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Articles by Mikaela Hardiman
Butterball Made A Gadget That Tells Your Thanksgiving Guests To Get Off the Couch
I have a theory that some people are genetically incapable of ignoring a sink full of dirty dishes. Others can sit four feet away from a mountain of dirty cookware and remain completely unbothered. They might even ask what’s for dessert. I’d love to know how their brains work. Me, I can’t relax when there’s a kitchen full of dishes waiting to be washed. Which is why I find Butterball’s latest invention so entertaining.
You Can Now Dress Like A Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cake
Christmas is one of those rare times of year when it’s socially acceptable to wear something that would look completely ridiculous any other time of year. You can turn up wearing a sweater with a giant reindeer on it, earrings shaped like Christmas puddings, or a hat with an actual bell attached, and nobody bats an eyelid. Try turning up to a birthday party in March dressed like a tree and people might ask if you’re feeling alright. Do it in December and suddenly you’re the life of the party.
Kids Were Offered Candy Or Potatoes For Halloween―Guess Which Won?
Imagine you’re a kid on Halloween. You’ve spent weeks planning your costume, you’ve walked approximately 400 miles around the neighborhood, you knock on another door, ready to collect your next chocolate bar, and the person standing there offers you a potato. A real-life, raw potato. The kind you’d find rolling around at the bottom of a grocery bag. I’d have been absolutely gobsmacked and just stared at the root for a few minutes while I regained my bearings.
You Season Your Dinner, So Why Not Your Dessert?
Think about how much effort we put into seasoning our dinners. Salt, pepper, garlic, paprika, a little chili if we’re feeling adventurous. We taste, we adjust, we add a bit more of this and that until everything’s just right. Then dessert rolls around, and suddenly we’re perfectly happy to leave things alone. Which, to be completely fair, makes sense. If someone hands me a brownie, I’m not usually thinking about what I could sprinkle on it to improve the situation.
7-Eleven’s New Korean-Inspired Menu Comes With Its Very Own K-Drama
I have a confession to make. I could spend an unnecessary amount of time in convenience stores. Particularly the ones in Asia. Give me a 7-Eleven in Thailand, a handful of baht, and absolutely no supervision, and I’ll emerge half an hour later with five things I’ve never seen before, three drinks, and something I bought purely because I liked the packaging. Once I came away with a toastie stuffed with spaghetti carbonara. Yes, I still dream about it.
BJ’s New Nutella Pizza Cookie Has A Surprising Cookie Base
I have a theory that bananas lead two very different lives. When they’re fresh, they’re the responsible fruit. The one you throw into your bag before leaving the house because you’re trying to be a functioning adult who eats vitamins. But leave them on the kitchen counter for a few days, and suddenly they’re destined for greatness. Banana bread. It’s a legendary career trajectory.
BJ's New Nutella Pizza Cookie Has A Surprising Cookie Base | Sporked
Cooking 4 hours ago I Finally Figured Out How to Clean Baked-On Grease Off of Cookie Sheets Without Scrubbing So Hard, My Wrists Hurt FOOD & WINE - Priyanka Shahane • 4h I cracked the code for getting sticky, gummy stains off cookie sheets. Not to be dramatic, but the adage “know thy enemy” rings through my mind every time I face down my dreaded cooking task: cleaning baked-on grease off my baking sheets. That is, until I mastered the process.
People Are Trying To Sell Discontinued Campbell’s Soup For $200 On eBay
I’m familiar with the concept of reselling. Limited-edition sneakers, concert tickets, collectible cups. Supply and demand, all that jazz. I get it. I’ve participated. But soup? Really? Not some rare, vintage tin that’s been sitting in someone’s collection for 50 years, either. I’m talking about ordinary canned soup. The kind you’d pick up at the grocery store for a couple of dollars and leave in the pantry until you need it.
