National Cupcake Day: SusieCakes, sprinkles and Little Debbie Cupcake cars

Because we all need more excuses to indulge in rich food during the holidays, today is National Cupcake Day. Yes, it's a ridiculous, invented food holiday, but we're happy to support anything that involves frosting. After all, what happens at the bakery stays at the bakery. Unless you leave a sticky trail of red velvet crumbs behind you.

After the jump you'll find a few specials at L.A.-area bakeries. Or you can celebrate on your own at one of the many bakeries listed on our cupcake map, which features our latest addition, Southern Girl Desserts.

Sampler Platter: L.A. street food festival, giant lobsters, Bar Keeper wants liquor license and more

Gargantuan lobsters rising from the seas and enslaving the human race... It sounds preposterous, but it's a potential and very real downside of global warming, which is building bigger lobsters without increasing the world's butter reserves. Perhaps someday, when the age of peak butter has passed, we'll look back at bread baskets and flaky, golden tarts as the harbingers of doom for a society on the brink of collapse. Until then, I salute our crustacean overlords.

-- Giant lobsters from rising greenhouse gases? NPR
-- Bar Keeper in Silver Lake is looking to get a liquor license by June. Food GPS
-- Palm oil production devastating Sumatran forests. CNN
-- Salami and Parmesan cheese used as weapons in supermarket battle. Telegraph
-- The search for the world's perfect stove. New Yorker
-- Arrowhead water bottles reduced by 21% (from 1 gallon to 3 liters). LiveCheap
-- Learning to appreciate cognac in Cognac. Los Angeles Times
-- L.A. Street Food Festival scheduled for Valentine's Day weekend. LAist
-- Vertical Wine Bistro changes it up with new chef Doug Weston. Eat LA
-- Roaming Hunger food truck tracking site goes live.
-- Tootsie Roll goes kosher. Palm Beach Post
-- Greek, Indian, Chinese and more: Vancouver's many cuisines. Los Angeles Times
-- Spicy kettle corn and more recipes from bigLITTLe. Goop

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Vintage bar signs on the wall at Bar Keeper. Credit: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times

Follow Friday madness: LA restaurants, food trucks and chefs on Twitter, version 3

We periodically update our roster of Los Angeles bars, restaurants, chefs and food on Twitter. Now you can follow them with the click of a button, because we recently migrated these lists to Twitter.

The biggest growth has been in our food trucks list, which had barely a dozen trucks six months ago and now has 58 meals-on-wheels.

Recent additions include: Asian Soul Food Kitchen (a fusion of Japanese cuisines and African American soul food); Little Spoon Desserts; the Sweets Truck; Mandoline Grill (traditional and vegan-friendly Vietnamese food); Komodo (fusion burritos); Fressers (hot pastrami and other deli sandwiches); Grill 'Em All (upscale burgers); Umami (upscale burgers); Vesuvio LA (Italian food) and more.

Sadly, we still lack a poutine truck like Potato Champion in Portland.

--Los Angeles restaurants and bars on Twitter
--Los Angeles food trucks on Twitter
--Los Angeles chefs on Twitter

We update the lists constantly, so let us know what we've missed.

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: The Potato Champion food truck in Portland, Ore. Credit: Kathy M.Y. Pyon / Los Angeles Times

Your next pop-up restaurant: Bloody Bill's at Libertine. Plus, William Annesley to open Fatty's Cajun honky-tonk

"Everything I hunt, I cook nose-to-tail, and I butcher everything myself," British chef William Annesley proudly declares. Fitting for an avid hunter and cook who has cheerily branded himself as "Bloody Bill." Annesley has worked as a private chef for Gwen Stefani and Quentin Tarantino and spent three years running Pamplona Tapas Bar in Lafayette, La., but he's probably best known in Los Angeles for Tangier and Oasis. That may change if his pop-up restaurant and tentative reality show succeed.

The pop-up, named (what else?) Bloody Bill's, launches at West Hollywood nightclub Libertine on Dec. 17, takes a month-long hiatus and then returns for a six-week stint every Thursday beginning Jan. 14. Annesley's keeping the menu very free-form and market-based, but all of the dishes will be united by one thing: spice.(Twitter: @bloodybills)

"I think spice is underused in this country," Annesley says. "Spice has made empires rise and fall. It is the reason why cuisine is cuisine and why it has moved and changed and evolved. And I think spice has been drastically overlooked in many restaurants other than in Thai and Indian restaurants."

Sampler Platter: 15-year-old cheddar, pudding cloth, McCall's meat coming to Los Feliz, Google map for food trucks

Old cheese, new butchers, old school Scotch, nouveau tamales and more in today's food news roundup.

