Half-Deer Edward

Part breath mints and part nose-clearing lozenge, Altoids was invented in the 1780s in England. The high dose of peppermint oil used in "The Curiously Strong Mints," as the advertising slogan went, was partly aimed at smokers whose taste buds had been blunted by pipe and cigar tobacco. In the U.K., Altoids were eventually manufactured by Callard & Bowser, which licensed it to the Mars subsidiary of the U.S. chewing gum manufacturer Wrigley.

But how to grow a brand known mainly for its anti-halitosis and medicinal properties? Turn it into candy. And that's what Mars did in 2006, introducing, contrary to logic, a strong breath mint coated in chocolate, manufacturing them in peppermint, ginger, and cinnamon flavors. The new brandlet had bombed by 2010 and been removed from the retail marketplace (though you can still buy a dark chocolate version on Amazon), but not before this series of four amazing TV commercials were introduced in 2007, by turns odd, hilarious, and slightly repulsive.

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Sunday, June 3

Pig Preparation at Jimmy's 43
People in town this weekend can learn how to prepare an entire pig from head to feet the way it's done in Mexico. The event begins on Sunday beginning at noon. Chef Zarela Martinez will show participants how to make chorizo, carnitas, carne adobada, tamales, manteca, pickled pig feet, and cueritos. Class includes lunch. Cost: $65

Brooklyn Grub Crawl
The Belvedere Vodka and Bon Appetit Grub Crawl continues on Sunday at Red Hook from 11:30am - 4:30pm. Vendors: Stumptown Coffee Roasters, Fort Defiance, The Good Fork, Mile End, and Sunny's.

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via Big Gay Ice Cream Shop

Bertha Mason will be serving pie at the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop this weekend

1. Big Gay Ice Cream
On Sunday, Doug Quint and Bryan Petroff over at the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop will be throwing a party in honor of Humphry Slocombe, the San Francisco ice cream shop with a newly released cookbook. Jake Godby and Sean Vahey will be there to sign copies and Big Gay Ice Cream will be giving out special treats. Event time: 4pm-6pm

2. New Amsterdam Market + Street Vendor Project
New Amsterdam Market is joining forces with the Street Vendor Project Vendy Awards for a locally sourced food cart event. On Sunday, each participating vendor will be using greenmarket ingredients from local farms and meats from Marlow and Daughters and poultry from Bobo Poultry in their dishes. Specialties offers include: Taiwanese beef and kimchi dumplings by A-pous, Mexican egg and chorizo dumplings by Eggstravaganza, pork tamales by Guadelupes Tamales, chicken pupusas by Solber Pupusas, Jamaican Jerk Chicken by Veronica's Kitchen. Details after the jump.

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The Redhead

You don't have to go far to get your hands on straight-from-Louisiana crawfish.

It's the second week of the Redhead's annual crawfish boil. Every Sunday until May 13, $30 will get you two pounds of crawfish, sausage, corn, potato, and artichoke. There will also be New Orleans's Abita Beers on tap.

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Baltimore kitchen, Saturday morning

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Celebrate America with the best of everything.

After what seems like weeks of bad weather, Memorial Day weekend is finally upon us, which means a number of things: sunshine, road trips, and barbecue, to name a few. We're going to be unveiling Our 10 Best Barbecue Restaurants tomorrow, but why stop there? One of the best things about a long weekend is keeping everything easy and hassle-free, which is why we decided to compile our favorite "10 Best" lists for you to use as a handy guide for enjoying yourself. Whether you're traveling, staying put, or enjoying the warm weather, we've got you covered with the ultimate guide to 10 Bests for summer.

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Purchased by Fork in the Road's San Francisco correspondent Tracy Van Dyk in the Hong Kong airport, the banana slicer is one kitchen utensil you can probably do without.

How hard is it to slice a banana? It takes 10 seconds and you can do it with a butter knife. Yet there is a special kitchen utensil to accomplish it. The banana slicer will take up lots of your limited drawer space, and require a certain dexterity to align it over the banana.

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One of these pastries is also called "macaron," but which one?

We've spilled lots of ink lately on the difference between macaroons and macarons -- the former being sticky, coconut-based cookies popular for Passover, the latter cheerless-but-colorful sandwich cookies that taste something like Styrofoam. But on Good Friday at a new Lebanese bakery in Bay Ridge, a third type surfaced.

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Last week, Edible Manhattan hosted the third of their trivia nights at Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg, offering prizes as diverse as pounds of coffee, boxes of chocolates, locavoric wines, and, not surprisingly, bottles of Brooklyn beer.

The subject was rock music related to food. Edible Manhattan and Edible Brooklyn blogger and editor Rachel Wharton was the emcee, and I wrote the questions, which came in three sections. Beginning today, and for the next two Saturdays, Fork in the Road presents those questions for your stumpification -- the answers to today's quiz will be posted next Saturday, along with the next installment. Of course, you always have the option of Googling up the answers if you can't wait. So, put a CD on the CD player and put on your thinking caps.

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Dragon Boat afloat in Flushing Meadows Pond.

I went expecting to find a food scene something like the Red Hook soccer fields or the Labor Day parade in Brooklyn, and indeed there were tents, pavilions, and penants galore at the north end of the lake, like some medieval jousting match. Most of the tents were sponsored by service organizations, electrical utilities, insurance companies, etc., and the majority of these featured games of chance, causing long lines in the hot sun as event-goers waited patiently to spin the wheel of fortune, for prizes displayed on tables.

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