Please enjoy the first episode of Tucson's new rock-and-roll cooking show Rocking Gourmet, which you will find below. This episode features music by the Cleavers and the Cordials and tips on grilling ribeyes and making a Manhattan. Bon appetit.

Tucson's first location of Pinkberry, a frozen-yogurt outfit that started in Hollywood and spread across the world with a quickness, opens next month at the University of Arizona.

How did Turkey and Peru get Pinkberry locations before Tucson? The world may never know, but you can check in at the page counting down the days until the local store opens over here.

I found the truck parked in the parking lot of Fairwheel Bikes at 1110 E. Sixth St., where it will be serving lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., weekdays, until further notice. I came for a bite to eat and left with a very full stomach and a whole new notion of how good food-truck food can be.

What Animal Farm is doing hints at the vibe going on at places like Pasco Kitchen & Lounge, but the prices are lower and the food is just as good. For instance: The burger made with open-range, grass-fed beef and served on a bun from La Baguette Bakery is a mere $6.50, while a similar burger at other eateries runs for about $10. The tacos, jerk chicken and side-orders also boast top-notch ingredients, and prices top out at $6.75.

Which isn’t to bust on eateries that focus on local and sustainable ingredients, but it is to Animal Farm’s credit that prices remain low while quality remains high. Even the cheese curds are sourced locally — they come from the Arizona Cheese Company in Phoenix — before being coated in Panko crumbs and fried to perfection in the onboard deep-fat fryer.

La Taverna at Roma Imports, the restaurant inside the well-stocked Italian grocery store Roma Imports at 627 Vine Ave., is getting ready for another series of feasts. They're calling it "Let's Go Rome Again," and the first one takes place this Saturday, Jan. 21.

From the menu:

ANTIPASTI
Suppli alla romana
Bruschetta with roasted Tomatos and Basil
Artichoke Bottoms with Bacon and Onion
Eggplant and Zucchini Fritters
Lentil Salad
Frittata with Speck and Asparagus
Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Balsamic Glaze and Pumpkin Seeds
Fried Goat’s Cheese Medallions
Figs stuffed with Gorgonzola and Walnuts
A Roman mixed antipasti

MAIN COURSE
Rolled Pork Roast with Wine and Herbs
Abbacchio alla romana - Lamb with Garlic and Anchovies
Trippa alla trasteverina — Baked Tripe
Gnocchi alla romana
Pastry filled with Spinach
Patate e cavoli - Potato and Savoy Cabbage with Pancetta
Melanzane ripiene — Eggplant Stuffed with Tomato and Mozzarella

DESSERT
Fette di Mele Fritte — Fried Apple Rings
Crema di Ricotta — Homemade Ricotta Cream
Chocolate Mascarpone Roll

The event takes place again on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 27 and 28. Tickets are $40, and the feasts are served buffet-style. Contact the restaurant over yonder.

• Is that chicken foot flipping me off?

But on my recent trip across Northern Peru, I hit the wall when it comes to one aspect of Peruvian dining. Perhaps I’m getting a bit older and set in my ways, but chicken-feet soup for breakfast, which was the only thing available along one especially long trek through the Andes, finally did me in. I ate it anyway — personal weaknesses are no reason to insult the cook, after all — but the memory of chicken feet floating around in oily broth has been plaguing me for days.

It was good to experience this. Good travel teaches us as much about ourselves as it does about the places we visit. It was shocking to realize how much I craved a fried-egg sandwich after only a few short weeks, and how I was plotting to craft my own breakfast burrito as soon as I had access to a kitchen. Food, it seems, has as much, or maybe even more, to do with our comfort than the place we lay our head at night.

On a side note, Peru is currently experiencing a bit of a culinary renaissance thanks to chef Gastón Acurio, which will be fun to watch as the years roll on. Due to the country's amazing variety of landscape—from oceanside beach towns to deep Amazonian jungle villages, and everything between—the food is some of the most varied I've ever experienced. It seems it will only be a matter of time before American chefs catch on and start infusing their menus with some of the incredible flavors the country has to offer.

Dublin Dr. Pepper is no more, as the Texas holdout still using cane sugar gave in on its years long feud with Snapple, the owner of the brand. It seems like it would have been a better PR move to just let the plant make the drink their way instead of doing this to a small town that based its identity around your product, but I guess they have their reasons.

It's a little weird to me that Taco Bell would want to try to take on Chipotle, considering that one difference between the two brands is that Chipotle actually cooks stuff in their restaurants, instead of reheating and hydrating, but things can change. If I were in charge of Taco Bell, I'd probably aim to just be better than Del Taco. It's ok just to be cheap and good enough sometimes:

For a chain that made its name peddling cheap eats in the wee hours of the morning, a higher-priced menu may not appeal to the restaurant’s primary customer. The Taco Bell frequenter is an 18- to 24-year-old, value-conscious male, says Jeff Bernstein, an analyst at Barclays Capital in New York.

“It’s definitely targeted to a younger crowd,” he said.

Former franchisee Brumagin also is skeptical and says introducing somewhat fancier, higher-priced food could go the way of a healthy menu experiment in the mid-’90s that he called an “abysmal failure.”

Taco Bell is clearly taking cues from its higher-end rival.

“Chipotle is an opportunity because what it’s done has expanded the trial and usage of Mexican food,” Creed said at the investor meeting in New York Dec. 7. “It’s got people to believe they can pay $8 for a bowl or a burrito.”

Taco Bell can make food “every bit as good as Chipotle,” he said, and instead charge less than $5.

While Chipotle’s $7 or $8 burritos include ingredients such as naturally raised pork seasoned with thyme and juniper berries, Taco Bell’s menu now features the 99-cent Beefy Crunch Burrito that’s topped with Flamin’ Hot Fritos.

The Grill at Hacienda del Sol, the restaurant at the posh resort at 5501 N. Hacienda del Sol Road, will start offering breakfast service Monday, Jan. 16.

The people who handle public relations for the place tell us the new breakfast offerings will be sort of an extension of the brunch the place offers each Sunday, which won the Best of Tucson® award for best brunch in 2010.

Take a look at the new breakfast menu here.

The new Freddy's Frozen Custard and Steakburgers on the corner of Thornydale and Orange Grove roads, in Marana, is open.

The burger-and-frozen-custard thing—which started in Tucson with the opening of two Culver's restaurants and continues with Freddy's—is a bit too calorie-rich for my tastes, yet I fully support it. I find it amazing when an entire day's worth of calories are packed into one meal, and although I personally don't enjoy sweets much, frozen custard makes the world a happier place, so I'm behind it all the way.

There's more on Freddy's Frozen Custard and Steakburgers here.

I didn't know drinking out of canning jars was a thing people were doing (except for moonshine, for obvious reasons of authenticity), but I suppose it makes sense. At very least, you don't have to worry about leaking issues. However, while drinking out of jars works exceptionally well while seated and motionless, the process is less smooth while walking. So, someone invented a sippy-cup lid for jars. America is awesome, right?