The Reid Park Band Shell will be the home of Arizona’s first Bacon Fest. Saturday, May 18 is the day vegetarians should hide and pray to their veggie gods.

From the Bacon Fest Facebook page:

For one admission price you will sample creations from restaurants and chefs that all incorporate our beloved bacon along with sampling craft beers to make the day that much better.

Chefs, Cooks, and Individuals compete in the best bacon creation for trophy and cash prize. Judges will crown a winner and title him/her 2013 Bacon Champ.

Live music and DJ’s will be providing background accompaniment to your bacon and beer festivities. Also there will be raffles and contests, with prizes, for all ages to participate in. Including a special “Kids Zone” for proper bacon indoctrination of the younglings.

Tickets are running at $25 for adults which includes all bacon samples and beer samples, $10 for kids ages 13-17 and includes all bacon samples and beverage, and to get them started loving swine early, kids 12 and under are free with paid adult ticket. For more details or to get your tickets go to www.arizonabaconfest.net.

• Courtesy of the Taste of Chocolate website

The Rincon Rotary Club is hosting their Fifth Annual Taste of Chocolate this Sunday, blending a community fundraising event with what should be an experience akin to nirvana for chocolate lovers.

Only those with formidable sweet tooths need apply: more than 30 Tucson chefs and businesses - including Black Crown Coffee, gourmet fudge maker Zink’s Treats and Borderlands Brewing Co. - will roll out their best chocolate creation during the tasting at the Doubletree Hotel, 445 S. Alvernon Way, from 2 to 4 p.m. on March 21.

Visitors looking to be enamored by something other than chocolate can still pick their poison, as beer and wine will also be offered by certain vendors. A raffle and silent auction will accompany the tasting, and if you’re curious as to what prizes will be available (it looks like they’ll run the gamut from free dry cleaning to dental work for enthusiastic tasters' impending cavities), a full list of donors can viewed on the Taste of Chocolate website. And beware, highly persuasive images lie ahead if you click that link!

Taste of Chocolate is a “signature” fundraiser for the Rincon Rotary Club; this year, the proceeds will go towards their scholarship program for high school and college students, as well as the 3rd Grade Dictionary Project, which distributes free dictionaries to local classrooms.

Tickets are $10 for adults, with a $10 2-for-1 price for children under 12 and free admission ages 4 and under. Tickets will be available at the door, but those interested can email [email protected] to get their tickets in advance.

And remember, it's not indulging if it's for charity.

Chris Bianco could have opened his second pizzeria anywhere in the world.

He picked downtown Tucson.

• Claire Lawton/Courtesy Phoenix New Times
• Chris Bianco: "Tucson has been one of my favorite places, for a lot of different reasons.”

Bianco hopes to be up and running near Congress Street and Fifth Avenue (between comfort-food HUB and the nightclub Playground) sometime in November.

Bianco has running Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix for nearly two decades and was a step ahead of downtown revitalization there, opening in Heritage Square in 1996. His menu is small—just a half-dozen pizzas, a trio of salads and handful of small plates and side dishes—but the praise has been large. Bianco is the first pizza chef to have won a James Beard award. GQ has credited Bianco with launching the artisan pizza movement. Bon Appetit declared the pie to be the best in the nation. (It’s also considered the best in the world by Tucson Weekly editor Dan Gibson, who will explain his reasoning in this week's print edition.)

Bianco has been praised for his care in combining fresh, quality ingredients from his own garden and local suppliers for everything from the dough to the toppings.

“You learn to take your own sense of what makes something good,” Bianco says. “It’s about celebrating your backyard. … When we get to Tucson, I think there will be an even bigger opportunity to do it.”

While he’s not yet ready to reveal all the relationships he’s building with local suppliers here, Bianco says “my back door has always been open to farmers and people to bring what they’ve got to show up. You show up with some local peaches and I guarantee you, I’ll find a way to put them in a salad.”

Tucson Weekly columnist/noted Popeye's Chicken aficionado Tom Danehy is a happily-married man, so this particular clip doesn't do him all that much good. However, if he were on the market, he might want to call up Christina who appeared on Steve Harvey's talk show to give a glimpse into how the spicy offerings of the Louisiana fast food chain affect her bedroom performance.

Locally-owned restaurant Tucson Tamale Company is in the throes of Tamale Throwdown 2013, their search for the newest, greatest gourmet tamale flavor as suggested their fans, friends and customers from the Tucson area.

Last year's winner was the Paella tamale, filled with spanish chorizo, roasted chicken, shrimp, peas, red peppers and rice, wrapped in saffron-flavored masa — and they're looking to Tucson for their next crowd-sourced follow-up.

As they say in their Facebook posting advertising the throwdown, "any ingredient, any meal, everything is on the table." Personally, nothing strikes me as perfect as their Sonora tamale (chicken with green chile salsa), but you guys have to have a greater food imagination than I do.

Head over to their Facebook page to share your idea in the comments — if your idea is chosen, you'll get three dozen tamales and your idea on the menu for the next year.

The culinary team at Union Public House at 4340 N. Campbell will be preparing a dinner with the folks at Elk Cove Vineyards. Monday, April 8, a four-course dinner will be presented starting at 6:30 p.m. at $75 per person. For reservations or for further details call 329-8575 or email [email protected].

morris-day-and-the-time_ice-cream-castles by 80smemories

Life can be a dull slog, a meaningless grind from one day to the next, but hey, there's always ice cream, right? HUB is running a contest on Facebook that I don't quite understand, but seems to involve tweeting something, but the prize is two scoops of ice cream (one of our essential dishes, of course) a week for a year! Go to HUB's Facebook page and start clicking away.

Good news for Korean/Mexican fusion outfit MaFooCo, who are expanding in a big way, jumping from one truck to four, according to their Facebook page.

NOTE: Yep, this was an April Fool's joke. I hate that damn day.

If you're a visual person or if you're just trying to find some stuff to eat in your neighborhood, here's a Google Map of our 100 Essential Dishes list from Thursday's issue. The same map has a more permanent home here, if you're into bookmarking.

Come this Friday, after a week of “invitation only” soft-opening days, the new Five Palms Steak and Seafood will be open to the public. The multi-concept operation is located at the previous home of the Terra Cotta Restaurant at 3500 E. Sunrise Drive.

After extensive renovations by owner Nino Aidi, the “three concepts in one building” is complete. There is the main Five Palms Restaurant; Nino’s Bar & Grill; and Dovino’s Wine, Cigar and Gourmet Shop. For hours or further information go to fivepalms.com or call 615-5555 for reservations.