Preheating your coffee mug is divine
I’m all about small life upgrades, the kind that take only an extra moment or two but measurably improve your daily…
Today I Learned
Today I Learned is a feature where The Takeout writers share something they learned today.
USDA: A serving of French fries is 12 fries
Last week, The New York Times discovered that French fries are not exactly a health food. (I’ll pause as you let this…
Oh god, there may actually be reason to give your houseplants fizzy water
I actually learned three things today, all courtesy of the same source: Refinery 29’s Ask A Plant Queen column. Here…
TIL I need to clean out my filthy knife block
We know that the kitchen is a swarming cesspool full of germs and bacteria. But a startling article from the Atlanta…
Why you probably can’t recycle that pizza box
Pizza boxes are mostly made of corrugated cardboard, a material that gets the recycling go-ahead in most places. But if…
This Chick-Fil-A box hack will moderately improve your driving-while-nuggeting
No, this Chick-fil-A trick won’t change your life, but as far as fast-food hacks go, it’s pretty solid. (It actually…
TIL why people put out teal pumpkins on Halloween
Sometimes these Today I Learned entries are fun factoids. Eagles steal food from other animals! The Supreme Court ruled…
TIL Ben & Jerry’s has a spoooooooky flavor graveyard
Just a few forlorn steps from Ben & Jerry’s plant in Waterbury plant, visitors will find hallowed, haunted ground.…
TIL there’s a Frosty 5K
Every year, in Columbus, Ohio, Wendy’s holds a Frosty 5K. You can run or walk. It raises both funds and awareness for…
TIL potatoes were weapons in World War II
Please, before we begin, start this video. Make sure your volume is up. We’ll let you know when to stop.
TIL there's a German word for how it feels when you're champagne drunk
Sektlaune means, depending on the German-English dictionary you consult, one of the following:
TIL there used to be a Crow Meat Lovers Association
Back in the day, the governor of Oklahoma just loved eating crow meat, and because he was the governor of a whole…
TIL my dog’s bowl is a teeming cesspool
Making my usual rounds of food-safety news, germ news, ways-kitchens-can-kill-us news, I came across a tidbit that gave…
TIL wine is also available in shades of orange and blue
I’m quite the wine fan, but I thought I was breaking ground a few years back when I embraced rosé in the summertime…
You'll never unsee U-S-A inside the word "sausage"
Like many red-blooded Americans on the Fourth of July, I found myself curled up on the couch with a cold beer in one…
Yes, energy drinks can remove rust from metal
Yes, you can remove rust from metal by soaking it in energy drink. When I first came across this tip a few weeks ago, I…
TIL I could start my own whiskey blend right now
There’s a certain kind of whiskey lover who, every so often, pops into the store where I moonlight as a purveyor of…
TIL why wine gets stored sideways (and why that’s pointless)
I always assumed that wine was stored sideways for space-saving reasons (and that is a perfectly good reason to store…
TIL reverse vending machines exist
When I saw the phrase “reverse vending machine” in a headline, my cognitive wheels began to turn—but in a kind of weird…