"Everyone in this thread: This is not hard. Go to your local store in the frozen section. You should see: lima beans, baby lima beans. PICK THE LATTER. Trust me on this. Always choose baby lima beans. Now take them home.

"Put the beans in a pot and add water to cover by about an inch. If you are making the average-sized bag, take a third of a stick of REAL butter and add it to the pot. For more beans, use your best judgment about more butter. Turn the heat on to high, and add about 1tsp of salt (2tsp if using unsalted butter). Once the butter is melted and the water is boiling, turn it down as low as you can get it without turning it off, and leave it for at least an hour. Come back and stir every so often, adding more water if you find a good bit of it has evaporated. When the beans are quite tender, use a slotted spoon to transfer them to a bowl and eat as much as you like."

"This ought to get you started on your lima bean journey. As for Brussels sprouts, just get them young and tender and steam, then serve with plenty of garlic lemon butter." - attagirl

5@5 is a daily, food-related list from chefs, writers, political pundits, musicians, actors, and all manner of opinionated people from around the globe.

You may recognize the gentleman above as the the high-energy, fedora-sporting chef from Season 3 of Bravo’s ever-popular “Top Chef" series,  where Brian Malarkey ultimately advanced to the finale.

After holding several positions under French chef Michel Richard and earning more than 60 industry awards as Executive Chef at San Diego's The Oceanaire, Malarkey will open up his very first restaurant, Searsucker, in San Diego, California, this summer.

But before all this chef business, Malarkey was a boy on a horse ranch in Bend, Oregon, spending summers on the coast and time in the kitchen with his grandmother - where she was often joined by her old friend, James Beard (who, might we add, is a good friend to have).

In the spirit of this childhood, Malarkey shares what ingredients taught him to love food.

Top 5 Most Inspiring Foods: Brian Malarkey

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Every weekday, we're highlighting a 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 blogger and blog:
Who: Tovar Cerulli, of A Mindful Carnivore
Where: Marshfield, Vermont
Twitter: @TovarCerulli

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Hurlock, Maryland (CNN)- Surrounded by cornfields and a chicken farm in rural Maryland sits the possible future of shrimping in the US.

“Bringing it indoors, making it 100% re-circulating, we were able to move the facility off of the coastline to middle America, farm country,” says Marvesta Shrimp co-founder Scott Fritze, pointing to one of sixteen large tanks filled with partial-salt water and thousands of shrimp. “There were no limitations from a geographic standpoint anymore [on] where you could build these.”
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Baby, it's HOT outside!

Ice pop vendors are taking over the streets of major cities, the ice cream truck's siren song is luring languid kids out into the noonday sun and even pandas are getting into the icy act.

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

• A group of divers have found 30 bottles of the 'world's oldest champagne' on the Baltic seabed. The champagne is thought to pre-date the French Revolution. Santé! - BBC News

• Sir Paul McCartney on being vegetarian. All you need is vegetables. - The Guardian

• Drinking raw milk might be worth the risk. - NPR

• Fishing families in the Gulf are turning to "grind meats" for protein, after being unable to afford the fish they used to get for free. - AP

• McDonald's has cancelled its free smoothie promotion, citing that the new line of drinks is already selling well enough. - Nation's Restaurant News

Previously – see how the King of Pops went from AIG analyst to premium pop pusher

Ice pops are, well, popping up all around the US this summer. Suddenly, the coolest food item is also the trendiest.

Atlanta residents got their first hint of the impending wave during the chillier months of the year. At a busy intersection a mural appeared, depicting one large ice pop above the masses. Food blogs were a-twitter about the freezer treats Atlantans would be enjoying in the coming months.

Now, with local temperatures already reaching epic levels, not one, but two ice pop vendors are hawking their icy treats, delighting sweltering food fiends all over town.
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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.

On July 19, let your inner Ernest Hemingway take over: it's National Daiquiri Day.

Legend goes that at the turn of the 20th Century, Jennings Cox, an American mining engineer, found himself working in the iron mine town of Daiquiri on the coast of Cuba. When he ran out of gin while hosting some fellow Americans, Cox invented the daiquiri by mixing together the only ingredients he could find: rum, sugar, and lime juice.

Ever since then, variations of that alcoholic concoction (and those little drink umbrellas) have popped up on bar menus all over the map - toting the name "daiquiri" after its city of invention.

As it turns out, all's well that blends well.

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Kids say the darndest things. As it turns out, so do parents - especially when it comes to getting their progeny to pick cauliflower over cupcakes.

The truth is, many parents tell big, fat food fibs to get their kids to eat their fruits and veggies and avoid sugary snacks. It's out of love, we know, we know. Still, we remain somewhat unconvinced that they didn't believe some of their foodie fabrications, too.

We solicited our colleagues' and friends' best food-centric tales of Pinocchio parenting, and now, we're calling them out.

(Please don't ground us.)
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