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Lindsey Nair/The Roanoke Times

I'm back to writing about fried chicken because, really, who can think enough about fried chicken? Last night, I tried out Paula Deen's fried chicken recipe to great success. You can see that the end product was quite golden and crispy. The inside was cooked through but was still juicy. I expected this chicken to be spicier because of the half bottle of hot sauce that I added to the egg mixture, but it wasn't. I guess the brief swim through the egg before hitting the flour wasn't enough to impart much of the hot sauce flavor.

The only complaint I have about my fried chicken was that it was a tad bit greasy. I know anything fried is a tad bit greasy, but I can't help but wonder whether hotter oil in my cast iron Dutch oven would have made a difference. I don't fry foods very often, but I've always heard that if your oil is hot enough without reaching the smoking point, the food fries without a lot of grease soaking into the food.

How to tell if the oil is hot enough? Well, it called for an oil temperature of 350 degrees. Various sites suggested various methods of testing the oil if you don't own an oil thermometer, which I do not. One method was to flick a drop of water into the oil and see if it dances around and pops. Another is to toss a cube of bread into the oil and if it browns nicely in one minute, the oil is ready. A third is to toss in a pinch of flour. I used the first two methods.

Cook large pieces, like breasts, first.

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Well, we've talked about planting tomatoes and caring for tomatoes, so it feels like the right time now to talk about EATING tomatoes! Some of us are just now getting our first delicious, vine-ripened 'maters. But before long, conversation will turn to dealing with an overabundance of the things. The same good ideas are passed around each year -- freeze them, can them, make spaghetti sauce or salsa out of them, eat tomato sandwiches, fry them green, etc.

But wouldn't it be nice to hear some different ideas? We all know tomatoes are versatile, but consider for a moment that cultures all over the world eat tomatoes in ways many of us have never thought about. Asian cooks stir-fry with them, Africans make a dish with chicken and peanuts, Turks create a casserole with lamb and potatoes and Mexicans make a stew with tripe called menudo.

All of these recipes and more can be found in a new cookbook called "The Too Many Tomatoes Cookbook" by Brian Yarvin. It is packed with both basic and exotic recipes for tomatoes. I'd like to share a couple of recipes from this book. While we are on this topic, does anyone have an unusual tomato recipe you could share with the rest of us?

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... when it comes to chocolate consumption, that is.

Check out this chart on chocolate consumption per person the world over. I figured the United States would be up there in the top five, if for no other reason than our size. The size of the country is what I mean, not the size of American waistbands. Although that would probably work, too.

Switzerland is number one, of course. They make some of the best chocolate in the world. The Swiss consume 27 pounds of chocolate per person, per year, on average. And Belgium is number four, which is no surprise because they have superb chocolate over there, too. They clock in at 22 pounds per person, per year.

Then there's the U.S., where we eat 11.5 pounds of chocolate per year. And we are above only Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Japan. Hmph!

How many of you think you actually eat 11.5 pounds of chocolate per year? Anyone consume MORE?

A rumor that has been floating around central and Southwest Virginia for more than a week may have some truth to it. The Richmond Times-Dispatch is reporting that the owners of the Ukrop's grocery store chain may be searching for buyers. Our business reporter, Jenny Boone, has been doggedly following this story for more than a week and has posted one blog entry over on her Storefront blog.

Stay tuned to Jenny's blog and mine, as well as the home page of Roanoke.com, for more updates.

Stephanie Klein-Davis/The Roanoke Times

Okay, I cannot let steeping tea lie. Even after our blog conversation about iced tea a week or so ago, I was still thirsting for more information about how a person's birthplace and upbringing affect their consumption of this tasty beverage.

Today's column in Extra revealed the results of a quick, unofficial survey of my co-workers. But I'd love to have a whole pitcher of people take the survey, and that's where you come in. Please take a moment to take my iced tea survey by clicking here. Database editor Matt Chittum and I will fashion the results into some kind of fancy pie chart or map that will hopefully shed new light on this subject. I promise you it will be interesting!

