PB&N FOR LUNCH ANYDAY:

Nutty for Nutella: spreadable joy: The Italian chocolate and hazelnut spread has its devoted fans. (Amy Scattergood, February 11, 2009, LA Times)

As members of Nutella's secret handshake society will tell you, it's a blend of hazelnuts and chocolate -- or rather, nuts, cocoa, sugar, skim milk, oil and a few other flavorings and emulsifiers -- that's been ground to a blissfully smooth, creamy spread. Knifed onto a slice of bread, or smeared over crepes or waffles, it's a simple snack that (as my children and the Ferrero Co., which makes the product, like to point out) is even vaguely wholesome.

Maybe it's the idea of spreadable chocolate, or maybe it's the deeply satisfying combination of chocolate and hazelnuts, but there's something about Nutella that inspires the kind of devotion usually reserved for federally banned substances.

Check out some of those Google results and you find eGullet threads, Flickr galleries, MySpace videos and rapturous blog posts, where recipes that make use of Nutella proliferate in a seemingly endless riff, like conspiracy theories or suggestions for what to name the Obama First Dog.

According to allfacebook.com, Nutella's Facebook page ranks third in number of fans, having just moved past Homer J. Simpson with a little more than 2 million. (The two most popular pages, in order: Barack Obama and Coca-Cola.)