Friday Food & Wine Finds: August 13

It's the end of another week and time for my weekly compendium of what's new, fresh, and exciting in the world of all things food and wine (but especially beer this week. I should find a way to work that into the title of these posts). Here we go!

Are you a budding food star? Know someone who should be a TV Chef? The Food Network is now accepting applications for Season 7 of the Next Food Network Star. Yes, you too could be the next Dzintra. (No? No one else watches that show? Oh well. Suffice it to say she drove me crazy and got kicked off early.)

Believe it or not, you can now "get frosted" (really) at a new Pop-Tarts cafe in Times Square. While I can't imagine going all the way to NYC to eat pop-tart sushi (yes, that's a real thing), I got really excited at the mention of PUMPKIN pop-tarts. Really? There are pumpkin pop-tarts?? How did I not know about this?

Recipe: Tres Leches Cupcakes topped with Dulce de Leche

When we started planning food for my mom's surprise birthday party, the main part of the menu was a no-brainer: Taco House. If you have never been lucky enough to visit this Okoboji staple, it's hard to describe the appeal; from the outside, it looks like a dirty, hole-in-the-wall restaurant with too little seating and far-too-long lines (or, at least, that's how Dad describes it). But the food... is... fantastic. Mom eagerly awaits the opening of Taco House every spring and mourns its closing in the fall - for her birthday, it was really the only choice.

To keep the Mexican theme going through dessert, my brother suggested tres leches cake. I'd never made it before, but it seemed like the perfect dessert for our theme. My sister-in-law got me started with a recipe from a coworker, and with minimal adaptation on my part, tres leches cupcakes were born.