unknown:
Breakfast in Libya
iReport: In Morocco, eating is the spice of life
O Canada! Our home and delicious land
Colombian cuisine – from aguardiente to viche
The ever-changing flavor of L.A.'s Koreatown
Fall in love with Myanmar's cuisine