Bacon cupcakes, bacon potato chips, bacon melon balls, candied bacon, bacon lattes—these were just some of the treats enjoyed by participants in last year’s iAdventure festival in New York City.

On Sunday, June 23rd, iAdventure.com Bacon Bash II will take place at Bowlmor Times Square. Join the party to sample bacon-inspired libations and treats and bring home some baco-licious souvenirs. Your bacon cravings will be satisfied by Bare Burger, House of ‘Que, Baconery, Bacon Bites and others with bacon preparations from the sweet to the savory!

Tickets are $35 for 1 draft beer and à la carte food; $45 for 5 Bacon Tastes and 1 draft beer, and $85 for two tickets with 10 Bacon Tastes and 2 draft beers!

You must be 21+ to attend. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit iAdventure.com.

Until then, check out our:

Candied bacon and bacon lattes from iAdventure.com Bacon Bash I.

Add beer to your homemade barbecue sauce. Photo by EasyBuy4U | IST.

Spell it barbecue, barbeque or BBQ: May is National Barbecue Month.

Here’s a delicious homemade beer barbecue sauce from Samuel Adams. You don’t have to be a beer drinker to enjoy it: The malt and hops provide a subtle lift in flavor and complexity that everyone can appreciate.

BEER BARBECUE SAUCE RECIPE

Ingredients

Preparation

1. HEAT all ingredients in a large sauce pan; stir and cover.

2. REDUCE by half and simmer over low heat for 2 to 3 hours, stirring occasionally.

3. STRAIN and serve with your favorite grilled meat or poultry.
 
BEER VARIATIONS

You don’t have to use lager; any beer you have on hand will work well, although a more mild wheat beer will have a different impact on the sauce than a hoppy IPA.

Personally, we’re in the IPA camp. If you barbecue a lot, try different types of beer in the sauce. You may find that what you like to cook with differs from what you like to drink.

Add a bottle to the sauce, then drink the rest with your barbecue. Scattered in front pf the beer are the barley and hops used to make it. Photo courtesy Samuel Adams.

The type of cream is up to you. Photo ©
Jacek Kadaj | Fotolia.

Today is National Strawberries And Cream Day, a classic English dessert. The ingredients are as simple as can be. And if you use just a dab of cream, whipped cream or fat-free sour cream, it’s also so healthful that it’s recommended by the Mayo Clinic (third recipe below).

One cup of strawberries has just 55 calories, 0g fat or cholesterol, 3g dietary fiber and 7g natural fruit sugar. Strawberries are a very good source of dietary fiber, manganese and vitamin C, and are a good source of folate and potassium.

CLASSIC STRAWBERRIES & CREAM RECIPE

Ingredients

 
*Our personal favorite is sour cream with a bit of brown sugar.

1. HULL, wash, dry and halve the strawberries.

2. SPRINKLE with a bit of superfine or table sugar, or noncaloric sweetener, unless the berries are perfectly sweet and need no additional help.

3. TOP with cream. Serve.

VARIATIONS

Add a special touch to half and half or heavy cream. Before pouring it over the strawberries, add some rosewater, orange flower water, essence of jasmine or liqueur to your cream. Alternatively, you can infuse lavender in the cream two hours or overnight, and strain out the lavender before using the cream.

Here are some flavored whipped cream recipes: bourbon, five spice, lavender, salted caramel and more.

STRAWBERRIES & CREAM U.K. RECIPE

In the U.K., the strawberries are allowed to marinate. Try this recipe:

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. MIX water and 1/2 of the sugar.

Strawberry fields forever. Photo by Rachael Wong | Pics4Learning.com.

3. PLACE the strawberries into the bowl of sugar water. Soak for 5 minutes. Drain.

4. LAYER strawberries with cream in individual cups.

Here’s a guilt-free recipe from the Mayo Clinic:
 

MAYO CLINIC STRAWBERRIES & CREAM RECIPE

Ingredients For 6 Servings

 
Preparation

1. WHISK together the sour cream, brown sugar and liqueur in a small bowl.

2. COMBINE the halved strawberries and sour cream mixture in a large bowl. Stir gently to mix. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled, about 1 hour.