Hormel’s New Bacon Packaging Solves A Very Annoying Problem For Single People
Bacon is one of life’s great pleasures. What’s not to love? Well, I’ll tell you what. The packaging. Sometimes you only want a couple of slices. Maybe you’re making breakfast for one, or you need a little bacon for a sandwich. But the moment you open that package, you’ve got the rest of it sitting in your fridge, waiting to be used. And now you’ve got to figure out what to do with it before it goes bad. Well, Hormel has come up with a rather simple solution: smaller, pre-portioned sections of bacon.
Sara Lee Put Mike’s Hot Honey In Sandwich Bread & We Have Questions
Hot honey has had a pretty impressive run. It’s been drizzled over pizza, fried chicken, ice cream, and anything else that didn’t put up a fight. But Sara Lee has decided to skip the drizzling altogether and bring Mike’s Hot Honey’s signature sweet heat straight to sandwich bread. Because why should the filling get all the attention? The new limited-edition Sara Lee Mike’s Hot Honey Half Loaf combines sweet honey flavor with a little chili pepper heat in every slice.
We Tried Every New Crumbl Halloween Cookie
Credit: Griffin Parker / Crumbl / Freepik Folks, I’m proud to be a tenured reviewer across several high-priority fields of study here at Sporked: Red Bull, OREO, countless fast food chains, and more. That said, Crumbl is not one of the brands I can claim on that list. Sure, I’ll tackle a cookie (or six) every once in a while if they’re particularly relevant to my oeuvre, i.e., soda, Little Debbie, or Minecraft. Without a doubt, our own Rachel Jones really sits on the throne of Crumbl coverage.
Jollibee Is Adding Honey Garlic Chicken To Its Menu
Some people like their fried chicken savory. Others prefer it sweet. Personally, I think there’s a strong case for having both, preferably in the same bite. And it looks like Jollibee agrees, because the Filipino fast food chain is introducing a new honey garlic chicken lineup that promises the best of both worlds. Starting October 15th, Jollibee rolled out two limited-time menu items: Honey Garlic Fried Chicken and a Honey Garlic Chicken Sandwich.
Excuse Me, This New Whole Foods Potato Tastes Like What?
They say everything tastes like chicken. But a potato? I don’t know about that. And I’ve eaten a lot of potatoes in my life. Boiled, mashed, stuck in a stew. You name it, I’ve probably eaten it, preferably with an unreasonable amount of butter. But I can’t say I’ve ever bitten into one and thought, “You know what this reminds me of? Chicken.” Well, that’s about to become a possibility.
Smoothie King Is Turning A Viral Cake Into 2 New Protein-Packed Treats
I think we’ve established that the internet can make just about anything famous. So a cake covered in colorful sprinkles? Sure. Why not? And now that cake has apparently become popular enough to inspire an entire fast-food menu launch. Smoothie King is getting in on the Dot Cake craze with two new limited-time items: a Dot Cake Protein Smoothie and Dot Cake Protein Toast, both arriving October 27th. Neither contains actual cake, which feels like an important detail to get out of the way.
Tajín Wants You To Put Its New Sauce On Gummy Bears And Ice Cream
I love a good sauce. Hot sauce, barbecue sauce, garlic sauce. If there’s an opportunity to dip something in it, I’m probably going to take it. But I’ll admit that gummy bears aren’t usually the first thing that comes to mind when I think about foods that could benefit from a little extra sauce. Tajín, however, would like me to reconsider. And because it’s Tajín, I’m listening.
We Eat Candy Corn In A Weird Way & We’ve Got To Talk About It
Candy corn is already one of the most divisive Halloween candies out there. Some people love it, others think it tastes like sweetened candle wax, and somehow we still haven’t agreed on whether it deserves a place in the candy bowl. But it turns out we can’t even agree on how to eat the stuff. According to a new Halloween report from Kroger, candy corn eaters fall into three very specific camps.
