[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 all the days that don't start with the letters s and f! Up with all the days that don't start with the letters m, t, and w!

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 "Meet Shaquanda Coco Mulatta, New York’s (Drag) Queen of Hot Sauce":

I have a lousy cold and would benefit from some hot sauce, but somehow I feel more fabulous just by reading this. Thanks!

From our recipe for oven-dried grapes (a.k.a. raisins):

I made these this past weekend and they are awesome. I thought they hadn’t cooked enough at 225 so I went a little longer but it didn’t seem to make a difference. I let them cool and rest and they jam up a little bit. Delicious flavor. I’ll probably never buy store bought again. They were especially good when I used them to make granola. They get a second baking but they were still soft inside. Worth the effort (time.)

From a commenter (who we are frankly quite worried about) on Facebook, in response to a post re-featuring our recipe for easy stuffed roast turkey with giblet gravy:

Giblet gravy is a disgust concept

A Brief Book Break

The Cookbook contains more than two hundred and twenty-five recipes. Mrs. Vail's baked beans is not among them. IN a book which includes recipes for Cassoulet Castelnaudary and Eggs Boulangère there was no feasible way of extending gourmet status to New England baked beans. Asked what recipe he would recommend to a condemned man who wanted to eat his last meal from the Cookbook, Rex chose Roast Pheasant. Barbara Burn concurs but suggests the inclusion as well of the fatally attractive corn fritters (no problem to someone soon to be dead), Avocado Todhunter, and, for dessert, Green Tomato Pie. Not every dish Rex relished is found in the Cookbook. Asked what items he would most like to find in a gourmet gift package, Rex said: "First, fresh Beluga caviar. Second, fresh Beluga caviar. Then paté de foie gras, Baar-le-Duc Jelly, black walnuts, turtle soup."

From Rex Stout: A Biography by John J. McAleer.

Food Numbers, News, and Hijinks

• $50,000 to $500,000: range of salaries paid to the "200 or so" flavorists, "people who tinker with nacho cheese dust, Hot Pockets and pumpkin spice lattes," who are now working on plant-based meats.
• For one food critic, a ban on the sale of foie gras elicits a shrug.
• 0: amount of gravity an oven sent to the International Space Station is designed to bake in. Cookies! In space!
• SMH, Strairdrac The Netherwatcher, crabs are for food.
• 2,000,000: pounds of chicken recalled because it was too metal.
• For cooks, to stage or not to stage, that is the question.
• Fluting a mushroom.

Have a wonderful weekend, everybody!

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