3. SCOOP the strawberries into 6 colorful bowls or chilled sherbet glasses. Garnish with whole strawberries and serve immediately.

STRAWBERRY TRIVIA

“As easy as pie” refers to eating the pie, not
baking it. Photo courtesy Harry and David.

As a follow up to last month’s list of 12 popular food phrases (idoms*), food phrases we have five more, courtesy of Dictionary.com.

1. Apples And Oranges

Apples and oranges refers to two incommensurable items, i.e. a comparison of things that cannot be compared. Though they are both fruits, apples and oranges are separated by color, taste, juiciness, uses and so forth.

The idiom first appeared as apples and oysters in John Ray’s 1670 “Handbook Of Proverbs.” Equivalent terms exist in many languages, from “grandmothers and toads” in Serbian to “love and the eye of an axe” in Argentine Spanish.
 

*An idiom is an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements, such as “kick the bucket” or “hang one’s head.’”

2. As Easy As Pie

It’s not so easy to make a pie, but anyone can eat one. “As easy as pie” is an idiom used to describe a task or experience as pleasurable and simple—like the act of consuming a pie, not the more difficult task of baking one.

According to Wikipedia, the phrase was used in 1910 by Zane Grey in “The Young Forester” and in 1913 “The Saturday Evening Post.” It is probably a development of the phrase “like eating pie,” first recorded in “Sporting Life” in 1886. The phrase is often interchanged with “piece of cake,” which shares the same connotation.

3. Cup Of Tea

Popularized in British Edwardian slang, “cup of tea” originally referred to something pleasant or agreeable. The negative usage, as in “not my cup of tea,” arose during World War II as a more polite way to say that you didn’t like something.

“You don’t say someone gives you a pain in the neck,” explained journalist Alister Cooke in his 1944 Letter from America. “You just remark, he’s not my cup of tea.’”

4. In A Nutshell

“In a nutshell” refers to a short description, or a story told in no more words than can physically fit in the shell of a nut.

The ancient Roman encyclopaedist Pliny the Elder claimed that a copy of Homer’s “The Iliad” existed that was small enough to fit inside a walnut shell. Almost 2,000 years later, in the early 1700s, the Bishop of Avranches in France tested Pliny’s theory by writing out the epic in tiny handwriting on a walnut-sized piece of paper.

Lo and behold, it fit!

5. Walking on Eggshells

This phrase means taking great care not to upset someone. It is thought to have originated in politics: Diplomats were described as having the remarkable ability to tread so lightly around difficult situations, as though they were walking on eggshells.

It’s true: “The Iliad” does fit in a nutshell! Photo by J. Eltovski | Morguefile.

In a nutshell, we hope you go bananas for food idioms. Whether or not they’re your cup of tea, these terms are easy as pie to use and they’ll make you the big cheese of any conversation!

So go ahead and spill the beans—it’s just like apples and oranges.

May 18 is World Whiskey Day. If you’re not normally a whiskey drinker, why not take a vacation from the tequila and vodka and sip a glass of:

A shot of Irish whiskey with a wee wedge of lime. Photo courtesy Jameson.
.

Australia, England, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland and Thailand, all strong markets for whiskey, now produce their own. Regardless of the variety or country of origin, a general rule of thumb is that all straight whiskeys must be aged at least two years in wood, generally oak. Each nation has its own rules and regulations about what constitutes a true whiskey.

Whiskey sales have skyrocketed in the past year, in both the U.S. and abroad. In the U.S., bourbon and Tennessee whiskey led the growth. American whiskies also accounted for 70% of the total U.S. spirits exports for 2012.

See all the different types of whiskey in our Whiskey Glossary.

If you don’t want to drink a glass, use whiskey in a recipe. It adds dimension to sauces for meats and in desserts like cake, ice cream and mousse. You can even make a whiskey vinaigrette: Add a tablespoon to any recipe.

WHISKEY VS. WHISKY

Canadians spell “whisky” without the “e,” as do the Scots and most other countries except Ireland and the U.S.

