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

Cock-a-doodle-doo! Wake up! May 28 is National Coq Au Vin Day.

Coq au vin is a French staple that literally translates to "rooster with wine." It’s a rustic, peasant-style dish that is easy to serve when entertaining because a lot of the work can be done in advance.
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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.

Time for some Angus management - May 28 is National Hamburger Day!

The humble hamburger seems to have had a facelift in recent years. Hamburgers of late feature all sorts of newfangled ideas, like the foie gras burger, Texas toast burger, or donut burger.

Making the ultimate burger is, ultimately, up to you. Ask your local butcher for freshly ground meat, and consider trying a meat blend with a cut like brisket for added flavor and texture. Ideally, you want a patty that will crust up well on the grill, stay juicy and won’t fall apart on you.
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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.

Today's food holiday is in the bag - May 25 is National Brown-Bag-It Day!

If you’re sick of the same old options at your workplace cafeteria, or tired of forking out precious cabbage for lunchtime nosh, consider jumping on the BYOL (bring your own lunch) bandwagon. Not only is brown-bagging it cost-effective, there are a ton of residual positive effects too.
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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.

Zut alors! May 24 is National Escargot Day.

Perhaps it’s better to think of these guys in their French form as opposed to the English translation - snails. Land snails to be exact.

This culinary delicacy is traditionally served with a garlic, cream and white wine sauce, sometimes in the shell. The slippery little suckers are then accompanied by special tongs and a fork used to pry the flesh from their shells.
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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.

Pull out all the stops - May 23 is National Taffy Day!

One of America’s oldest candies has a mildly misleading name - there’s actually no salt water in taffy. Rumor has it, this common misconception started after a candy company on Atlantic City’s boardwalk flooded with sea water. All the candy maker had left to sell was, quite literally, salt-water soaked taffy. The name stuck, much like the candy sticks to your teeth.
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Foie gras: it's French for ‘fatty liver,’ and it's produced by deliberately overfeeding ducks or geese. The birds' livers become enlarged up to ten times their normal size and the result is many a chef’s delight: a rich, creamy delicacy enjoyed the world over. Foie gras can be seared like a steak or smoothed into a pâté, and it's at the center of a major legal flap between California chefs and animal rights activists.

The process of feeding the birds to enlarge their livers is called gavage. The ducks or geese are force-fed more food than they would usually eat, and therein lies the controversy. Opponents claim that the process of force-feeding the fowl is detrimental to their health and well-being. Foie gras enthusiasts argue that ducks and geese, which don't have a gag reflex, are used to swallowing fish whole and putting on weight for migratory flights.

In California, the practice of force-feeding was banned more than 7 years ago, but producers of the delicacy were given a grace period during which they could come up with a more humane way to feed the birds. In fact, the sole producer of foie gras in California endorsed the bill. The grace period is up on June 30. On July 1, it will be illegal in California to sell products that are made as a result of force-feeding animals.
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Parents have many talks with their kids as they grow up. There's the "birds and the bees" talk and the "sharing is caring" talk, or even the "don't be a bully" talk. Now, author Ruby Roth wants parents to have the "If it's too scary to talk about while we're eating, it's too scary to eat" discussion with their children.

Roth is talking about veganism. Like vegetarians, vegans don't eat meat, but they take that philosophy a few steps further. Vegans won't consume or use any products that contain any part of an animal. For example, they don't eat eggs or dairy and won't wear leather.

Her new children's book, "Vegan is Love," is causing quite a stir, with some critics saying she's scaring children into a lifestyle choice that young kids aren't equipped to make.
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Decades ago, homemakers relied on a man in a tidy apron and a necktie to provide the perfect cut of meat for Sunday dinner and a stop at the local butcher shop was part of the regular shopping routine. Over time, grocery stores started offering a similarly packaged cuts and it was the friendly neighborhood meat man who was being cut out.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, year after year, the number of grocery store butchers has grown steadily while the number of specialty store butchers has struggled to add numbers. Last year, there were more than 94,000 butchers working in grocery store chains.

Comparatively, specialty store butchers only accounted for 13,500 jobs that year, but that’s up significantly from 2008, when the economy tanked. Since the economic crisis, specialty store butchers have grown in number at a higher rate than their chain store counterparts. And that’s not including self-employed butchers.
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The national political scene is part of my daily life here at CNN. We monitor the top contenders’ moves hourly and some poor sod has to put together a list of where they’ll be when. I couldn’t help but notice that for today, March 30, there’s a common thread - food.

Eating on the campaign trail can be strategic, with candidates often using local food stops to gain favor with crowds. This is how the top three GOP candidates will be spending their Friday nights:
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Alton Brown follows me on Twitter.

I know, I know, a few of you are probably pretty jealous right now. I like following Alton’s Twitter feed for a few reasons: he has a dry sense of humor, he retweets all the mean things people say about him and he’s interactive with it. People seem to have a love-hate relationship with Brown’s online escapades, and frankly so does he.

He initially joined Twitter to - as Brown puts it - "shut up" his agent, and there have been a few bumps in the road since then. Shortly after, a troll opened an account impersonating his wife, and Brown "had an aneurism."

“I don’t take that kinda crap off of anybody," says Brown - and left Twitter immediately.

Luckily for Food Network's "Good Eats" fans, Twitter was able to woo him back after their team promised to help avoid a repeat.
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