Tag: food

Call for Blogtoberfest Entries!

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I always welcome guest posts at The Jump, but I take the collection thereof more seriously from October 1 to All Hallows Eve. The results have been varied and awesome, ranging in topic from witches to zombies to Neil Diamond.

Over the years, Blogtoberfest Guest Post submissions evolved into a full-on contest, with winners, prizes, and the bestowing of appropriate amounts of online glory.

Winners will be decided by readers via an online poll at the end of the month. There’s no length requirement or limit, and posts need not be spooky. October is also the month of harvest, baseball, and Breast Cancer Awareness. It may be that you or your organization has an annual event this month that deserves a little publicity. Whatever the topic – if it says October to you is fair game!

Prizes will be announced soon, and posts are accepted throughout the month, so get writing and send your entries to writerjax -at- gmail.com!

Weird October Food 2018: The DIY Edition

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Here we go — my favorite post of the year! The annual round-up of all the weird things I can find happening in the culinary scene during the witching season.

This post always takes a different turn, and this year, it’s a decidedly do-it-your-damn-self kind of list.

Bone In

Take, for instance, the Skeleton Table trend. A few years ago, it was all about Meatheads, but this takes the undead party-platter idea a few femurs further by filling a skeleton’s rib cage with delicious fixin’s. In my research, I found appetizer corpses, dinner bladders, and gut-busting desserts, all laid out in situ.

Thanks for sticking with me through the puns there.

Noodle Nocturne

Squid ink ramen

The trend of black or blackened foods has come up here before, but never before have I stumbled on something so beautiful as Daniel Gritzer’s Halloween Ramen Bowl.

It’s right in the pocket of what I love to write about this time of year — not kitsch, but pure yumminess of the season. Plus, his post lead me to a few other ‘Halloween Ramen‘ recipes, including a pumpkin ramen, Hell Ramen, and Dracula Ramen.

Patient Churro

Another hot take on party food I’ve seen recently are Zombie Nachos — especially of the dessert variety. A little cinnamon, a little sugar, a drizzle of raspberry pie filling, and bwa-ha-ha-la.

Of course, if you’re more a fan of the savory undead, there are several more appetizer-centric versions of the zombie nacho platter.

Sleepy Swallows

There’s never a shortage of creepy cocktail ideas this time of year, and it can be hard to pick just one out of the endless recipes for embalming fluid, witches brew, and pumpkin punch.

I thought this sipper looked pretty smokin’, though (sorry, sorry), with a dash of gothic literary charm: the Sleepy Hollow Cocktail, featuring absinthe, Angostura bitters, and a sprig of rosemary set to smudge. This (frankly delightful) blog also has a Raven cocktail and another called Nosferatu’s Blood, for those looking to make a night of it. But I also found a few other Sleepy Hollow drink recipes, plus an Ichabod Crane, so I this may be a head-start on a great themed party.

2018 October Food Trends Spotted at:

In Katrina’s Kitchen

SeriousEats

Jewels of New York

Shaken Together Life

The 2015 Weird Food Round-up: Two Savories, Two Sweets

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I never know where my annual ‘October food’ posts are going to take me. Sometimes, I find a lot of spooky party platters. Other times, it’s a trendy ingredient or a bizarre new dish from a restaurant… this year, I found myself gravitating toward some particularly good entrants into the Weird Food Race in the areas of convenience eating.

Photo by Mike Mozart via flickr

The Halloween Whopper
Burger King is bringing a black burger, similar to one of the menu items in its restaurants in Japan, to the United States. I’ve written about the burgers Japanese Burger Kings (and McDonalds) have introduced in the past… Now, their weirdness is coming stateside, with a few Americanizations.

Contrary to the Japanese version, which is made with squid ink, the American version will also have a pitch-black bun —  made with A1 steak sauce baked into the bread. Beyond that, it’s basically a Whopper slathered with even more steak sauce; no complaints here.

https://writerjax.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/5d66f-hard-rock-cafe-octoberfest-burger.jpg

The Schnitzel Burger
Hard Rock Cafe has rolled out the Samuel Adams OctoberFest Schnitzel burger, which will be available at all U.S. Hard Rock locations until October 31. It features a lightly-breaded pork schnitzel, beer cheese sauce made with Samuel Adams OctoberFest beer, smoked bacon, sauerkraut, whole grain mustard, and fresh arugula on a pretzel bun. The arugula seems extraneous.


Yoo-hoo Candy Bars
For the nostalgic sweets-lover in all of us, there’s a new offering on the candy racks: the hard-to-describe taste of Yoo-hoo is now a candy bar, available in Trick-or-Treat sizes and, according to the wrapper, ‘milk-chocolate flavored…’ so its origins are just as sketchy as the original drink.

By far the favorite of the newsroom. Coffee and caramel

Caramel Macchiato Candy Corn
In likely the only instance we’ll ever see of the candy corn culinary experience being elevated, Brach’s has concocted a coffee infused bag of yummy that assures me the candy inside is also made with real honey. So, it’s good for you.

Read last year’s post