And we just kept laughing as we perused other non-sweet-looking sweets...

•A Passionate Foodie turns 1! Happy birthday! One of our favorite local food bloggers, Richard A., goes over some of his personal highlights and pledges bring us even more - including reviews of more Portuguese wine. [A Passionate Foodie]
•Food and Whine gives us yet another reason to shop at Trader Joe's and never cook again. [Boston Food and Whine]
•Bostonist offers a great recipe for those of us who like to cook for our moms but never really decided what to make until - crap, is it Mother's Day, already? [Bostonist]

[Photo: The Truth Hurts]

The intersection of food and pop music provides some of the best cocktail party conversation / refreshment fodder. Be it the Janet Jackson breast cupcake that helped launch the Amateur Gourmet to national fame, the amazingly large collection of Beatles-themed candy or the web-TV phenomenon Cookin' with Coolio, food-themed pop and pop-themed food are always delicious.

But we felt transported to another, darker realm when we read about the website The Black Oven, a Nordic black metal-themed baking blog featured today on Boing Boing. With recipe titles like Where The Chocolate Beats Incessant, Le Petit Gateau du Les Legions Noire, and Frostbitten Molasses Cookies Entombed with Ginger, even your most devoted metal head can now enjoy a sweet treat without losing his or her edge.

Our mother likes to point out how nobody can really look all that scary while holding a pink bakery box. Well, Ma, that may no longer be true. If this evil baking trend catches on, we'll soon be feasting on "bloody elves hearts" and "shattered black souls" instead of plain old jelly donuts and chocolate chip cookies, and the pink bakery box will fall in line right behind the upside down cross as a symbol of the black metal underworld. Muahahaha!

The Black Oven [Official Site]
Black Metal Cupcakes [Boing Boing]
Janet Jackson Breast Cupcakes [Amateur Gourmet]
Beatles Incredible Edibles [Rarebeatles]
Cookin' with Coolio [My Damn Channel]
Photo: Courtesy of The Black Oven

•A trip to any Irish pub worth its weight in salt will have you sipping a hot toddy that can take the edge off a chilly day. That said, go to one of the best in the area - Doyle's in Jamaica Plain, though it has expanded over the years, still manages to combine the neighborhood bar with the thank-goodess-we're-home restaurant. And with many a coffee cocktail to choose from, you're sure to find something satisfying.
•The Druid in Inman Square is another pub to try, and it has that warm, come-in-from-the-cold feeling, with cheery traditional Irish music in the corner.
•So the Irish pub's not your thing. Fair enough - we trust Eastern Standard with all our cocktail choices. There are so many on the menu to choose from, to say nothing of what else the bartender's got stored in his head. Ask for something warm that is not coffee-based, and we are sure you will not be disappointed.

Doyle's Cafe [Official Site]
The Druid [Official Site]
Eastern Standard [Official Site]

[Photo: Counter Intelligence]

•...treat yourself to a nice dinner before the symphony? [MP: Boston]
•...speedily prepare a monkfish? [MP: Chicago]
•...shop at a posh new gourmet store? [MP: Philadelphia]
•...check out a new art exhibition? [MP: San Francisco]
•...jaunt off to Buenos Aires? [MP: South Florida]

Worry not, dear procrastinators. We've found you three terrific places to take her, so you can show her how well she raised you. All of them have tables available around 6pm on Sunday. There's only so much we can do, though - stop wasting time and call these places now!

•Located on the first floor of the Colonnade, Brasserie Jo looks just like some of our favorite restaurants in Paris, but on a larger scale, to accommodate the countless Francophilic diners of America. Go ahead, have the foie gras, served with braised oxtail and parsnips.
•Is Mom up for a little spice? Take her to one of our favorite Indian restaurants! Kashmir is located on the quieter side of ever-charming Newbury St., in an even more charming room downstairs. Make sure you try the Peshwary naan, which is stuffed with dried fruits, shredded coconut, and potatoes.
•The Mother's Day brunch at UpStairs on the Square might be booked solid, but why not go there for dinner? Try anything from the menu and be as touched by the whimsy as the decor. We would recommend the ravioli of sweet English peas.

Brasserie Jo [Official Site]
Kashmir [MenuPages]
Upstairs On the Square [Official Site]

[Photo: GameSpot]

If you're a regular visitor to these pages, you've probably seen a little of our coverage of the recent struggles to keep street food a part of the culture in Los Angeles. Though Menupages doesn't have a Los Angeles blog (yet), we pay attention because an attack on street food there could be a harbinger to other attacks on street food in the United States. And we love street food, be it tacos, bacon-wrapped hot dogs or just good old pretzels and roasted nuts.

