When I was a kid, a Hungarian restaurant opened in my neighborhood. As this was the seventies, and my family lived in the culinary wasteland of Northern Virginia, every new eatery was an occasion for celebration. Consequently, the mood was high as my parents took my sisters and I to consume levesek, paprikas, and other delicacies. Unfortunately, my father felt obliged to give me a bite of his appetizer, which involved smooth meaty sausage-ish things. They tasted yummy, but when my father told me where they came from, my appetite evaporated.

In the years since, I've often regretted that I didn't take more time to savor the testicle dish that my father saw fit to share with me. The Hungarian joint only stayed open for a few months, and "prairie oysters" are not particularly common in American restaurants. To my knowledge, I haven't eaten any testicles since that evening, although I've long since developed both the taste and the bal...um...the intestinal fortitude necessary to try the dish.

With this in mind, I was particularly interested in the World Testicle Cooking Championship, a yearly event that is held in Belgrade, Serbia. Boasting chefs from around the world, the Championship highlights the latest discoveries and advances in testicle cooking. Recently, in fact, Australia caused quite a bit of a stir when it bragged about the culinary charms of kangaroo testicles yet failed to field a cooking team. Apparently, testicle cookery is not for the faint of heart!

Barring a sudden influx of money, I probably won't be going to the Championship any time soon, but Ljubomir Erovic, a renowned testicle chef, has recently released Cooking with Balls, an e-cookbook devoted to testicle cooking. Featuring recipes for testicle pizza, testicles [sic] pie, and barbecued testicles, the book also has some pretty hair-raising illustrations. Seriously, one video that demonstrated how to "peel" testicles made me a little light headed. That having been said, maybe I should leave the preparation to a professional. Now, if I can only find a good testicle joint...

Törley Brut from Budapest, Hungary is a Száraz (Dry) sparkling wine of 12% abv.

I was delightfully surprised to find that Törley Brut has much the same flavors as traditional French Champagnes, with toasty notes and hints of light fruit such as peach, pear, and lemon zest.

Törley makes the best of Hungary's sparkling wines, a country that isn't always well known for its wines, except for its Tokaji Azsu dessert wines. It's a shame because they make some very nice wines indeed. The Brut just recently won a bronze medal in the 2006 International Wine Challenge competition. It is also a great value sparkling wine at $10, so I picked up a few extra bottles for when I stop by some Hungarian friends tonight on New Year's Eve.

Half of the sugar grown in the US comes from Louisiana, so it only makes sense that cooks down there know how to make good use of cane syrup and molasses in addition to regular sugar. The sugar alternatives are especially popular around the holidays, when there are so many sweet treats to be had, including Louisiana Gingerbread (Stage Planks or Mule Bellies) , Cane Syrup Popcorn Balls , and Cane Syrup Cake (Gâteau de Sirop) . (Incidentally, I didn't know that cane syrup over thickly buttered white bread is called a diaper sandwich. But the name would probably stop me from trying it.)

One of the world's largest groups of Hasidic Jews originated Hungary, so it isn't surprising to learn that there is a lot of traditional Hungarian-Jewish food that is popular around the holidays. Dishes like Cheese Danish Pastries (Delkelekh), Hungarian Stuffed-Under-the-Skin Chicken and Hungarian Eggs with Tomatoes, Peppers and Onions (Letcho) are especially popular and making them means not only getting good food, but spending time with family.

The "truffle truck" is the name that chefs have affectionately given to John Magazino's truck, which he uses to deliver truffles, caviar and other ultra-high end foods to the best restaurants in New York.

Au Pied de Cochon - The Album is a cookbook from Marting Picard and the staff at Au Pied de Cochon, full of crazy illustrations and some very high-quality recipes for those who take their pork seriously.

High-end magazines targeted at the customers of high end restaurants claim to be about "lifestyle," but they're really just full of ads.

Frank Bruni dines at Cafe Cluny and gives it 1 star.

Mark Bittman, the minimalist, offers a very quick primer on sugar.

In the past week, several news sources have run stories about a group of Hungarian builders that drank dry a barrel of rum, only to find a human body in it. Yesterday, MSNBC ran this correction, stating that the story they originally ran, based on a Reuters story, was untrue. Apparently, once the story began to circulate, people recognized it for the urban legend it was. Snopes has several variations on the theme of people (and animals) being pickled in barrels of booze. The current story claimed that the man's body had been stashed in the Jamaican barrel by his wife in an attempt to avoid the cost and paperwork of actually shipping her husband's body home properly.

Last week we heard about a man who stole 27,000 pounds of steak. But after uncovering some more food thievery, it seems that some people will steal just about anything that isn't nailed down. And that means that even roots aren't secure enough:

Thieves stole 150 plum trees from an orchard in Hungary. They were uprooted and removed from the site during the off-season. The trees were valued at approximately $9,500.

In Tennessee, a 53-foot trailer containing 2,880 cases of Red Bull was stolen by thieves who really must have taken to hear the message that "red bull gives you wings."

In a possibly related theft, a trailer containing $100,000 of Kraft sauces was stolen in the same city in Tennessee. The trailer was later recovered, but the sauce was gone. We'll have to wait and see whether anyone reports a truck of stolen chicken wings, which might explain the disappearance of the sauce.