Looking for a feast for the Fourth? Want something American but with a twist? We've assembled delicious July 4th recipes and menus for your backyard bbq or picnic under the fireworks:

Our Independence Party Planner compiles an easy buffet menu starring grilled chicken and ribs, as well as tips on hosting the party and activities to keep the kids busy.

The Summer Tablesetting story offers affordable and durable table looks for outdoor entertaining.

We get down home with the Neelys. They share recipes for their favorite family cookout, including secrets of their Memphis-Style Barbecued Pork Ribs.

Not to be outdone, bbq master Steven Raichlen offers his ultimate bbq recipes.

Jasper White shows us how to make an authentic New England clambake for those headed to the beach this weekend.

A red, white, and blue ice cream cake is a spectacular dessert to bring to any July Fourth party.

Beer expert Stephen Beaumont reveals his pick for the top 5 best beers to serve at a barbecue.

In short, we're fired up about our delicious recipes and party ideas that will help make your July Fourth weekend as fun and festive as it can be! Tell us what you're whipping up for Independence day.

As you've already seen this week, James Cury and Esther Sung came away from this year's Fancy Food Show in New York City with their perspectives on the best and worst of what they saw and ate.

I came away from the show with a slightly different tack.

Now, I've gone to food shows more times than I can count, eaten a mountain of brie, consumed a vault-full of chocolate one nib at a time, and quaffed from enough plastic champagne flutes to drown a hippo. And one thing I've noticed is that there are always exhibitors who make the same mistakes.

If you're looking to be ignored by or attract negative attention from food writers, here's what you do ...

About a month and a half ago, I posted about my leggy tomato plants and asked Epi-Log readers to help me save them. You encouraged me to do the following:

* Thin seedlings and transplant to larger containers

* Use a mixture of soil and compost

* Bury the plants deep, laying the stems in sideways and covering with soil

* Water frequently (the nonstop rain has taken care of that for me)

I followed the advice and I am happy to report that the plants seem to be doing really well, as you can see in the photo above. The plants have lots of flowers and some green tomatoes are starting to appear. Check out the picture below to see a bee working hard to pollinate the plants (well, I guess he or she is working hard to get dinner, but the tomato plants don't have to know that).

Thanks, Epi-Log readers for helping my tomato plants. When (fingers crossed) I get full-sized tomatoes, I'll post again with more pix.

Learn more about growing vegetables and seasonal produce here on Epicurious, and check out this tomato-related cartoon from The New Yorker.

Ohio:  Rib, White and Blue Food Festival (July 2-4)

Alabama: Grand Bay Watermelon Festival (July 4)

California Way Out West BBQ Championship (July 4)

Florida: 6th Annual Clamerica Celebration (July 4)

Missouri: Missouri Wine & Food Festival (July 4)

South Carolina: Lexington County Peach Festival (July 4)

Tennessee: Music City Hot Chicken Festival (July 4)

Texas: Avery Tomato Festival (July 4)

New Mexico: Santa Fe Wine Festival (July 4-5)

Virginia: Floyd Fandango Beer & Wine Festival (July 4-5)

Michigan: National Cherry Festival (July 4-11)

Any tasty events happening where you live?

Do you ever find yourself wondering what Emily Post would do in a particular situation?

I consider myself a polite person with a decent grasp of proper etiquette: I use the right fork at formal dinners, I know how to be a good houseguest, and I always send a thank you note. But, life is pretty casual these days so I hardly ever get the opportunity to learn much about good manners. I could read all of Emily Post's Etiquette, but life is also really busy, so that's not a very good option for me. Thankfully, I recently discovered that the Emily Post Institute Web site has a blog called Etiquette Daily where you can ask questions about manners, social customs, or anything related to etiquette.

The worst thing about the Fancy Food Show? Mediocrity. Most products aren't awful; they're just OK. Disappointing. Unimaginative. Bland. So  Esther Sung and I searched high and low for innovative products, new flavors, healthy solutions, smart packaging, and added value. We honored our top picks in a previous post: The "Best of the 2009 Summer Fancy Food Show." Listed below are products that intrigued us at first but then failed to live up to their own hype. Or just tasted awful. In other words, they scored points for concept but were docked for execution.

