Sink your teeth into today's top stories from around the globe. We'll shut up our mugs if you fill up our jugs with these good ol' hillbilly cocktails. – Details For a very swine Memorial Day, try making this Filipino-style roasted pork belly. – Serious Eats Speaking of pork belly, BACON! Homemade BACON! – Food 52 Has Giles Coren, arguably the world's angriest food critic, gone soft? – London Evening Standard Another day, another story about kids in restaurants: Susan Tahmasian claims a Sydney restaurant turned her away because she had her baby in tow. – Sydney Morning Herald

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Box lunch: ‘Hicktails’ and pork belly

Kathryn wanted pants. And short hair. Then trucks and swords. Her parents, Jean and Stephen, were fine with their toddler’s embrace of all things boy. They’ve both been school teachers and coaches in Maryland and are pretty immune to the quirky stuff that kids do. Read full article > >

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Transgender at five

Fox will plant four comedies on Tuesday — including one originally developed by NBC for NBC star Mindy Kaling , which will immediately follow this season’s most promising Fox fall launch, “New Girl.” The network will protect its investment in flailing “Glee” by moving it to the safe zone, aka the post-singing show timeslot on Thursdays, where it will follow “The X Factor” in the fall and “American Idol” in the spring. Read full article > >

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Upfront Week 2012: Mindy Kaling, Demi Lovato, Britney Spears join Fox; ‘Glee’ moves to Thursday

Parents have many talks with their kids as they grow up. There's the “birds and the bees” talk and the “sharing is caring” talk, or even the “don't be a bully” talk. Now, author Ruby Roth wants parents to have the “If it's too scary to talk about while we're eating, it's too scary to eat” discussion with their children. Roth is talking about veganism. Like vegetarians, vegans don't eat meat , but they take that philosophy a few steps further. Vegans won't consume or use any products that contain any part of an animal. For example, they don't eat eggs or dairy and won't wear leather. Her new children's book, “Vegan is Love,” is causing quite a stir, with some critics saying she's scaring children into a lifestyle choice that young kids aren't equipped to make. The 40 page book, officially geared towards 7-year-olds, features bright illustrations by Roth herself. Some of the illustrations are graphic. One depicts mice and bunnies and dogs and cats in a lab. They have oozing sores on their bodies and appear to be in a great deal of pain and suffering. Another is of a family of polar bears huddled on a tiny ice sheet. In the book, Roth also advocates that children not go to zoos, aquariums or the circus: a potentially difficult concept for a young child to understand. Roth herself is stepmother to a 7-year-old vegan and knew there would be some backlash. “These are all things every vegan hears on a daily basis. Of course there are going to be questions about misinformation,” she says. Roth became a vegan after being challenged to do so, and the lifestyle stuck. “I lost weight, had more energy, and never went back.” Asked what she missed the most about her non-vegan lifestyle, “Shoes!” she says. “I cannot wait for more mainstream shoe lines to get a clue.” She has written two children's books on the subject, the first one is called “That's Why We Don't Eat Animals”. On the seemingly graphic nature of some of the illustrations she says, “I don't think that there's anything in my book that a kid wouldn't see walking in a supermarket or watching TV. I didn't exaggerate anything. I wanted kids to recognize what they see in the book.” One of the book's themes is to “teach kids we don't have to fear anything that we have the power to change.” Roth also wants the public to look into what she calls the truth behind the animal and agricultural industries in America. She claims, “If the American public knew about the abuse, the outrage would be directed at the industry and not this children's book.” Asked how she'd react if her daughter decided to leave veganism, Roth says “I will never try to control what she eats, in the end it's up to her. The best we can do is make sure our kids have the information [they need] to make choices. My hope was to reach people who raise kids to love deeply.” Take Our Poll Previously – Clarified: Vegans, pescetarians, raw foodists and other dietary tribes

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Are kids too young to understand veganism?

