Weird Eats

Star Trek Restaurants & Cookbooks

TrekMovie.com recently took a look at Star Trek-themed eateries past and present. Included, the Enterprise Family Restaurant, located in the appropriately named town of Vulcan in Alberta, Canada. More here.

If it's Star Trek-themed recipes you seek, you're in luck. A number of Star Trek-related cookbooks have been published over the years. The most readily available these days seems to be The Star Trek Cookbook, by Ethan Phillips and William J. Birnes. Phillips, of course, portrayed Neelix - who served more or less as the ship's cook - on the Star Trek Voyager series. Here's a review of the book.

Olive Oil Store, Lickable Ads & More

Things haven't been too active these days at Weird Eats, but here are a few items to tide you over until the next post.

A store dedicated to olive oil? Now that's specialization. It's called Extra Virgin, it's located in St. Louis and you can read more about it at the Gourmet News Web site.

Would you lick a magazine ad for a food or beverage to determine what it tastes like? Me neither. Welch's is trying out this gimmick - I don't think it's time has come, but I could be wrong - in ads for their grape juice. Are there many people out there who are unsure what grape juice tastes like?

For anyone who pines for more Weird Eats type news, let me once again point you to The Grinder, who tirelessly work to come up with interesting and entertaining tidbits:

My Darling, My Hamburger (hamburger phones, etc.)
I'll Take an Order of Deep-Fried Rodent
Kitchen Gadgets of the Future
The UK's Eggs-Ceptional Discovery (egg within an egg)
Burgers Blow Up

Refrigerator Voyeurs

So it's finally come to this:

"Fridgewatcher.com is a project where people open their fridges to others. Cause every fridge tells a story. We want to know yours. Send us a picture of your refridgerator."

Fridgewatcher offers us the opportunity to "watch fridges from" Argentina to Venezeula.

Can someone please shut down the Internet now?

Cat Rescued From Peanut Butter Jar

Did you hear the one about the cat that survived having its head stuck in a peanut butter jar for 19 days? No, it's not a joke. Nor is it a bizarre NASA research project. For more on the beleaguered kitty, check out this report from the Associated Press.

Pizza Beer & Cheese Perfume

Pizza beer? Well, maybe. Cheese perfume? Hmmm.

Mamma Mia Pizzabeer is the creation of Chicago-area brewers, Tom and Athena Seefurth. It's not quite as weird as it sounds, but is merely a beer that's brewed with tomato, oregano, basil, garlic and whatnot. For more information, check out the Web site or this profile from the Courier News.

Poor For A Day

It's apparently becoming trendy for well-off politicians to go slumming and attempt to eat like po' folk. Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski kicked things off in late April when he announced that he would limit his food budget to three dollars a day for one week. After which, presumably, he went back to eating like a governor. Read what the Houston Chronicle had to say about the stunt here.

The Washington Post reported recently that other lawmakers have taken up what they're calling the Food Stamp Challenge. This consists of putting themselves on essentially the same regimen as Kulongoski. After which, one must once again assume, they will go back to eating like wealthy politicians. And those trying to scrape by on a pittance will continue to scrape and we'll all turn our attention to the next fad of the week.

Not that I'm cynical or anything.

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Peanut Butter Spill

If you've ever gotten a dab of peanut butter on something, whether it be clothing, furniture or whatever, then you know it can be a little tricky to clean up - to say the least. So try to imagine cleaning up a truckload of the stuff. If I may engage in some bad peanut butter punnery, it would hardly be smooth sailing.

According to a recent article in one of the Australian newspapers, a peanut butter spill in Melbourne disrupted traffic and generally made life a challenge for the local citizenry until emergency crews could be called out to save the day. No details on how you clean up a truckload of peanut butter or whether it was smooth or crunchy.

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Fast Food Fever & More

Ever hear of a Sproke, a Froke, a Fry Dog or a Triple Threat? Then you've obviously never visited the New Cuisine section of Fast Food Fever, where they've put together some strange and somewhat appalling combinations of everyday fast food selections.

Did you realize that when you put in an order at the fast food drive thru window you might actually be speaking with someone in Delaware? It's true. Read all about it in this article from Delaware Online.

Islam In Space

As Malaysia prepares to send their first astronaut into space, officials in the Muslim-dominated country have put together guidelines on handling religious matters while in orbit.

As far as eating goes, Malaysian astronauts who are in doubt as to whether a meal is prepared according to Islamic standards should only eat as much of that meal as they need to ease their hunger.

Since the first Malaysian astronaut - there are two candidates currently in the running - will be in orbit for part of the holy month of Ramadan, they'll have the option to observe the daily sunrise to sunset fast as best as they can during that time or they can choose to wait until they get home.

For more on this topic, check out these articles at MSNBC and Arabianbusiness.com. Here's the link for the Malaysia's National Space Agency.

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Peanut Butter Gun & PB Paintings

When it comes right down to it, a peanut butter and jelly gun is probably not going to advance the cause of humankind very much. But that didn't stop the inventing team of Tim Homoya and Austin Nelson from coming up with such a gizmo. The pair are hoping the gadget will land them a spot on the TV show American Inventor. More info here.