"ForbesTraveler" news and stories

Each Friday afternoon (or evening), I offer up eight tasty links that have captured my food curiosity. Here are the links for this week!

1. Forbes Traveler has put together a list of what they consider to be the 11 Classic American Dishes. Included on the list are the Philly cheesesteak, pasta primavera and the overstuffed burrito.
2. Have you ever been challenged by the task of pouring the perfect pint of beer? For their feature, You're Doing it Wrong, Chow has put together a video the details all the nuances of the perfect pour.
3. The Illinois Food Bank has laid down a challenge to the residents of their state: Can you eat on just $25 a week? Citizens took on the challenge and respond. Amy, of Cooking with Amy, recently did a similar challenge and blogged her experience.
4. Elise of Simply Recipes reminds her readers how satisfyingly simple it is to make your own vanilla extract.
5. Just in for our current economic crisis! Depression Cooking with Clara! [via Vegan Lunch Box]
6. The Old Foodie ruminates on the history of toast.
7. Dinner with Julie offers up a recipe for bean-fortified oatmeal cookies.
8. Bacon Today lists ten other bacon sites you should be reading.

Well, some of the festivals on this list are only slightly bizarre, but others are really out there.

Last month ForbesTraveler.com brought us a short list of some of the weirdest food festivals from around the country. The grouped the fests into three categories: regional cuisine, the truly bizarre, and those "that focus so intently upon a specific food, however common, that they elevate them to the status of bizarre."

The article was entertaining and informative. It piqued my curiosity: I think I really do want to go to the Road Kill Cook-off in West Virginia (even though they don't allow actual road kill). However, you can keep the Chitlin' Strut (South Carolina) and the Bugfest (North Carolina). Anyone up for the Gilroy Garlic Festival (California)?

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