For centuries, a rite of passage for French gourmets has been the eating of the Ortolan. These tiny birds—captured alive, force-fed, then drowned in Armagnac—were roasted whole and eaten that way, bones and all, while the diner draped his head with a linen napkin to preserve the precious aromas and, some believe, to hide from God.

[Photo: Ortolan bunting, via andy_hultberg's Flickr]

Perhaps unsurprisingly given our occupation, the bulk of our life plans revolve around food and our bucket list is no different. We want to do the full tasting at The French Laundry and eat roast chicken at L'Ami Louis. We want to visit the food centers in Singapore and the open air markets in Provence. Most of all, though, we want to eat our way through the United States. There are huge regions we've never explored and we're very anxious to eat barbecue in North Carolina, gumbo in New Orleans, and ripe-from-the-tree avocados in California, to name just a few.

The pre-kickin'-it food plans of other MP editors are after the jump, but really, we're awfully curious about what's on your list, so leave it in the comments.

• Planning a picnic? Of course you are. It's simply not summer unless you're planning a picnic. So do it the well-informed way: a roundup of the best excuses, events, and locales, plus a handy guide to what you'll want to bring to supplement your blanket & basket. Those marching ants say gracias, Emily Le Beau! (We have just now arbitrarily decided that all Chicago-dwelling ants are Spanish-speakers) [Tribune]

• Speaking of fried peanut butter-and-banana sandwiches! Julia Kramer puts her investigative journalism hat on, and finds out why exactly it is that beloved menu items will just very rudely disappear from menus. Like the aforementioned Elvis-killer, formerly on the menu at Over Easy Cafe. Also missing: braised octopus at Avec, brisket panini at Vella Cafe, and the McRib you-know-where. [TOC]

Now how 'bout them thar reviews:

• Phil Vettel does a twofer, hitting up Brazilian all-you-can-eat-meat places Texas de Brazil and ZED451 this week. Mandatory groan-inducing-yet-endearing Vettel pun: "sometimes I think it's called "Brazilian style" because each meal contains a brazillion calories."
Phil one-stars Texas de Brazil and two-stars Zed451 (turns out the name is a head-scratchingly oblique reference to Fahrenheit 451! Who knew!). TDB is too salty, not quite as exciting as Zed's expanded offerings — the mini-chain doesn't restrict itself by the Brazilian rules of only seasoning with salt, and only using Brazilian cuts of meat. Also: totally exciting salad bar! [Vettel, Tribune]

• Over on the cheaper side of things, Epic Burger lands a solid three forks (out of 4) from Glenn Jeffers. The all-organic, eco-friendly patty joint is, in fact, epic — in the best possible way, with the juicy meat not even needing the various veggies and sauces sharing bun space. Additional awesomeness: the egg-and-pepper sandwich, and milkshakes that sound pretty darn heavenly. [Jeffers, Tribune]

•We're going to resist the urge to make "bro! dude! bro!" jokes and be serious for a moment: We are riding the Heather Shouse train right now. Her review of HUB 51, whose various claims to buzz we don't really feel we need to explain to you anymore, is one of those things that sits with us just right. Like a critical David, she knows where she stands vis-a-vis a Melman Goliath:

Regardless of the flaws, regardless of my personal feelings about the place, this isn’t the kind of restaurant that is shaken or even affected by reviews.

[Photo: Epic burger, via Joe M500's Flickr]

We can't wait to read what Fruit Slinger will have to say about her. You will be there, won't you Dan?

Alice in Chicagoland [The Stew]

[Photo: Chez Panisse, via fuzuoco's Flickr]

(We wanted to illustrate this post with a photo of Chef Nino Mancari's tattoo of Alice Waters, but it belongs to The New York Times and we don't want to get sued. So we strongly advise you to go to this gallery and check out these awesome chef tattoos.)

These things get way too much attention for being standard-issue fries with a bunch of cheap condiments on top (to be fair, they'll only cost you $3.15). They're allegedly named for a former employee who went by "Ghetto Girl" and are decidedly not an attempt tap into the always-profitable stereotype of poor people putting Merkt's on everything (cf. Hecky's Mutt; Ghetto Latte). Anyway, these are exactly the sum of their parts---I'm a little mystified by a place hanging their hat on a dish so easily replicated by anyone with access to a Fixins Bar, but they've been around for 50 years, I think the sweetness of the sauce, the sharpness of the cheese, and the saltiness of the fries are supposed to play off each other, but they didn't do that so much as just kind of decompose into a homogeneous mass.

