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Shrimp cocktail. Photo: No Recipes.

While shrimp is delicious on its own, deep-fried or sautéed with pasta and butter, it it seems to pack the most flavor -- and color -- when served as part of the classic shrimp cocktail.

Pleasing to the eyes as well as the palate, this single shellfish from No Recipes is dipped in an Asian-inspired twist on the staid red cocktail sauce, combining the usual fresh tomatoes and tomato sauce with Thai sweet chili and fish sauces, lime juice and wasabi. It sounds so good, we're tempted to try to pluck the perfectly pink crustacean straight off the screen.

[Via No Recipes]

Is it just us, or does this look like a canapé Snow White might serve at a party for an assortment of her big-eyed woodland friends and dwarfs? Those mushrooms are practically leaping off the screen, they look so freshly plucked. I bet Disney's tough guys would have scoffed at this chi-chi wasabi-ricotta concoction and gone for burgers and beer instead, though. Not Eating Out In New York (a culinary blog for anyone anywhere) attempted a pretty bold take on a classic appetizer, so let us know if you give it a shot in your kitchen and how it turns out.

Long and crisp french fries just ask for creative seasoning to stick to the shiny remnants of oil. That seasoning can be almost anything -- potatoes are one of those perfect blank-canvas foods that can be amped up by a myriad of ingredients.

Unfortunately, it's not so easy to get the wonderful bite of wasabi on each fry. With many powders, a nice sprinkle will give you the flavor your looking for, but it doesn't really pop until you mix it up into that nice green ball of paste. But there are ways to get the wasabi to spice up your fries -- it's just not really on the fries itself.

A nice helping of salt and wasabi (or wasabi salt) is a good start on the fries, to get that hint of flavor. Salt is always a necessity, and with the wasabi, you're a small step in the right direction. But the easiest way to add wasabi is in your condiments. The paste can be mixed into ketchup if you like the red stuff, or into mayonnaise if you prefer the white stuff. Or, go wild and mix them both together.

That way, you get the flavor of the fry, the kick of the salt, and the wonderful punch of wasabi without over-coating your potatoes in the green stuff.

One of the best ways to enjoy scallops is dry-rubbed and pan-seared. One of the best ways to enjoy sushi is with a dollop of nose-clearing wasabi. Together, they make for a tasty and simple meal.

Forget about wasabi paste. For this meal, you just grind up some salt, pepper, wasabi powder, and other spices (the above included ground coriander and garlic), pat the scallops with the dry rub, and then follow normal pan-searing instructions. Put a solid amount of the tasty green stuff into the rub, and if you need a little more wasabi kick, you can bring some wasabi-flavored fleur de sel to the table to sprinkle as needed. It's a simple way to class up a bland dinner night, and it only takes about 20 minutes from start to finish (from prepping the greens and scallops to plating).

Note: In the above picture, the scallops are resting on butter-sauteed collard greens, previously mentioned here.

Reconstituted wasabi isn't as good as fresh ground, but it still has some utility. Here's a good trick for reconstituting it.

I've become obsessed with wasabi. I love the stuff. I don't remember quite how it started, but after having something with the flavor, I've tasted everything with wasabi that I can buy or whip up, from delicious wasabi-covered almonds to wasabi mashed potatoes to tasty lumps of it with sushi. However, did you know that it's not only a spicy, tasty nose-cleaner, but something that can also improve your health?

That's Fit recently posted an ode to wasabi that gives the low-down. If you buy the good stuff, and not the cheap, fake substitute, the tasty condiment can offer a variety of perks due to it containing Isothiocyanates, powerful antioxidants, as well as Potassium and Calcium. It can help slow down cancer, fight teeth rot, help prevent ulcers and parasites, has antimicrobial benefits, might help heart disease, and is good for detoxing.

And here I thought it was just darned tasty.

