"sitcom" news and stories

Food trucks have come a long way from the days of hot dogs swimming in tepid, murky water, especially in the gourmet street-food worlds of Los Angeles, New York City and Austin. And nothing's more telling of their climb up the food chain than a pending ABC sitcom, tentatively titled Family Owned -- guess execs liked what they saw in the The Great Food Truck Race, which aired on the Food Network this summer.

Food has certainly taken to the small screen in a big way lately, reaching beyond the food networks and travel channels, beyond stand-and-stir shows (that is, cooking shows) and travelogues. Case in point: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, the recent sketches on Saturday Night Live, and a new cartoon sitcom on FOX we tipped you off to earlier this week, involving a guy named Bob and his burgers.

As Variety reports, this new food-truck sitcom is still in the development phase, but we do know it will be produced by former King of the Hill staffers Tony Gama-Lobo and Rebecca May, along with Warren Littlefield, and will star comedian Al Madrigal (left), who has appeared on Comedy Central and a couple of shows on CBS. Eater explains the concept as a "multigenerational family comedy" that "centers on a son who takes over the family food-truck business."

When it comes to naming drinks after people -- whether they be real or fictional -- what comes first? Do you decide to honor a personage and then make the appropriate cocktail, or do you mix it up and then go, "Hmmm... who does this remind me of?"

For the Suzanne Sugarbaker, it was definitely the latter. A cocktail made with sweet tea vodka and rose petal nectar seemed rather Southern belle-like and, given that there is already a Scarlett O'Hara, this seemed the way to go.