Anyway, now the band (yes, it is still around) hits the shelves not with a new album but with a more refined product, a 2008 Whitesnake zinfandel corked by the Dennis de la Montanya vineyard in the Russian River area of California. And how is it? Well, at $30 a pop, it ain’t no Two-Buck Chuck. Or as the esteemed Mr. Coverdale says:

“It’s a bodacious, cheeky little wine, filled to the brim with the spicy essence of sexy, slippery Snakeyness … I recommend it to complement any & all grown up friskiness & hot tub jollies …

Is this love? … I believe it is …”

Cheeky monkey he is, isn’t he? I’d say Whitesnake has finally arrived.

Just some news to chew on.

OK, seems there’s some talk allowing the word “milk” to be associated with an animal’s lactating excretion (i.e. cow’s, goat’s, mother’s), so soy milk needs another identifier. And as only can be found on local news, the banter between anchors was at once embarrassing and hilarious.

As co-anchor Greg Kelly suggest changing the name to “soy juice,” Scotto blurts out, “or soy jism!” Now, as all men, Penthouse Forum readers, or Howard Stern fans know, jism is a common slang for ejaculate. What makes the impromptu verbal ejaculation so amusing is that it came (pun intended) not from the male, but from the female in the group. And the fact that Kelly’s suggestion or the word juice prompted Scotto’s retort of “jism!”

Hmmm…could it be that Scotto often uses the word in her bedroom banter? Naughty, naughty girl! At the same time, we can’t promise the next time we order up a coffee drink we wont let slip to order a grande latte with a shot of soy jism. Thanks a lot, Rosanna.

Just some news to chew on.

Check it out for yourself below.

Anyway, aside from bacon, chicken wings are one of our favorite foods. Ever. Buffalo wings, hot wings – it’s the perfect bar food, chomping down, primal gnawing at the bone: Nom, nom, nom, nom. And we’ve noticed over the years that chicken wings are offered up everywhere. Hell, 7-Eleven serves ‘m up.

Mmmmm…Nom, nom, nom, nom

Now, supposedly there’s a chicken wing shortage going on when the crisis hit the news last fall. But apparently, it’s ongoing because USA Today ran yet another chicken wing shortage story, saying the once lowly throwaway body part is in such demand that prices have skyrocketed.

Apparently, we are over our breast obsession – we have become insatiable over wings.

The primary factor driving up wing prices is the growing number of restaurants, including many national chains, that are adding wings to their offerings, says Richard Lobb, spokesman for the Washington-based chicken industry trade group the National Chicken Council.

According to the Agriculture Department, the average wholesale price of wings in 2009 was $1.47 a pound, up 39% from 2008 and the highest it has been, adjusted for inflation, since the mid-1970s.

So, what’s the alternative? A four-winged chicken? Cool as that might be, some people would be creeped out by such a mutant.

Boneless Buffalo wings? Shame on trying to co-op the name. It’s wings or nothing for us, and yeah, we’re willing to pay the higher prices – but not in a foodie kind of way. It’s a small price to pay for keeping in touch with our primal instincts. Grrrr….nom, nom, nom. That’s why.

Who knows? Maybe one day the breast will be the throwaway part of the chicken. And then we’ll become breast obsessed again. Mmmm…nom, nom, nom….

Just some news to gnaw, er, chew on.

Actually, it’s the idea behind the book, Manifold Destiny (Simon and Schuster), by Chris Maynard and Bill Scheller, who created this the guide to cooking on your car engine. According to a USAToday.com article, the book explains how to prepare, foil wrap and tuck an uncooked dinner into various places under your car’s hood so that your casserole or roast is sizzling hot and waiting when you arrive.

Now, is it possible to tackle a whole turkey dinner under your hood? Well, sorta.  But a breast, complete with potatoes, shouldn’t require much more than 200 miles or so. And you’ll have the full aroma of a roasting turkey and potatoes during your entire drive.

Check out the full recipe for “To Grandmother’s House Road Turkey” right here.

Just some news to chew on. And Happy Thanksgiving from the News to Chew staff.

Oh, thank heaven for 7-Eleven.

Well, we got word of more awesomeness recently: your local purveyor will soon be offering up chicken wings and pizza to go with that cherry/cola/pina colada Slurpee that you love mixing together. According to the Dallas Morning News, 7-Eleven is expanding its hot foods program to add items such as pepperoni pizza and chicken wings to 115 Dallas-area stores. The program is part of a nationwide rollout that is bringing ovens made by Carrollton’s TurboChef Technologies to 1,400 7-Eleven stores this year.

Stores with the new hot food program will be able to serve items such as four-cheese and pepperoni pizza (whole or by the slice), white-meat chicken tenders and three varieties of chicken wings – spicy, breaded; Asian; and barbecue.

Apparently, 7-Eleven feels hot food, and not smokes, is where the future growth lies. And one day, we’ll reminisce wistfully of the days when a bag of Corn Nuts and a stick of Slim Jim suffice for nourishment. Oh, well – you can’t stop progress.

Just some news to chew on.

More importantly, the article pointed out a popular blog, Cake Wrecks by Jen Yates, that documents cake disasters from your bakery around the corner. We’re talking Cake Boss gone to hell. We check out Cake Wrecks and came away chuckling – not only were many of these “designs” of dubious merit, but we especially love the narrative supplied to the pictures. It’s right up our snarky alley, indeed.

But back to the NYT article – gotta love this one:

Best Wishes Suzanne

Under Neat that

We will Miss you

Reminds us of that old joke: “Repeat after me. ‘I (your name) …’” and then you repeat “your name” instead of saying your name. Better yet:

When a customer brought in a USB flash drive and asked a bakery to print out a digital picture from it to use on a cake for an office party, the baker instead made an edible version of the flash drive itself. A picture of the resulting cake, accurately frosted in silver and black, is probably the most forwarded image on the blog. (see image above)

No shit. And until they invent a pastry icing bag with spell check (Hmmm? Light bulb moment?), it looks like Jen Yates at Cake Wrecks is never going to be at a loss for fodder.

Just some news to chew on.

BOOKMAN: Who doesn’t have instant coffee?
JERRY: I don’t.
BOOKMAN: You buy a jar of Folger’s Crystals, you put it in the cupboard, you forget about it. Then later on when you need it, it’s there. It lasts forever. It’s freeze-dried. Freeze-dried Crystals.

There’s some sort of irony or something going on here. You know, Starbucks – it of the McDonald’s-like ubiquity – conditions the world that so-so, overpriced brewed coffee is something we can’t live without. So when SB came out last week with their (heavily advertised) VIA instant coffee, it struck the News to Chew news desk as, well, weird.

C’mon. Instant coffee? From Starbucks?

That’s like saying, “Ya know, we’ve branded ourselves as the best coffee around, but we’ve expanded and overexposed ourselves to the point of mediocrity so we’re going to pull back your expectations with this new product we have – instant coffee.”

I mean, my parents drink instant coffee – a product of their generation. And they’re in their 80s. So, Starbucks is taking on Taster’s Choice or Nescafe? Maybe it’s a brilliant marketing strategy – they’re closing outlets everywhere, so now they’re entering a more dormant revenue stream.

Now, the Starbucks advertising and hype is saying you can’t taste the difference between VIA and their fresh-brewed coffee. So NTC decided to give it a try. And the verdict? Not bad, actually. In fact, it was better then the fresh brewed you’ll get at certain times of the day at Starbucks. It might be worth keeping a few packs in the cupboard at work or home.

Who knows? Maybe instant will be the new coffee trend? And then Folgers Crystals will be the new hipster anti-VIA coffee?

Just some news to chew on.