An unmistakable perfume is in the air: the intoxicating vapors of resiny cedar, sweet applewood, sexy mesquite and reliable ol' hick'ry, arising from grills and escaping from smokers on every block and in every park. Brats are sizzling, hot dogs plumping, chicken breasts marinating, hamburgers being seasoned. And he-men and she-women can barely wait to tuck into perfectly seared T-bones, dry-aged Porterhouses, smoky brisket, even refined filets mignons.

In steakhouses, spinach, typically creamed, is a traditional accompaniment for steak. This is because steak demands to be in the company of strong flavors, and spinach -- among the most assertive of greens in both texture and taste -- delivers. So, as grilling season commences, Slashfood reminds you to eat your spinach. Beyond the jump is an original recipe for a spinach salad that's nothing like the oily, eggy cafeteria staple; gilded with lemon and oregano and with a smoky bacon crunch that resonates with food from the grill. C'mon, give it a try -- it'll please both your mother and Popeye!

A weekly look at the draft selection in beer-friendly bars across the country.

Memorial Day marks the beginning of summer vacation season, so we turn our attention to one of America's largest tourist destinations, Las Vegas. Sin City has every indulgence one could ever hope for, and great beer is no exception. With a nice tap selection and an absurdly hefty bottled beer list featuring more than 900 possibilities, one of Vegas's best places to find rare brews is the Freakin' Frog.

Located across from UNLV's campus, Freakin' Frog may sound more aimed at college kids than tourists, but the bar is tailored to anyone looking for unique beers -- it boasts 900 bottles, 600 whiskeys, 300 tequilas and 15 taps. With an unassuming location in a strip mall a couple miles east of that "other" Strip, the Frog is a perfect alternative to the madness people associate with this desert city. "We're not a college bar," says owner Adam Carmer. "We're an intellectual, alcoholic coffee shop. We get people from all over the city, all over the country, all over the world."

Check out the Freakin' Frog's draft list after the jump.

Today's Feast Your Eyes post is my attempt at stretching out the relaxation and outdoor cooking of Memorial Day just a little bit longer. This image, of a freshly grilled basil burger, was taken by Flickr user Coneslayer and from the looks of things was pretty darn delicious.

How did you spend your Memorial Day weekend? If you made some good food and took pictures, make sure to upload them to the Slashfood Flickr page, so we can all see your tasty creations.

Yes, I hate bbq, summer, and Memorial Day. I'm a terrible person.

Of course, I don't hate Memorial Day itself, what it represents, I hate that it signals the start of summer, my least favorite season. I hate summer the way Lost fans hated Nikki and Paolo (yes, everything I do comes back to television). Maybe even more.

Here are the 8 reasons I hate about Memorial Day and summer in general.

Today is the official start of grilling season, and what better way to kick it off than with a book that offers a different burger recipe for every week of the year. Sally Sampson's Recipe of the Week: Burgers (we looked at her ice cream book last week) is a nice book, with clearly written directions for every dish and lots of pictures that will make you want to fire up the grill.

This book does a good job of looking at the full range of burgers. She doesn't just focus on the classic beef patty and instead casts her net to include ground chicken, turkey, lamb, tuna, salmon, black beans and portobello mushrooms. Additionally, if you're tired of the same old burger toppings, this book offers a wealth of inspiration that will keep your grilled patties exciting for weeks to come.

As someone who eats a lot of turkey burgers (the favored recipe around our house is to include chopped onion and peas in the meat mix), I'm excited to play with some of her flavor combos. This would be a fun book to show to your kids as well, because with all the yummy pictures, even the youngest of kids will be able to help pick out the picnic fare.

Cooking hot dogs on the grill today? Don't grab them with a fork to turn them over.

Well, Memorial Day is on Monday, as I'm sure you're aware. That means that it's grilling season, and a lot of people will be having a cookout. As Inventor Spot points out, this can lead to a lot of awkward plate and cup balancing, not to mention spills.