Max's Italian Beef [Chicago Burger Project]
Coffee Shop Threatens to Punch Customer In His Dick [The Consumerist]
Max's Italian Beef [MenuPages]

[Photo: Max's Ghetto Fries, via Chicago Burger Project]

It happens every year about this time. Oppressive heat and humidity and general grossness make us nostalgic for the heady days of mid-April, when the temperature was mild and just about everything was newly in (or coming into) season. But one favorite was just on its way out, and right about now we miss it terribly.

Fortunately, there is hope yet for oyster lovers.

Traditional wisdom states that you must not eat oysters during months without the letter "r" in them. That is to say, summer months. A few years ago, while researching this story for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, we learned that that had to do with the oysters' spawning season--they get all milky and weird when they spawn.

According to this little New York Times item from earlier in the week, oysters and other shellfish — especially local harvests — can become contaminated from summer algae blooms or "red tides."

But there is hope yet, oyster lover. You don't have to wait until September to slurp. One thing we learned during our trip to the San Francisco Bay Area's oyster country is that some local farms are growing imported varieties, such as Kumomotos, from Japan, which spawn in alternate months from our North American regulars.

Also, as the Times points out, government regulations prevent aquaculture outfits from selling shellfish grown in contaminated water. Many growers finish their oysters in clean-water tanks, which flush out contaminants.

So there you go, you can totally eat oysters in the summer if you order the right kinds and make sure you go through government-regulated suppliers. The Oyster Guide website has a bunch of farms listed. Some even do mail order.

Being There: In The Raw [San Francisco Bay Guardian]
The Claim: Never Eat Shellfish in a Month Without an R [New York Times]
Where to Order Oysters [The Oyster Guide]

[Photo: The walrus and the carpenter from Alice in Wonderland via superfluous consonants/flickr]

The Smoking Gun tells the story of a Grey Poupon prank gone bad:

After gesturing to the 22-year-old [Vitaly] Kovtun to roll down his window, passenger Stephen Cox asked, ‘Excuse me, sir, do you have any Grey Poupon?’ Kovtun responded, police charge, by pulling a handgun from his glove compartment, cocking the weapon, and leveling it at the prankster’s auto. ‘Here’s your Grey Poupon, roll your f***ing windows up,’ Kovtun said, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Points for style all around on this one.

Best Grey Poupon Rejoinder to Date [The Grinder]

• A look at the detective work that went into tracking down that nasty jalapeno [AP/Chicago Tribune]

• An Ohio woman charged with assault after throwing peanuts at her allergic neighbor [Fox News]

• Seems a Wisconsin grocery store owner might have been selling stolen fruit [Twincities.com]

• Rising food prices may be a culprit behind the rising crime rate in Manila [GMANews.tv]

Most first dates take place in restaurants. God knows why.

So anyway, first rule: insist that your date picks the restaurant, which actually isn't a bad idea. Except what if he/she suggests a restaurant that isn't within an acceptable price range? How do you explain, no, sorry, I'm a cheap bastard who can't afford to take you there, even if we go Dutch. Yeah, upon further consideration, that's a bad idea. You make the date, you pick the restaurant.

Her other rules include avoiding the following foods: sushi and other food eaten with chopsticks (can get messy), spaghetti (same as chopsticks), garlic (bad breath), coffee (worse breath), oysters (too obvious), Brussels sprouts, beans, curry, sunchokes, fresh pasta, kimchi, any cruciferous vegetables, and tuna (all apparently in the flatulence-producing family). Also no-nos: sharing plates (huh?!) and having an extra drink.

After the jump, what MP editors have to say about this...

(For ourselves, we are unrepentant fans of the white stuff, with slavish brand loyalty to Hellman's (though we admit the MSG-fueled brilliance of Kewpie), and a mildly embarrassing tendency to attempt to make our own mayo at home, generally only attempting it on humid days when it entirely fails to come together [never mind the old wives' tale about what happens to homemade mayo when a woman makes it during her time of the month].)

