The weather is warming up and we can finally get out and grill again. Here are a few links to recipes, theme ideas and products great for a Spring Barbeque!

BBQ Recipes and themes from Celebrations.com

Read the article on seriouseats.com

Add this fun widget to your Myspace or Facebook page, blog, or anything you like. Every week we’ll choose a new cheese and when you click the widget you can learn more about the history of the cheese along with recipes and wine pairings.

I created this widget with Sprout. Sprout is a quick and easy way for beginner and pro users to create living content including websites, banners, videos, music, photos, RSS feeds, calendars and more. It’s really easy and fun to use. Check it out.

Easter treats, hams, candies, chocolates……

Egg Decorating Ideas                    Table Decorating Ideas          

Easter Hams                                        Easter Wine Pairings    

(photos from www.georgiafaces.caes.uga.edu , www.igourmet.com and www.celebrations.com)

I Heart Bacon: Self Explanitory

The Bacon Show: One Bacon Recipe A Day, Forever

igourmet.com: The Bacon Lover’s Feast!

David Lebovitz: Candied Bacon Ice Cream

notmartha.org: Bacon Cups

igourmet.com: Vosges Chocolate & Bacon Candy Bar

Brownie Points: Bacon Flavored Vodka

The Grateful Palate: All things Pig including these BLT Candles, Bacon Popcorn, Bacon of the Month Club, Bacon Salt, Bacon Candy……….

Vanilla Garlic: Maple Bacon Cupcakes

Some More Bacon Sites:

The Bacon Show

Bacontarian

Six Degrees of Bacon

Bacon Unwrapped

From www.howstuffworks.com

1. Hamburger

At $99, the Double Truffle Hamburger at DB Bistro Moderne in Manhattan gives new meaning to the term whopper. The burger contains three ounces of rib meat mixed with truffles and foie gras stuffed inside seven ounces of sirloin steak and served on a Parmesan and poppy seed bun, with salad and truffle shavings. For penny-pinchers and calorie counters, the Single Truffle version is a mere $59.

2. Caviar

The world’s most expensive caviar is a type of Iranian beluga called Almas. Pale amber in color, it comes from sturgeons that are between 60 and 100 years old. A 3.9-pound container will set you back $48,750.

3. Pie

In 2006, a chef in northwestern England created the world’s most expensive pie. Based on a traditional steak and mushroom pie, the dish includes $1,000 worth of Wagyu beef fillet, $3,330 in Chinese matsutake mushrooms (which are so rare that they are grown under the watchful eyes of armed guards), two bottles of 1982 Chateau Mouton Rothschild at a cost of about $4,200 each, as well as black truffles and gold leaf. The pie serves eight with a total cost around $15,900, or $1,990 per slice, which includes a glass of champagne.

4. Bread

Forget Poilâne’s famous French sourdough at $19.50 a loaf. In 1994, Diane Duyser of Florida noticed that the toasted sandwich she was eating appeared to contain an image of the Virgin Mary. She kept it for ten years (it never went moldy), before selling it to Canadian casino Goldenpalace.com for $28,000 in 2004.

5. Ice Cream Sundae

At $1,000, the Grand Opulence Sundae at New York’s Serendipity certainly lives up to its name. Made from Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream. covered in 23-karat edible gold leaf and drizzled with Amedei Porcelana, the world’s most expensive chocolate, this indulgence is studded with gold dragets and truffles and topped with dessert caviar.

6. Pizza

Americans love their pizza.  And at $1,000 a pie (or $125 a slice) they better be able to put their money where their mouth is. The Luxury Pizza, a 12-inch thin crust, is the creation of Nino Selimaj, owner of Nino’s Bellissima in Manhattan. To order this extravagant pizza, call 24 hours in advance because it is covered with six different types of caviar that need to be specially ordered. The pie is also topped with lobster, crème fraîche, and chives.

Our list of the world’s most expensive foods continues with the priciest boxed chocolates.

7. Boxed Chocolates

At $2,600 per pound, Chocopologie by Knipschildt Chocolatier of Connecticut is the world’s most expensive box of chocolates. The Chocolatier, opened in 1999 by Danish chef Fritz Knipschildt, also sells a decadent dark chocolate truffle with a French black truffle inside for a mere $250. But don’t expect to just drop in and buy one on a whim . . . they’re available on a preorder basis only.

8. Sandwich

Since the 19th century, the club sandwich has been a restaurant staple. But thanks to English chef James Parkinson, the von Essen Platinum club sandwich at the Cliveden House Hotel near London is also the world’s most expensive sandwich at $197. Weighing just over a pound, the sandwich is made of the finest ingredients, including Iberico ham cured for 30 months, quail eggs, white truffles, semi-dried Italian tomatoes, and 24-hour fermented sourdough bread.

