"baklava" news and stories

Seventeen visitors to the Taste of Chicago food festival have become sick, and officials say that several of them are sick from salmonella poisoning.

All of the sick people ate from the same booth at the show, a booth that served grilled lamb and beef, pomegranate barbecued chicken, baklava, and cucumber salad over hummus. They're not sure how the outbreak occurred, since the festival (which showcases foods from 70 restaurants) was under the supervision of the Health Department. Though I think any festival that lasts 10 days and has that many people eating various foods from 70 different places isn't too easy to monitor.

Three of the 17 were hospitalized.

Ah, M&Ms. If you were to name the 10 or 20 classic candies, I'm sure M&Ms would be on that list somewhere. It's a candy we eat as kids and adults, those talking candies are so damn cute in the commercials, we eat them at the movies, and if you haven't heard yet, they melt in your mouth, not in your hand.

The official M&Ms site has a ton of recipes you can make from the little colorful guys. Everything from cookies and cheesecake to brownies and soup. OK, maybe not soup, but seriously, there's a lot of cool snacks here, and they have a handy section of the top 10 recipes.

Whether you spell it baklava or baklawa, the layered dessert of sweetened layers of phyllo dough and nuts is nothing short of delicious. I've always been curious to know the the honey-laden treat's origins, especially since I've eaten it in Greek, Israeli and Turkish spots. But as with most delicacies, I'd rather celebrate it in all its diverse forms than stick to one type.

It seems that Turks and Cypriot Greeks take the pastry a tad more seriously, I read recently in Ya Libnan, a Lebanese newspaper. Turkish producers of the treat take issue with the Greeks' claim to have created it. There was even a protest in Istanbul earlier this week complete with banners reading, "Baklava is Turkish, we will not allow the Greek Cypriots to feed it to the world."

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