Every weekday, we're highlighting a local or regional blogger we think you ought to know about. We can’t be everywhere at once, so we look to these passionate eaters, cooks and writers to keep us tapped into every facet of the food world. Consider this a way to get to know a blog’s taste buds, because, well, you should.

Meet today's featured bloggers and blog:
Who: Mardi Michels, of eat. live. travel. write.
Where: Toronto, Canada
Twitter: @eatlivtravwrite

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Sink your teeth into today's top stories from around the globe.

• Due to possible health risks to consumers, the Food and Drug Administration is urging for less antibiotics in meat. - Los Angeles Times

• Sarah Palin's Alaskan hometown is entering into the oh-so-lucrative salmon-flavored vodka business. - AP

• The National Pork Board sent nerdy website ThinkGeek a cease-and-desist letter after marketing canned unicorn meat as "the other white meat." - New York Times

• Move over, Homer Simpson. Brew-swilling females are often more in tune with the flavors in beer. - Wall Street Journal

Famed New Orleans chef Susan Spicer is suing BP on behalf of at least seven restaurant owners and seafood suppliers, claiming that the Gulf oil spill has damaged their businesses.

“I’m proud to be part of a resilient community,” she said. “I also feel strongly that [BP] needs to be held accountable for its negligence.”

Spicer is an icon in the food world. She’s been a Top Chef judge, a James Beard “Best Chef” winner and even inspired a character featured in the HBO’s series Treme, a drama about New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

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Every so often, we'll share short passages from works of fiction that have sent us scrambling kitchen-ward.

"There was a jug of creamy milk for the children (Mr. Beaver stuck to beer) and a great big lump of deep yellow butter in the middle of the table from which everyone took as much as he wanted to go with his potatoes, and all the children thought - and I agree with them - that there's nothing to beat good freshwater fish if you eat it when it has been alive half an hour ago and has come out of the pan half a minute ago. And when they had finished the fish Mrs. Beaver brought unexpectedly out of the oven a great and gloriously sticky marmalade roll, steaming hot, and at the same time moved the kettle onto the fire so that when they had finished the marmalade roll the tea was made and ready to be poured out. And when each person had got his (or her) cup of tea, each person shoved back his (or her) stool so as to be able to lean against the wall and gave a long sigh of contentment." - 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' by C.S. Lewis (1950)

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iReporter Chris Morrow caught up with former Top Chef contestant and soon-to-be Searsucker chef Brian Malarkey at San Diego's Taste of the Nation.

Share Our Strength's cross-country series of Taste of the Nation events bring local chefs and mixologists together to raise money to end childhood hunger in America.

Watch the always entertaining Mr. Malarkey on iReport

Eatcyclopedia is our ever-expanding glossary of food terms, and we'll be highlighting a term from it each weekday. The entries include definitions and, where applicable, pronunciations and country of origin - all spelling bee competitor style. Want us this use it in a sentence? Okay, here goes.

Use: Aspic gets such a bum rap; more people would likely eat it if it were marketed as elegant Jell-O.

Read the full entry for "aspic."

Short video after the jump.
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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 and the most delicious finds on TV.

Almond Butter Crunch Day is a national holiday best described by exclamatory words: Crunchy! Buttery! Chocolatey! Candy!

As if the traditional buttery-sugary-salty(!) mass o' toffee simply won't do - why the heck not cover it in chocolate? And while you're at it: why the heck not roll it in crushed almonds?

Christmas in July came a few June days early.

What's on TV?

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On Day 1, burgers and beer blew past competition like ribs, steak, lemonade and cola to win your favor as most fabulous 4th of July main dishes* and drinks. Now sides are in the hot seat.

(*We sincerely regret the non-inclusion of brats & were properly told off for our omission in the comments.)

Round 1: Main dishes & drinks
Round 2: Hot and cold sides
Round 3: Toppings and level of doneness
Round 4: Desserts

See all our best grilling advice at Grilling 101

Hankering for a hunk of lethal lunchmeat? These Indonesian snake butchers are harvesting cobras for local eateries. We're holding out for boa burgers and copperhead calzones.

Read the FULL STORY

The Heirloom Recipe Index exists to make your Grandma (or great uncle, or second cousin on your mother's side) a superstar and preserve their kitchen legacy.

Hosting your first dinner party is nothing short of a knee-buckling, nerve-wracking ordeal - a step into adulthood that our inner footie-pajamaed child often stridently resists.

When that time came for Indian-born Sobhana Venkatesan nearly 25 years ago, she got by with a little help from her friend's scribbled kulfi recipe.

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