Each participant bakes a large batch of a particular cookie recipe, then meets up at the host’s home for a cookie exchange, where everyone trades some of their batch for other participants’ cookies. The parties are also an occasion to share a cup of coffee and tea—or something stronger—and catch up with friends.

Everyone goes home with different types of cookies to serve over the holidays.

The folks at Chex, who introduced America to Chex Party Mix, are looking to save you time (and a sugar high) over the holidays. They’d like you to turn the cookie exchange into a Chex Mix exchange.

We like the idea!

Instead of a holiday cookie exchange,
go exchange crunchy Chex snack mixes.
Photo courtesy General Mills.

 
Hosting a Chex Mix Exchange Party involves minimal planning and preparation. You can find all the information at Chex.com, including invitations, packaging ideas and shopping lists.

Let us know your favorite recipe!

Find more of our favorite snacks and recipes in our Gourmet Snacks Section.

RECIPE: NIBBLE ON THIS! JAPANESE CHEX MIX

Ingredients

 
Preparation
1. In large microwavable bowl, mix all dry ingredients.
2. In small microwavable bowl or measuring cup, microwave butter uncovered on High for 40 seconds or until melted. Stir in soy sauce. Pour over dry mixture, stirring until evenly coated.
3. Microwave bowl of mix uncovered on High for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring every two minutes. Spread on foil, wax paper or paper towels to cool. Store in an airtight container.

Many people shy away from baking acorn squash at home. We don’t blame them: Unless you know how to cut one properly, the prospect of using a big knife to cut open a thick winter squash can be scary. The thick, green, ribbed skin can seem impenetrable.

Yet the yellow-orange flesh inside is delicious: sweet, nutty and simple to bake.

In this video, you’ll see how easy it is to cut and bake acorn squash. Instead of the cinnamon and clove used in the video, you can brush maple syrup on the squash for a different flavor profile.

Acorn squash is loaded with the powerful antioxidant beta-carotene (it’s what gives the orange color to vegetables; the body converts it to vitamin A). A one-cup serving has about 115 calories—less than a cup of potatoes—plus 9g of dietary fiber, 2g of protein, manganese, magnesium, potassium and vitamins A, B1 (thiamine), B5 (pantothenic acid), B6, B9 (folate) and C.

And it’s so yummy!

Get cooking:

Do you know your acorn and butternut squash from your Hubbard and kabocha? Check out all the different types of squash in our Squash Glossary.

It depends. Without spraying, many vegetables would wilt, since, after harvest, they go into a drier environment and cannot replenish water through their roots.

On the other hand, the water spray enables micro-organisms to start degrading the plant tissue.

Below, Dr. Randy W. Worobo, an associate professor of food microbiology at Cornell University, suggests the best way to store your produce once you get it home.

How To Extend The Life Of Fresh Produce

Extend the life of your produce with these
tips. Photo courtesy GrowingVegetables.com.

 
Storing herbs is a bit different.

 
As with all produce, don’t rinse herbs until you are ready to use them.

Try A Freshness Extender

You can buy freshness extenders for the produce drawer that dissipate the ethylene and keep the food fresher for longer. They’ve been a godsend in keeping our berries from rotting!

The ethylene gas emitted by some types of produce hastens ripening—and then, spoilage. That’s why you can put green bananas in a closed bag for a day or two, which concentrates the gas for quick ripening.

Apricots, kiwi fruits, peaches, pears and plums are also good ethylene producers. If any of these fruits are in a closed produce drawer with other items, the ethylene in the closed space will begin to degrade the neighboring produce.
  

It’s a massage oil. It’s a personal lubricant.
It’s Baconlube. Photo courtesy J&D’s.

But they don’t have to make that decision with J&D’s Baconlube, a new, water-based lubricant that the company calls “the McRib of sex.”

It’s a limited edition product: Only 3,000 bottles have been made. Get yours at Baconlube.com for $11.99.

It could be this season’s quirkiest holiday gift.

But our favorite product from J&D’s remains Baconnaise: a bacon-flavored, kosher-certified mayonnaise that lets us make mock BLTs without having to clean up the bacon grease.

We buy it by the case to give as gifts.

Do You Know Where Bacon Comes From?

Yes, it comes from a pig, but what part of the pig? Learn your pork parts in our delicious Pork Cuts Glossary.

