[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 lame weekdays! 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:

• Sasha decided to make a video about how much he loves XO sauce, his condiment crush.
• Speaking of food crushes, Elazar really, really loves sweet potatoes, so he wrote a guide to the different sweet potato varieties, and it includes a little bit about what the heck yams are.
• We all weighed in on the food trends we dislike. (Of course, you can continue to like whatever you wanna like; we, as individuals, just happen to dislike these trends! And plenty of us still enjoy avocados, FWIW.)
• Stella updated her love letter to the food processor, essential pastry-making machine (that's 34 recipes and counting, folks).
• Sasha also came up with a neat (and delicious) tart version of French onion soup.
• Finally, we've been running deals with small(er) food and kitchenware businesses, exclusively for Serious Eats readers, all week! We hope you've already picked up something sweet, but if you haven't yet, or if you're looking for more steals, here are today's deals, from Tilit, Snowe, and Craighill.

Our Favorite Comments of the Week

From "A Field Guide to Sweet Potato Varieties (and the Dirt on Yams)":

Oh man I needed this article three days ago. I was literally just standing in WF and they had 5 varieties of sweet potato to choose from and I had NO idea which one was the one I needed. Was just staring and circling the display for a good 5 minutes before I settled on one randomly. Wish I grabbed the “Japanese” ones which I can see are the same as the Satsumas. Next time!

From "Over It: The Food Trends We'd 86":

This is a bizarre article from SE.

From a commenter (who we are frankly quite worried about) on Facebook, in response to "Why I Love My Food Processor, and 34 Recipes to Prove It":

God as my witness, I thought this was a brain.

A Brief Book Break

Many courses were served with no lack of excellent and rare wines, whereby the King was mightily pleased, as also by the extraordinary beauty of the Marchioness, on whom his eye from time to time rested. However, as course followed course, the King observed with some surprise, that, though the dishes were diverse, yet they were all but variations of one and the same fare, to wit, the pullet.

Besides which he knew that the domain was one which could not but afford plenty of divers sorts of game, and by forewarning the lady of his approach, he had allowed time for hunting; yet, for all his surprise, he would not broach the question more directly with her than by a reference to her hens; so, turning to her with a smile, he said: "Madam, do hens grow in this country without so much as a single cock?" The Marchioness, who perfectly apprehended the drift of the question, saw in it an opportunity, sent her by God, of evincing her virtuous resolution; so casting a haughty glance upon the King she answered thus: "Sire, no; but the women, though they may differ somewhat from others in dress and rank, are yet of the same nature here as elsewhere."

The significance of the banquet of pullets was made manifest to the King by these words, as also the virtue which they veiled.

From The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, translated by J. M. Rigg.

Food Numbers, News, and Hijinks

• 20: number of years Tom Sietsema has been reviewing restaurants in the Washington, DC, area.
• Between $4,000 and $6,000: the value of Anthony Bourdain's Bob Kramer knife.
• 73: Sylvester Stallone's age, a.k.a. the only bit of useful information in this report about Stallone eating lunch.
• Ralph, but with an F.
• The squash takes the cake.
• "As all heirs of the displaced know, incorrect soul food will break your heart."
• A bar where you pay an hourly, rather than a per-drink, rate seems like a terrible idea.
• Who owns a recipe?
• Ancient humans stored deer legs for the marrow contained within for up to nine weeks, "sort of like a Stone Age canned soup."

Have a wonderful weekend, everybody!

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