We Eat Candy Corn In A Weird Way & We've Got To Talk About It | Sporked
Now Halloween candy sales are lagging behind last year's pace as Americans grapple with rising living costs and elevated chocolate prices, raising questions about how much consumers will spend on trick-or-treating this year. Halloween candy sales fell 6.7% in the month ending Oct. 17 compared with the …
Baja Blast Is Safe At Taco Bell For Another 11 Years (& There’s More Good News)
There are some food and drink combinations that just make sense. Wine and cheese. Cookies and milk. Taco Bell and Mountain Dew Baja Blast. I mean, can you even imagine ordering a Crunchwrap Supreme without having the option of washing it down with that suspiciously bright blue-green soda? I mean, you probably can, but why would you want to? Well, Baja Blast fans can rest easy.
7-Eleven’s Halloween Deals Include Cheap Candy & $7.11 Pizza
Halloween is supposed to be about candy, costumes, and watching horror movies that make you regret turning off the lights. Cooking dinner doesn’t always fit neatly into that schedule. Especially when you’ve already spent half the evening trying to figure out whether your costume looks even remotely like it’s supposed to. Fortunately, 7-Eleven has decided to take dinner off the agenda.
Sour Patch Kids Just Released Halloween Candy That Tricks Your Taste Buds
Sour Patch Kids have never exactly been on their best behavior. The whole sour-then-sweet thing is a pretty strong warning that these little guys can’t be trusted. And now, Halloween has given them an excuse to get even worse. The candy brand has introduced three new Halloween treats: Tricksters, Glow Ups Ghosts, and Monster Parts. One tricks you into eating a flavor you weren’t expecting, another glows under blacklight, and the third lets you snack on monster body parts.
Denny’s Is Adding A Celebrity’s Empanadas To Its Menu
When you think of Denny’s, you probably picture pancakes, eggs, and the kind of breakfast you order when you’re either very hangry or haven’t been to bed yet. Empanadas? Not so much. But that’s about to change, thanks to a rather unexpected collaboration with Sofía Vergara and her son, Manolo González Vergara. The mother-son duo’s food brand, Toma Empanadas, is teaming up with Denny’s to bring four empanada varieties to more than 240 restaurants starting October 28th.
Arby’s Is Testing 4 New Loaded Sandwiches
Arby’s is best known for its roast beef sandwiches, but the chain does branch out every now and again. And its latest experiment looks more like something you’d find at your local sandwich shop than your typical Arby’s order. The chain is testing four new sandwiches called Sub Stackers, all served on a new mozzarella-topped bread that looks a lot like focaccia. And judging by the ingredient lists, Arby’s hasn’t been all that concerned about keeping things simple.
Taco Bell Is (Finally) Bringing Horchata Drinks Nationwide
Taco Bell has never been known for keeping its drink menu simple. Between Baja Blast, colorful freezes, and whatever else its beverage team dreams up, ordering something to wash down your Crunchwrap can be a whole decision in itself. And now, horchata is getting the Taco Bell treatment. The chain has announced a lineup of new horchata-inspired drinks, including a purple frozen concoction, a chocolate cold brew float with churro crumbles, and two fruity, vanilla-spiced Refrescas.
Goodbye, Swicy: These 5 Food Trends Will Take Over 2027
Credit: Liv Averett / iStock If you thought we’d reached peak protein and exhausted every possible way to make coffee taste like dessert, think again. 2027 has other plans for our taste buds. Nestlé USA has released its 2027 food and beverage trend forecast, predicting five shifts in what Americans will be eating and drinking next year. And while some make perfect sense, others have me wondering whether a banana bread latte could revolutionize my coffee order.
The Pasta Lie We’re Apparently All Telling Our Friends
We’ve all taken a few shortcuts in the kitchen. Maybe you’ve used jarred pasta sauce and thrown in some fresh basil to make it look fancy. Or perhaps you’ve served something straight from the freezer and conveniently forgotten to mention that part. Well, it turns out a surprising number of Americans have been letting people believe their frozen pasta is homemade. And as someone who rarely feels inclined to make pasta from scratch, I can see how this happens.