That's why we were thrilled when Epicurious directed us to this lengthy article in Concierge.com: The World's Best Street Food. From safe stalwarts like Mexican tacos and Vietnamese Banh Mi to culinary adventures like Moroccan sheep's head, we found this in-depth guide to be some of the best in armchair traveling/eating.

Epi-Log's James Oliver Cury takes a shot at it for not including pizza or kebabs, but c'mon, the freaking Lonely Planet will direct you to those things. Guidebooks tend to skimp on things like tripe sandwiches, however, which is why we're thankful for the weird and subjective nature of this list.

World's Best Street Food [Concierge.com]
World's Best Street Food? [Epicurious]
Photo: Gerard Van der Leun [Flickr]

At The Blarney Stone,
Nadeau finds mixed successes.
What's up with spag bol?

MC Slim JB
stops into Punjab Palace,
finds killer cuisine.

First visits Grezzo,
eats good, albeit odd, food,
with too many nuts.

At Esperia,
Cheap Eats finds authentic Greek
and awesome doughnuts.

Sauce has a good time
at DJs at the Garden.
The food is quite good!

Privus: B-.
Schaffer loves salsa maki
but not crazy rolls.

Pabst Blue Ribbon, the beer that's somehow turned from a working class standby into a hipster fashion accessory, has made it into two separate news stories lately.

First: The PBR Coffin (shown above). Bill Bramanti, a 67-year-old beer fan in suburban Chicago, ordered a coffin shaped like a Pabst Blue Ribbon can to use when he dies "100 years" from now. To celebrate, Bramanti threw a party for his funeral home and his friends — a party centered around showing off his coffin. Of course, he also used the coffin to store the beer cans at the party:

"The silver coffin is laminated with the design of a red, white and blue PBR beer can. The inside contains a black liner to prevent seepage so Bramanti can store cold brews in it until he winds up inside. On Saturday, it was filled with ice and PBR. Bramanti thinks it can fit about 15 cases of beer and 150 pounds of ice.

"I wouldn't expect anything less for my dad," said Bramanti's daughter Cathy, who was one of about 25 people munching on roast beef sandwiches and sipping PBR inside a 2,000-square-foot barn Bramanti built in South Chicago Heights for parties. "He's a man that loves to entertain. He likes it when people are happy. This is what he does. There's all kinds of things in here."

USA Today has more.

Meanwhile, a certain Mr. Barack Obama has publicly declared his love for PBR. At a campaign appearance at the Raleigh Times pub in North Carolina, Obama proudly quaffed a Pabst — and thereby upstaged Hillary and the Boilermaker one last time.

Man plans to be buried in Pabst Blue Ribbon coffin [Southtown Star]
Illionis man designs beer can coffin [USA Today]
Obama woos blue collar voters with his beer taste [The Telegraph]

[Image via Southtown Star]

Fresh Traveler (Boston) - Food Not Bombs [YouTube: FreshTraveler]

Never fear. Those tech-savvy gluttons at Google got him to come by for a talk, and have posted said talk on their very own Youtube. It's about an hour long, so don't start it up in order to put off that next project for five more minutes. Maybe watch over lunch. That's what we're going to do because we've got a penchant for guilt.

Michael Pollan At Google [chayday Food Journal/Accidental Hedonist]

•$$: Pan Thai is often overlooked because of its location just beyond Tigerlily. While the prices are student-friendly, you will not find any scorpion bowl races here. Have a glass of plum wine with the beef mussamun curry, which is loaded with potatoes, onions, carrots, and peanuts.
•$$$: Betty's creates a fun atmosphere with good music and sake-based cocktails and sangria. You can't go wrong when you create your own noodle dish - they even let you try the sauces to find out which is right for you! A veggie bar allows the pickier eaters in your party the chance to eat healthily without performing surgery on their dinner.
•$$$$$: At the MFA, upstairs from that sun-drenched cafe at the left of the door, is Bravo. Home to the occasional wine tasting event, Bravo is a warm and inviting restaurant with a small menu of only the most delicious-sounding entrees. We are impressed with the seared pork loin with asparagus, fondant potatoes, and red wine demiglace. Bonus: two world-renowned Bostonian cultural institutions in one night.

Pan Thai [MenuPages]
Tigerlily [MenuPages]
Betty's Wok and Noodle [Official Site]
Bravo [Official Site]

[Photo: Bach Cantatas]