​Served on rye with mustard and sauerkraut, Katz's knoblewurst packs a megaton wallop of garlic.

Sausages originated as a way to preserve meats past their "expire by" dates sometime during human pre-history, and turned out to be the best way to hide animal parts that we didn't necessarily want to look at. Nearly every culinary culture has them, with a flavoring scheme best suited to the tastes of their respective cuisines: The English have their pallid bangers; the French their garlicky saucisson; the Chinese their sticky-sweet links, redolent of star anise; the South Americans their chorizo (and chourico), laced with wine; the Thais their sour sausage; the Germans their doughty wursts; the Balkans their cevapis--the list goes on and on.

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​The sign translates to "Sausage Factory," but will the products of this legendary Lower East Sider make our list of the city's most scrumptious sausages?

Tomorrow, bright and early, please join us for the unveiling of Our 10 Best Sausages. We've combed the five boroughs -- and even parts of New Jersey -- to bring you the most delicious examples, including the tubular meat products of dozens of culinary cultures. Will a brawny kielbasa win, or a delicate sage breakfast sausage? Or will it be an impolite English banger?

And we look forward to generating a readers' list of favorite sausages, so please think of the best one you've eaten lately. See you tomorrow!

​All of a sudden, flowering bulbs are replacing pickles, turkey sausage, and mealy apples as the focus of city famers' markets.

​Is the American eating public ready for mayo in their tacos, and cilantro in their fast food?

The name of the thing put me on my guard. What the hell does "Pacific shrimp" mean? When I was a kid, "Gulf shrimp" meant something--wild shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico. But nowadays, nearly all shrimp we're exposed to are farmed in filthy and chemical-laden conditions along the Pacific coast of Thailand, so it's hard to get too excited about "Pacific shrimp."

​Kaeng zom sour curry, featuring shrimp or freshwater fish, is one dish that Pam Real Thai does particularly well.

Yes there really is a Pam, and nine years ago she started a restaurant in Hell's Kitchen called Pam Real Thai Food that quickly rose to be one of the best Thais in Manhattan, which is really saying something, since Hell's Kitchen is teeming with Thais.

The first time you saw these commercials you may have even liked them, and gone away humming the tunes. But by the umpteenth repetition, you wanted to scream--and strangle the producer who made them.

5. Subway's relentless compaign to cover the city in crappy heros makes the racial stereotyping, sexual innuendo, and all-around simpiness of the commercial even more annoying.

​This trio of carrots is of the same fabrication as sesame balls, with watercress stems providing greenery.

Great dim sum has returned to New York City during the last couple of years. The decade before had been a dim sum Sahara, with the old-guard places serving desiccated dumplings and steamed buns filled with red gristle to half-empty dining rooms.

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​The Hump is actually located on Santa Monica city property, at the Santa Monica Airport.

While Santa Monica's whale-slicing restaurant faces fines of $200,000 for itself, and $100,000 for its sushi chef over its admissions that it violated the Federal Marine Mammal Protection Act by serving the raw flesh of an endangered mammal, its punishment may be more swift and immediate.

​The overstuffed tacos at El Aguila include carnitas (left) and barbacoa (right).

If you're a Mexican taqueria occupying actual real estate, how do you compete with all the trucks that set up shop as soon as the sun goes down?

​Originating in ther early 1950's, City Market sits on Luling's main drag opposite the railroad tracks that bisect the town.

By the time Luling was founded in 1874 as a station on the Galveston, Harrison, and San Antonio railroad, it was already one of the wildest towns in the Wild West, frequented by outlaws like Sam Bass and John Wesley Hardin, with a red-light district on the edge of the municipality known as Dogtown.