My wife and I love going out to eat, but not all restaurants are created equally. When it comes to taking a good dining experience and turning it into a truly memorable one, it’s all about the little extras. Taking the time to think of inconveniences the client didn’t even know they had, and then solving them.
If you’re a restaurant owner, take note of these 12 ideas.
Spend enough time working in an office setting and you’ll eventually encounter the office potluck. It’s something that *sounds* really fun in theory, but it almost always turns into a spectacle in real life. Some colleagues get it and bring truly good food to the table, while others bring their mom’s Jello salad recipe from the ’70s. Damnit, Karen, nobody wants ham and peas suspended in lemon Jello!
A Twitter user recently had a ridiculous run-in with the latter sort at his office potluck.
Also, this article absolutely epitomizes why I love working from home. Take a look to see how this drama unfolded. It all started with an innocent office potluck…and then…
Do you love dogs, sheep, and pigs (not necessarily in that order)? Well, get ready for this: the Mangalitsa is a Hungarian breed of pig that looks like a sheep and acts like a dog!
Mangalitsas are all pig, except wooly like sheep. Breeder Wilhelm Kohl also claims these cuties can be pets, telling Modern Farmer, “If you treat them nicely, they’ll become as tame as dogs — they’ll follow you, play with you.”
The pigs are an Austro-Hungarian breed from the 19th century and were prominent until 1950. After the spread of refrigeration and higher demand for imported food, the breed fell out of favor. By 1991, less than 200 remained in Hungary. But heirloom livestock breeding is now a popular hobby, and the numbers of Mangalitsas has swelled to 7,000, with Hungary producing 60,000 piglets a year. The pigs can also be found in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Czech Republic and the United States.
Alas, they have a rich, buttery taste and go wholesale for up to $12 per pound. Expect to pay five to seven times that in fancy restaurants like French Laundry in Yountville, CA.
But, you guys, these piggies are also like dogs and so cute.
And even though they look like they are wearing curly sweaters, they are comfortable living anywhere. So if you have a sizable backyard, chain yourself to a desk at the next city council meeting and demand your right to own one. You probably won’t regret it.
Are you familiar with boba tea? It’s something that’s been trending quite a lot over the past few years, with boba shops popping up on just about every corner. I personally love to do a rose tea with grapefruit boba. Trust me on that combo. You want it. You want it now.
But for those who may not have encountered this refreshing, textured beverage of Asian origins, it might need a little demystifying. What’s the story behind this delicious drink? What are those bubbles, anyway? Here’s the inside scoop on boba, aka bubble tea.
The History of Bubble Tea
Boba started in Taiwan, possibly in Taipei. Milk tea was already a popular drink, and shaved ice and tapioca balls were popular desserts. Although there are several more specific origin stories (which may or may not be true), at some point someone had the genius idea to combine the two, and boba was born.
The bubbles in boba are tapioca pearls, which are made from cassava starch balls. The term “boba” can refer to the entire drink or to the tapioca balls. The tea base can be made from black or green tea. Next, they add milk, which makes it creamy (or a milk alternative, if you’re lactose intolerant).
Once you’ve chosen your tea and milk base, you can choose from a wide variety of toppings, including:
Boba: They’re chewy, delicious, and the classic choice for bubble tea.
Pudding: This has more of a custard-like texture.
Aloe vera: You already know aloe vera is good for you, now enjoy it in your drink!
Taro balls: These are made from taro and are sweetly delicious.
You can play around with different flavor combinations until you find the perfect drink.
Ah, Twitter. It’s been the source of all sorts of craziness in the last few years, but this might be one of the best Twitter stories yet.
When Billy By’s dad opened Billy’s Donuts in Missouri City, Texas, sales were slow to say the least. Nobody was coming in. So Billy did what any normal person does in 2019 to try to boost business: he took to social media to plead his case.
Billy tweeted an update about the amazing turnaround.
Just wanted to update yall! We completely sold out of donuts and kolaches! You are all amazing. I can’t thank everyone enough for coming out and supporting local businesses. This means so much to my family pic.twitter.com/o3GQcKvVnG
Air travel has gotten pretty rough over the years, and they’ve really taken a beating (or given one, rather) in the way they treat customers. Let’s just call a spade a spade, y’all: They’re dicks.