Scholars can’t determine why the “e” was dropped by the Scots many centuries ago. One theory is that the Irish made whiskey first and pronounced it with a broad “e.” When the Scots began to make it, they dropped the “e” to differentiate their product.

A 1968 directive of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms specifies “whisky” as the official U.S. spelling, but allows the alternative spelling, “whiskey,” which most U.S. producers prefer.

An Old Fashioned is based on the earliest
known American cocktail. Photo courtesy
Maker’s Mark.

OLD FASHIONED COCKTAIL RECIPE

Here’s an easy way to enjoy World Whiskey Day: with a classic Old Fashioned cocktail. The recipe is courtesy Maker’s Mark.

The first documented use of the word “cocktail” dates to 1806; it combined liquor of any kind with sugar, water and bitters. As cocktail styles evolved, this early recipe became known as the Old-Fashioned. Later, it evolved into a particular drink made with American whiskey.

Ingredients

1. MUDDLE 1 orange slice, 1 maraschino cherry and the sugar in a rocks glass.

2. FILL the glass 3/4 full of ice. Add bourbon and splash of club soda.

3. GARNISH with additional orange slice and maraschino cherry.
 
A BRIEF HISTORY OF WHISKEY

Distillation was discovered in the late eighth century by an Arab scholar known as the Father of Modern Chemistry, Abu Masa Jabir ibn Hayyam (?-803 C.E.). He wondered what would happen if he put wine into an al-ambiq, a round vessel like a tea pot with a tall spout on the top, and boiled it.

The vapors rose through the spout, were collected and condensed, creating the world’s first distilled alcohol. In fact, since the al-ambiq was often used to boil powdered antimony into a liquid called al-kohl (used to make the cosmetic kohl), the liquid became known as alcohol and the al-ambiq became the alembic still, which remains in use today.

The distillate was originally used as medicine, and remained a secret process, ultimately shared with the monks in Spain for medicinal purposes. Some orders created their own special distillations, such as Benedictine and Chartreuse liqueurs.

As for our word whiskey: The Scotch uisce and the Gaelic uisge, pronounced ISH-ka, became usky and then whisky in English.

Here’s more on the history of whiskey.
 
MORE ABOUT WHISKEY

There’s a group of cooked fruit desserts with crumb or pastry toppings that are similar enough to be confusing. Since today is National Cherry Cobbler Day, we’ll review the differences.

BETTY or BROWN BETTY

A betty is a crisp (see below) topped with buttered bread crumbs or bread pieces instead of streusel or another topping. Later recipes also use graham cracker crumbs (see the history of the graham cracker, which postdates the Brown Betty).

In some recipes, sugared and spiced fruit, usually diced apples although any fruit can be used, are placed in alternating layers with the crumbs and baked, covered, to the consistency of bread pudding.

A cherry raspberry cobbler. Photo courtesy USACherries.com.

The dish and name date back to colonial times, but the original “Betty” is lost to history; the brown refers to the brown sugar in the recipe. Here‘s a brown betty photo.

COBBLER

A cobbler is a cooked fruit dish, but the topping is different from other cooked fruits with toppings: It’s crowned with cooked lumps of dough. The dish got its name because the lumps of dough resembled cobblestones. In contrast, a crisp or crumble has a crumb topping.

Although some might see the cobbler as a crustless pie or “spoon pie” (a fruit pie with a filling so juicy it should be eaten with a spoon instead of a fork), it is often classified as a cake. Fruit is baked in a baking dish or casserole, then shortcake batter or biscuit dough is dropped onto the fruit before it goes into the oven.

Today, people tend to call everything a cobbler. But remember: a cobbler has a dropped pastry dough top instead of a crumb top.

A cherry crumble. Photo courtesy Dole.com.

CRISP or CRUMBLE

A crisp is a deep-dish fruit dessert made with a crumb or streusel topping and baked. The British term is crumble.

The next three relatives are in the spoon pie category.

GRUNT

A grunt is a spoon pie with biscuit dough on top of stewed fruit (fruit which is steamed, not baked). It’s a stovetop variation of the baked cobbler. Here‘s a photo.

