These specimens and their equally heart attack inducing cousins from around the world could hardly earn a place at the top of the table in culinary excellence. The humble cheeseburger, it is said, was created by a rather incompetent chef who used a piece of conveniently square-shaped cheese to cover his mishap. A mistake no doubt, yet the end recipients were stupid enough to hail it as a great idea and probably didn’t notice the burnt meat which is still evident in today’s retail offerings.

A French diplomat, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand (1754-1838) once described coffee in this way. "Black as the devil, Hot as hell, Pure as an angel, Sweet as love."

Coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the world. The most popular beverage of the Japanese people is green tea. But coffee is also very popular nowadays in Japan.

Here we have a truly splendid coffee roastmaster. His name is Tetsuhiko Takahashi. At 69, I'm sure he could be called one of Japan's foremost coffee roastmasters.

He has great experience. Mr. Takahashi used to be an agent for commercial coffee-roasters in the eastern part of Japan.

How many people, if they were President of the United States today, would take the time and effort to propose a rule to Congress to limit the amount of potatoes per week allowed to school children? President Obama and his Administration did just that and lost as their proposal was unanimously blocked by the Senate. With the numerous issues that plague our country, do we really need President Obama to tie up Congress with such nonsense?

In fact, Obama’s proposal would have put a cap on potatoes and other veggies that contain starch to one cup a week for little Johnny. And don’t even think about asking for any for breakfast! Senator Susan Collins from Maine described the proposal as absurd.

“The proposed rule would prevent schools from serving an ear of fresh corn one day and a baked potato another day of the same week, an utterly absurd result,” Collins said according to The New York Times. “Pototoes,” Collins continued, “have more potassium than bananas. They are cholesterol-free and low in fat and sodium and can be served in countless healthy ways.”

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, host of the show “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,” has traveled from his homeland of Britain to the U.S. in order to express his concern that Americans are making unhealthy food choices for their children. Recently, on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!," Los Angeles school Superintendent John Deasy announced that Oliver’s persistence may have influenced his decision to recommend to the Board of Education the elimination of flavored milk.

Anyone keeping up with the Oliver show will know about Season One’s Two's controversy over what some considered Oliver’s meddling in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the nation’s second-largest school system, which prompted former Superintendent Ramon Cortinesto to ban Oliver from all schools in the district. Although Oliver expressed shock by the ban, he didn’t admit defeat knowing full well that in April, new Superintendent Deasy would replace Cortinesto.

Bananas are ubiquitous at grocery stores around the nation. But it wasn’t always so. Wild bananas contain many large seeds making them unsuitable for commercial use. Getting rid of those seeds made first the “Big Mike” banana popular in America, followed by the now dominant variety, Cavendish.

Although Cavendish now faces supply disruptions due to fungal disease (an earlier fungal disease ended commercial use of the Big Mike variety), a new fruit, the Cherimoya or Custard Apple, could soon find its way to a produce department near you.

Like the wild banana, cherimoya fruits are filled with large seeds, making them largely unpalatable for mass consumer use. Despite this, cherimoya are legendary for their flavor. Mark Twain once described the fruit as “the most delicious fruit known to men.”

The head of the fast food chain Burger King has a new whopper on his hands, but this whopper has a heaping helping of public relations pain rather than a quarter-pound of beef.

The London Telegraph reports that Burger King chief executive Bernardo Hees was speaking to a group of students in Chicago when he told them that the Windy City was home to good food and that is known for “good looking women.” 

Alas, not so the UK, according to Hees. Recalling his time at the University of Warwick where he studied for his MBA, Hees said of the British Isles: “The food is terrible and the women are not very attractive.”

Walk into any ice cream shop and consumers are provided with an array of mouthwatering flavors. For some ice cream entrepreneurs, creating unusual concoctions -- such as beer, garlic, pizza, and ginger flavors -- is a way to bring in customers whose tastes run to the exotic, and sometimes, the weird.

Recently, one ice cream shop in London found that their newest flavor — made of breast milk and named “Baby Gaga,” — has provoked a heaping scoop of lawsuit threats from pop-singer Lady Gaga.

According to KDVR.com, Matt O'Connor, owner of The Icecreamists, said that Lady Gaga is suing his Ice Cream Shop over the name. "She's threatening to bankrupt us and she's also threatening me personally, saying she'll seize my personal assets and property," O’Connor said. Defending his right to use the name, he explained: “It's just the first noise a baby makes -- it's nothing to do with anyone else."

While not exactly a household name, in the 1980s her face and pugnacious attitude made her a famous advertising icon. Shouting “Where’s the beef!” Clara Peller was the centerpiece of one of the most effective advertising campaigns of that bygone decade, starring in a series of TV commercials for Wendy’s, the fast food burger chain.

Peller’s character in the ads was amusing and entertaining, and therefore memorable. That was then. These days, the question “Where’s the beef” is heading to the court room, a decidedly less amusing and entertaining venue.

The question now, asked by lawyers from the law firms Blood Hurst and O'Reardon in San Diego and Beasley Allen in Montgomery, Alabama is “where’s the beef in a Taco Bell taco?”

If you’re like me, you’ve never cared for peanut-butter cookies. Too sandy and flavorless, too dull. Besides, why waste your time when macaroons or anything with chocolate chips beckon?

Then I sampled my grandpa’s version. Wow! With only three ingredients – peanut butter, eggs, and sugar – they are devilishly easy to make and heaven to eat.

Grandpa was about the last person you would expect to harbor so fine a recipe. He grew up on a working farm in the hills near Bluefield, Virginia. And by “working,” I do mean working: along with the horses, my grandfather and his two brothers, their father, and an assortment of hired men supplied most of the farm’s power. During springtime and harvest, Grandpa’s four sisters often joined them in the fields.

There have been many instances when I have cooked a meal and later realized that I made way too much for two people to consume in one sitting. But the worry of cooking too much is the last issue on the minds of those who are trying to produce the largest foods in the world. So, if you love food, you may want to find out where these attempts to break world records are taking place and partake in the tasting extravaganza.

On September 8, 2007, the world’s largest fondue pot of cheese was prepared in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin.  According to Franchising.com, “...the Melting Pot Restaurants Inc. and The Melting Pot of Appleton prepared a cheese fondue that included more then 1,250 pounds of cheese and 12 kegs of beer prepared in a massive fondue pot that was over eight feet wide with matching fondue forks over seven feet long.” The effort to add these ingredients to a pot weighing more than 2,000 pounds paid off because in the end, they became the World Record holder for the largest cheese fondue.

In an effort to add nutritious, healthy foods to our meals, I decided to pull out my laptop and find some exciting recipes to add to a weekly meal plan. After filtering through a few websites, I came across a recipe that looked quite promising — Swahili Chicken. The ingredients looked nutritious and it sounded absolutely scrumptious. But even more to my surprise was that we had all the ingredients needed for this dish in our pantry and refrigerator. Realizing that luck was on my side, I gathered all the ingredients with the thought that my husband would revel in my newly found culinary masterpiece.