The Sun-Times, on the other hand, offers up a little bit of a smooth-going-down reprieve from egg whisked with oil: drinks! Delicious summer drinks! Instead of using up your summer garden harvest on boring ol' caprese salad, make a tomato-basil-kitchen-sink margarita! We think this is brilliant -- not just because we are huge fans of fresh herbs and savory adult beverages, but because we wholeheartedly believe that it's about time the locavore movement embraced its inner alcoholic.

Elsewhere, among other things:

• You know how you're supposed to drink 8-ounce glasses of water 8 times a day in order to be healthy? Ha ha! Not true! [Tribune]

• Via the New York Times, Mark Bittman gives us a no-fail recipe for chilled avocado soup. Which somehow he convinces himself (and us?) is "healthy." Har har. [Tribune]

• Beer sorbet! Beer sorbet! Beer sorbet! Where was this when we were trying to impress people in college? [Tribune]

• The lasting effect of this summer's salmonella scare? With luck, it'll be an increased interest in local produce and sourceable foods. [Sun-Times]

• Kendal Duque, chef at Sepia, weighs in on the use of fruit in savory dishes. Apricot + cherry + lamb = deliciousness! [Sun-Times]

[Photo: Real Mayonnaise, via dougalug's Flickr]

So go to C-House to get your front-of-house reality celeb fix, and keep an eye out for what OSBMS calls the "occasionally puzzling" seafood dishes. Is this a hint at reviews to come? Hmmm?

Ex-Top Cheftestant working the front of C-House [Food Chain]
C-House [MenuPages]
C-House [Official Site]

An article in today's Epi-Log stimulated waves of nostalgia for a Martin family favorite summertime tradition: The county fair. It was a fine article, but didn't really focus on food, so here's a follow up with some personal culinary favorites available at most county and state fairs.

Of course, the main rule is to eat things at the fair that you can't get anywhere else. If you're in Wisconsin, for example, get cream puffs, even though they're not traditional fair food. In Minnesota, eat nothing that doesn't come on a stick. In western Washington, top your burger with Walla Walla sweet onions.

But in addition to the regional favorites, pretty much all fairs bring with them a host of classics that you can get almost nowhere else. After the jump you'll find a few personal preferences. Feel free to comment with your own favorites/forgettables.

Our picks for best places to take frozen communion, presented in random order and without commentary, because having to think up descriptions for all of these places will result in us being forced to leave our desks to acquire samples from each one, and we can't have that:

And for a suburban ice cream crawl, we can't suggest a better itinerary than the one outlined in a National Ice Cream Day celebration from last year. Shout out to Mitchell's in Homewood! Chocolate chip milkshake, what?

Hungry Hound dutifully observes National Ice Cream Month [2007] [ABC7Chicago]

[Photo: Margie's Sundae, via lisa_h's Flickr]

• Grocers are now pulling jalapeno peppers from shelves in the next salmonella scare. [LA Times]

• Lack of preparation, poor record-keeping — there are a million things wrong with our food safety system. [WSJ]

• Grocers are adjusting to new consumer spending habits, thanks to inflation. [Star-Tribune]

• A proposed law would ban any new fast-food restaurants from opening in a 32-mile area of Los Angeles. [LA Times]

From an anonymous reviewer, on an anonymous restaurant:

I think the owner had snorted cocaine before attempting to make this menu.

From reviewer Jack, giving his form of support to Maravillas:

After a long night of binge drinking, nothing does me better in the morning/afternoon like a huge burrito and a cold mug of horchata...

Now, while we realize that the first anon is not copping to drug use himself, he clearly has a familiarity with it to the point where he can detect its influence in menu design. As for Jack, we gently point out to him that, among the other quite serious dangers associated with binge drinking (don't do it, kids!), binge drinkers in the UK are increasingly discovering that — ready for this? &mdash their bladders explode. Like, literally.

We don't want that, Jack. Both because we care about you as a fellow human being, and because if this happens to you, you won't be around to leave more reviews. Everything in moderation! Just say no! Get high on life!

*It was actually more than five.

[Photo: Puppy & beer (don't try this at home!), via everydayexplorer's Flickr]