PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND ADVENTURE: JUST WHAT IS BURGER LOVE? A CELEBRITY SIGHTING. PLEASANT GROVE.

What is this thing called Burger Love? It's a month long celebration of PEI beef. As the Burger Love slogan says, 'beef shouldn't need a passport to go from field to plate'.

What does this mean? It means during the thirty days of April you can try any one of 84 burgers being offered up by 84 participating restaurants, pubs, diners and cafes. Of course, this isn't just a burger. Each is a super-duper, potential competition winning, special burger with its own personality and secret ingredients.

How does this work, you ask? Simple. There's a website with all of the entrants and a description of their burger here Photos of 84 Burgers - Yum. Just go to your favourites, eat their burger and then enter your findings at that same website. Of course, there are only 30 days in April and 84 burgers so choose wisely.

How did this Burger Love come to be? Fresh Media See Fresh Media's website is an advertising agency located in Charlottetown. Melody and Robbie, of Fresh Media, decided they would like to find the best hamburger on PEI and were not surprised when their personal favourite had been made with 100% island beef. That was in the summer of 2008. While tasting their way around PEI, they realized that not all restaurants used PEI beef and that some servers, when asked, didn't know where the beef was from. That's when they got the idea for Burger Love.

PEI Burger Love was launched in 2011 with just fourteen restaurants participating and 5,517 burgers being sold. In 2016, 163,170 burgers were sold with over $2.2 million in burger sales ALONE in just those 30 days of April. Although significant, it's not just about the prestige for the chef and the winning restaurant. For every burger sold $1 is donated to the United Way campaign. This year, 2017, there are 83 participating restaurants, pubs, cafes and diners. Heck, even Swiss Chalet is in on this amazing marketing and fund raising success.

The competition in 2016. Seventy-three restaurants entered last year with The Brick-Inator, the brain child of the chef at The Brickhouse Kitchen and Bar, a Charlottetown Pub proclaimed the winner. In 2016, more hamburgers were sold in April than there are people living in Prince Edward Island. Pretty awe inspiring. It really is a phenomenon that Islanders know about and look forward to. And what a great month to hold it - April, when spring is upon us and the influx of tourists is not yet here. Perfect.

Did we try it? Well of course we did. Our first Burger Love experience was at the Olde Dublin Pub/Claddagh Oyster House. Their offering is called The Dub Boss. We cleverly had only the burger and passed on the fries or salad. Good choice. Washed down with a Harp Lager for me and Kilkenney for Erik, passing on side orders seemed like the wise thing to do. Although we did have one tiny little dessert that we shared. Since it was our first venture into Burger Love we can be excused; next time no dessert

Our first foray into the world of Burger Love.

The Olde Dublin Pub

A CELEBRITY SIGHTING:
One of my favourite chefs just happens to be Michael Smith, who lives on the island and has a very high profile Inn and eating establishment. Link for Inn At Bay Fortune. He has many published cook books and was the host of a few cooking shows that still appear on cooking channels. On a pub crawl in downtown Charlottetown in a search for Burger Love we went into the Churchill Arms, a pub that has been highly recommended. Unfortunately, they were not participating in Burger Love but the very sweet server told us which places around there were participating and sent us off with a smile and we promised we would be back (we will).

The Churchill Arms Pub - We will be back.

On the way out there sits Michael Smith with his wife and a couple of little kids. I walked over to him and held out my hand and said, "I think you're awesome. I have all of your cookbooks." and off we went. He is enormous, even sitting down, he has a presence. I believe he is about 6'5" or so. Over our burger Erik asked me, "What would you have done if Michael Smith had said 'Wow. I would love to come over and see them. I've never seen all my cookbooks in once place'." Ha ha ha. Well I do have a couple but mostly I download his recipes from the internet.

Michael Smith.

PLEASANT GROVE:
And what is this Pleasant Grove I speak of? It's home. Our new home in the lovely little community of Pleasant Grove. Come on, who wouldn't want to live in a place called Pleasant Grove? Has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Our new house is a quick fifteen minutes to Charlottetown, sits on a pretty one acre parcel and has everything we could possibly need including guest bedrooms.