I Want My 'Cue

Stone's Bones in Merrillville, Indiana was always a good excuse to drive home to central Indiana from the North side of Chicago, or up to visit my sister in Chicago while still living at home. Good barbecue is an undeniable food passion of mine. Growing up in a very health-conscientious household (applesauce in baked goods conscientious), I developed an even more acute love for such forbidden fare. I loved calling my mom while at college and telling her I discovered items like chicken wings and Philly cheese steaks. *evil laugh*

Tender pork ribs, falling off the bone are pretty close to my food heaven. Thus, when I heard about the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party coming up this weekend, I squealed with delight and about fell out of my seat. Living in NYC in the summertime is the best! Even more thrilling, Serious Eats is giving away two Bubba Passes to the event, complete with the pleasure of Serious Eats guru Ed Levine's company, and a whole bunch of other 'cue goodies. Of course I entered!

In sweet, sweet anticipation of my win, here are some of my favorite 'cue recipes:

Sweet and Spicy 'Cue Ribs

Real Goooooood 'Cue Ribs

The BBQ insanity will just not end! Recipe4Living.com is hosting the Ultimate BBQ Recipe Contest. Send in your most creative barbecue recipe and you could win a deluxe gift basket with gourmet barbecue rubs and sauces. Send in an awesome BBQ recipe better than my ribs and I might just flip. (Hardy har har)

Recipe4Living *PHOTO CONTEST*

Max and I, and all the other editors at Recipe4Living.com love our readers. We love that they share their scrumptious recipes for pesto, buffalo wings, peanut butter kisses, and even the occasional squirrel stew. And we love those amusingly saucy responses to our cooking questions posed in the newsletters ("How do you get kids to eat their veggies?" "Easy, threaten to take away their X-box!").

But Recipe4Living has a new apple of its eye: recipe photos! In order to make our growing community cooking site even better and share some love with our wonderful readers, we are holding a Recipe Photo Contest. Dust off your camera and start snapping pictures of your favorite recipes!! The first 100 photo submissions with recipes will receive a $5 Amazon gift card. Use the gift card to purchase Cool Cooking Gadgets or anything else your culinary heart desires. Weekly contest winners will be featured on the Recipe4Living homepage and
will receive a $50 Williams-Sonoma Gift Certificate. Of course, all the wonderful photo submissions will be featured in a special photo gallery on Recipe4Living.com.

So, let's see some photos of Grandma's favorite cookies!

Submit Your Recipe Photos Here!