Venezuela President Hugo Chavez and his officials set a world record for making the largest pot of soup on Saturday. Venezuelan Food Minister Rafael Oropeza said they could beat the current Guinness World Records record-holder with their gigantic stainless steel cooking pot, set up outdoors in downtown Caracas. The giant pot contains about 3,960 gallons of "sancocho" stew, while the current Guinness holder prepared 1,413 gallons of spicy soup last July in Durango, Mexico.

Women today are taking extreme measures to look young and opting for anti-wrinkle treatments. However, many beauticians take advantage of this fact and use cheap products on their customers to earn profits. A California beautician was sentenced to 15 years in prison following a death of her client after she injected cooking oil into her client instead of "French polymer" agent that promised to reduce wrinkles. Martha Mata Vasquez, 39, injected Mazola corn oil into the buttocks of clients and charged up to $1,400 for each procedure. The 46-year-old victim Maria Olivia Castillo died in November 2005 of multiple organ failure caused by a fat blockage brought about by a cooking oil injection.

A Chinese man has aroused the suspicion of his neighbors and authorities after claiming he can cook eggs on the floor of his home. Liu Yawen said he first learned of the unusual "capability" of his floor while he was cleaning it with a wet cloth when it suddenly gave off steam.

After getting suspicious that they smelled methamphetamine cooking, deputies knocked on the door of the house the odor was coming from. When they asked the man who answered the door what was going on, he immediately replied, "You know what's going on - I'm cooking meth. "According to McMinn County Sheriff's Department, Herman Scott Swafford was arrested after the search revealed a glass bottle with a plastic 20-ounce soda bottle attached to it with red electrical tape and a hot plate with the heat turned on.

A factory in China has been shut down and its manager arrested after it was found to have been selling lard to the public, made from grease that came from garbage, among other things. Ying Fuming, a manager at the Fanchang Grease Factory in Taizhou, was arrested after he used grease from such inedible things as swill, sewage, pesticides and recycled industrial oil to make lard for human consumption.