Flash in the Pan

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

• Rice Not Nice Venice is banning throwing rice at newly weds because of the "hordes of pigeons" who follow the ceremonies. What's really bad is when they crash the reception, get drunk, and put lampshades on their heads. (Reuters)


• Marmalade Mess The creator of Paddington Bear took heat when the character started snacking not on his accustomed marmalade, but on Marmite sandwiches in an advertisement. Marmite is a popular British food spread made of beer brewing byproducts. Maybe Paddington could just hoist a pint, instead. (Ananova)


• Bus Brunch The French city of Lille is running buses on biodiesel produced from food scraps, weeds, flowers, and grass clippings at a new recycling plant. From one form of gas to another. (AFP)


• Burrito Eating Champ A New York day trader ate 10 3/4 burritos in 12 minutes to win what was billed as the world burrito eating championship. The winner, "Eater X," is also an aspiring pizza chef. Guess that day trading is working out well, then. (AP)


• Raparian Feast In Acton, England, 500 people dove into a swimming pool to set the record for the world's largest formal underwater dinner party. Largest formal? You mean there's another subcategory? (Daily Telegraph)

Labels: burritos, drink, eating, food, news, odd, pool, record, speed eating, weird

We've been experimenting with a frozen hot chocolate recipe - really a cocoa-based drink made with ice. This has gotten my daughter's vote as favorite:

• 1 TBS. Valrhona cocoa


• 3 TBS. sugar


• 3/4 cup milk


• 3/4 cup small ice cubes

Put all the ingredients into a blender. Blend until smooth and there are no large pices of ice. Serves 1.

Labels: drink, frozen hot chocolate, recipe

My daughter loves frozen hot chocolate from an espresso bar in western Massachusetts called Mocha Maya's. So I started working on my own version:

• 2 TBS. cocoa


• 3 TBS. sugar


• 1 cup milk


• 1/2 cup crushed ice

Put all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. You can add more or less ice to make the drink more or less thick.

Labels: blender, chocolate, drink, iced

According to a survey published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 83% of 1,662 doctors surveyed said that they accept food and drink from drug companies, and almost 4 out of 5 took free drug samples. Wonder if the freebie pharmaceuticals are obesity drugs?

Labels: doctors, drink, food, medicine, samples