If you’re like me (from New Jersey with a last name ending in a vowel), you very likely grew up eating “pasta fazool,” long before we found out that it’s actually “pasta fagioli”—technically pasta e fagioli or “pasta and beans.” Neapolitans, who have their own group of dialects, call it “fasule,” hence the…

Look hard enough at any diet plan, and its true motive becomes clear. Is it trying to sell you manuals and seminars on how to adhere to the lifestyle? Or maybe it’s hawking snack bars and pre-packaged dinners that fall into their narrow definition of a square meal? Or, in the case of Whole30 (whose popularity has…

Maybe you think that all easy-drinking beers—blonde ales, cream ales, etc.—are interchangeable: they’re light, pale, balanced, and low in alcohol. I’d argue instead that because they’re deceptively simple, these are tough beers to get just right. And given many American brewers’ infatuation with hops, wacky flavors,…

Last Call is The Takeout’s online watering hole where you can chat, share recipes, and use the comment section as an open thread. Here’s what we’ve been reading/watching/listening around the office today.

Let’s get right down to business. Here’s Michael Jordan strolling through New York with a little tequila in a bottle and a lot of tequila in a box.

The movement to reduce or eliminate the use of plastic straws has been picking up steam, as evidenced by a pair of stories this week: first, that McDonald’s will begin testing alternatives to plastic straws in some U.S. restaurants this year; second, that Ikea, SeaWorld, and Royal Caribbean have all vowed to stop…

Wynonna Earp is a supernatural western series that airs on Syfy in the U.S. (on Space in Canada). The show, an adaptation of the Beau Smith comic book, centers on Wynonna, the great-great-granddaughter of Wyatt Earp, who is tasked with defending her hometown (Purgatory) from supernatural forces using a mystical,…

Recent salmonella and E. coli warnings have involved vegetables and fruits like romaine lettuce and cut melons—produce seems to be more vulnerable to pathogens than pre-packaged foods. But apparently, that’s not always the case, as Kellogg’s announces a recall today of Honey Smacks cereal (the one with the frog, whose…

Speaking as former servers and hotel employees, we Takeout writers completely understand why some Vermont hotel workers were stoked to find an uneaten box of fancy-looking chocolates in a recently vacated room. We’ve been there: Working long shifts, not making a ton of money, grateful for any little snack that comes…

Those of us of a certain age (ahem) may remember a time period (or at least hearing about a time period) when high-school girls took home economics class, and high-school boys took shop. Men were going to grow up and work on their own cars or home repairs, while women would become homemakers and take care of their…

When I’ve watched friends—with greater willpower than I have—take a month or more off drinking, most tell me that they not only feel better but end up losing some weight, too. And perhaps that’s not just because they’re laying off the beer and sugary cocktails, but because they’re not indulging in the post-drinking…

The English favor desserts consisting of a solid cake-like pudding covered with sauce, like plum pudding with hard sauce, or spotted dick. The latter is a type of sponge cake made with suet, dotted with currents, and topped with custard. The name’s a bit of a head-scratcher, although the currants seem to fill in the…

Hey, far be it from us to cast judgment upon what families choose to name their children, but this story of a North Carolina mom who named her daughter after Reese’s candy is rather extreme: Fox News reports Renee Cupp won a $10,000 prize from the confectionary company after naming her daughter Reese Eve Cupp, or…

Amuse Our Bouche is The Takeout’s column that answers your burning, boiling, and flambéed food questions.

Dear Salty Waitress,

Last Call is The Takeout’s online watering hole where you can chat, share recipes, and use the comment section as an open thread. Here’s what we’ve been reading/watching/listening around the office today.

Update, 2:50 p.m.: Friends, in our eagerness to find a spark of joy on the internet, we’ve all been had. The bot is not, in fact, a bot, as our much-smarter friends at Gizmodo point out. But damn, it was a good ride. And we’d still eat unlimited stick.