All this week, Roanoke restaurants are participating in an Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield fundraising effort called LemonAid. This is pretty incredible, folks: through Sunday, if you purchase one of the gourmet, homemade lemonades at participating restaurants, 100 percent of the proceeds will go to Children's Miracle Network, which will turn around and hand it off to the cancer treatment program at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

That means it stays right here in the valley to help local children who are afflicted with this terrible disease. Don't expect the lemonades to be cheap: they will start at $5 per glass, but every cent will be given to Children's Miracle Network. So if you pay $7.50 for a glass, $7.50 will go to the charity. Just think of it as making a charitable donation to a good cause and getting something refreshing and delicious in return.

Erin Hildreth, CMN's Roanoke-based director of community services, said the restaurant owners' willingness to take part was overwhelming. "Each person, before we were even done telling them what we were doing, were nodding their heads, like 'Yes, we are on board,' " she said.

The ten participating downtown restaurants and their featured lemonade flavors are:

* Martin's Downtown Bar & Grill - Peach lemonade
* Awful Arthur's - Strawberry lemonade
* Table 50 - Strawberry-rhubarb lemonade
* 202 Market - Pineapple pomade (made with pomegranate)
* Blue 5 - Blueberry mint lemonade
* Cornerstone - Fresh fruit lemonade (similar to a sangria)
* Little Dipper - Lemonade smoothie
* Blues BBQ - Pomegranate lemonade
* Zac's - Mango lemonade
* Corned Beef & Co. - Cherry lemon-limeade

Also participating are the two Roanoke locations of Chik-fil-A, but they are only taking part this Friday, July 17. On that day, the proceeds of all lemonade sales at those restaurants will be handed over to the Children's Miracle Network and that money will also stay in the Roanoke area.

After the fundraiser has ended, I'm going to share all of the lemonade recipes on this blog so you guys can try them at home. I'm told that some are pretty labor intensive! If you go out and try one of these lemonades, let us know what you thought.

Jenny Boone reports that Brambleton Blend on Brambleton Avenue in Roanoke is closed. See her blog entry. Anybody know what's going on there?

Also, word just in from a very reputable source that Cafe Madrid in Salem is closed. I tried to call them and got no answer.

As for Alejandro's downtown, which is closed today, they are really doing renovations. I have often seen "closed for renovations" signs on restaurants that never open again, but the folks at Alejandro's tell me they are having the floor fixed and plan to be open again by Friday.

I made the Simply Recipes rhubarb crumble this weekend to rave reviews from everyone who actually likes rhubarb. Of course my mother and sister tried it and turned up their noses at it because they have never liked rhubarb. They don't know what's good.

The recipe worked perfectly as written. Give it a try if you're looking for an easy dessert.

Monday was National Fried Chicken Day. Considering that I have a Paula Deen day planner, I'm really not sure how I missed that.

I love me some fried chicken, especially with potatoes and white gravy. But I eat it very rarely now, mainly for health reasons. Growing up, it was an occasional treat. My mother could fry up some AWESOME chicken, but she always complained about what a mess it made of the kitchen, so she really only made it when we started whining that she hadn't made it in a long time.

My sister Kim loved the stuff from such an early age that she called it "bied sicken" until she could say it correctly. Sometimes I still call it bied sicken. Kim also called me "Yee-yee," but fortunately nobody says that anymore.

I'm going to include Deen's recipe for fried chicken below. And on a related note, I got an e-mail from blog reader Sherry this morning. Sherry says she has a mean hankering for some chicken-fried steak, but she doesn't feel like making it herself and doesn't know where she can get some good chicken-fried steak in the Roanoke area. Does anyone have a recommendation for her?

Thanks, and have a deliciously chicken-fried weekend.

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I picked up a lovely, two-pound bunch of rhubarb on the Blacksburg Farmer's Market yesterday with specific plans to finally try out a recipe I've had laying on my desk for a couple of weeks.

I've written a little bit about rhubarb before, but here's a refresher: According to "Food Lover's Companion," rhubarb is a member of the buckwheat family. It grows in bunches and looks a bit like red celery with big leaves on the ends. The leaves are NOT edible. It is highly perishable, so use it within 3 days of buying it.

This recipe came from Simply Recipes, one of my very favorite recipe blogs. It's for rhubarb crumble, which is sort of like an apple brown betty made with rhubarb instead of apples. If you don't like straight rhubarb, I'm sure you could probably add some strawberries to this recipe so long as they are not too juicy. Cut fresh ones a day in advance and leave them in the fridge to leach out some of the juices.

As for me, I'll go straight rhubarb.

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