1. On May 17, 1972, Wisconsin native Don Gorske ate his first nine Big Macs. After 39 years of keeping to a daily diet that consists almost entirely of patties, special sauce, meager veggies, cheese, and buns, the retired prison guard celebrated his 25,000th Big Mac this past Tuesday. Remarkably, his health and physique have been unaffected, and Gorske makes no plans to explore any culinary horizons. Before he started stocking his freezer with them, someone probably should have told the guy — you can make a double cheeseburger with orange tartar sauce at home.
2. Tired of the same old food websites (…ahem)? Tuesday saw the beta launch of exclusive consumer club Gilt Groupe’s non-membership internet venture, Gilt Taste. Combining editorial content from well-known foodies and high-end marketplace shopping, the site caters to virtual surfers who like to cook, care about food, and want fingertip access to all necessary kitchen components, like Idaho’s $90 grass-fed Wagyu strip steak, or simply a set of shiny Japanese knives. Knock, knock. Who’s there? Several pounds of Hungarian pork.
3. Speaking of sitting around killing time, Lazy Cakes — the melatonin brownies made for relaxation — are getting a bad rap in Massachusetts for their marketing. On Friday, just one day after discovering the product, the Boston-area mayors of New Bedford and Fall River are already fighting to put a ban on the chocolaty herbal aid. They claim the packaging appeals to children, and this, coupled with serving sizes that contain more than double the normally prescribed adult dose of melatonin, could prove dangerous. Before you know it, kids everywhere will be falling asleep promptly.
4. Tomorrow is the grand opening of Brooklyn’s first flea food market, Smorgasburg. From 9 to 5 every Saturday in Williamsburg, over 100 vendors and a slew of Greenmarket farmers will be providing their food wares and services in what curator Eric Demby calls a “culinary clearing-house.” The Brooklyn Flea set-up hopes to provide a fun platform for growers to peddle, locals to buy, and restaurants to network.
5. A Salt Lake City woman was charged with two drug counts and a felony on Monday for attempting to buy $10 of cocaine from an undercover officer. In exchange for the narcotics, she offered the cop everything she had on her: $2 and a left-over salad from Olive Garden. She’s probably kicking herself for not adding on a few free breadsticks.
6. After decades of attempts to connect alcohol consumption to brain damage, a new Spanish study conducted on college students published online on May 16 shows that although binge drinking is linked to memory loss, its effects are not necessarily long term. The self-identified binge drinkers performed more poorly than the casual drinkers on a mnemonic test featuring a list of words, but their ability to recall details from images was equal to that of the casual drinkers. We all know what that means! Pass that…wait…pass the…when’s our midterm again?
7. Last Friday, thousands of kids were disappointed to discover that their parents had packed them turkey sandwiches for lunch. Thirty-five gigantic tubes of smuggled Mexican bologna were confiscated by border police because of the threat potential animal diseases pose on U.S. pork. Oddly enough, the USDA was days away from announcing they’d now be inspecting beef only after it crossed the border in efforts to decrease Mexican cartel activity.
8. This week, suburban St. Louis has proven that the pay-what-you-can restaurant model actually works. It was one year ago that a Panera Bread Co. in Clayton, MO, made the decision to go nonprofit, and they’re still going strong with the help of charitable patrons. Additional community-kitchen Paneras have since opened in Dearborn, MI, and Portland, OR, and the chain hopes to follow suit every three months in other cities around the country.
9. The rising viral stars of Minneapolis, The Perennial Plate, posted on Monday the first episode of their new documentary series, entitled Real Food Road Trip, wherein they trek across the U.S. highlighting sustainable agriculture in an attempt to show folks where their food comes from. Chef Daniel Klein and his camerawoman, Mirra Fine, stop in Iowa this week to chat with some very happy dairy cows.
10. Haven’t you ever felt inclined to buy a fifth of Seagram’s Canadian at an auction for three times its value? Well, on May 18, for extravagant prices, a roomful of suckers scooped up NASDAQ-gnat Bernie Madoff’s entire booze collection piecemeal, including all the ordinary bottles. No, it’s not a Ponzi scheme, but it’s still fairly sham-ful.
Photo: . k o t h È :3
