[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 first four-sevenths of the week! Up with the final three-sevenths! Math!

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 workweek 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 percent appreciate the effort.

What's New on Serious Eats

You can, of course, browse all our content in reverse-chronological order. But here are some highlights:

Our Favorite Comments of the Week

From our recipe for garlic fried rice:

If you’re going to make garlic rice anyway, just make it with butter instead of oil; and add a splash of soy sauce to the rice while cooking!

From "2 Easy Pie Crusts, the BraveTart and Food Lab Ways":

I haven’t tried Kenji’s recipe but Stella’s pie crust is so simple and straightforward and insanely flakey and delicious that I can’t imagine any other pie crust recipe beating it. Everyone who tries the pies I make with her recipe says it’s the best crust they’ve ever had.

From a commenter on Facebook, in response to our refeatured article "How to Deep-Fry a Turkey Without Killing Yourself, Indoors and Out":

Best turkey I've had was deep fried. I still think about it and how it almost burned my friends house down.

A Brief Book Break

For Abkhazians, winemaking is like a religion. Every winemaker has his own secret. May went by, then June...the beach season began...the first berries...What war? My mother and I didn't think about the war, we were busy pickling, making jam. Every Saturday, we went to the bazaar. The Abkhazian bazaar! Those smells, the sounds...It smells like wine barrels and cornbread, sheep's cheese, and roasted chestnuts. The subtle scent of cherry plums and tobacco - pressed tobacco leaves. Cheese hanging...matsoni, my favourite yogurt...Vendors beckon customers in Abkhazian, Georgian, and Russian - in every language, it's 'Vai-vai, sweetie. You don't want it, don't buy it, but come here and try it.' There hadn't been bread anywhere in the city since June.

From Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Bela Shayevich.

Food Numbers, News, and Hijinks

• 8: Number of sparkling water flavors Coca-Cola plans to offer under its new brand, AHA, not to be confused with A-ha, the Norwegian band of "Take On Me" fame, in a bid to compete with LaCroix.
• 20,000 to 23,000: Number of bold but unaggressive wild turkeys in New Jersey, some of which have been terrorizing the town of Toms River.
• 70: percent decrease in past 15 years of salmon catch off the northern coast of Japan, which has coincided with rapid warming of Sea of Okhotsk.
• A tour of the Impossible Meat facilities.
• "There is such a thing as too much Old Bay, it turns out."
• The peril drive-thrus present.
• Thanksgiving, but with toys.
• Soup's up in 2029.
• Apparently, food media is having a moment!

Have a wonderful weekend, everybody!

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