-- Foie gras and chanterelle tamales from John Sedlar of Rivera. Los Angeles Times magazine
-- Upscale butcher McCall's Meat & Fish Co. to open in Los Feliz. Food GPS
-- An appreciation of pudding cloth, whatever that is. British Food in America
-- Hook's unveils 15-year-old cheddar. NPR
-- Florida woman allegedly attacks boyfriend with uncooked steak. The Smoking Gun
-- Eggnog martinis at Lola's in West Hollywood. Banana Wonder
-- Food swaps are catching on. The Globe and Mail
-- New Zealand police reward good drivers with licorice logs. Stuff
-- A Google map that tracks food trucks. Finally! Food Maps
-- Win a Scotch whisky aroma nosing and tasting kit from the Balvenie.
-- Pix from the "Eat: Los Angeles" book party at Traveler's Bookcase. Blackburn + Sweetzer

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Hook's 15-year-old cheddar cheese. Credit: Mark Hoffman / Associated Press

More bacon gifts for the holidays

The problem with telling people you love bacon is that you'll receive a slew of awful bacon gag gifts. Bacon mints, bacon toothpicks, bacon air freshener, bacon gummy candy, bacon neckties... I have them all. This year, if you have a bacon fanatic on your list, love them enough to get them a quality bacon-themed gift. If you can't manage that, just get them some bacon.

-- Bacon Christmas tree postcards ($5 for a five-card pack). Etsy
-- Sir Francis Bacon Peanut Brittle ($16 for 9 ounces). Dean & Deluca
-- From the makers of bacon salt: bacon popcorn, bacon ranch dressing and bacon envelopes.
-- Candied bacon treats ($13 for a four-piece box). The Sticky Pig
-- "Have Yourself a Meaty Little Christmas" with Aqua Teen Hunger Force ($8.99).
-- 4505 Meats' gift basket ($60): a “Bacon Is the New Black” apron, a letterpress poster, a T-shirt and crispy porky treats.
-- Make your own bacon lamp. Oddity Central
-- Make your own bite-sized bacon caramels. The Kitchn
-- Don't make your own Tac Bac -- Tactical Canned Bacon ($15.99 per can).
-- Don't make your own Yoder's canned bacon ($79.98 for half a case).
-- For those with a sweet tooth: maple bacon bundt cake ($32). Kiss My Bundt
-- There's always the Bacon of the Month Club ($190 for six months; $325 for 12 months).
-- Wearing bacon in style: a Hail Bacon T-shirt ($20). Etsy

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

Sampler Platter: Bacon Christmas tree postcards, L.A.'s best vegan Reuben, microwave with a brain

May your holiday be wrapped in the goodness of bacon Christmas tree cards, fancy Parisian wines, low-cost restaurant gift cards and hot tea.

-- Bacon Christmas tree postcards! Eat Me Daily
-- Cars crash in nearly 12-inches of offal. NZ Herald
-- Quarrygirl says Locali wins the vegan Reuben wars.
-- Tour d'Argent restaurant in Paris begins auctioning 18,000 bottles of wine. Guardian
-- Restaurant holiday gift card deals. Fast Food Maven
-- Animal chef Vinnie Dotolo gets married. Was bacon on the menu? 100 Layer Cake
-- Recipe junkie takes on Pillsbury challenge. Columbia Basin Herald
-- Microwave oven with a brain? Brand X
-- Food companies explain the amount of air in the bag. New York Times
-- Yelp launches Andorid app. CNET
--  FBI investigates disappearance of Italian chef Angelo Faliva aboard cruise. Los Angeles Times
-- The real tea party: Tea Habitat. Sku's Recent Eats
-- Domino's pulls ads from MTV's "Jersey Shore." Inside TV

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Imen Shan prepares to steep and serve traditional Chinese gong fu tea inside her Palos Verdes store, Tea Habitat. Credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times

Food Truck News: Yum Yum Bowls, Umami truck, Grill 'Em All, the Sweets Truck roll out

