Tomato soup test tubes. Photo: YumSugar.

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

Between vampire TV shows and movies and Halloween, now is the perfect time for a vampy shindig.

The basics of making the versatile and classic creamy béchamel.

Catfish becomes a Fast & Easy dinner with a quick cornmeal crust.

Floral arrangements can go veggie without a lot of carving talent.

Hmmm ... would you want to push that iconic wedge of lime into a Corona can?

Whiskey Sours get mixed in honor of San Francisco's Whiskey Week.

Do you read while you eat?

When I think of my mom, two things usually don't come to mind: beer and Frank Zappa. Which made it odd earlier this week when I opened an email to find she had sent me the following quote: "You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer."

Now, I'm not a big Zappa fan and have never heard this quote. I'm guessing that puts me in Group A of two possible groups, with Group B consisting of huge Zappa fans who have heard this quote a million times. But the quote did get me thinking that there are a number of countries that I associate with one specific beer. Yes, I realize they have more than one beer, but every time I think of said country, one specific beer immediately pops into mind trumping all others.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying these are the best beers each country has to offer, or even a list of my favorite international beers, but for this week's Slashfood Ate beer edition, I present the 8 countries that through experience and marketing I most associate with one specific beer.

See the list after the jump...

If I say beer with lime, what instantly comes to mind? I bet it's Corona. The Miller Brewing Co. is hoping to change that perspective when it releases its latest product, Miller Chill, to test markets next month. The beer comes complete with salt and lime flavoring (chelada style) already added. Let's be honest, having to bring limes along camping, to a party, or anywhere else where it is inconvenient to cut up little wedges of fruit is a pain, so this should solve that problem nicely. Also, the beer is low-cal, what more could you ask for? I just hope it tastes as good as it sounds.

Hoping the beer will be a hit among the Hispanic population, Miller will begin test marketing next month in a number of states including Arizona, Florida, New Mexico, Texas and parts of California. If anyone has the opportunity to try it, please let us know what you think.

Friday is Cinco de Mayo.  Do you know what that means?

If you replied, "that the Applebee's next to the on-ramp had better pull down all those remaining 'St. Patrick's Day' and 'Kiss Me I'm Irish' streamers," you'd be wrong (although they probably should).

It means that you and your hombre had better go stock up on some cervezas, hermanita.
 
Everybody knows Negra Modelo and Corona, and everybody knows the differences between them: namely, that Negra Modelo is for frat boys, Corona for sorority girls. But here are four very-slightly-off-the-beaten-path options:

Bohemia: The Rey of Beers, this smooth, medium-bodied pilsener has been brewed since 1900. It's named after the famous beer-brewing region of what is now the Czech Republic.

Pacifico: The top-selling beer in Mexico, Pacifico is a pilsner. American travelers to the Baja Peninsula have brought back a fondness for this golden, full-flavored beer.

Tecate: Medium-bodied. Never in bottles. If you're a fan of the can, Tecate (teh-kah-tay) is your beer. 

Dos Equis: A Vienna-style lager. The name translates to "Two X's" or XX. Not to be confused with XXX, that movie with Vin Diesel. Watch XXX only after several Dos Equis.

 

I'm not a big beer drinker. In fact, I'm not a beer drinker, period. Beer has always tasted extremely bitter to me, and I had it in my head that beer is very very bad for the belly (whereas wine and cocktails are diet drinks, right?).

But this weekend, I finally developed a little bit of a taste for beer. I tried several different ones (five to be exact) just to prove to myself that all beers do not, indeed taste like the same nasty dirty dishwasher that I thought. My personal, introductory tasting notes:  

• Tecate and Corona were good, and in LA, these are very familiar beers. I certainly liked the fact that we squeezed lime wedges into them. Without the lime, though, both were just okay. Now that I've tasted it with the lime, I don't think I could drink it plain.
• Samuel Adams was a little too bitter for me and i couldn't finish the bottle without squeezing lime into it. What? Is that wrong? Why can't I squeeze a lime into a Sam Adams?
• Pilsner-Urquell is a beer from the Czech Republic, and I didn't know how to pronounce it. It was even more bitter and stinky than the Sam Adams. I think I am learning that I don't like beers that come in green bottles.
• Granted, I'm years behind most people in the beer drinking evolution, so yes, I am still on what most people start with - Miller Genuine Draft, or as we beer drinkers say, MGD. This was the winner of the weekend and what I will be drinking during the Super Bowl.