Red Robin Is Adding A Ton Of New Menu Items, Including A Prime Rib Burger
There are burgers, and then there are burgers that make you question how you’re supposed to fit them in your mouth. Red Robin’s latest creation falls firmly into the second category, because why would you only want one type of beef on your burger? Starting October 19th, Red Robin is introducing a Prime Rib Stack Burger, which is exactly what it sounds like: a burger topped with more beef. And that’s only the beginning.
Häagen-Dazs & This NYC Bakery Are Making Ube And Cornflake Cookie Sundaes
I don’t know who decided that ice cream, purple yams, cookies, and cornflakes belonged in the same dessert, but I feel like they’re onto something legendary. Häagen-Dazs has teamed up with New York City’s Supermoon Bakehouse to create a limited-edition sundae and it’s the sort of thing that makes a regular scoop of vanilla look a little underdressed. The collaboration is part of Häagen-Dazs Shops’ 50th anniversary celebrations.
Taco Bell And Milk Bar Are Bringing Birthday Cake Empanadas To The Menu
I’ve eaten birthday cake in plenty of forms. Regular cake, cupcakes, ice cream, the occasional spoonful of frosting straight from the tub. But I can’t say I’ve ever considered putting birthday cake inside an empanada. Fortunately, someone at Taco Bell has been thinking about exactly that. The fast-food chain is teaming up with Milk Bar to launch a new Birthday Cake Empanada, inspired by the bakery’s famous Birthday Cake.
Halloween Food Has Gotten Seriously Weird This Year & These Are The Strangest
Somewhere out there is a person whose job is to approve a fizzing Cheeto. I think about that person a lot lately. Halloween food used to be simple. A chocolate bar shaped like a pumpkin. Gummy eyeballs, if you were lucky. But 2026 has decided that Halloween food needs to be a whole lot weirder, and I’m starting to think the people coming up with these products have been left unsupervised for far too long with far too much sugar.
Portillo’s Just Put Oreos In Its Famous Cake Shake
I don’t know what level of sweet tooth it takes to decide to put an entire slice of cake in a milkshake. Clearly, one I’ve never been brave enough to experiment with. But Portillo’s has been doing it for years with its famous Chocolate Cake Shake, and it seems someone decided there was still room for improvement. Their solution? Oreos. Lots and lots of them.
King’s Hawaiian’s New Maple Brown Sugar Rolls Come With A Matching Sweatsuit
King’s Hawaiian has a new fall flavor, and you can dress like it. The brand’s new Maple Brown Sugar Rolls rolled out nationwide, starting October 1st. They’re made with real maple brown sugar crumbles baked into each roll, bringing maple firmly into the King’s Hawaiian universe. Fine. Makes sense. Maple. Brown sugar. Sweet rolls. I’m with you. Then King’s Hawaiian made a matching sweatsuit. There’s also a blanket and a scented candle, because this is no longer just a bread launch.
Smashburger Is Piling Pastrami On Burgers And Hot Dogs & We’re Here For It
Smashburger has a new burger coming out and they’ve put another beef on top of the beef. Starting October 6th, the chain is giving its menu the New York deli treatment with two new limited-time items. The New York Pastrami Smash takes a regular beef burger and piles smoked black pastrami on top, while the New York Pastrami Big Dog does the same thing to a quarter-pound beef hot dog.
This Protein Brand Wants To End The Pumpkin Spice Takeover
Pumpkin spice comes back every fall and immediately starts getting into everything. Coffee, cereal, cookies, cream cheese, protein bars, dog treats. We’ll be washing our hair with it by the end of October. Levels would like it to stop. It’s time for another flavor to have a turn. The protein brand has launched Maple Cinnamon Whey Protein, its first-ever limited-edition flavor, alongside a campaign called “End the Pumpkin Propaganda.” Pumpkin propaganda. We’re talking about spices here, but okay.
TWIX’s Zombie Santa Is Back & He’s Bringing New TWIX Skulls
Halloween is coming, which means it’s time for costumes, candy, scary movies, and, as of last year, the reanimated corpse of Santa Claus. If you missed this particular development in holiday lore, let me catch you up. Last year, Twix created Hallowmas, a Halloween-Christmas mashup centered around Zombie Claus. The story goes that Santa was bitten by a zombie and, rather than letting a minor inconvenience like death interfere with his holiday duties, came back as the undead face of Hallowmas.
