This Week in Food

Esty Seller SouZouCreations

Complete with veggies and seafood--and a floating pair of chopsticks, of course. $12.50.

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Another week of eating, recipes, crime and general food-related goodness has come and gone at Stick a Fork in it, and with Grace off on a vacation, I'm standing in for a roundup of the week's posts. Our bloggers have covered everything from food-themed rings from Esty to a local Taco Bell crime to thoughts on charging for water at Boiling Crab.

Look after the jump for a complete rundown of this week's posts. Dave brought us another informative and mouth-watering Five Things list featuring a number of lesser-known regional Mexican dishes, ranging from Guadalajara's tortas ahogadas (drowned sandwiches) to true barbacoa (lamb or goat), from the Mexican state of Hidalgo. The week continued with Dave getting drunk after work at one of Gustavo's favorite restaurants, Lola Gaspar, tracking down the closest thing to true New York pizza, the tradition of eating zeppole for the Italian Feast of St. Joseph and a few farmers' market-related posts about Tillamook Cheddar's Loaf Love Tour and locally grown sugar cane. And in addition to all that, Dave brought us an insightful interview with Dee Nguyen, chef at Break of Dawn in Laguna Hills, where you can eat pate for breakfast, amongst other wonderful things. But the thought of pate first thing in the morning has me dying to try the place. And there's a third installment of Peruvian 101 to enjoy as well!

Edwin directed us to a number of interesting news stories from close to home--such as the Los Angeles Times article about the Armenian roast chicken chain Zankou Chicken--to Haagen Dazs's sushi-shaped ice cream, which is now available in Singapore. Back in southern California, Edwin posted about the shawarma stand that just opened at Camp Pendleton, which was brought about by popular demand by soldiers back in the states after tours of duty in the Middle East and facing powerful cravings for some the pita sandwiches they enjoyed overseas. And of course, there was another wacky snack--Naughty Tomatoes!--a few choice words for Bobby Flay and the celebrity chef/cooking competition reality fad, and another yogurt store casualty in Orange County.

After letting us know that the fear or crime at Taco Bell is alive in la naranja just as much as elsewhere in the country, Gustavo went on to rip off NPR's Ask a Muslim by introducing a new Stick a Fork in It feature, ¡Ask a Comida Critic! Have a question about dining in Orange County, or just about food in general? Drop Gusatavo a line: GArellano@ocweekly.com. Gustavo also gave us a bit of background and a strong point of contrast to the HB restaurant Chimayó, comparing it with the town of the same name in New Mexico, where OC Weekly's very own Mexican is researching the Southwestern food trend that hit the US in the '90s, for his book on the history of Mexican food in the United States. And also: orgies of consumerism.

Grace showed us two beautiful cones of garlic fries for another of our new features, Guess Where?, and enjoyed the vegan chili extravaganza know as Vahalla Table. St. Patrick's Day was celebrated by my rant against the day's faux-Irish clichés , followed up with a recipe for Irish Soda bread, while the Jessica's Desert of the Week was an old school-style banana split--complete with maraschino cherries and canned whip cream--from Watson's Drug and Soda Fountain.

That catches you all up on the week's blogging activities; we'll be back on Monday with more of the best in food in Orange County.