I love pistachio nuts. I can eat an entire bag (and I'm talking about those big 1 lb bags, not the little ones) in one evening. Give me a bag of pistachio nuts and a TV and I'm happy.

Today is National Pistachio Day, and that involves not just the nuts but the other foods that contain pistachio. Here's a recipe for Pistachio Ice Cream from Epicurious, and here's a recipe for Pistachio Crusted Chicken from AllRecipes. Here's one for Pistachio Chicken Salad. Here are the seductive Pistachio Date Sticky Buns that Nicole posted about a while back.

And don't forget that eating pistachios (in moderation) can lower cholesterol.

Larabar specializes in making healthy, delicious snack bars from a blend of fruits, nuts and spices. Their energy bars are completely unprocessed, uncooked, non GMA, gluten free, dairy free, soy free, vegan and kosher - and despite their simple makeup (each has less than six ingredients) they taste great thanks to the natural sweetness of the high-quality ingredients that they use.

Last year, they added Lemon Bar and Cinnamon Roll to their lineup of bars, bringing the total number of bars in the line to ten for a few months, but the reaction was so positive that they just announced that another pair of new flavors are being launched on March 5th: Key Lime Pie and Pistachio. Hopefully, the Key Lime Pie will have the same bright, almost juicy flavor that the excellent Lemon Bar does.

The other recent addition to Larabar's offerings is the Jocalat line. Jocalat has evolved from the Maya bars that the company was offering last year and are a more candy-like product than the standard Larabars because they use fair trade certified organic chocolate in each one, in addition to their standard fruits and nuts. The bars are available in Chocolate, Chocolate Orange, Chocolate Coffee and Chocolate Mint (the coffee is my favorite) and each has just 190 calories, in addition to being entirely organic, high in fiber, protein, good fats and antioxidants.

Ever wonder where all of our nuts come from, especially considering that they are easily found in just about every market you could wander into?

• Cashews are grown throughout the tropics, but most come from are India and East Africa. They are never sold in the shell because there is an extremely caustic oil between the inner and outer layers which must be burned off before they can be sold.
• Almonds originated in the Mediterranean, but California now produces 80% of the world's supply.
• Macadamia nuts are native to Australia and were brought to Hawaii about 100 years ago. Commercial production began around 1920 and most of the world's macadamias are now grown on Hawaii.
• Walnuts are the third most popular nut in the US and California produces 2/3 of the world's crop.
• Pecans are native to the Mississippi valley and are the only nut native to the US. Georgia is the largest producer of pecans.
• Hazelnuts, also known as filbert, are primarily grown in Turkey, where 75% of the world's supply comes from. Almost all the US grown hazelnuts are from Oregon's Willamette valley
• Pistachio production is the largest in Iran, which accounts for about 40% of the international crop. The US is the second largest producer, with almost 30% of the crop, 98% of which is grown in California.
• Peanuts are not really nuts, but are legumes and members of the pea family (only included here as they most often grouped with nuts). China is the largest producer, with almost 40% of the world crop. India has almost 25%and the U.S., the third largest producing country, has only 6%. Roughly 2/3 of the global peanut crops are processed into peanut oil.
• Brazil nuts are resistant to cultivation and are still primarily harvested from the wild in South America.

[sources, source]

A few weeks ago, we saw that Haagen-Dazs new flavor was to be Sticky Toffee Pudding, which bested the Toasted Coconut Sesame Brittle and Cannoli flavors. While the Toffee seemed to have its fans among our commenters, most people seemed to be pulling for the Coconut or Cannoli ice creams. Thanks to Jim Caccamo, an ice cream lover from Kansas City, you can try your hand at making cannoli ice cream at home. He has concocted a recipe that captures the flavor of the Italian treat as perfectly as possible, with a blend of ricotta, chocolate chips, pistachios and some candied fruit added to an egg-rich ice cream base.

If you don't have the equipment to make good ice cream at home, Jim has submitted the ice cream to a Ben & Jerry's recipe contest, so even though Haagen-Dazs missed their chance at the flavor, we could still see it on store shelves in the future.

Whether you spell it baklava or baklawa, the layered dessert of sweetened layers of phyllo dough and nuts is nothing short of delicious. I've always been curious to know the the honey-laden treat's origins, especially since I've eaten it in Greek, Israeli and Turkish spots. But as with most delicacies, I'd rather celebrate it in all its diverse forms than stick to one type.

It seems that Turks and Cypriot Greeks take the pastry a tad more seriously, I read recently in Ya Libnan, a Lebanese newspaper. Turkish producers of the treat take issue with the Greeks' claim to have created it. There was even a protest in Istanbul earlier this week complete with banners reading, "Baklava is Turkish, we will not allow the Greek Cypriots to feed it to the world."