Pilfering pizzas, beets for Barack, fretting over frogs’ legs
• Globe recipe writer Lucy Waverman has given Barack Obama what might be the weirdest birthday present he’ll receive this year: a compilation of recipes employing beets—the president’s least favourite food. The whole batch, including one for beet cake, has been mailed off to Michelle. Why she sent them to the first lady and not the White House chef is anyone’s guess; Obama wouldn’t even let beets be planted in Michelle’s organic garden. [Globe and Mail]
• A Pizza Pizza deliveryman was ambushed on Friday night and robbed of his pies and cash when he refused to give up his cell phone. The attack happened at Pape and Cavell Avenues—not far from Taste of the Danforth festivities. The victim suffered minor injuries, but is probably as curious as us as to how anyone could have room for pizza after so much three-dollar lamb kofta. [Toronto Star]
• Sara Lee (maker of Ball Park Franks) is suing Kraft (makers of the Oscar Meyer weiner) on account of a recent spate of advertising in which the latter claims to beat out the former in a taste test. In an effort to resolve the dispute, the National Post conducts its own test of wieners. [National Post]
• Security may return slowly to Iraq, but the millennia-old tradition of roasting carp over an open flame is spreading like wildfire along the Tigris River, near Baghdad. On one stretch of highway previously used for military encampments, a dozen restaurants have sprung up that specialize in six-pound carp, bludgeoned alive and flayed over a bonfire. [New York Times]
• Pollution and habitat degradation are diminishing the world’s supply of edible frogs. This is posing a problem for chefs—especially (and predictably) in France—who complain that the delectable amphibian legs are becoming more hard to come by. [Guardian]
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