The U.S. has more than 300 fast food chains, representing 40% of the nation’s total restaurant sales. Americans spend more than $110 billion on fast food annually, on cuisine that ranges from barbecue, fried chicken and pizza to Chinese food and Tex-Mex.

A fast food restaurant is a specific type of restaurant that serves fast food cuisine, and has minimal or no table service. There is a limited menu, the food is cooked in bulk in advance and kept hot, and it is then finished and packaged to order. Many customers buy it as take-out.

Per Wikipedia, the term “fast food” first appeared in the Merriam–Webster in 1951.

As the concept grew, fast food restaurants developed into chains or franchise operations. In the industry, fast food restaurants are known as a quick service restaurants—QSRs.
 
 
THE HISTORY OF FAST FOOD

For millennia, since the dawn of towns, there has been street food. It was sold by vendors who fed nearby workers and folks passing through, as well as neighborhood residents who had no fireplace in which to cook food.

Street food has been called, incorrectly, “the world’s first fast food.” Fast food is defined as a meal that can be prepared quickly and easily, to be consumed on premises or taken out.

Street vendors can spend hours cooking and preparing dosas, kebabs, tacos and other foods before bringing them to sell from a cart or a portable stand.

While America is now witnessing a growth in street food—particularly food trucks—the popularity of street food waned in the early 20th century with the birth of burger stands, coffee shops, diners, drive-ins and sandwich shops—all places where one could get a quick meal. Are they fast food?

Street food is on the rise again, with the growing convenience and popularity of food trucks, which sell everything from comfort foods like tacos to gourmet burgers and lobster rolls.

There are many “fast casual” restaurants. Not to be confused with casual restaurant chains that offer full table service—like Applebee’s, IHOP and the pioneer Howard Johnson’s, which prepare food to order—fast casual restaurants provide a higher quality of food than fast food places, in an atmosphere somewhat better than a typical fast food restaurant.

Chipotle Mexican Grill and Five Guys Burgers are examples.
 
 
THE RISE OF FAST FOOD

Arguably, the first fast food restaurants originated in the United States with the first White Castle in 1921, and A&W in 1923.

White Castle was founded in 1921 in Wichita, by a fry-cook and businessman. It spawned a burger chain that was followed by A&W (1923), KFC (1952) and Ray Kroc’s McDonald’s (1961).

White Castle was a burger game-changer: The burgers were cooked on grills at 500°F, onions grilled alongside in the meat juices, and the biggest change: it was served on a white bun instead of sliced bread.

How Fast Food Is Different

Fast food uses preheated or precooked ingredients. Those fries and burgers are pre-cooked and sitting under a heat lamp awaiting an order.

[2] By the 1950s, car hop service was the rage at chains like A&W. Some chains had waitresses on roller skates.

[3] Before there were golden arches, there were the McDonald brothers. In 1940 they started a barbecue restaurant, which they reorganized as a hamburger stand in 1948. It used modern production line principles.

[4] Today, the iconic fast-food fries (photo courtesy McDonalds).

The food is served to the customer not on a plate, but in disposable packaging that can be brought elsewhere as take-out, or taken to a table provided by the establishment.

The Father Of Fast Food

There were burger entrepreneurs who preceded him, but the game-changing attribution is given to the businessman who took a single McDonald’s roadside restaurant and turned it into a global powerhouse?

In 1954, a milkshake machine salesman named Ray Kroc started the momentum leading to America’s fast-food phenomenon.

Kroc was a milkshake machine salesman in California. He then became the exclusive distributor of a speedier milkshake machine, the Multimixer. One of his clients was the McDonald’s hamburger stand in San Bernardino, owned by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald.

Kroc inadvertently invented modern fast food with his vision of franchising the McDonald’s concept, in order to sell several Multimixers to each location. He offered his services as their franchising agent. Six years later, he bought the brothers out.

In 1961, Kroc began to create what would become the world’ largest restaurant chain. He created the modern fast food model, standardizing portions and processes, keeping prices down and creating a culture of quick service and cleanliness.

Today McDonald’s is the largest restaurant company in the world, with 31,000 restaurants located in 126 countries. The Moscow location is the busiest in the world; the largest location is in Orlando, Florida. It would be hard to find a meat-eating American who has never eaten at McDonald’s.

Happy Fast Food Day to all fast food fans.