Sampler Platter: URBNMKT, deep-fried fair food, Eric Ripert, bacon iPhone sleeve

-- L.A. has deep-fried pickles, olives, s'mores, Twinkies, frog legs, White Castle burgers and more. But Texas has deep-fried butter. Star-Telegram
-- Salma Hayek cusses out hostess at Chateau Marmont. Radar (log-in required)
-- "Avec Eric," chef Eric Ripert's PBS cooking show, debuts this weekend.
-- Delicious Coma's online recipe organization system.
-- A new version of surf 'n turf: the Land, Sea and Air burger. Eat Me Daily
-- The bacon iPhone sleeve: so right it's wrong. Engadget
-- Oregon and Washington bicyclists fighting to use fast-food drive-throughs. Los Angeles Times
-- Gourmet Pigs reviews Brian Redzikowski's revamped BondSt menu.
-- Savory succotash at Reservoir. Caroline on Crack
-- URBNMKT, farmers markets and football at USC. Food GPS
-- Russians say "Nyet" to effort to curb drinking. Los Angeles Times "We're not drinking," a construction worker says while gulping down cans of beer at noon on a weekday. "We're just killing our hangovers."

Oh, beer ... is there any logic you can't defeat?

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Yevgeny Chasovskikh, left, and Oleg Korbu in Alyokhnovo, outside Moscow, kill their hangovers with a bottle of vodka. Credit: Sergei L. Loiko / Los Angeles Times.