"Eat Me Daily" news and stories

We told you Thursday about the seven-patty Burger King Windows 7 Whopper, but now you can see the price of eating this special one-week-only promotion to celebrate the launch of Microsoft Windows 7 in Japan.

CheapAssGamer bought two of the burgers in Akihabara, Japan, and did their best to down 'em. Check it out in the video above.

[CheapAssGamer via Eat Me Daily]

Jamie Oliver, five ways. Image: JamieOliver.com.

Jamie Oliver: cowboy, sailor, Native American, construction worker, biker ... or chef?

Eat Me Daily pointed us to this can't-look-away video of the culinary celeb -- whose show "Jamie's American Road Trip" will bring him stateside this fall -- dancing as each of the different Village People... to a Village People soundtrack, of course.

It's a mesmerizing montage in which the chef known for his boyish charm reveals that he has perhaps not quite as broad a repertoire on the dance floor as in the kitchen, but it's still a grand departure from Monday afternoon tedium. Indeed, this promo video boasts much more joie de vivre than the rather staid description on JamieOliver.com: "Jamie delves deep into the social issues and diverse cultures of 21st century America."

Whatever. More dancing, please.

Episodes may crop up online on this side of the pond soon, but for those on vacay in the U.K., it's airing at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 1. Now we're going to go watch that video again, as it is mightily addictive (almost as much as his recipe for monkfish skewers wrapped in pancetta -- maybe even more so).

[JamieOliver.com via Eat Me Daily]

New York Times and coffee. Photo: The Nickster, Flickr

We reported back in May, along with the rest of the food blogosphere, that Frank Bruni, dining critic for the New York Times, was departing his beat as perhaps the most powerful journalist in the national restaurant scene.

Blogs like Eater, Grub Street and Gawker covered the departure obsessively, and their sadness at the departure of the man some called the Brunz -- or when feeling particularly tender, "King Brunz" -- was palpable.

Now Sam Sifton has stepped into the spotlight and, as editor Bill Keller's memo notes, up to the treadmill. (Bruni wrote about his rigorous workout routine for Men's Vogue). Food writers are already apoplectic about the newcomer: Eater has given the casual "Sifty" a shot, whereas Gawker is far more interested in finding a proper costume for the not-at-all-anonymous Sifton, who has long been the Gray Lady's Culture Editor. No doubt the suggestions of Gawker commenters, which range from Harry Potter to Lenny Dykstra to Anna Wintour, will prove helpful to the new critic.

As per the departure of the Brunificent One, his photo was released to the public this week. Gael Greene quickly tweeted, "Would you trade in your clunker and buy a new car from this man?" Eat Me Daily -- to hilarious effect -- delivered at once.

Looking back across the years, there are a lot of things that I remember fondly about Boy Scout camp. Food, however, is not one of them. While servings were plentiful, they were also clearly designed to save money and, even at the age of ten, I could tell that the powdered eggs, watery Kool-Aid (aka "bug juice"), and gristly burgers were only a small step up from prison chow. Over the course of the week, I used to load up on the occasionally palatable entree, but usually relied on bread, butter, and fruit to get me through.

While many of the dishes at Camp Rock Enon represented the culinary arts version of crimes against humanity, the worst, by far, was the fake bacon. Designed to resemble weather stripping, it was clearly artificial, with stripes that looked like they were painted on by Willy Wonka's employees and a scent that tried to approximate pork, but was actually redolent of a chemistry set. The "fakie bakie" was so bad that it actually turned my campmates and I off the real thing. I don't know what everybody else did with their pseudo-bacon, but my buddies and I used it in a collection of initiation games that bordered on cruel and unusual punishment.

It's been a few decades, and I'd almost completely forgotten about the utter horror of camp bacon. However, I happened across Eat Me Daily's review of Morningstar Farms' Bacon Strips and, in an instant, I was hurtled back to my childhood bacon hell. Basically, it seems like they've found the same hellish junk that still haunts my nightmares. On the bright side, the writer managed to perfectly capture the revulsion that this stuff evoked in me; this is nice because, although I have been forced to relive a terrifying period in my life, I am comforted by the knowledge that I am not alone.