No one can resist Pete Schweddy's balls.

The seasonal treat was first made iconic in the Saturday Night Live skit by Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon as hosts of NPR's fictional program "Delicious Dish," and Alec Baldwin as guest Pete Schweddy – the owner of holiday confectionary company Season's Eatings that specialized in spherical sweets.

Now, after thirteen years, you too can be a sucker for Mr. Schweddy's misshapen, glistening balls - so long as you don't mind them frozen.
FULL POST

Unless you’re grinding peanuts into butter and emulsifying egg yolks into mayonnaise at home, Einav Gefen has probably touched your food in some way.

Since 2008, 39-year-old Gefen has acted as corporate chef at Unilever in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

Unilever is one of the world's leading consumer product companies, encompassing more than 400 brands including such pantry, refrigerator and freezer mainstays as Ben & Jerry’s, Bertolli, Lipton, Breyers, Skippy Peanut Butter, Ragú, Hellmann's, Knorr and Wish-Bone.

Having spaghetti and dumped on a jar of Ragú pasta sauce? Thank Gefen. Cooled down in the summer with a Popsicle®? That’s her team’s doing too. Worldwide, the corporation has close to a 50 percent share of the global grocery market and invests nearly $1 billion every year in research and development – including in the edible category with Gefen as top chef.
FULL POST

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.

Nate Whiting is the executive chef of Tristan restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina. He's also one of dried pastas biggest advocates - a 'fresh is always best' naysayer, if you will - and serves it every day at his restaurant in dishes like spaghetti with English peas, morel mushrooms, pickled ramps, thyme and oregano.

"These days the use of dried pasta in professional American kitchens is almost always looked down upon, which has trickled down to home cooks as well," said Whiting.

"Now, most self-respecting chefs consider it a short-cut. Dried pasta is thought of as bulk and infinitely inferior to its fresh cousin. However, I think it is one of the most misunderstood ingredients in the country. I think people just need to learn some of the nuances and how to use it correctly."

Five Things You Should Know About Dried Pasta: Nate Whiting
FULL POST

Devna Shukla works on CNN's AC360° and co-edits Eatocracy's Fame Bites series. She really, REALLY loves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Candace Nelson is the founder and pastry chef of Beverly Hills-based Sprinkles Cupcakes, and a judge on Food Network's "Cupcake Wars."

We visited with Nelson at the opening of her first New York City outpost to discuss the Oprah effect, what's next and how to beat the "just another cupcake shop" rap.
FULL POST

Read more about 'Man Cans' on WCMH.com.

It's not enough to fizz with carbonation and taste sweet.

For years, drinks have been infused with promises of electrolytes, caffeine and instant energy. But now, some sodas and other concoctions are offering the opposite of Red Bulls and Four Lokos - they slow things down.

As more sedating sodas enter the market, some beverage makers have taken relaxation to another level by producing sodas laced with marijuana or ingredients to mimic that drug.

"Everyone is looking for some effect somewhere," said Dr. Matthew Seamon, assistant professor in the College of Pharmacy at Nova Southeastern University.

Beverages such as Malava Novocaine, Drank, Unwind, Mary Jane's Relaxing Soda and Slow Cow (sold in Canada) are marketed as helping people unwind.

Read the rest of "Anti-energy drinks: Relaxation in a can""on CNN Health.

Four Loko - no way you'd have any of that nasty stuff around. First of all, how would you? The sale of the caffeinated malt beverage has been banned in communities around the country. It's been said to cause hallucinations and blackouts, has driven a New York assemblyman to come thisclose to ralphing on camera, and plus? It's just kinda vile-tasting - like "mildly offensive...puréed gummi bears," per our associate editor.

You should not make your Christmas cookies with it.
FULL POST

Disclaimer: No editors were harmed in the making of this blog post. ... Except maybe their egos.

In the name of journalism and science, I - or more specifically, my liver - am taking one for the team.

Wednesday afternoon, the Food and Drug Administration announced the results of its safety review of caffeinated alcohol drinks, and whether or not to ban them. The announcement came with increasing pressure after a media firestorm erupted in October because nine students at Central Washington University were hospitalized after consuming the caffeinated alcoholic beverage, Four Loko.

According to the the CNN Wire Staff:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration told the manufacturers of seven caffeinated alcoholic beverages Wednesday that their drinks are a "public health concern" and can't stay on the market in their current form.

"FDA does not find support for the claim that the addition of caffeine to these alcoholic beverages is 'generally recognized as safe,' which is the legal standard," Sharfstein told reporters. "To the contrary, there is evidence that the combinations of caffeine and alcohol in these products pose a public health concern."

Thus far, Michigan, Oklahoma, New York, Washington and Utah have taken action to remove the drink from state stores. Eatocracy's own home base of New York will stop receiving shipments of the controversial "blackout in a can" on December 10.

With the impending Food and Drug Administration ban, Phusion Products, the beverage company behind Four Loko released the following statement late Tuesday evening:

Phusion Projects today announced the company’s intent to reformulate its products to remove caffeine, guarana and taurine nationwide, saying it has taken the necessary steps to do so and is informing its employees and distributors of the plans. Going forward, Phusion will produce only non-caffeinated versions of Four Loko.

FULL POST

When President Obama commented that the Republicans were standing around drinking Slurpees while the Democrats were busy creating real change in Washington, it caused quite a storm. Now that he's sitting down with the new Republican leadership this week, the so-called "Slurpee Summit" is the talk of the nation.

While most of us have had one of 7-Eleven's frozen concoctions, there's plenty more you probably don't know about this too cool drink.

Read the entire COOL HISTORY OF THE SLURPEE from Mental Floss.

It may not be as all-American as apple pie, but for most, the holidays wouldn’t be the same without that other uniquely American treat - pumpkin pie.

But a wet summer and record rainfall in the central United States last year made that traditional dessert a lot harder to come by.

Suffering from three years of bad weather and low yields, canned pumpkin was getting scarce on many supermarket shelves, forcing pie bakers to scramble for the remaining cans, sometimes buying and selling them at inflated prices on eBay or trying to find a substitution for the orange “super food.”

“It’s been a difficult year,” says Evan Lunde, Marketing Manager for Libby’s Pumpkin. Libby’s Pumpkin, owned by Nestlé, grows and processes around ninety-five percent of all the canned pumpkin in the U.S.
FULL POST