Bangkok native Tommy Buratarat, who co-owns the restaurant House of Thanon in San Diego County, soft-launched Yum Yum Bowls last Wednesday, making it the first Thai food truck in Los Angeles (at least as far as we know; if you know otherwise please drop us a line). Yum Yum offers chicken satay, spring rolls, egg rolls, deep-fried tofu, panang curry, green curry, yellow curry, pad thai, drunken noodles and barbecued pork over rice. The curries ($5.95) and noodle dishes ($5.50) can be made with your choice of chicken, beef or tofu, and they come with a salad and dressing. Appetizers cost $2.50 to $3.50. Drinks include Thai iced tea and fresh coconut juice in the coconut ($2.50). Look for desserts like sticky rice with mango to be added to the menu in the near future. Buratarat says the truck will run Tuesday through Sunday, hitting the Wilshire corridor for lunch and roving to other hot spots such as UCLA and Abbot-Kinney. Watch the Twitter feed for more details. (Twitter: @yumyumbowls)

Two new competitors, Grill 'Em All (Twitter: @grillemalltruck) and the Umami truck, wade into the gourmet-burgers-on-wheels battle, a niche that previously belonged to Baby's Badass Burgers (Twitter: @babysbbs). Grill 'Em All promises high-end burgers with a heavy metal vibe. We'll see what that means after the truck gets wrapped today and starts rolling later this week or next. Umami, which has been on a furious expansion kick with recently opened outposts in Los Feliz and Hollywood, will roll out a truck devoted to its upscale burgers. The launch, which was supposed to happen last Friday and then today, has been delayed, reports Eater LA.

The Sweets Truck will offer some competition to recently launched Little Spoon Desserts. Both use the same business model of curating and selling desserts made by a variety of local bakers and caterers. The Sweets Truck features cookie sandwiches from Xtreme in North Hollywood: red velvet cookies with sweet cream cheese frosting, chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter frosting and maple pecan pie cookies with pecan pie filling. Other featured items include pecan shortbread squares, triple chocolate fudge cookie bars and coconut walnut bars from Cookie Casa in West L.A.; various brownies from Embrace Sweets in Hollywood (you can specify whether you prefer a corner, a middle or a side, when you order); dipped chocolate treats from Madame Chocolat in Beverly Hills; and gourmet Rice Krispie treats from Milk & Krunchies. The Sweets Truck also boasts a full espresso bar that serves lattes, cappuccinos, brewed coffee and espresso from Jones Coffee Roasters in Pasadena. In the summer, look for Italian sodas and fresh sparkling lemonade.

The Sweets Truck made several test runs last week without Tweeting its locations, and it plans to go live this week with full Twitter updates. (Twitter: @thesweetstruck).

-- Elina Shatkin

Photos: Top: Panang curry with chicken (Yum Yum Bowls). Middle: Umami Burger (Ringo H.W. Chiu / For The Times). Bottom: the Sweets Truck (Kyle Ahlgre).

Sampler Platter: Cherpumple, Slim-Fast recall, grocery shrink ray, chocolate Ritz

Your late-Friday-afternoon food news roundup, featuring the most insane cake/pie hybrid ever, reasons your waiter hates you and more:

-- The Cherpumple, the dessert version of the Turducken: a three-layer cake with a pie stuffed in each layer. Charles Phoenix
-- 20 secrets your waiter won't tell you + 30 more secrets = 50 reasons your waiter hates you. Reader's Digest
-- Tiger Sushi ready to open in former Luckyfish space; Santa Monica Bar & Grill to become Upper West. Eater LA
-- Eating with Kristen Schaal: oyster shooters, monkey brains and the tyranny of onions. Fork in the Road
-- Unilever recalls all Slim-Fast ready-to-drink products in cans because of possible contamination. FDA
-- Nine foods attacked by the grocery shrink ray. Live Cheap
-- Aqua Teen Hunger Force wants you to Have Yourself a Meaty Little Christmas.
-- Ritz now dips its crackers in fudge -- during the holidays.
-- Describe what Lender's Bagels mean to you to win $1,000 and a year's supply of bagels.
-- The world's most extravagant meals. Forbes

-- Elina Shatkin

Photo: Rob Takata / For The Times

Foie gras beignets as LudoBites 3.0 debuts at Royal/T

Chef Ludovic Lefebvre built his reputation at fine dining palaces L'Orangerie and Bastide* and cemented it on Top Chef Masters, but he's made his cooking accessible to the rest of us with LudoBites, his pop-up restaurants. These experiments in temporal dining have allowed Lefebvre to innovate in the kitchen while adding an air of exclusivity to dinner. It's all the intensity of an affair without the day-to-day torpor of a marriage.

After a widely acclaimed three-month stint behind the stoves at Breadbar this past summer, Lefebvre on Tuesday night launched LudoBites 3.0 at Japanese maid cafe/art gallery Royal/T. It's a much shorter stint and a much smaller kitchen, but once again, the tattooed French expatriate mixes classic culinary technique with a slew of global influences and ingredients.