Test Your Strange Food Facts IQ

1. What vegetable burns more calories than it contains?
   Celery has about 6 calories per stalk. But your body burns more calories than that in the digestion process. It's not actually the chewing and crunching, but the digestion of the high amount of cellulose in your stomach that burns the calories.
   
2. What common bagel topping can show up as an opiate in drug tests?
   Poppy seeds are related closely enough to opium poppies that they can show up in a urine test as an opiate like heroin or morphine. The level is generally considered too low to be considered a "true positive" and most drug testing companies discount these results. However, just to be on the safe side, the federal prison system has banned its inmates from eating poppy seeds. And in case you were wondering, you could pretty much eat your weight in poppy seeds and not get high.
   
3. Which U.S. state eats more ice cream per capita than any other?
   Despite living in one of the coldest states in the Union, Alaskans eat twice as much ice cream as any other state.
   
4. What are the food additives cochineal and carminic acid made from?
   These scientific terms found in the ingredient lists of many foods, beverages, and cosmetics are fancy names for a red food coloring developed by the Aztecs, made of dried powdered beetles native to Central and South America. While their origins may be less than appetizing, they are perfectly safe to eat.
   
5. What do the letters in the canned meat product SPAM stand for?
   Salted Porky Anonymous Meat? Guess again. Originally it stood for SP iced h AM , named in a contest, where the winner was awarded the princely sum of $100. The people at Hormel Foods say that while it does include ham and spices, it doesn't begin to describe the product that is SPAM, and now maintain that SPAM stands merely for SPAM.
   
   - Joe Wilkes, Team Beachbody Newsletter

Pepper Loves Downtown Wilmington

Sunday was such a glorious day! Marge, Pepper and I took advantage of the great weather to hang out in downtown Wilmington for a few hours. As usual Pepper made lots of friends. Marge and I pretty much gravitate toward Kilwins at 16 Market Street whenever we're in downtown Wilmington. Yesterday I had an excellent (and generous-portioned) single scoop cup of Turtle ice cream - my only complaint was the plastic spoon was kinda flimsy which slowed my progress. We also bought some of their nifty chocolate-covered stick pretzels to fuel our progress around town. Spent some time in Native Soul Indigena at 25 Market Street and Marge bought some very pretty pink shell earrings.

Pepper loves to pose for the camera. Ever since she was a puppy she learned to sit and stay when I would take her picture, and she still is great about that. Even though there were a lot of people around the river front river walk I put Pepper on the walkway and told her to stay while I took her picture with the river in the background and she was great about it. Pepper is a strong people magnet.

Great Ice Cream AND a Foot-Stompin' Business After Hours

What an afternoon! Marge and I started our late afternoon at Flavors Ice Cream, a new ice cream parlor opposite Waterford in Leland (on the right end of the Salty Dog Exxon station and convenience store). We met with Michelle Morris, one of the owners and had some fabulous Hershey's ice cream - for the record, Marge had a single scoop cup of butter pecan and I had a double scoop cone of a marvelous concoction called Denali Bear Claw (or something like that). Stop in sometime. The shop is brightly colored, squeaky clean, and the ice cream is awesome.

There's a juke box in the corner and seating inside and out. Bring you sweet tooth and indulge.

Our next stop was a North Brunswick Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours. Held the first Tuesday of every month, these events are growing in popularity, in the quality of the food provided, and even in the entertainment. This month's Business After Hours was hosted by Sheila Hanby's Capeside Animal Hospital in front of Waterford. Sheila pulled out all the stops with
catering by Charley MacGrooders including passed roast beef and shrimp hors d'ouevres with spicy jambalaya and pot stickers, plus beer, wine, soda, nice desserts and some suspicious-looking syringes filled with something red (one suspects but doesn't know for sure, the something red rhymes with "jello shots").

The foot-stomping music provided by a seven-piece bluegrass band, an impromptu gathering of musicians that may or may not have called itself the Hometown Bluegrass Band (depending on who you talked to) was a big hit. This was business networking at its best: good food, drink, music, and friends. Thanks, Sheila, you set the bar high.