SMORGASBORD: Red Pepper is hot ... Red Lake walleye ... Oslo Rib Fest

• Bismarck tips

Bismarck tips are handy little gadgets that make simple work of filling all sorts of baked goods. (Ricardo DeAratanha/Los Angeles Times/MCT)

Talk about it

Red Pepper is hot

The Red Pepper in Grand Forks has been named one of the top late-night places to eat by Esquire magazine.

The list is part of the magazine’s Eat Like a Man: Late-Night Edition — a hungry man’s guide to what, where, how and why to eat when most people aren’t.

Featured was the Pepper’s Ham Grinder, which was described as ham, Swiss cheese, lettuce, hot sauce, a secret white sauce, Colby cheese, all on a roll from Hugo’s. And, of course, taco meat, ground daily at L&M Meats.

For more, go to www.esquire.com/features/food-drink/late-night-0912/introduction#ixzz23XDRPf3p.

Red Lake walleye

Now, anyone can have Minnesota-caught walleye from Red Lake anytime of the year, and it’s only a few clicks away.

Red Lake walleye will be available for purchase online (www.redlakewalleye.com) and shipped directly to consumer doors with standard overnight FedEx. The walleye are wild caught by Red Lake tribal anglers and hand filleted.

The Red Lake Nation Fishery website will provide information on how to order all freshwater products. It also will help to educate the public on sustainable practices used by the Red Lake Nation Fishery and the importance of the Red Lakes to the tribe.

Oslo Rib Fest

Johnny Bravoz’s Third Annual Rib Fest and Barbecue Cook-Off will be held Saturday in Oslo, Minn.

Beginning at 5 p.m., a panel of judges will sample the rib entries that will be either grilled or prepared in smokers. Organizer John Kirkeby, owner of Johnny Bravoz, is expecting 15 to 20 entrants.

The public is invited and will be allowed to try the ribs for a nominal fee, which will help determine the People’s Choice, according to Kirkeby.

Fill ’er up

Have you ever wondered how pastry chefs and doughnut shops are able to pipe those perfectly puffed eclairs and plump jelly doughnuts with their glorious fillings? It takes a very long piping tip.

Better known as a Bismarck tip, these handy little gadgets make simple work of filling all sorts of baked goods. Bismarck tips are shaped like a standard piping tip but with a long tube attached at the end to make the job of injecting your favorite treats with all sorts of sweet goodness that much easier.

Bismarck pastry tips can generally be found at cooking and baking supply stores, as well as at select craft stores, and are widely available online. A Bismarck pastry tip should set you back only $3 to $6.

Vegan Indian

Anupy Singla scored big in 2010 with her first cookbook, “The Indian Slow Cooker,” which used that most humble of American appliances to render delicious Indian dishes at home. Now, the former broadcaster-turned-entrepreneur is back with a second book, this one called “Vegan Indian Cooking: 140 Simple and Healthy Vegan Recipes” (Agate Surrey, $19.95). And, as with her first book, readers can expect a can-do candor about cooking from the author.

“Anyone can do this,” Singla insists, dismissing perceptions of Indian food as “difficult or cumbersome” to make. “A few simple steps and an understanding of spices and you can have an Indian meal on the table very quickly.”

That’s important to Singla, who is a businesswoman and the mother to two young daughters, and has a website Indian as Apple Pie. The title reflects the belief of this Indian-born and Pennsylvania-raised woman, a self-described “nontrained home chef,” that there’s nothing to be afraid of when it comes to Indian food — not even the cost of supplies.

“In this down economy, Indian cuisine is one of the cheapest on the planet,” she says. Singla doesn’t waste a thing, neither time nor ingredients. The slow cooker makes a return appearance in this book, most visibly to cook dried beans and lentils for use in dinners now and, with refrigeration or freezing, later. Her approach means less reliance on expensive canned products.

“I think this will change the playing field,” she says.

Singla’s second book does more than share a slow cooker with her first book. “Vegan Indian Cuisine” is now the best-selling book on Indian cooking found on Amazon.com, an influential barometer to public taste. Ranked second? The former No. 1: “The Indian Slow Cooker.”

“It’s not a book that forces a lifestyle upon you,” Singla writes in the introduction. “This is a book that tells you, ‘Eat what you want, but make sure what you eat is real, whole food. And open your mind to all the possibilities.’”

Productfuls

If you liked Ritz Crackerfuls (or even if you didn’t), you might like Nabisco’s new Honey Maid Grahamfuls — long whole-grain graham-cracker sandwiches filled with either a stripe of peanut butter or narrower stripes of both peanut butter and chocolate. At one store, the 7.04-ounce box of eight individually wrapped Grahamfuls was $4.09 (51 cents each).

Herald staff and wire reports

Tags: accent, updates, food, smorgasbord