TheKMan

On the hottest days of the year, my family sat in the shade and drank Falooda, an iced milk drink made with a bit of rose syrup and a ton of basil seeds. I still have a soft spot for the seeds, which swell up with a thick coat of jelly when they've been hydrated in water (and look almost exactly like frog eggs).

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Jonathan Billinger

Is it time for hops, marijuana's legal cousin, to come back into the kitchen? Writer Peter Smith over at Food & Think has a nice post about the seasonal ingredient, which he picked himself from his father's hop bines.

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The Organ Meat Society recently enjoyed a splendid meal at northern Chinese restaurant Minzhongle, on Main Street in Flushing. But one dish really stood out, name-wise, bringing a chuckle to everyone's lips -- Big Buekstraps Paddywack. What could it be? We wondered as we ordered it.

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No, it's not a potato, though it looks like one.

Fork in the Road often finds itself turning to its readers for identification of foodstuffs we stumble on in area markets but can't figure out. We have another request. This fruit was being sold at the open-air market in Chinatown at the corner of Mulberry and Canal.

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What's the brown pickle the arrow's pointing to? I sure don't know.

I encountered this lovely pickle plate in Brooklyn at a former-Soviet restaurant from the Caucasus. It includes two types of plum, two types of cabbage, pepperoncini, green tomatoes, and cukes. But what's the brown-skinned thing with darker brown spots and a prominent, woody stem spot at the top. Anyone know?

A better picture of the thing follows.

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A friend picked this up at an open-air market in Goa, a former Portuguese colony (now a beach resort) on the west coast of India. It's definitely edible, but does anyone know what it is and what it's used for? Thanks -- we're dying to find out.

I was munching with some friends on a giant heap of dishes at new Shandong restaurant M & T, when the waitress sidled up to me and whispered: "You want to try some seafood from my town of Qingdao. Something we only have there?"

How could I resist? The tubes were rubbery, slippery, and slightly salty, but took most of their taste from the surrounding ingredients in the stir fry. The picture above gives a fair approximation of what it looked like. It is not intestines of any sort, nor is it pasta, though a three-year old at our table mistook it for pasta. Anyone know what this marine animal is called? 44-09 Kissena Boulevard, Flushing, Queens, 718-539-4100

Just when you thought all the utensils in the world had been invented, and just when the drawers in your tiny kitchen were filled up with so much crap you couldn't shut them, along comes another utensil that you might be tempted to add to the collection. The skup (pronounced "scoop" the press release prompts, we prefer "scupp"), is a serving spoon for sauces. But unlike a real serving spoon, it won't slide down into the sauce, because it's equipped with a curl at the top that allows it to depend from the rim of the serving bowl. As if that weren't enough, the surface of the skup allows you to write on it with grease pen. Now, the inventor intended you to inscribe the name of the sauce on the skup, but why not improvise at your next dinner party? How about writing "You're too fat already!" on the front?

The skup is available only on the web from Placetile Designs, at six for $19, here.

They came in a clear cellophane bag with bright red trim. They looked pretty good, but as I peered into the bag I couldn't really tell what they were. "Kong kang," said the counterguy with a smile. "You don't mean kang kung," I replied, using a common name for water spinach. The shopkeeper looked over at his companions and they all started to guffaw.

Had I just made my first joke in Siamese, or had I just made a fool of myself? Either way, the curled brown snacks proved delicious when I got them home--salty and sweet at the same time, with a whiff of exotic herbs that may have included lemongrass and screwpine. There were some chile flakes in the mix, too, making them a perfect snack.

A little web and cookbook research yielded inconclusive results, except that the snack is sometimes called in English "rice worms." Enlighten me if you know more about this snack, which is available at Ayada Grocery, 76-13 Woodside Avenue, Elmhurst, Queens, 718-426-5006.

Looks pretty damn good, right? And who doesn't love a traditional hot breakfast of bacon, eggs, and toast? But look a bit closer to discover that the breakfast is a knitted one, more suited to covering your ass in cold weather than sliding down your gullet.

This mercery masterpiece was created by a craftsperson known only as jugglerz4. You can see it, among other amazing feats of knitting (including a red lobster, a perfect maki roll, and a dissected frog) at toxel.com.