MNN - Mother Nature Network

It’s Friday afternoon, and that means it’s time for me to give you a little weekend reading from around the Web. Here are a few food-related items that I thought might interest you.

The official name of the beverage is "Dieci," the Italian for "10." It went on sale at The Pulp & The Bean in the Crown Heights neighbourhood on Tuesday.

 

Shop owner Tony Fisher, 37, said sales were brisk in part because "nobody's ever had the chutzpah to do anything like this before".

 

"This is for the person who wants to experience the limits of where coffee and espresso can go," he said of the drink, which weighs 20 ounces.

As far as Dinah Bucholz is concerned, food is almost as much a character in the Harry Potter books as Harry or Hermione.

 

That is what led the Philadelphia resident to write "The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook," recently published by Adams Media.

First lady Michelle Obama is expected to announce on Monday a major new initiative that would place up to 5,000 salad bars in public schools nationwide, despite uncertainties over how local health inspectors might treat those salad bars and USDA nutrition-tracking rules that could prove a major impediment.

The star of Discovery Channel's new series "Brew Masters" says people in his craft beer industry are "proudly promiscuous."

 

With their products, he means.

 

"We encourage beer drinkers to check out their competitors' beers," said Sam Calagione, founder of the Dogfish Head Brewery in Delaware, as he sat at a restaurant table with a nearly drained pint of a Brooklyn-made lager in front of him.

Image: Matt Callow