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• Reviewers are surprisingly pleased with the service and selection at chain favorites like Outback Steakhouse, Chili's, and T.G.I. Friday's
• Young, energetic Danish chefs return home after culinary school, and bring with them a unique, fresh perspective
  
• One author marks her trials and triumphs in birthday cake making over the years, including the dreaded Barbie cake (at right)
  
• On the hunt for a Chicken Canzanese recipe, circa 1969
• The taco truck controversy marches on
• A quintessential mint julep recipe, perfect for Derby-goers

Lutefisk is one traditional Christmas food that often gets short shrift during a season when visions of gingerbread and fruitcake dance in the heads of foodies and nonfoodies alike. And perhaps with good reason. Who on earth would eat preserved fish that has a jelly-like consistency, much less reserve it for a holiday treat?

Norwegians and other Scandinavians, that's who. Lutefisk takes its name not from the Medieval stringed instrument, but from lye. Honest, it translates to "lye fish." This venerable holiday "treat" is prepared by adding lye to air-dried cod or other white fish. After the fish has been steeped in a noxious brew of cold water and lye it is actually caustic and must be soaked in several changes of water for almost a week to render it edible. Fans of the movie Fight Club will be intrigued to learn that if it soaks too long in the lye, the fats in the fish will render it into soap. Now, there's an item for a holiday gift basket, homemade fish soap.

The Norwegians are building a "doomsday vault" for seeds. Buried deep inside a mountain, deep in the Arctic Circle, scientists say that the seeds will be preserved indefinately at temperatures well below freezing. And, to prevent theft, as well as for safety's sake, "the mountains are patrolled by polar bears," though humans will most likely monitor the facility.

The seed depository is being created to preserve the various species of plants that currently exist on the planet, many of which will disappear with each passing year as selective breeding reduces diversity in favor of commercially popular crops. In theory, these seeds can be used to resurrect species of plants that may disappear in the future. Intriguing as this idea is, one must wonder if there would be a demand for such reconstructed species, or whether they would only be regrown for scientific curiosity. Would it be easier to simply alter existing strains of apples - through selective breeding or gene modification - than to rebuild it from a seed or two? And if it were necessary to rebuild agriculture from the approximately 2 million seeds in the vault as the result of something wiping out global plant life, it seems likely that most of humanity would be wiped out as well. Maybe the Norwegians would still be able to get there, though.