Bite Size
Carol Smaglinski
Zachary Qualls, 26, is an art history student at the University of Central Oklahoma. He has worked in restaurants and has been a caterer. Qualls, from Shawnee, said he has probably eaten in 90 percent of the metro restaurants, and is the go-to guy for recommendations.

Food and Drink Features
Christina Nihira
While summer is still a scorching celebration, try treating yourself to a decadent soda. Curious cream sodas, spicy ginger ales, rich root beers, tart citrus beverages with genuine bitterness, complex colas — they’re all chilling out there beside surprising, one-of-a-kind flavors as diverse as cucumber, chocolate and jalapeño oil.

Food and Drink Features
Carol Smaglinski
Thousands of dining options are peppered across Oklahoma’s vast expanse. In fact, there is a cornucopia of restaurants just waiting for us.

CFN
Gazette staff
One-time mainstay of the comics page and the TV tube, the “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” franchise still lives, currently in the occasional hardcover book, often marketed directly to kids via those Scholastic catalogs you used to drool over in elementary school.

Features
Phil Bacharach, Rod Lott, Tricia Dameron, Clifton Adcock
Every four years, February earns an extra day on the calendar due to the moon cycles or black magic or something — we’re not sure. But we do know this gives you 24 extra hours to get out and do something different in this great state of ours.