But out of the frustrated masses, every so often a hero emerges to light the way forward. The latest incident? Refusing to let a gentleman bring his beer onto the plane with him.
Passenger Dean Stinson was on his way to Perth, Australia via Qantas Flight QF777 when was told he couldn’t bring his can of Emu Export lager, so he hatched a rather hilarious plan: he checked his beer as luggage!
The beer was tagged and sent off to be loaded onto the plane with the rest of the baggage, which the Melbourne ground staff happily did — but not until they had snapped a few pictures of the unusual check-in item.
Incredibly, the beer actually made it to its destination and apparently was the first thing to come out at the baggage claim – proving that the baggage handles at Perth clearly have a great sense of humor.
Sure, it might be all shaken up and skunked from the changes in pressure and temperature that it undoubtedly experienced in the cargo bay, but it’s the principle of the matter. This hero of a man stared the tyranny of modern air travel right in the eye and literally said, “Hold my beer.”
Having lived in America for well over a decade now, I admit there are a lot of things on this list that don’t seem as weird to me anymore. That said, when I first got here, there were definitely plenty of foods that had me confused AF. At the very least, I will say that Americans are… unrestrictedly creative with the things they do to food.
1. This is actually a great idea that doesn’t belong here. I just wanted you to see it.
I’m a huge cooking enthusiast, so naturally, I’m always on the lookout for awesome new tips to up my game in the kitchen. Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of cooking hacks – some great, some terrible. This list from BuzzFeed is definitely full of some of the best ones!
1. Roast your white chocolate.
If you’re into baking, try roasting your white chocolate on a sheet pan in the oven. It turns golden and nutty.
2. Use your slow cooker as a sous vide machine.
Sous vide cooking has been all the rage amongst foodies for pretty much ever. If you’re handy and have a bit of time on your hands, you can hack your slow cooker to behave like a sous vide machine to save money on equipment.
If you want to seriously impress your next brunch guests, bury some egg yolks in a mixture of salt and sugar for a few days and then put them into the oven to dry out. The yolks become cured and firm, and you can grate them on top of other dishes.
4. Make your own cheese sauce.
Cheese sauce solves all problems. You can make your own at home with just water, cheese, and sodium citrate (a type of salt that you can buy online). Easy-peasy.
5. Cook your pasta in red wine.
Pasta and red wine go together perfectly, and apparently, you can cook them together too. Cook pasta in red wine rather than water to add flavor and color.
An episode of The Great British Bake-Off will confirm that this trick does, in fact, work. It’s also known as “aquafaba.” The liquid from a can of chickpeas can be whipped into meringue in place of egg whites.
Ever too lazy to buy a bag of potato chips, but really need to eat some potato chips right that moment? If you have some potatoes on hand you can make potato chips in the microwave in a couple minutes.
Game-changer.
9. Use mayonnaise as a non-stick layer.
Coat your meat or fish with mayonnaise before you put it onto the grill, and it will prevent the food from sticking and help it cook more evenly.
Pineapples are absolutely yummy (unless they’re on a pizza, but that’s a whole other story). Sadly, they’re also kinda hard to eat if you’re actually trying to do it from scratch and not get the syrupy canned versions. Do I peel, then cut? Do I cut, then peel? What’s the best knife for it, and how do I not chop my hand off in the process?
Even if you’re a pineapple-slicing professional, it’s a whole elaborate process. Your other options are to buy pre-sliced pineapple or just… give up on this delicious fruit.
But wait. THERE IS A BETTER WAY. You can apparently just eat pineapple with your bare hands, and honestly, this is the biggest development of the year, as far as I’m concerned!
This pineapple hack comes to the world courtesy of a TikTok user. @dillonroberts22 posted a video that shows someone ripping off individual pieces of pineapple and (really loudly) chomping on them. It’s about 2 seconds long, and those 2 seconds basically changed the world.
The video spread like wildfire on Twitter, where people were genuinely shocked that there is a whole other way to eat pineapple that nobody knew about WTF.
Some people even ventured to try the trick at home, sure that the TikTok video was a hoax. But nope – it’s 100% real, folks.
A few wise Twitter users took everyone else to Pineapple School, where they explained that pineapples actually consist of a whole bunch of berries fused together. Each individual piece is a berry, which is why they can be torn off like that.
#Mangalitsa