While you're frying up some eggs and bacon, we're cooking up something else: a way to celebrate today's food holiday. Get your mini hotdogs in a row because April 24 is National Pigs in a Blanket Day ! Pigs in a blanket, that favorite party appetizer and the answer to “What can I bring?” everywhere, have become a simple American staple. A product of convenience cooking, these little pigs are as tasty as they are easy to make. The “pigs” can be anything from hot dogs to Vienna sausages to link or cocktail sausages and the “blanket” is often biscuit or croissant dough. Kids love this treat that's easy on the palate because it's like a baked corn dog, and party-goers like it as an appetizer because it's a classic finger food. But if you're considering pigs in a blanket for breakfast, that usually means sausage links wrapped in pancakes. In the U.K., pigs in a blanket are made a little bit differently. Cocktail sausages, different from the ones we get here in the U.S., are wrapped in bacon and served as a typical accompaniment to Christmas lunch. And across the world, there are variations on pigs in a blanket, sometimes leaning more towards the sausage roll side of things, because wrapping meat within dough or pastry has long been a satisfying substitute for a hot meal. So celebrate with your own variation, party or no party! If you want to jazz up the flavor with cheese but skip out on the questionable ingredients found in some hotdogs, try these cheesy pigs (or turkey dogs) in blankets . A little bit healthier and huge on flavor, this snack will give you a reason to celebrate.

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National pigs in a blanket day

John P. Jumper’s high-velocity military career was over, and the former Air Force chief of staff was settling into a quiet retirement in Fredericksburg. He and his wife had built a house. He’d signed on to corporate boards. He was ready for visits from the grandkids. Then came an unexpected call to duty: an offer to run contracting giant Science Applications International Corp. The weeks since have been a blur. Read full article > >

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New SAIC chief John Jumper aims to shore up contracting giant

Hey, honey, let’s go bicycling with the kids through downtown Mexico City! Just a few years ago, these would have been the words of a lone madman. Today, bicycle riding in one of the world’s biggest cities is a popular way to get around, especially on Sunday mornings, when city hall shuts major throughways to auto traffic and gives the right of way to tens of thousands of cyclists (and a bunch of rollerbladers and joggers and dogs, too) who wend their way down grand commercial avenues and hard-bitten byways in a leisurely 14-mile loop. Read full article > >

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Mexicans try two wheels to beat car culture

When we were kids, hearing loss was funny. My sister and I made a game out of saying what we believed to be hilarious things, in normal tones, right in front of our grandmother, who we were sure couldn’t hear a thing. Read full article > >

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Baby boomers who need hearing aids have many choices in a Bluetooth/iPod world

Joba Chamberlain had surgery on Thursday after dislocating his ankle on a kids’ trampoline in Tampa, a potentially career-threatening injury for the Yankees pitcher.

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Yankees’ Chamberlain Hurts Ankle, Jeopardizing His Career

Is the V-bomb the new F-bomb? And if so, can we declare a moratorium? In the new comedy “ 21 Jump Street ,” opening Friday, leading men Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill deliver four jokes featuring the word “vagina.” But they’re running a close second to Jennifer Westfeldt, Adam Scott and their co-stars in “ Friends With Kids ,” an uneven, fitfully funny romantic comedy in which the word is uttered no fewer than five times, a fusillade that grows more grating with every gynecologically themed zinger. By the time Scott’s character invokes Kegel exercises, a simple, clinically precise word has migrated from taboo to refreshing frankness to cliche to pseudo-enlightened insult. Read full article > >

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Is the V-bomb the new F-bomb? Can we limit jokes naming female anatomy?

Peter Bergman, a founding member of the Firesign Theatre comedy troupe, whose zany pun-loaded skits and absurdist political satire entertained millions of college kids during the 1960s and ’70s, died Friday at a hospital in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 72. Read full article > >

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Peter Bergman, founding member of the Firesign Theatre comedy troupe, dies at 72

“This is it. Come on!” I call excitedly to my family as I walk toward the trailhead at Muir Woods National Monument in California. Spinning around, I see that my husband is still trying to nudge our 13-year-old daughter, Honor, and her 5-year-old brother, Justin, out of the gift shop to start our hike. Sigh. Obviously, the kids don’t share my enthusiasm. Read full article > >

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California’s redwoods and sequoias: Can ancient trees compete with modern gadgets?

The name alone evokes memories for almost anyone who grew up in America with a parent kind enough to buy their kids a bag of Oreo cookies (and not hide them on some inaccessible shelf high up in the pantry). My own primary memory of Oreos comes not from childhood, but from college. Read full article > >

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Does your relationship with Oreos extend to its spinoffs?

The family of crash test dummies has grown this year with the addition of a youngster who is just about the size at which kids graduate from a booster seat to a seat belt. The unhappy life of this dummy, modeled after a 10-year-old, will be spent evaluating the effectiveness of child seats and boosters for children weighing more than 65 pounds. Read full article > >

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NHTSA gets a new crash-test dummy to test child safety seats

New season of “19 Kids and Counting” will feature miscarriage.

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Duggars: We Want More Kids