MEMORABLE MEMORIAL DAY FOOD FACTS

Aaaah...Memorial Day weekend, a time for chilling, swilling and grilling. There's a lot to be said for any three-day weekend, but here's some news from the food front.

The long Memorial Day weekend falls during National Barbecue Month. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than a third of U.S. adults enjoy grilling out, and some 12.5 million do so at least twice a week. As for what they're cooking up, perhaps it's the 58 lbs. of beef and 56 lbs. of chicken that Americans eat on average each year.

May also happens to be National Hamburger Month. In honor of the All-American sandwich, Serendipity 3 in NYC is serving Le Burger Extravagant, a burger consisting of a mix of Japanese Waygu beef infused with 10-herb white truffle butter. The beef is seasoned with Salish Alderwood smoked Pacific sea salt, and topped with shaved black truffles, a fried quail egg and cave-aged cheddar cheese that was hand-formed by a famous cheesemaker in England. It's all sandwiched between a white truffle-buttered Campagna Roll, which is, in turn, topped with a blini, creme fraiche and Kaluga caviar. These last elements are held in place by one final touch: a solid-gold toothpick encrusted with diamonds. Total cost for this blinged-out burger is $295.00 (A Guiness World Record). Indulgent, yes, but profits from sales of Le Burger will benefit the homeless served by the Bowery Mission. So that's good.

Finally, we would be remiss if we didn't mention one beer fact in honor of the long weekend: U.S. adults are expected to buy (and likely consume) 21 million cases of beer from major supermarkets during the two weeks surrounding Memorial Day, according to data from The Nielsen Company. That's about $381 million worth of brewskis.