Just pretend this is a picture of a gingerbread castle and not a haunted house.

So it's the holiday season, and most of us are going to follow a script for the next couple of days that goes something like this:

1. Fly/drive/take a train to a relative's house.

2. Catch up with everyone.

3. Half or more of the group retires to the den/living room/wherever to hang out with various low-energy activities (watching the game, drinking eggnog, playing with the kids, etc.). A select group goes into the kitchen.

And that's where the trouble starts.

The "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" Web video series is part of the USDA's program to try to help consumers get in better touch with where the meals on their dinner tables actually come from.

On Wednesday, White House chef Sam Kass made the latest in a number of recent high-profile media appearances in the latest installment of "Know Your Farmer," where he and a group of volunteers set up a series of miniature greenhouses to extend the growing season for the crops on the South Lawn of the executive mansion. (The hoop houses, by the way, are something the USDA announced it will help farmers build to remain productive during the cold season.)

On the menu this winter: spinach, lettuce, carrots, mustard greens, chard and cabbage. Kass calls winter spinach so sweet that it "tastes almost like candy."

So what's the reaction from the public so far?

Well, let's just say muted. Only one person has commented on the video, and it went goes like this: "for this, we are taxed at every turn."

My suggestion: Get a voiceover person who doesn't sound like the guy from movies like "Death on the Highway."

Eating Humble Pie: A cough-syrup-in-the-gravy scandal? Furor over a switch from soft Wigan pies to a crustier kind from another British town? Just another year in the annual world meat-pie-eating contest in England. (The winner ate an entire pie in 35.86 seconds. Probably much bigger than the ones in this picture.)

Will There Be a Domino's Classic? The pizza chain is changing its recipe for sauce and dough, and will change up its cheeses so that it can keep up with changing American tastes. The new pizzas will be in all stores by Dec. 27.

Face Time: Food Network's top "foodgasm" shots of the year. 'Nuff said.

Bark If You Love Beer: A dog collar that opens beer bottles. C'mere, boy!

Want Wi-Fi With That Big Mac? McDonald's plans to offer free Wi-Fi at 11,000 locations as part of its bid to turn into a place to hang out.

Feels Like a Brown-Bag Day, Kids: In its continuing probe of school cafeterias, USA Today reports that 26,500 of them haven't had their required health inspections. It's never a good sign when "norovirus" replaces tater tots as the side of the day.

Sounds Fishy: If you're someone who takes fish-oil supplements, consider where it comes from ... and how a single company has control over 90 percent of a vital, but little-known fish called the menhaden, according to this New York Times opinion piece.

Drinking and Dying in the Line of Duty: A Chinese police officer drinks himself to death at a government function. What does the Chinese government do? It declares him a martyr who died in the line of duty.

Funky Rhode Island-based kitchen-gadget manufacturer Fred and Friends is finding that one of its designs is, ahem, running aground with some people.

The problem is that its Gin & Titonic ice-cube tray ($6.99) is a spoof of the 1912 Titanic disaster. You know, the one where 1,522 people died.

"Sink one in your drink," the company's Web site reads. "Ice ahoy!! You get 4 ocean liners and 4 icebergs ... just add gin, Leo DiCaprio, and Kate Winslet for a perfect party."

In Germany, holiday grocery shopping turned into a police incident when a 74-year-old man, a 34-year-old woman, vying for the same cart, sparked a battle with salamis as truncheons and wedges of hard cheese as daggers.

The incident left the woman's 53-year-old mother's head cracked on a glass case, the 74-year-old with a punch to the face, and the woman's 24-year-old brother having been bludgeoned with a sausage. Two of them had to go to the hospital, but it wasn't clear if there would be any charges.

According to the cops, so many Christmas shoppers had snapped up carts that tensions were high among those looking to refill their larder.

But is it really that surprising a story?

Fighting for Brown Moo Juice: The dairy industry has formed the Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk campaign as a bulwark against the growing movement to strike chocolate milk off school menus. Those who want chocolate milk banned from school say it's a sugary drink that encourages unhealthy food choices. The dairy industry says that when you take chocolate milk away, kids stop drinking milk altogether and simply choose even less healthy beverages instead.

Man Killed by Exploding Gum: A Ukrainian chemistry student blew his own jaw off when he chewed gum that had been dipped in explosive liquid. The 25-year-old, who died, had a bizarre habit of soaking his gum in citric acid before putting it in his mouth, and may have mixed up his solutions.

Let me get this out of the way right now: I'm not a big holidays fan.

Sure, sure, I was a Christmastime maniac when I was a kid. I mean, who wasn't? You were essentially bribed to like the holiday when you were under 13. 

This year, though, I've decided to bribe myself to get through Christmastime. And what do you bribe adults with?

Booze.

So my evil plan this year is to get through an annual wassail my friends and I have by combining it with a holiday-cocktail competition. In other words, I'm tricking people into coming to my home and pouring liquor down my throat. Santa never did that for you, did he?

But I'll be making my own holiday cocktail for the competition as well, and I want to win. Here's what I'm thinking of ....

I won't go into all the salacious stuff that's coming out about the guy who used to be among the most private people in professional sports (I think we can agree we're all a little Tigered out by now), but among the breathtaking number of brainwash-necessitating details that have spilled is one that, to me, is the most staggering of all.

The guy actually eats at Perkins.

And not just once, but, like, a lot.

When's the last time you sat down to a Country Cookin' Benedict and expected to see a $1 billion man putting ketchup on his hashbrowns the next booth over?

Lately, I've been trying to recreate a favorite dish from New York's Chinatown, Joe's Shanghai's soup dumplings.

In case you're unlucky enough never to have had one, they're meat dumplings filled with a hot, tasty broth that you suck out from the top (or your spoon) before you eat the dumpling proper.

Delicious.

Gourmet Geometry: Do you cut your sandwiches into triangles or rectangles? NPR makes a surprisingly detailed argument for triangles.

Who Has Better Chefs: the East Coast or the West? The debate continues (rather nastily) in the New York Times.

Worst Drive-Thru Robbery Ever: A Michigan man goes to a Wendy's drive-thru with a sawed-off shotgun and demands the cash in the till. Guess who learns that you should never rob your own mother's restaurant?

More food news after the jump ...