Super Ostrim Beef, Ostrich & Vegetable Protein Nuggets
Supposedly, this is the only true food you can purchase at one of those GNC nutrition stores; everything else is a powder or liquid. And it's clearly marketed for bodybuilders and other gym rats who seem to develop everything but palates. The nuggets look like turds, are very chewy and dry, and just barely pass as alternatives to beef jerky. Still interested? The sweet pepper flavor (which is actually spicy) comes across as the least offensive of the breed.

Coneinn Pizza
Pizza in a cone? No thank you. Call us purists, but there's a reason why Steve Martin's Cup 'O' Pizza (as seen in The Jerk) didn't take off in real life.

If there were such a thing as a Disneyland for foodies, it would be the Fancy Food Show. Here, among the 2,300 or so exhibitors lining the aisles at the Javits Center in New York, food fans feast on thousands of meats, cheeses, chocolates, coffees, syrups, sauces, and crackers, as well as niche-interest goods (like Blair's Smoked "World's Hottest" Jolokia Chili) and products that blur the line between categories (Banana-Split Blueberry Syrup anyone?).

The sheer quantity of products overwhelms the senses. This is a sea of vendors positioned one after another in neat, never-ending rows. Guests, mostly in the food biz, snatch samples off tables, snacking as they walk and talk and cut business deals.

Esther Sung and I did our best to try all the new foods over the course of the three-day event, which ended yesterday. These are items that have just come out or will be coming out soon. Many are looking for distribution. Some have not yet finalized packaging. So consider this a peek at what you will be eating in a week, a month, or a year.

See also our "Worst of the Fancy Food Show" coverage.

THE BEST

Savannah Bee Co. Honey
Pairing foods with honey is an art and science, and the Savannah Bee Co. just made that task a little easier with three new honey products: Grill Honey (made for grilling), Tea Honey (made to go with tea), and Cheese Honey (made to pair with cheeses). Equally  innovative: The No-Drip Honey Pump fits any of their 12-ounce jars. Ingenious.

Golden Star White Jasmine Sparkling Tea
Though we're not generally drawn to tea drinks (and especially nonalcoholic ones), this bubbly won us over with its sweet (but not overly so) balance of jasmine silver needle tea, raw sugarcane juice, and water. It would make a fine addition to any celebratory party (weddings, New Year's), perhaps as a ritzier alternative to Martinelli's sparkling cider.

Have video camera, will travel. That's what Epicurious told celebrity chefs Joël Robuchon and Daniel Boulud. Lucky for us and video viewers at home, they let us inside the kitchens of their award-winning Las Vegas restaurants to make our new feature Joël Robuchon and Daniel Boulud Brasserie: Las Vegas Video Exclusives. Our videos include chef interviews, kitchen tours, and cooking demos.

For more on eating in Sin City, be sure to check out our Essential Restaurant Guide to Las Vegas. To plan a great Las Vegas trip, see the Las Vegas Travel Guide from our sister site Concierge.com, as well as vegaschatter.com.

It's nice to know that one wine goes especially well with a certain dish, but the art and science of pairings loses some credibility when five, ten, or twelve wines are all touted as potential matches. It's like the sommelier's version of the boy who cried wolf: When is the advice really valid?

We asked Ted Loos, a witty wine writer, to highlight some of the worst possible pairings he could think of, the egregious examples that make you wince, pucker, shudder, and gasp. Memorize these classic misfires and you'll never again order an overwhelming Cab with an underwhelming pork dish. But remember: A flawed combo does not reveal a flawed wine or dish. It's the pairing that sucks, not the individual ingredients.

It's officially summer, so that means it's the season for a rise in foodborne-illness outbreaks. And it looks like beef's the first culprit in what I'm guessing will be a long line of many outbreaks over the next few months.

More than 300,000 pounds of beef have been recalled by a Colorado meat company because an E. coli infection may be responsible for causing 18 -- that's right, eighteen -- different illnesses. It's an expansion of a June 24 recall.

If you're anywhere in the world and have got beef from the JBS-Swift Beef Co., produced on April 21, don't eat it unless you want your dinner to potentially include a postprandial evening of bloody diarrhea, dehydration and even kidney failure.

But let's not forget that there are things everyone should be taking to make sure that Independence Day B-B-Q doesn't end with a line for the toilet ...