Every ’90s Kid Will Recognize This Cookie Tin (Now A Christmas Ornament)
There are few childhood betrayals quite like spotting a Royal Dansk cookie tin at your grandma’s house, opening it up, and finding buttons and sewing supplies inside. No cookies. Not even a crumb. Just several needles and a loose spool of blue thread. Somehow, the blue tin became as famous for storing random household items as it did for the Danish butter cookies it was designed to hold.
Cold Stone Has A New Cat In The Hat Ice Cream Cake
If there’s one fictional character I’d trust to walk into a Cold Stone Creamery and create absolute chaos, it’s the Cat in the Hat. And, as it turns out, that’s more or less what’s happened. Cold Stone has teamed up with Warner Bros. Pictures Animation’s upcoming The Cat in the Hat movie for a new lineup of limited-time treats, including cotton candy ice cream loaded with Oreos and sprinkles, a red velvet and cotton candy ice cream cake, and special confetti waffle cones and bowls. It’s colorful.
Mike’s Hot Honey Is Going In Cocktails Now & There’s A Perfect Recipe
I love a spicy cocktail. A margarita with a chili rim? Yes please. A little heat sneaking up on me halfway through something fruity? Oh, absolutely. The fact that I overestimate my own spice tolerance every single time has never once stopped me. So I was always going to be interested in this one. Mike’s Hot Honey, which has already found its way onto everything from pizza to fried chicken, has decided your cocktail glass is next.
Red Lobster Is Selling $1 Appetizers For Just This Weekend (Plus More Deals)
A dollar doesn’t get you very far these days. I can’t even remember the last time I bought something for $1, let alone something I could eat at a restaurant. I’m fairly sure I’ve paid more than that just for extra sauce. But Red Lobster is bringing back the possibility of getting actual food for a dollar, and I have questions. Mainly, how many shrimp can I get? The seafood chain is offering $1 appetizers from October 9th through October 12th, and thankfully, shrimp is on the menu.
Mars Just Revealed 7 New Snacks Coming in 2027 (& They’re Not All Chocolate)
I’m still mentally somewhere around June 2026, but Mars has decided it’s time to start talking about 2027. And based on what I’ve heard so far, we’re going to need the extra time to process some of this. Mars just revealed seven new snacks coming to stores nationwide next year, spanning M&M’s, Cheez-It, Pringles, Skittles, Twix, Snickers, and Combos. There are protein-packed crackers. There are Buffalo Wild Wings-flavored Pringles. There are gummy Skittles covered in crunchy crystals.
Tropical Smoothie Cafe Just Dropped Its First-Ever Halloween Smoothie (& It’s An Odd One)
Halloween is usually all about candy, pumpkins, and convincing ourselves that eating chocolate for breakfast is perfectly acceptable because it’s October. Smoothies don’t tend to get much attention. Until now, anyway. Tropical Smoothie Cafe has released its first-ever Halloween smoothie, and it’s bright orange, topped with purple popping boba, and made with Fanta. Well, Fanta Orange-flavored syrup, but still.
Domino’s Is Taking 50% Off Every Pizza For One Week
I don’t need a designated month to convince me to eat pizza, but October is National Pizza Month. And Domino’s is celebrating in the only appropriate way: cheap pizza. None of this “free side with a $40 order” or “coupon for your next visit” business. Just half-price pizza, which is the kind of celebration I can support. From October 5th through October 11th, Domino’s is taking 50% off all menu-priced pizzas. And when Domino’s says all pizzas, it means all pizzas. Stuffed Crust? Yep. Specialty pizza?
