There’s a lot of quality viewage on the TV these days, but the show I’m really enjoying more than most others (after The Wire, R.I.P.) is one of the Cartoon Network’s newest non-Adult Swim offerings, Chowder.

The basic premise of Chowder involves the main character, a chubby and always hungry cat-ish kid, working as a disaster-prone apprentice of Mung Daal, a caterer in the bustling psychedelic metropolis of Marzipan City (the food-name gimmick isn’t as precious as it sounds…promise…). A large and engaging cast of characters and intricate, unpredictable screwball plotlines are the show’s other, um, essential ingredients.

Admittedly, with its bright, happy colors, food fixation, stoner humor, and overall fuzzy amiability, it’s kind of a hippie show. But then again, I’m kind of a hippie. So, keep that in mind.

Clever, weird, inventive, and unpretentious, Chowder builds and improves on the greatness of Spongebob Squarepants’s first few seasons the same way that show streamlined the bizarre brilliance of Kricfalusi-era Ren and Stimpy. Sharp, charming characterization; a colorful, surprising, fully-realized world; an artistic style that combines Dr. Seuss and Richard Scarry with three generations of kids cartoon animation; a loopy, funky soundtrack that epitomizes the warm goofiness of the show; a welcome attention to detail; and knowing shout-outs to random counter-culture touchstones like Katamari Damacy make for the best show about food on television besides Top Chef.

Chowder airs on Thursdays, I believe. Also, the show’s creator, C.H. Greenblatt, has a nice little blog.

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Annual best-food-chain-ever competitor Dunkin Donuts is giving out free donuts with a hot coffee tomorrow to “celebrate” Tax Day. Believe it.

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Ever wondered what exactly the deal was with fortune cookies? I kind of did. Turns out they actually might be Japanese.

Now a researcher in Japan believes she can explain the disconnect, which has long perplexed American tourists in China. Fortune cookies, Yasuko Nakamachi says, are almost certainly originally from Japan.

Her prime pieces of evidence are the generations-old small family bakeries making obscure fortune cookie-shaped crackers by hand near a temple outside Kyoto. She has also turned up many references to the cookies in Japanese literature and history, including an 1878 image of a man making them in a bakery - decades before the first reports of American fortune cookies.

The idea that fortune cookies come from Japan is counterintuitive, to say the least. “I am surprised,” said Derrick Wong, the vice president of the largest fortune cookie manufacturer in the world, Wonton Food, based in Brooklyn. “People see it and think of it as a Chinese food dessert, not a Japanese food dessert,” he said. But, he conceded, “The weakest part of the Chinese menu is dessert.”

Interesting side note — the person who wrote the above article has a neat-o looking non-fiction book coming out about Chinese restaurants (purportedly the most ubiquitous in the U.S.): The Fortune Cookie Chronicles.

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Turn your next meal into a raucous, socially responsible straight edge-stravaganza with Wheelhouse Pickles’s Minor Threat Sauce!

According to the website copy, it actually sounds really tasty: “…Minor Threat draws its inspiration from the legendary West Indies’ mustard-and-mango-based habanero sauces, only it mysteriously privileges the pepper’s fruitiness over its notoriously overwhelming heat.”

“Mysteriously privileges” = yum…?

If anybody out there has no idea what the hell I’m talking about, do yourself a favor: pick this up and revel in its relentless greatness. You can thank us later.

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