9. Omelette

For $1,000, this gigantic concoction comes stacked with caviar and an entire lobster encased within its eggy folds. Still, one might expect a seafood fork made of platinum and a few precious stones within to justify the price of a few eggs (albeit with a few added trappings). Nicknamed “The Zillion Dollar Lobster Frittata,” the world’s most “egg-spensive” omelette is the objet d’art of chef Emilio Castillo of Norma’s restaurant in New York’s Le Parker Meridien Hotel. A smaller version is also available for $100.

10. Spice

Saffron, the most expensive spice in the world, has sold in recent years for as much as $2,700 per pound! The price tag is so high because it must be harvested by hand and it takes more than 75,000 threads, or filaments, of the crocus flower to equal one pound of the spice! Most saffron comes from Iran, Turkey, India, Morocco, Spain, and Greece, and in the ancient world the spice was used medicinally and for food and dye. Prices vary depending on the quality and the amount, but high-quality saffron has been known to go for as much as $15 per gram (0.035 ounces).

11. Cake

And the award for the most expensive food goes to . . . a fruitcake? Encrusted with 223 small diamonds, this cake (which is edible without the gems, of course) was for sale for an unbelievable $1.6 million in December 2005. One of 17 diamond-themed displays in a Japanese exhibit called “Diamonds: Nature’s Miracle,” the masterpiece took a Tokyo pastry chef six months to design and one month to create.

Update: LaOctober 2007, the Luxury Brands Bridal show unveiled the most expensive cake of all time. Mimi So Jewellers’ and cake designer Nahid La Patisserie Artistique’s diamond-studded creation had its own team of uniformed security guards and is, unfortunately, unlikely ever to be eaten. Cost: $20 million.

From Interesting Thing Of The Day:

I recently stumbled upon the rather disturbing statistic that more than half the cheese consumed in the United States is American cheese. Yes, I know, this is tautologically true in that anything made in America is, ipso facto, American—but I’m talking about the particular dairy product that goes by the name “American cheese.” For readers outside North America, let me explain what this is. By law, American cheese must be labeled as a “pasteurized process cheese product” or words to that effect. To make it, manufacturers start with some innocent mild cheddar cheese, shred it up, heat it, mix it with water and emulsifiers, add some food coloring, and form it into a block—or, more often, individually plastic-wrapped slices. The net result is a shiny, rubbery substance that looks, from a distance, somewhat like cheese. When it’s melted it even tastes approximately like melted cheese. In fact this is the major selling point for American cheese: it melts very smoothly without separating, making it easier to cook with than cheddar or most other varieties of cheese.

Read The Article

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and the coming of Spring by entering celebrations.com’s It IS Easy Being Green photo contest! The winner will receive an Irish Classic Gift Basket and a $100 gift card from igourmet. Five runners-up will win an Irish Cheese Basket.

Submit your favorite Green image! It could be a photo of you wearing something Green, holding a Green item, dancing on a Green, eating something Green – use your creativity and imagination and show us that indeed, It IS Easy Being Green.

 In the United States, it’s customary to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day. But in Ireland the color was long considered to be unlucky, says Bridget Haggerty, author of The Traditional Irish Wedding and the Irish Culture and Customs Web site.

As Haggerty explains, Irish folklore holds that green is the favorite color of the Good People (the proper name for faeries). They are likely to steal people, especially children, who wear too much of the color.

Parade Facts

Today New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade is the longest running civilian parade in the world. This year nearly three million spectators are expected to watch the spectacle and some 150,000 participants plan to march.

The 108th annual Boston St. Patrick’s Day Parade will honor the “Men and Women of the Armed Forces”. South Boston is Boston’s most Irish neighborhood, and has a glorious tradition of helping others while keeping Irish heritage alive. The parade is led by John Hurley, a Navy veteran and South Boston native.

Chicago is famous for dyeing the Chicago River green on St. Patrick’s Day. The tradition began in 1962, when a pipe fitters union—with the permission of the mayor—poured a hundred pounds (45 kilograms) of green vegetable dye into the river. (On the job, the workers often use colored dyes to track illegal sewage dumping.) Today only 40 pounds (18 kilograms) of dye are used, enough to turn the river green for several hours.

igourmet.com is located only 12 miles from downtown Scranton. The St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Scranton, PA has been going on annually since 1862 by the St. Patrick’s Day Parade Association of Lackawanna County and the parade has gotten attention nationally as being one of the better St. Patrick’s Day parades. The parade route begins on Wyoming Ave. and loops up to Penn Ave. and then Lackawanna Ave. before going back down over Jefferson Ave. to get to Washington Ave. Scranton hosts the fourth largest St. Patricks Day parade in the United States. Tens of thousands of parade goers attend the parade each year.

Check out this unique financial report and cook book from food company Podravka in Croatia.  The pages of the book are blank untill placed in the oven and cooked. Then images and text will appear.