PANDOWDY

A pandowdy is a spoon pie with a rolled top crust that is broken up to allow the juices to come through.

SLUMP

A slump is a spoon pie topped with biscuit dough or pie crust, which can be baked or steamed. It can be made upside down.

Now go bake a cherry cobbler and celebrate National Cherry Cobbler Day!

SEE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF PASTRY IN OUR PASTRY GLOSSARY.

We celebrated with four very different
chocolate chip cookies. Photo by Elvira
Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.

May 15th is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, and chocolate chip is America’s favorite cookie. Our friends at Balducci’s specialty food store sent us three different brands of small-producer chocolate chip cookies for the occasion. Added to a bag of Pepperidge Farm cookies already in house, we had quite a chocolate chip cookie tasting.

Gather up a selection and hold your own cookie tasting. Go to the best specialty food store in town and purchase four or five different varieties; call friends and neighbors for a tasting with tea, coffee and/or milk.

If all you‘ve got is a conventional supermarket, that works, too. No matter who makes the cookie, you’re looking for differences in chocolatiness, butteriness, sweetness, texture and other variables (we prefer a cookie with more brown sugar flavor, for example).

Don’t judge a cookie by its wrapper: You don’t know until you take the first bite. We tasted four very different chocolate chip cookies:

Pick up an assortment from your specialty food store. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.

 
HISTORY OF THE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE

The chocolate chip cookie was invented by accident in 1937, by an innkeeper who stirred a chopped chocolate bar into cookie batter, thinking it would melt to create chocolate cookies. The happy result was that it didn’t!

Here’s the full history of the chocolate chip cookie.

FIND MORE OF OUR FAVORITE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES IN OUR GOURMET COOKIES SECTION.

May 9th is National Butterscotch Brownie Day, a bar cookie better known as the blondie—short for blonde brownie. The batter—flour, brown sugar, butter, eggs, baking powder and vanilla—is yellow (blonde), as opposed to chocolate brownie batter.

Butterscotch brownies don’t need to have inclusions (chips, nuts); but today’s blondies typically combine butterscotch chips and chocolate chips.

According to Food Timeline, blonde brownies predate the chocolate version by about 10 years. Around 1896, a molasses-flavored bar cookie (no chocolate, cocoa or chocolate chips) called a brownie appeared. The name honored the elfin characters featured in popular books, stories, cartoons and verses of the time by Palmer Cox (the Eastman Kodak Brownie camera was also named after these elves).

After the later introduction and popularity of chocolate brownies, became known as a butterscotch brownie (history of the brownie). The name “Blondie” surfaces in the 1980s. It was not named for Dagwood Bumstead’s wife.

In this recipe. cookbook author Dorie Greenspan uses toffee bits instead of butterscotch chips. She also adds some coconut, which you can keep or omit.

The recipe is from Dorie’s book, Baking: From My Home To Yours (it makes you want to get an invitation to Dorie’s home, ASAP).

RECIPE: Chewy, Chunky Blondies

Ingredients

Photo courtesy LovinInTheOven.com.

 
*You can chop up any toffee you have on hand.

The blondie recipe is from Dorie Greenspan’s
book, Baking: From My Home To Yours. Photo
courtesy Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Preparation

1. CENTER a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Butter a 9×13-inch baking pan and put it on a baking sheet. Prepare a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or a hand mixer and a large bowl.

2. WHISK together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

3. BEAT the butter on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add both sugars and beat for another 3 minutes, or until well incorporated.

4. ADD the eggs one by one, beating for 1 minute after each addition; then beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing just until they disappear into the batter.

5. STIR in the chips, nuts and coconut, using a rubber spatula. Scrape the batter into the buttered pan and use the spatula to even the top as best you can.

6. BAKE for 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the blondies comes out clean. The blondies should pull away from the sides of the pan a little and the top should be a nice honey brown color.

7. TRANSFER the pan to a rack and cool for about 15 minutes before turning the blondies out onto another rack. Invert onto a rack right side up and cool the blondies to room temperature. Cut into 32 bars, each roughly 2-1/4 x 1-1/2 inches.

