Fried chicken. Photo: thebittenword.com, Flickr

• Fried chicken goes international, from Creole to Korean kitchens.
• L.L. Bean heiress Linda L. Bean gets ready to mass market Maine lobsters and end Canadian lobster dependence.
• A look at "Top Chef" hostess Padma Lakshmi's Sunday routine.
• Jewish delis are suffering from waning popularity, and those that are left struggle to keep the meaty magic alive.
• The end of Gourmet magazine after almost 70 years, and those mourning its demise.
• The dangers of E. Coli and pre-ground beef, and the story of Stephanie Smith.
• When cooking becomes boring, A Good Appetite suggests playing "cupboard roulette."
• The Minimalist makes a crustless, Pan-Baked Lemon-Almond Tart.
• Joining old Italian pros as they chop, stew and jar plum tomatoes in prime autumn tradition.
• Cooking with Dexter finally learns the artificial flavor of the fast food beneath the golden arches.
• Rogacki is "a temple devoted" to Berlin deli fare, in West Berlin, Germany.
• Restaurant: After 10 years, Brooklyn's Saul has only gotten better, Queens' Engeline is a rare slice of Filipino fare and the Lower East Side's Ten Bells mixes wine and charcuterie.
• Food Stuff finds R.W. Apple Jr.'s new book, SoHo crepes and Saratoga chips.
• New York's openings and closings and food calendar.

Fried Chicken Photo: thebittenword.com/Flickr

• When you're on the hunt for Southern fried chicken in Boston, check out spots like Highland Kitchen and Summer Shack, or try to make it at home like Virginia's Mildred Rowe -- here's the recipe.
• Rosetta Constantino teaches students about the wonders of fresh, homemade ricotta, and you can make it too.
  
• Not only are rugelach from Babycakes in Boxborough hand-rolled, but 20 percent of their profits go to the Pan-Mass Challenge.
• Looking at one family's party fare, which includes recipes for Chicken Salad and Gluten-Free Lasagna.
• Forget the split -- here's a recipe for Green Pea Soup.
• Um ... pickle juice Popsicles?!
  
• Palmer Vineyards North Fork Pinot Blanc 2007 is but one of several American wines that ring in at $11 and under.
  
• Stuffed Potatoes with Trees and Cheese are catnip for kids -- and thanks to this kids' to-do list, they can help make them.
  
• An interview with Jeri Quinzio, author of "Ice Cream: The Ultimate Cold Comfort."
• If you're looking for a cheap place to eat in Harvard Square, check out Noir, where all food costs under $13.
• Cambridge's Tupelo offers Southern comfort food that elicits a simple yet well-earned "yum."

A good buttermilk biscuit is like a self-effacing nuclear physicist: its humble exterior belies the brilliance it harbors beneath its surface. Based upon that comparison, the biscuit pictured above could win a Nobel Prize -- or at least top honors for World's Best Breakfast Food. Immortalized by SauceSupreme at Flickr, it was made by the amiable gents at Pine State Biscuits in Portland, Ore. The combination of fried chicken, cheddar and scrambled egg is a timeless classic -- as was, one imagines, the sense of satisfaction that followed its consumption.

[Via Flickr]

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• Eric Asimov has discovered that the best, least expensive cabernet savignon you can buy these days is coming out of South Africa.
• Jim Lahey has adapted his world-famous no-knead bread into a tasty pizza crust.
• Glitzy restaurant Daniel has four stars heaped upon it by reviewer Frank Bruni.
• Long gone are the days when a cell phone was simply a device with which to make calls. Now your phone can even help you plan dinner.
• The Minimalist makes weeknight fried chicken that is light on work and heavy on flavor.
• Explore South American without ever leaving New York City by visiting some of these restaurants.
• In preparation for his newest restaurant, chef Donald Link has converted a storage closet into a sausage room.
• Hurricane Katrina wrecked colossal havoc when it hit the Gulf area in 2005. There's a new cookbook out called Cooking Up A Storm that's goal is to help people recover some of the recipes they lost in the storm.
• Instead of roasting them whole, try peeling and chopping beets prior to cooking for a quick prep that doesn't stain your fingers.
• Who should be cooking at the White House and what should the first family be eating?

I didn't grow up eating fried chicken. My mom was always more of a baked chicken kind of person (she liked to keep things as healthy as possible). In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times in life I've eaten friend chicken. And to be honest, I've never made it myself. And yet, I find it fascinating and totally hypnotic. I love the idea of good fried chicken and aspire to one day giving it a try in my kitchen.

The guys at The Bitten Word have no fried chicken fear and recently whipped up not one, but two batches of the stuff. They put Clay's mom's fried chicken up against Thomas Keller's recipe and invited a whole bunch of friends over to help them with the taste test. Clay's mom's recipe was the winner, mostly for its classic taste and super crispy skin. Sounds delicious!

When most people look at commercials for Klondike bars, I imagine that they see silly people doing fun, wacky things in return for yummy ice cream treats. Personally, I see cruelty, torture, and the dark side of addiction. Hunger is a harsh mistress; luckily, I've never been placed in a situation where I've had to do something embarrassing or illegal to get fed. To my shame, I have to admit that, under the right circumstances, I would probably humiliate myself for a Klondike bar. If the reward was a nice crême brûlée, there's no doubt: all bets would be off.