• You can make a lot of different things with mangoes.
• This guy makes green beans pickled with soy sauce and wasabi, smokra (which is okra with smokey paprika), and rosemary-scented pickled beets.
• This isn't your typical veggie burger.
• An interview with Barbara Kingsolver about her new food book.
• More books: it's the silver anniversary of The Silver Palate Cookbook.
• This week's recipes: Bulgur Wheat Salad, Imperial Asparagus, Chicken Marbella, Rougaille Beef, and Brownies.

More good news for all you wine lovers out there. ZAP, the Zinfandel Advocates & Producers, will be traveling to various locations across America for Grand Tasting Events, as brought to our attention by Deidre at our sister site Luxist.

The tastings are scheduled for May 8 in Austin, May 10 at the Wrigley Mansion in Phoenix, and will be a part of Winefest No. 12-A Toast To Children's Health in Minneapolis on May 11-12.

The menus accompanying the tastings sound absolutely delicious as well. As an example, the Arizona tasting will feature such fare as Ahi Tuna Bites with Raspberry-Wasabi Sauce, Chili Lime Salmon Satay, Mushroom Stuffed with Pinenuts, and Duck Confit Profiteroles.

If you live in one of those areas and are interesting in participating, details on the events including admission prices can be found on the ZAP website.

In space, eating can be a tricky endeavor - or rather, food preparation can be because astronauts can't take advantage of the two main things we take for granted in food preparation on earth: gravity and fresh foods. Gravity keeps batters in mixing bowls, eggs in frying pans and sandwiches on the cutting board while you assemble them. It also keeps spilled food together, even if it lands on the floor. This last fact, probably underappreciated by clumsy chefs, is key in space. Food is packaged in tubes and single-serving bags because if it gets away from the astronaut, it could end up going in a million different directions.

Astronauts on the international space station recently had to face such an incident when Sunita Williams spilled a tube of wasabi while "trying to make a pretend sushi meal with bag-packaged salmon." While not toxic, wasabi isn't a completely nonvolatile substance and it took a week to clean it up ("it was flying around everywhere," said Williams) and get rid of the smell.

Needless to say, the wasabi tube - or what is left of it - has been put into storage.

Instead of limiting yourself to semisweet, dark and white chocolate chips the next time you set out to make a batch of cookies, consider getting some more unusually flavored chips. Vosges Chocolate has a line of three flavors of Exotic Chocolate Chips. Black Pearl Exotic Chocolate Chips are dark chocolate flavored with ginger, wasabi and black sesame seeds. Naga Exotic Chocolate Chips have a milk chocolate base that is spiked with sweet Indian curry powder and coconut flakes. Finally, the chocolatier also makes Red Fire Exotic Chocolate Chips, dark chocolate with Mexican ancho and chipotle chili peppers and Ceylon cinnamon. Each 4-oz. bag of chips sells for $8.50.

Vosges doesn't leave you on your own to come up with recipes that the chocolate chips can be included in, either. With each of the three types of chocolate chips, they list several recipes that will work perfectly with them. For example the Red Fire Martini and Love Goddess Cake work well with the Red Fire Chips and the Black Pearl Chips are the star in Full Moon Brownies.

I don't eat potato chips much. Rather, I don't allow myself to eat potato chips much, because an open bag will inevitably become an empty bag in the course of a single 30 minute sitting. Trust me, that is not an exaggeration.

But when I saw this bag of Tim's cascade-style potato chips at the grocery store, I ignored my inner Jenny Craig and just bought them. Besides, with a club card, they were half price.

The chips are flavored with wasabi, and though wasabi flavored snacks are something I have been eating for years (especially those Japanese little deep-fried peas), seeing it on a non-Asian snack was new (though I have seen wasabi-flavored Funyuns before).

At first, the chips had only a faint flavor of wasabi, and an oddly bitter sensation on my tongue. I ate a few more, and decided I didn't like them all that much, but I couldn't stop eating them. By no means was I wolfing them down, but I continued to eat them. There has got to be some yet-to-be-discovered chemical in wasabi that makes people crazy - I mean what else can explain why people want to feel a burn so high and deep in their head that they cry, and why else would I keep eating these chips until *ahem* the bag is empty?