May 5: National Homebrew Day, National Chocolate Custard Day, National Hoagie Day, and Totally Chipotle Day

National Homebrew Day

Some of my good friends brew their own beers.  One managed to convince enough of the others to team up and brew all the beer for his wedding.  Eventually, this undertaking prompted the sad lament from one, "I have 50 gallons of beer in my closet and I can't drink any of it yet."

The American Homebrewers Association has some suggestions on how to celebrate the day.  Try looking for a National Homebrew Day event near you.  Beerpulse gives a little background on this day, including the information that this became an official recognized food observance day in 1988.  (It's a little confusing though, since the stie says May 5th is National Homebrew Day, but that May 7th was the day it was recognized.  Some places (including Google - try Google searching "National Homebrew Day") list National Homebrew Day as May 4th, but since the American Homebrewers Association and Beerpulse list it as May 5th, that what I'm going with.


National Chocolate Custard Day

When making chocolate custard to celebrate today, you have plenty of choices.  Do you go with a no-bake custard?  Or one that requires baking?  You can even try making a low-carb chocolate custard.  Personally, I like the idea of being really indulgent and making this dark chocolate custard.  Hmm...maybe that's how I'll celebrate.

If you want to celebrate, but aren't feeling up for eating custard, try these Chocolate Custard Muffins.
 

National Hoagie Day

For the longest time, I thought a hoagie was the bread used to make hoagie sandwiches and you had to use the word sandwich after hoagie to differentiate the two.  Well, I was wrong.  Turns out simply saying "hoagie" means you're referring to the sandwich.  The bread just seems to be referred to as a roll.  Hoagies are also called heroes, submarine sandwiches, subs, grinders, bombers...  I wonder how these names all came about - are they all just regional variations or did they originally refer to different sandwiches?  Wise Geek tackles the question, "What is a hoagie?"

To celebrate, I picked up this jar of hoagie spread.  I didn't know such a thing existed, but since thousands of new foods are introduced each year, it's not all that surprising.  Hopefully this will be as spicy as it seems it should be. 


Totally Chipotle Day

When I saw this on the calendar, I half-heartedly hoped it celebrated chipotle peppers.  Nope, this one is a corporate sponsored day to celebrate Totally Chipotle products. Ah, well. 

I know it's a totally different company, but I thought of Chipotle, the quick serve food company.  They have this great commercial out there (cute animation and great music performed byWillie Nelson!) and of all the quick serves or fast food companies out there, Chipotle is one I don't feel bad about buying from.  Chipotle started up initiatives recently to support local farmers and is working to expand it's reliance on renewable solar power.  So, cheers to Chipotle.



Now, today is also Oyster Day.  Not National Oyster Day - that's in August.  Since there's also a National Oyster Day later in the year and since there's already a lot going on today, I'll talk about oysters later.