However, the problem may be solved with two beverage holding gadgets. Mobile Grape has this necklace style holder that holds any kind of glass with a stem. The other product, BevNeck, is the same concept for cans, bottles, and stemless glasses.

While the BevNeck and Mobile Grape don't solve all table-less dining problems, they seem like they could be a big help. Maybe keeping a few of these around for summer cookouts would be a good idea.

Warmth is great and all, but one of the best things about summer is potatoes -- growing, barbecuing them, and of course, lathering them in all sorts of tasty things and making a potato salad.

For years I didn't go near the German variety of tater salad -- I was a strict mayo and potato gal. This is probably a good thing since I never would have dug the sauerkraut flavor that lingers in the obviously German mix. Now, they're both pretty darned tasty. The mayonnaise variety offers the creaminess of the lathered potato with the crisp crunch of celery and onions. The German variety, on the other hand, offers a warm and tasty mixture of potato and vinegary sharp goodness. (And it isn't too shabby cold either.)

With this being the start of Memorial Day Weekend, there's no better time to whip up some potato salad and kick off the awesome season of warmth. Check out the recipes that follow, revel in all things tatery, and be sure to comment about your own special touches.

And now, here's a sharp and tasty, warm, and German variety, adapted from the Big Book of Backyard Cooking.

German Potato Salad with Fresh Dill

Ingredients:

2 pounds of potatoes, red-skin or other handy variety
8 slices of bacon
3/4 cup red onion
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
2 tsp mustard -- Dijon or other specialty variety
2 tsp sugar
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup fresh dill, or a healthy handful

Boil the potatoes. If you're using red-skins, slice them into disks after boiling. If not, slice pre-boil. If your potatoes are huge, like the ones I used for the salad above, cut the potato in half lengthwise first. Drain when the potatoes are ready, put in a bowl and cover to keep warm.

Meanwhile, fry up the bacon. When it's done, chop it up. Keep 3 tbsp of bacon fat in the pan, add the chopped onion, and saute it until soft on medium, medium-low heat. Then whisk in vinegar, 1/2 cup water, the mustard, sugar, 2 tsp salt, and a 1/4 tsp of pepper. Let it simmer until the mixture is reduced by about 1/2.

Now there's one of two ways to do this. Either toss the potatoes in the skillet and then transfer to a bowl, or pour the contents over the potatoes, and then transfer them to another bowl. Once coated, sprinkle with the chopped bacon and chopped fresh dill, toss gently, season, and serve warm.

The Cupcake Project is a huge contributor to the Slashfood Flickr pool. But because I don't want to express favoritism among our flickr posters, I try to limit my Cupcake Project posts to about one a month.

And what better way to celebrate the upcoming Memorial Day weekend than with cupcakes? But these aren't any cupcakes, and they probably won't satisfy your sweet tooth.

Enter: All-American Barbecue Cupcakes. Essentially, you add liquid smoke to a chocolate cupcake recipe, and top it with a sweet corn frosting that contains four gloriously simple ingredients: sweet corn, cream cheese, butter, and sugar. (And did anything bad ever come out of a recipe whose two main ingredients were butter and cream cheese?) The red, white, and blue star sprinkles don't hurt, either.

Okay, so they sound a little funny - but props to Cupcake Project to being creative and unique. They sound like the perfect addition to any cookout. Just serve 'em and watch your guests' eyes widen in surprise and their faces sink into relaxed, contented smiles.

E. coli be darned, I still order my burgers done "as rare as you possibly can." A girl's allowed a vice or two, right?

While plenty of places are still willing to bend the rules, legally speaking, ground beef must be cooked to 160 degrees to kill the creepy crawlies. But you can be safe while still enjoying thick, pink-centered, dripping cheeseburgers. Grind your own beef. Commercially ground beef, for reasons I won't go into here (but if you're curious, read Fast Food Nation), carries a much higher risk of contamination than meat freshly ground in a home grinder.