Because of this moral shortcoming, I can, to some extent, understand Tremayne Durham. A Brooklyn thug who was being held in an Oregon courthouse, Durham recently admitted that he did, indeed, kill a man in cold blood over a failed business deal. In return for his candor, he's probably facing life imprisonment.

What caused Durham to admit to his wrongdoing? Was it depression, guilt, a need for forgiveness, the first step on the road to redemption? No, Durham plead guilty to aggravated murder in return for a gargantuan fast-food feast. He received a bucket of KFC chicken, a bucket of Popeye's chicken, a serving of mashed potatoes, a serving of coleslaw, a slice of carrot cake, a pizza, two calzones, a tray of lasagna and a bucket of ice cream. The entire proceeding cost the state of Oregon a mere $41.70.

As Durham discovers that justice is sometimes served with a side of cole slaw, I'm going to start taking the idea of fast food addiction a lot more seriously...

The playful antics of the rats at a Taco Bell-KFC restaurant in New York City's Greenwich Village have probably seen more ink than Taco Bell's recent E. coli outbreak. Their performance has certainly garnered tons of local TV news coverage and as of this writing has more than 800 hits on YouTube.

The good folks over at The Scoop over on the NRN Foodservice Blog reported on the story behind the story the other day via an exclusive interview with the leader of the Taco Bell rats. And quite a scoop it was. They managed to catch the leader before his appearance on Conan later that night. Among the revelations from the interview is the fact that the rats' celebrity like that of most stars was no easy task. They'd been practicing their dance moves for more than two months starting with when they were discovered by the city's Health Department in December.

As one might imagine, the leader describes living in the restaurant as a paradise chock-full of tacos and fried chicken. And he offers up a theory as to why the Health Department allowed the fast-food joint to continue to operate even though a troupe of performing rats had set up shop. They're just too busy with important matters like protecting the public from the trans-fat menace. Never let it be said that New York City doesn't support the arts.

A while back I wrote about snacking on Korean "Fried Chicken," a junk food that has as much to do with fried chicken as Pocky does with Belgian chocolate. After reading about yang-nyum tong dak, or actual Korean fried chicken, I set out to try some. I'd heard of this legendary beer snack and had been meaning to sample some for years, but most places were a little too out of the way. That is until Unidentified Flying Chickens landed practically in my backyard. This hip ultramodern space knows its bird. I ordered up six hot and six soy-garlic wings and was amazed by the delicate crunchy skin.

By now you're wondering what all this has to do with a Midnight Snack. Good question. It's simple. About 12 hours after lunch, I put UFC's chicken to the ultimate test: eating it cold. Not only was it still crunchy, I think the sauce might have had even more of a chance to flavorize those alien chicken wings.
(Unidentified Flying Chickens, 71-22 Roosevelt Ave., Jackson Heights, N.Y., (718) 205-6662)

A scant two days after New York City became the first U.S. city to ban trans-fats in restaurant cooking, chefs were scrambling to test alternatives. Well, at least one chef was to my knowledge.

Yesterday's New York Times had an article detailing Chef Michael S. Schwartz's test of using Crisco, coconut oil, canola oil, peanut oil, butter and lard in baking and frying. The experiment took place at the Institute of Culinary Education, where Schwartz is an instructor. The dishes tested were tarte Tatin, the venerable French apple tart; French fries and fried chicken. Crisco was the only ingredient with a trans-fat content that breaks the city's new rules. Just as Chef Schwartz predicted, Crisco produced a tart with the flakiest crust. Meanwhile, the tart baked with butter had a firmer crust that was judged inferior. The tarte Tatin made with coconut oil was deemed tasty, but its crust was lumpy and crumbly.

And what of those two dishes so dear to the heart of every fried food lover you ask? French fries made with coconut oil were tasty, but limp. As for those fried in the dreaded Crisco, they were, you guessed it, crispier. As for the fried chicken, all varieties tasted great, regardless of whether they used trans-fats. This result comes as a great relief to me and the legions of fans of Charles Gabriel the fried chicken genius of Harlem.

What Fried How?

"I could really go for some chicken fried chicken right now."

"Huh?"

"You know!  Chicken fried chicken."

I recently had this exchange exact with Hannah Pandolph, a Texan friend of mine.  You can guess who said the incredulous "huh?"  Even us Yankees love and indulge in fried chicken, but chicken fried chicken?  How is a chicken fried any way other than in the manner of a chicken?

"There's also chicken friend steak," Hannah piped.

Motivated by the new rotisserie and fried chicken takeout spot from Alison Vines-Rushing and Slade Rushing (formerly of Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar) called Dirty Bird To Go, the Village Voice did a blind taste test to see if Dirty Bird's claims of "an exciting alternative to conventional fast food to satisfy families and foodies alike" were accurate. Dirty Bird went up against the real dirty birds, KFC and Popeye's.

Dirty Bird won for surviving travel, maintaining its crunch, and having the moistest, best tasting meat. However, taste-testers were disappointed with seasonings.

KFC was found to be the greasiest and least crispy of the three. Popeye's was reported as "trashy, delicious chicken. The flesh is shiny with fat, the fried shell puffy and golden brown." One of the taste-testers hypothesized that perhaps there was some sort of addictive chemical added to the chicken.

Who cares about the chicken? I could eat a dozen of Popeye's buttermilk biscuits, which I am quite certain they deep fry right alongside their chicken.