It is not "National Banana Bread Day". Stop it. Be serious.
[whispers] It's BEEF WEEKEND.
Hardly a day goes by without it happening.
It might come in an email from a restaurant or food-related business; it might be a post on social media. Perhaps it’s a segment on a morning talk show, or a puff piece on the evening news. Whatever day it is, in one way or another, someone is going to try to convince you that today is a food-related holiday.
Today is National Pancake Day!
It’s National Bread and Butter Pickles Day!!
Hey, everyone, did you know that it’s National Those Gross Orange Circus Peanuts Candy Day!?!?
I pulled those examples out of thin air, but let’s get specific. According to the marketing email I received from Skyline Chili yesterday—and yes I am on their mailing list by choice, only God can judge me—yesterday was National Chili Day. But if I listened to a Facebook post I saw from a restaurant, though, it was also National Margarita Day? It can’t be both! Heck, if you’re to believe a calendar I looked up online while writing this, today is supposedly “National Banana Bread Day”.
First of all—that’s ridiculous. Banana bread does not have a day. Banana bread only happens when you have a bunch of bananas that are about to go bad and a child you need to entertain on a rainy day.
Second—this is out of hand. It’s the Wild West out there, an unregulated free-for-all where anyone with a product to promote can just come out and say it’s National Whatever Day and we as a public are forced to listen. I demand that the government step in and standardize these things. There should be no more than one food holiday a month.
But Scott, doesn’t Congress have more important things to be thinking about than this?
Yes, but they’re already not thinking about those things. This would be an improvement over the things they are doing.
Here is my proposed calendar of state-sanctioned food holidays:
January: National Sandwich Day
February: National Pancake Day
March: National Dessert Day
April: National Pizza Day
May: National Taco Day
June: National Hamburger Day
July: National Hot Dog Day
August: National Tomato Day
September: National Barbecue Day
October: National Chili Day
November: National Soup Day
December: National Biscuit Day
That’s it. No more, no less, each with the power of the state behind them. Heck, we could have each state submit an entry for their best version of that month’s foodstuff into a national competition, a formalized version of those Best Sandwiches In Each State slideshow listicles that I am an inveterate sucker for. We could finally find out what Vermont Barbecue or Arkansas-Style Pizza is.
Disagree with my choices? Let me know what ones you’d pick instead.
Of course, until this law is passed, any idiot with a keyboard can make up a food holiday whenever they like.
And I happen to be an exceptional idiot with a keyboard. Until the government steps in and stops me, one weekend in late February is going to be Beef Weekend.
Beef Weekend?
That’s right, BEEF WEEKEND.
It’s a holiday I first conceived of as a bit way back in 2020, and I’ve been celebrating it here on The Action Cookbook Newsletter every year since:
There’s been some great recipes that’ve come from this effort—the Coca-Cola-Braised Beef Tacos from 2022 and the Sloppy Julias from 2023 are both notable crowd-pleasers—and this year, I’ve got not one but two red-meat recipes for your use and enjoyment.
I’ve also got some great music, a good book, an incredibly nice thing one of you did for me, and much more!
It’s Friday, friends. Nobody’s got beef with that.
First, a scenario in which I am forced to try to be “normal” when cooking
I have two beef-centered recipes for you today; one stemmed from nostalgia, the other from necessity. Let’s look at the latter one first.
My third-grader is in Cub Scouts, and this past weekend was my favorite event of the year, the annual Pinewood Derby—a subject I wrote about a year ago:
It’s our biggest meeting of the year, and each den was tasked with bringing a pot of chili to share. I was tapped for this job in our den, and I was happy to oblige—I love eating chili, and I love making it. Heck, I’ve published a bunch of different chili recipes here in the past, and won some chili cookoffs in my day.
Of course, here I’d be cooking for a bunch of nine-year-olds and their parents and grandparents. A complex, dried-chile-and-umami-heavy chili might not be the play here. Could I play to a crowd and still make something I’d feel good about serving? I’d have to dial the spice way down, but do so without sacrificing flavor. I demand a thick chili—no watery tomato-soup-like-chili is leaving my kitchen. Finally, I’d pull a move from right here in the Ohio Valley, and sneak an additional element in.