– National Celery Month
– National Flour Month
– National Frozen Food Month
– National Nutrition Month
– National Noodle Month
– National Peanut Month
– National Sauce Month
– National Caffeine Awareness Month

In addition to the declaration of entire months as food holidays, almost every day of the year has its own food holiday—for example, today, March 1st, is National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day.

While we used to publish all of the holidays in this blog, they’re now part of THE NIBBLE’s Tweetstream. Sign up for them at Twitter.com.

These holidays are part of a long article on monthly food holidays that we created in 2005, and are among the most popular of the 20,000 pages on TheNibble.com. (More than a few people have begun tweeting on the same topic after seeing ours.)

It’s National Caffeine Awareness Month.
Become more aware in our Coffee Glossary. Photo by Mac Pale | SXC.

Panna cotta with raspberry coulis. Photo
by Kelly Cline | IST.

What do you think of when you hear the word “sauce?” Pasta sauce? Mushroom sauce? Worcestershire sauce?

How about dessert sauce?

From coulis to Crème Anglaise to hard sauce to zabaglione, take a look at all the different types of dessert sauces in our Dessert Sauce Glossary.

Then plan some saucy desserts to celebrate National Sauce Month.

• Not into desserts? How about barbecue sauce?
• Or, go for the pasta sauce.
• Reduction sauce is another favorite.
• Find the best soy sauce.
• Make dinner easily with simmer sauces, like these tasty Indian sauces.

Preserved lemon is a condiment made of lemons that have been pickled in a brine of water, lemon juice, salt and sometimes, spices (they’re pickled lemons). The lemons then ferment at room temperature for weeks, or even months. The result is a concentrated and earthy lemon flavor without too much tartness. Preserved lemons are popular in Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Moroccan cuisines.

Preserved lemons can be purchased in specialty food stores and on Amazon.com; or you can make your own with this preserved lemon recipe.

Bay leaves are the aromatic leaves of the bay laurel plant. Fresh or dried bay leaves are used to flavor soups, stews and braises. They are quite pungent, so one leaf is often enough to flavor an entire pot. When dried, the fragrance is herbal and slightly floral, with a flavor that is sharp and somewhat bitter.

Enliven tortellini with bay leaf and
preserved lemon. Photo courtesy McCormick.

Recipe: Lemon-Bay Tortellini With Spinach & Wild Mushrooms

Bay leaves and preserved lemons combine into an aromatic mix of bitter, salty-tart and bright, slowly coaxed flavors. This sophisticated recipe for combines familiar tortellini ingredients—spinach mushrooms—with the bay leaf and preserved lemons.

What else to do with the bay leaf/preserved lemon combination? If you’ve never made a Moroccan tagine, this is the year to try one! Then, use let your palate guide you to more new recipe ideas.

• Find more flavor trends recipes. 

Instead of generic “wine and cheese,” serve
different wines (or beers) in the same
category and turn your event into a “tasting.”
Photo courtesy Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board.

But what if your friends prefer wine or beer?

Instead of making a random selection at the store, focus on selecting bottles for a beer or wine tasting.

Pick up to a dozen different kinds of a single beer (amber ale, IPA, stout, chocolate beer and ale) or wines from a particular region (New Zealand, South Africa) or a particular grape varietal (zinfandel, shiraz, semillon).

Guests not only enjoy the Academy Awards, but discover new favorite beers or wines in the process.

• What cheeses should you serve with the beer or wine? See our Beer, Wine & Cheese Paring Chart.
• If you’d rather focus on the cheese, here’s how to host a cheese-tasting party.

McCormick’s 2010 Flavor Forecast offers 10 new ways to pair food and spices. How does a spice company decide what’s hot? The flavor experts at McCormick team up with leading chefs, food writers and other culinary authorities to identify the top flavor pairings and key trends that are poised to shape the way we eat.

This is the 10th anniversary of the McCormick Flavor Forecast, so join the celebration and try the recipes (THE NIBBLE has been publishing them since 2008). We’ll present one a day for the next 10 days.

The first pairing is almond and ale. You might enjoy nibbling on almonds as you drink an ale; now see what it’s like to put almonds into the ale.

Why does this pairing work?

You like ale, you like almonds; so how about
an Ale Almond Spritzer? Photo courtesy McCormicks.com.

• Ale has a mildly sweet, full-bodied, fruity taste from the top-fermenting brewers’ yeast used to make the beer ferment quickly. (Bottom yeasts are used to ferment other beers, such as lager. See our Beer Glossary.) The types of hops used in making in ale also impart a bitter herbal flavor, which balances the sweetness of the malt.
• Almonds are actually not a true nut, but rather the seed of a drupe, a fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a shell with a seed inside (other examples include peaches and apricots). Almonds possess a bittersweet flavor that leans toward the sweeter side.

The Recipe:

The bittersweet character of both ale and almonds makes a congenial, cozy and hearty match. Invite friends to try this recipe for an Almond-Ale Spritzer, a moderately sweet beer-based cocktail. Enjoy it with a good food-themed movie.

And come up with your own recipes: ale-steamed shrimp with toasted almonds, for example.