[Illustration: Biodiversity Heritage Library]

You did it! Another week down!

We're putting up a post very much like this one every Friday afternoon, to celebrate the fact that the week is done. Down with the lame week days! Up with not-lame weekend days!

We think of this series as something of a send-off for the week, giving you the option of a brief interlude for your Friday afternoon. Of course, if your work week is just starting, or if you're still in the thick of it, think of this as a pick-me-up for your personal hump day, or as a nice way to kick off your weekend shifts.

We hope to provide a short mix of mostly silly, mostly food-related, mostly entertaining things to look at, listen to, and read, and we hope you'll find it amusing, and maybe, sometimes, edifying and enlightening. We also see it as an opportunity to go over some of what's new on the site, which you, dear readers, may have missed.

If you have feedback, or if you run across any interesting/oddball/totally crazy stories/podcasts/images/videos during the week that you think may be appropriate for this little collection of miscellany, email us! We can't guarantee that we'll use it, but we will 100% appreciate the effort.

What's New on Serious Eats

You can, of course, browse all our content in reverse-chronological order. But for you, on this day, some highlights:

Our Favorite Comments of the Week

From "Everything You Can Do With a Wok":

For years I’ve used my wok to pop corn. It’s a perfect chamber for popping and I get very few unpopped kernels. And by vigorously shaking the wok the popcorn doesn’t burn.

Rookie tip: don’t forget to keep the lid on the wok while popping!

From "The Food Lab Video Series: Steak Lies":

“a technique that is, as it turns out, like the inside of a Tauntaun: lukewarm”

(heavy breathing) And I thought they smelled bad… (heavy breathing) (heavy breathing) (heavy breathing) (heavy breathing) (heavy breathing) (heavy breathing) (heavy breathing) … On the outside!

From a commenter (who we are frankly quite worried about) on Facebook, in response to "How to Make the Best Deep-Fried Jalapeño Poppers":

Too much cheese. Too little pepper.

A Brief Book Break

Next came the giant peach itself. Men with cranes and hooks had quickly hoisted it onto a very lager truck and there it now sat, looking just as huge and proud and brave as ever. There was, of course, a bit of a hole in the bottom of it where the spike of the Empire State Building had gone in, but who cared about that—or indeed about the peach juice that was dripping out of it onto the street?

Behind the peach, skidding about all over the place in the peach juice, came the Mayor's limousine, and behind the Mayor's limousoine came about twenty other limousines carrying all the important people of the City.

And the crowds went wild with excitement. They leaned out of the windows and skyscrapers, cheering and yelling and screaming and clapping and throwing out bits of white paper and ticker-tape, and James and his friends stood up in their car and waved back at them as they went by.

Then a rather curious thing happened. The procession was moving slowly along Fifth Avenue when suddenly a little girl in a red dress ran out from the crowd and shouted, "Oh, James, James! Could I please have just a tiny taste of your marvelous peach?"

From James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl.

Food Numbers, News, and Hijinks

Have a wonderful weekend, everybody!

All products linked here have been independently selected by our editors. We may earn a commission on purchases, as described in our affiliate policy.