What would you do with your own hot rod food delivery bicycle?

This week over on the music side of the Observer, Daniel Hopkins interviewed Chris Jeffers, one of the owners behind Bolsa, Smoke, and more recently, The Foundry and Chicken Scratch. The piece pictures Jeffers on his new bicycle: a pimped up paletero cart with a hot rod paint job. I called up Jeffers to see what he had planned for the bike.

Jeffers was super enthusiastic about the paleteros that patrol his neighborhood. "They're all over Oak Cliff," he told me. Jeffers wanted to come up with a way to promote his new bar and restaurant, while also paying homage to the neighborhood that gave rise to his first restaurant, Bolsa.

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Huffington Post via Carl's Jr.

Carl's Jr., which has a location within a terrifying-close range to Observer headquarters, is testing the "Ice Cream Brrrger." Now, now: keep calm. A "brrrger" isn't actually an ice cream-flavored burger. That, sources say, is still a few months away, and will likely debut in Japan, where the really crazy shit happens.

This is simply an ice-cream sandwich that sort of looks like a burger.

We'd haul over to Lemmon Avenue to test this disc of chocolate ice cream sandwiched between two sugar cookies, but Carl's Jr.'s actually in the testing phase over in Orange County. Ugh, California. Surely, the Ice Cream Burger will make it down here right? Right??

Jealous of you, Stick a Fork In It.

Ruffles.com

YEAH!! FUCK YEAH!! YEAH. YEAH! YEAH!.

Bros, aren't you pumped? Let's get effing pumped, bros. Why? Because Ruffles Ultimate Fucking Ruffles is "giving guys their first taste of the Ultimate party."

Whose biceps undulated when you heard that? Mine did, like a goddamn ocean. It's gonna be unapologetic. You see, Ruffles Ultimate Potato Chips and Ruffles Ultimate dips are holding a contest. The winner of this contest will get to eat a whole shitload of fucking like, jalapeno ranch beef chips and shit, with, like, a bunch of freaking awesome chicks from Maxim. The Maxim 100. Bro, you know how awesome this is? I just screamed so loud my eye went bloodshot.

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Update: We've selected two winners based on funny: BeSly, who offed Paula Deen by stuffing her with icing using a CO2 charged ISI Gourmet Whip, and Tyler Kitchens, who takes issue with Giada's pronunciation of LEE-MUN-CHELL-OH. If we can't get a hold of them we'll dial up some new winners. Thanks for playing and we'll see you tomorrow at Iron Fork.

Original Item: Tuesday, May 8 brings the Observer's second annual Iron Fork to the Fashion Industry Gallery, where you can swill beer and wine, sample various food stuffs from area restaurants and watch chef Scott Romano take on Whiskey Cake's TJ Lengnick in a cooking competition.

Tickets to the event are $35 in advance, $40 at the door, with a $75 VIP option that includes early admission access to the VIP lounge and some other perks.

You can score two VIP tickets by indulging a little competition, however. In the comments below answer this: You're stuck at a Food Network event with access to every television food celebrity past and present and an entire Williams-Sonoma worth of cooking gadgetry. Oddly, all of them want to kill you. Which celebrity would you take on, what device would you choose as your weapon, and what would you eat to celebrate your inevitable victory?

On Monday, we'll take an internal poll of the creative answers and select two winners, who will each receive a pair of VIP tickets. Make sure you comment using a real email address or Twitter account so we can contact you. And don't answer more than once or we'll disqualify you, right after we get done plucking Guy Fieri's frosted tips out with our sleek Bodum barbecue tongs.

Tomorrow night Dallas will gather at the Fashion Industry Gallery for the Observer's second annual Iron Fork competition. While many will focus on the food and booze sampling, the backdrop for the event is a cooking competition between former Joule chef and reigning Iron Fork Champion Scott Romano, and Whiskey Cake chef TJ Lengnick, whose gastrofare has been wowing Plano customers for the past year and a half.

Romano took the crown (fork?) last year with his inventive take on steak and eggs, which replaced the sausage normally used in a scotch egg with a mash of that year's secret ingredient: California avocado. Romano left the Joule this winter and has spent some of his time sexing up the menu of downtown's new Spread Eagle Saloon. The title is his to defend as Kent Rathburn presides over this second battle.

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Recently, Miller Lite announced a new innovation: the Punch Top Can. This NASA-astute device is designed to minimize "glug" and make for a "improved, smoother pour." Which made Scott Gairdner, a writer / director over at Funny or Die, and I wonder: what the hell didn't make the cut? We found a number of beer-delivery devices -- and their technical specs -- that were mysteriously rejected.

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photo and cooking by foodbitch

looks edible, right?

Cleanse. It's a word that strikes fear into the heart of every foodie and non-foodie alike.

A cleanse used to mean a woman named Monica was about to get up close and personal with a big scary tube to literally flush your system. Nowadays a cleanse usually involves juicing (which is so hot right now) and generally starving yourself for three days or more while biting the heads off of everyone you come in contact with, leading up to a drinking and eating binge afterward. Sounds AWESOME.

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Alice Laussade

Damn. Eating that freezer burrito made you feel like an awful human being. But, exactly how awful? Wish there was a way to know exactly how much shame you should feel when you eat a horrible, awful food? Wish. Effing. Granted.

Above is our very helpful, very scientific Universal Food Shame Scale:

In order to further confirm the Universal Food Shame Scale's rightness, we thought we should consult a few chefs and other serious food experts in town. Here are their contributions:

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Via Pizza Hut

The Edwardian, bizarro novelty in the fast-paced food industry continues. Just mere weeks after the announcement that tent-poling a hot dog into the crust of a big pizza was also food, Pizza Hut Middle East has a brand new thing. It's a pizza with mini cheeseburgers in the crust! Also, they've added fried chicken things as crust. The former's called the Crown Crust Pizza, probably because it looks like a giant meat crown.

Eater notes that this isn't the first time Pizza Hut has Crowned -- they stuffed meatballs and cheese back in 2010. Pizza taste aside, you must admit, this is a minor feat of engineering. A Nobel in 2013, probably.

We're wondering: if everyone grabs a burger from the crust at the same moment, does a black hole open in the universe somewhere?

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Sara Kerens

While interviewing Jeffery Hobbs about the fried chicken at Sissy's, the subject of this week's review, I asked a number of questions about his process. I've only fried chicken at home a few times (the smell!) so I'm not well versed it its mechanics. I did, however, page though all my cookbooks to learn a little about what makes for good fried chicken from a cook's perspective. I used some of that info during my interview.

I asked Hobbs to tell me about the birds he was using. He couldn't remember the name of the farm but it was near Pittsburgh. He mentioned the birds were small, "about 2 1/2 to three pounds." That number jumped out at me.

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