Papa Murphy’s $10 Jack-O Pizza Is Back For Halloween
You could carve a pumpkin this Halloween. Or you could put pepperoni on a pizza and eat it. Papa Murphy’s Jack-O Pizza is back for October, turning a large pizza into a jack-o’-lantern with a pepperoni smile and black olive eyes. It’s available for $10 throughout the month, and because this is Papa Murphy’s, you take it home and bake it yourself. So technically, you still get a Halloween activity out of it. You just get to eat this one afterward.
Buying This Popcorn Could Pay For Your Avengers: Doomsday Ticket
If there are two things that belong together, it’s popcorn and movies. (Sorry, peanut butter and jelly. You had a good run.) And Pop Secret is really leaning into that relationship with its latest collab. The popcorn brand is teaming up with Marvel Studios for the release of Avengers: Doomsday, and there’s more in it for Marvel fans than some cool packaging.
Ghost Pepper Is The Scariest Thing On Halloween Menus This Year
Halloween food has never needed to be all that scary. Give a donut eight icing legs and it’s a spider. Crush some Oreos over a chocolate cake and you’ve got dirt. Add a gummy worm and we might as well be at Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights. But this year, a few chains have decided decorations aren’t enough. Ghost pepper is creeping onto menus at Paris Baguette, Dairy Queen, and Taco Bell, which means your Halloween food can now scare you before and after you eat it.
Reese’s Is Trying To Find The Best Street In America For Trick-or-Treating
Some streets are just better at Halloween. You know the ones. Every house participates. Nobody’s handing out raisins. There are enough decorations to make you wonder where everyone stores this stuff for the other 11 months of the year. Reese’s would like to determine which one is the best. And it’s brought Census data. The candy brand is searching for the “Trick-or-Treatiest Street in America,” narrowing the entire country down to 150 contenders before eventually crowning one winner on October 21st.
Domino’s Could Give You Free Pizza If Your Smoke Alarms Work
Imagine ordering dinner and a fire engine pulls up. Before you panic, check whether you remembered ordering pizza. Domino’s is teaming up with the National Fire Protection Association for Fire Prevention Week from October 4th through 10th, and some customers could have their pizza delivered with a local fire department in tow. Then the firefighters are going to check your smoke alarms. If they’re working, congratulations. Your pizza is free. If they’re not, you still get the pizza.
Jeni’s Spent Five Years Making Ice Cream Out Of Acorns
Jeni’s wanted to make acorn ice cream. This turned out to be significantly more complicated than finding some acorns. The ice cream brand has launched Appalachian Acorn Pie, a limited-edition flavor made with flour milled from foraged Ohio oak acorns and a graham cracker swirl. It took five years to get from “what if we made ice cream out of acorns?” to something you can buy in a scoop shop. Yes, you read that right. Five years. For acorns. What’s In Jeni’s Appalachian Acorn Pie Ice Cream?
Jimmy John’s Is Selling A Giant Bucket Of Pickles To Eat With Your Smut
Jimmy John’s would like to replace your popcorn with three pounds of pickles. On October 1st, the sandwich chain is launching Swicy Jimmy Pickle Bites, a sweet-and-spicy take on its signature pickles that comes in a 48-ounce collectible bucket. The idea is to bring it along for fall movie nights, which according to Jimmy John’s is the season for “spicy books & steamy movies.” I don’t know when pickles became the official snack of smut, but I’m willing to hear them out.
This Hot Chicken Chain Made Cheese Nuggets To Cool Your Mouth Down
There are two ways to deal with food that’s too spicy. You can order something milder and accept your limitations, or you can stubbornly continue eating while desperately reaching for anything dairy-based within arm’s reach. Crimson Coward has decided to plan for option two. The Nashville hot chicken chain just launched Cheez Nugs, bite-size hunks of whole-milk mozzarella covered in seasoned breadcrumbs and fried until crispy.
This Hot Chicken Chain Made Cheese Nuggets To Cool Your Mouth Down | Sporked
Recipes 20 hours ago 14 Easy High-Fiber Mediterranean Diet Lunch Recipes EatingWell - Lily Menk • 20h Finding fresh and delicious midday meals that meet your nutritional goals has never been so easy.
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