FOOD 101: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BUTTERSCOTCH & TOFFEE

Both start with sugar, butter and water. Then, it’s a question of the heat and any added ingredients.

Here’s the scoop.

You can celebrate May 9th, National Moscato Day, with a glass of Moscato: the slightly sweet white wine pairs well wherever an Alsatian Gewürtztraminer or Riesling would be at home (see the food pairings below).

But for National Moscato Day, we present two cocktail recipes, courtesy of Gallo Family Vineyards, one of our favorite Moscato makers.

MOSCATO DAY CELEBRATION PUNCH

Serves 6-8 people.

Ingredients

Try a Moscato-Tequila punch. Photo courtesy Gallo.

Preparation

1. COMBINE all ingredients in a punch bowl or large pitcher filled with ice.

2. GARNISH and serve.

A Gimlet made with Moscato instead of gin. Photo courtesy Gallo.

MOSCATO GIMLET

Ingredients Per Drink

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE ingredients in a cocktail shaker. Shake and strain into a coupe glass.

2. GARNISH with lime wedge and serve.

ABOUT MOSCATO

Moscato is a lighter-style white wine, lower in alcohol (5%-8% ABV, about half the alcohol of other wines). It is popular with brunch, dessert or as an apéritif. It is grown around the world. The Italian bottlings, from Italy’s Piedmont region, are called Moscato d’Asti: named after the grape, Moscato, and the Italian town of Asti, the center of production. Asti Spumante is sparkling Moscato.

Straw-colored Moscato is known for its fruit (often peaches and tangerines, depending on region), its floral fragrance fragrance and its subtle sweetness.

PAIRING MOSCATO WITH FOOD

Don’t store Moscato: It’s meant to be drunk fresh and vibrant in the year it is vinified. Serve it with:

 
SEE ALL THE AMERICAN FOOD HOLIDAYS.

Drinking is just the beginning of uses for
orange juice. Photo by Sting | Wikimedia.

May 4th is National Orange Juice Day. Many Americans start the day with a glass of OJ but don’t touch the carton again until the following morning. Yet orange juice is a delicious ingredient that you can work into recipes for every meal of the day for a refreshing hint of orange flavor.

Breakfast

 
Lunch

Desserts

 
Snacks

 
Beverage

 
WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE USES FOR ORANGE JUICE?

Add them to this list!

Add OJ to your vinaigrette. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.

Oranges are believed to have originated in Southeast Asia, a cross between the mandarin and the pomelo. They were cultivated in China as far back as 2500 B.C.E. In the late 15th century, Italian and Portuguese merchants returned home with orange trees. The fruit proliferated in the warm Mediterranean climate. Spanish explorers brought sweet orange trees to America in the mid-1500s. Its Spanish name, naranja, as an adaptation of the Sanskrit word, naranga.

The first orange trees were planted in the U.S. in the 1500s, in the area of St. Augustine, Florida, by Spanish explorers. The native Americans loved the fruit as well, so more trees were planted. The climate was perfect—warm, sub-tropical temperatures and abundant rains. The first commercial orange grove was planted in 1830 on Merritt Island, Florida, which remains a thriving growing area.

The oranges were eaten as well as juiced for drinking. In the centuries before shipping of perishable foods, orange juice was a local treat.

And it was a late addition to the breakfast table. In the mid 1910s, there was bumper crop of oranges in California and a lot of excess fruit. In the days before home refrigeration, juice would only last for a day.

Fortunately, at the same time pasteurization came into use and a national railway system was completed. So the growers were able to pasteurize the juice for longer shelf life and ship it nationwide.

Orange juice became available everywhere; additional technological developments allowed it to be stored and marketed year-round. Florida is one of the top 3 orange juice producers in the world, along with Brazil and Mexico; OJ is the official beverage of the state.

About 90% of the Florida orange crop is used to make orange juice. Valencia oranges are the best juicing oranges. Navel oranges (grown in California) are the most widely available eating orange.