I buy fatty chuck - 20 percent fat, at least - and put it through the 'coarse' plate of my KitchenAid meat grinder attachment. You can get free-standing grinders pretty cheap at kitchenware stores. Then I mix it, by hand, with a healthy squeeze of ketchup, tons of salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce and chopped garlic, maybe some cayenne. Don't mix too much, or you'll compress the beef and end up with a too-hard burger. Then onto the grill. A friend just taught me a nifty test for doneness - when pressing on the burger, if it feels firm like the skin between your thumb and index finger when you're fingers are outstretched, it's well-done. If it feels slightly loose, like the same bit of skin when your hand's relaxed, it's medium-rare.

Manhattan bistro Florent closes after 23 years, downtown types reminisce about late night onion soup and drag queens.

The Minimalist explains how to use your oven like a grill. Try his thrice-cooked ribs if it rains on your Memorial Day picnic.

Eating cupcakes and cannolis at the new Brooklyn flea market.

Eric Asimov discusses the dubious legacy of Robert Mondavi.

Grilled spring onions with Spanish romesco sauce. Recipe!

Asimov's back, reviewing wine-related books.

As you fire up the grill this Memorial Day, you may want to take a moment to pay homage to the people who first brought you the hamburger. There is a lengthy and fascinating article on the history of the hamburger on What's Cooking America. While there is some debate about who created the first hamburger, Louis' Lunch in New Haven, Connecticut has a strong claim to the title.

According to What's Cooking, "Louis ran a small lunch wagon selling steak sandwiches to local factory workers. A frugal business man, he didn't like to waste the excess beef from his daily lunch rush. It is said that he ground up some scraps of beef and served it as a sandwich, the sandwich was sold between pieces of toasted bread, to a customer who was in a hurry and wanted to eat on the run."

You can still get hamburgers today at Louis' Lunch. However, don't expect to get any ketchup. The Louis' Lunch website states that their hamburgers "have changed little from their historic prototype [and] are still the specialty of the house. Each one is made from beef ground fresh each day, broiled vertically in the original cast iron grill and served between two slices of toast. Cheese, tomato and onion are the only acceptable garnish -- no true connoisseur would consider corrupting the classic taste with mustard or ketchup."

According to 2camels.com, the standing record for watermelon seed spitting is 68 feet and 9 1/8 inches set by Luling, Texas local Lee Wheells in 1989. I can't even imagine spitting that far. Sure, it's gross, but you've got a take a minute and be impressed with that skill. I wonder what the practice regiment was for that.

Looking to start a new family tradition? How about hosting your own Memorial Day watermelon seed spitting contest? Be sure to measure how far the seed goes so that you can track progress over the years. Make sure to not buy those new-fangled seedless watermelons. Those are no fun!

Let me know how long your family's winning seed spitter performs.

I tend to think of Memorial Day Weekend as the time when the summer grilling season really starts to heat up. While the weather has already been nice for as much as a month in some areas, by the end of May, nearly everyone is having a surfeit of warm, sunny days and is ready to move the bulk of their cooking outdoors (so as to avoid heating up the kitchen).

Here at Slashfood, we're going to spend a lot of time focusing on all this summer outdoor cookery. We'll have a bunch of posts up for you this week, to get you ready for the weekend, but we'll be writing about grilling, barbecuing and even what to do if you don't have any outdoor space in which to grill, all summer long. Our friends at AOL Food are also featuring grilling this summer, so make sure to check in over there often for fresh tips, tricks, recipes and bbq related quizzes.

To get you started, here are some grilling links from past years:

1. Seven kabob recipes from Real Simple
2. Bobby Flay's grilling for Dad's Day
3. Maple Chipotle Glazed Grilled Corn
4. Maple Bourbon Barbecue Sauce
5. How to grill corn on the cob
6. Cook outdoors in style with this Barbecue Belt
7. No room for a big grill? Try this tiny, bucket-styled one.
   
8. Slashfood weighs in on the gas verses charcoal debate.