Tomorrow is Cow Appreciation Day, according to Vermont-based Ben & Jerry's, which pays a premium to small local dairy farmers not to give their cows synthetic growth hormones.

B&J suggests you raise a spoon and a pint of ice cream to gratefully salute the cows in your life and try one of their new flavors, such as The Gobfather (the Flavor You Can't Refuse), Fossil Fuel (with fudge dinosaurs) and Dave Matthews Band's Magic Brownies.

Food at the Blues Fest

Food at the 11th Annual Pittsburgh Blues Festival this weekend at Hartwood Acres promises to be every bit as tempting as the music.

Barbecued ribs, pork sandwiches, gumbo, corn bread and strawberry shortcake are just part of the hearty fare the volunteer chefs from Sodexho are cooking up.

Details: 412-460-BLUE. Proceeds benefit the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.

A wave to Wales

Wales will be celebrated on Welsh Day from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at McGinnis Sisters, Monroeville. Samples include Welsh cheeses, breads, tea cakes and potato leek soup. Members of The St. David's Society will be on hand to promote the proposed Welsh addition to Pitt's Nationality Rooms.

McGinnis Sisters is taking orders for Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, prized for its high oil content and sold on a pre-order basis only. Call 412-858-7000 in Monroeville, 412-882-6400 in Brentwood.

Top cooks at Job Corps

A team of culinary students from the Pittsburgh Job Corps took first place at the Corps' annual Culinary Arts Expo, held at the Art Institute of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Armory last month.

Among the items on their award-winning menu were herb-roasted Cornish hens, beef tournedos with rosemary au jus and wild mushrooms, lemon rice with pine nuts, Monterey biscuits and pastry baskets with fresh berries.

Thirteen other Job Corps teams from seven states were in the competition. Two of the Pittsburgh students, Emmanuel Culmer and Lacarea Reese, scored the highest (96 and 94, respectively) on their written exams.

Healthy eating at ball park

With baseball season in full swing, it's encouraging to learn that certain ball park noshes may actually be healthful.

For instance, beer. According to Israeli researchers who conducted studies of a group of men with coronary artery disease, drinking one 12-ounce beer a day for a month lowered cholesterol levels, increased antioxidants and reduced fibrinogen, a clot-producing protein.

Top your hot dog with sauerkraut for a healthy touch of isothiocyanates, potential cancer-fighting agents found in fermented cabbage.

Order extra onions on your dog, burger or sausage; they're good for your bones. Onions contain peptide compounds that appear to prevent bone loss and osteoporosis. (Have a breath mint for dessert.)

These findings were published in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Crusade targets pop

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (aka the Food Police) has taken its crusade against soda pop ("liquid candy") one step further by asking the Food and Drug Administration to require labels on pop cans, warning against weight gain, tooth decay and diabetes.

To this end, CSPI prepared an impressive 28-page report on soft drink consumption in the U.S. (which is 10 times more today than in 1942), and how this increase directly relates to obesity, especially in teenagers.

The last word

"Ice cream unleashes the uninhibited 8-year-old's sensual greed that lurks within the best of us." Gael Greene, author and restaurant critic.