5-foot rose bouquets, bacon-flavored flowers say ‘I love you’
BY TINA SFONDELES Sun-Times Media February 13, 2013 12:45PM
An unusual Valentines Day gift of a dozen Bacon Roses from J&D Foods, 309 So. Cloverdale, Seattle, Washington.
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Updated: March 14, 2013 6:51AM
There are simple Valentine’s Day gifts and then there are over-the-top, extravagant ones.
FTD is selling the popular “Ultimate Rose Bouquet” for $299.99 — a 5-foot-tall ceramic black vase full of roses with 52 to 60 petals. An average rose has between 20 and 40 petals. The roses are grown in Ecuador about 10,000 feet above sea level in prime growing conditions.
“The head size and petal count is extravagant,” FTD chief designer Michael Skaff said. “... Anybody would be proud to get this as a special gift.”
FTD’s rival, 1-800-flowers.com, is selling a vase full to the brim with 100 red roses for $429.99.
Others might be waking up to the smell of bacon on Valentine’s Day. Not real bacon. Bacon-scented roses, bacon-scented balm or shaving cream. Those are the most popular items being sold by Seattle-based J&D’s in time for Thursday.
“We just thought what better way to say ‘I love you’ than to have a bacon-scented rose?” co-owner Dave Lefkow, originally of Chicago, said.
The company has sold tens of thousands of the wooden roses, which sell for $11.99 a dozen and smell like bacon for at least a couple of months.
Men also are buying bacon-flavored lip balm for the ladies. And bacon-flavored shaving cream is also a hit — it’s J&D’s second-most popular Valentine’s Day product after the roses, Lefkow said.
Cards offer a more casual option, and local card creator and artist Mollie Green, of La Familia Green, has sold out of her cards that feature a masked luchador on bended knee with a Valentine in his hands. It reads “Be Mine.”
A favorite is the “Tamale Guy” card, featuring a popular tamale salesman who frequents the Chicago bar scene. On the card, he wishes a “Happy Valentine’s Day, Hot Tamale!”
Many of Green’s cards have sold out, but the “Tamale Guy” can be found at dozens of stores. Green said many men are buying her cards because they’re not “cutesy.”
