Meet The Writers / Hanna Raskin

Kentucky Fried Chicken is offering $500 worth of grilled chicken in exchange for information leading to the safe return of a missing Colonel Sanders bust.

The 24-inch bronze bust vanished from a Berea, Ky., KFC just before closing time on Jan. 31.

"There were three men in the restaurant, and the employee went to the kitchen," spokesman Rick Maynard recounted. "When she returned, the three men and the Colonel had flown the coop."

The bust has graced the restaurant's dining room since the 1970s, making the outlet one of the few to house expensive KFC-related art. According to Maynard, the bust – depicting a jolly Sanders in his "trademark glasses and string tie" – is worth $1,500.

"Folks who frequent the restaurant kind of miss it," Maynard says. "I think it's been replaced with a potted plant."

Mississippi's peanut production has sprouted so significantly over the last decade that the state's growers association last month generated $100,000 to send three truckloads of peanut butter to Haiti.

"Peanut butter is the perfect food in a situation like this," the association's executive director, Malcolm Broome, explained in a release. "Peanut butter is portable, nonperishable and a very good source of protein."

Not long ago, a few trucks could have held the state's entire peanut crop. A strict quota system kept Mississippi's farmers from planting the legume that's long been a staple of Georgia and Virginia fields. Since the quota was lifted in 2002, Mississippi's peanut acreage has surged from 2,000 to 20,000, with production increasing every year but one, when weather got in the way.

"We've had a lot of people really interested in peanuts," says Mike Howell, area agronomist for Mississippi State University's extension service.

A Minnesota native is challenging the accepted orthodoxy surrounding Mardi Gras moon pie throws in Mobile, Ala.

While the city's Chamber of Commerce insists the tradition is rooted in a group of Mobile mothers' concerns for the safety of their children, who were getting beaned by sharp-edged Cracker Jack boxes, researcher Emily Blejwas counters there's no evidence suggesting a bunch of well-meaning women introduced the soft, round cookies.

"I've heard several different stories," says Blejwas, a recent Auburn grad who's writing a book about Alabama food history. But most of the stories have the same punch line, she adds: "Everyone I talked to said, 'After I threw a moon pie, the next year, everybody threw them.' "

Younger Mobilians tell the story with a slightly different twist, says Blejwas: "They say, 'For sure, my dad threw the first pie. That's a fact.' "

What did it mean to be going steady in 1948? On Valentine's Day, it might have meant snuggling up to your sweetheart in the front seat of a two-tone Pontiac, listening to Dinah Shore on the radio and opening an embroidered cardboard box from Schraft's to reveal a massive pound cake painted with pink-and-white frosting.

Wrapping up one's affections in a heart-shaped box tied with a big red bow has been common Valentine's Day practice since the late 19th century, but chocolate's a relatively recent addition to the love-struck holiday scene. Before the advent of affordable, mass-produced chocolate treats, most celebrants made do with an array of other sugary confections, including marshmallows, candied cashews, jellied fruit, honey glycerin drops, butterscotch chips, coconut strips, caramels, toffee and pound cakes.

"Boxes of sweetness will sell whether they are advertised or not," a New York Times marketing columnist decreed in 1965, summarizing the inseparability of sweet treats and Valentine's Day.

Tipping may be contentious, but it's generally not too complicated. Most diners today are in the habit of adding at least 15 percent to their bills for the luxury of not having to pour their own drinks, fetch their food from the kitchen or clear their table at the end of their meal.

But even practiced tippers continue to struggle with what may very well be the most complex tipping quandary for restaurant-goers: Should one tip on takeout?

Here's why the problem's so advanced: It forces the customer to evaluate what's happening behind the scenes, a tricky proposition even for seasoned industry insiders. Since no server is going to bore you with the details of how your order was taken, placed, boxed and bagged, it's up to you to figure out whether anything tip-worthy transpired.

Tip-haters will be delighted to know I don't think there's generally anything wrong with skipping the tip on a to-go order. My fellow servers and I expect to be tipped on things like knowing the menu, anticipating diners' needs and keeping the dining room spotless – all of which are irrelevant in a take-out situation. While I'm quite sure there isn't a server anywhere who'd turn down a tip, few servers plan to get rich handing bags to customers.