www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/100577 (Part 1)

www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/100692 (Part 2)

www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/100700 (Part 3)

These three connected blog sites feature weird cookbooks. Part 1 has cookbooks with recipes utilizing strange ingredients (poison, bugs, Twinkies…) or using nontraditional mise en place or circumstances (on your car engine, in the nude…). And also unusual authors, such as a serial killer and heavy metal musicians (and, for all we know, heavy metal musicians who sing about serial killers…).

Part 3 focuses on unusual cookbook formats, the most interesting of which is Eat Tweet, which has over a thousand recipes, all described in 140 characters or less. (For short order cooks only!)

It is Part 2 that onsite operators may want to take a particular look at because it features a number of books focused on subjects that might actually have use in designing theme meals. For example, there is the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, the Official Star Trek Cookbook, the Star Wars Cookbook and, particularly resonant these days given the success of bloodsuckers on stage and screen, The Complete Vampire Lover's Cookbook, with 300 recipes ranging from Blood Orange Mimosas to Coffin Cake (sorry, no recipes calling for actual blood). Operators might want to stay away from the Cooking for Sex section, though, unless they work the kitchen at the Playboy Mansion or are contemplating an Anthony Weiner theme dinner…