Maybe you saw the “Today” show episode the other day when a couple of chefs created the world’s biggest fondue.

If somebody gave me a ton of fondue, I’d be stumped. But they gave it to New York’s City Harvest, which was ready.

If you’re going to be online anyway, take a look at www.fdhope.org, and see if there’s anything in the auction that strikes you.

Bring on the fondue.

Elsewhere at Tabasco’s online store, pick up a pair of their jeans on sale for $26. They have a picture of a Tabasco bottle inside the zipper fly. Who thinks of these things?

Going once . . .

Root for Oxford if you like historic firsts: Michal Plotkowiak is the first Pole to row in the race. “There has been a lot of interest in Poland because of it,” he said.

“Dairy is expensive and hard to come by for emergency food programs,” said David Grossnickle, its associate director of food development. “The fondue was a very welcome donation.”

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It runs till Monday to raise money for research into familial dysautonomia, a rare genetic disease that has no cure.

As far as I can tell, that New York version didn’t have any Tabasco sauce in it. The Swiss probably aren’t big on hot sauce.

Louisiana chef John Folse brought a 210-year-old, two-ton kettle, and he and New York chef Terrance Brennan (and several others) added cheese (more than a half-ton), wine, spices (salt, lemon, pepper and garlic) and water to fill the thing with 2,100 pounds of fondue.

Oxford only has two Brits; four Americans, a Pole, a Croat and a Canadian round out the crew. Cambridge has four Brits, two Americans, two Canadians and a German.

Pole position

So, if a giant fondue hit our town, would we be ready?

Groups that work with City Harvest were contacted and used the fondue for casseroles, soup, “everything from macaroni and cheese to lasagna,” Grossnickle said.

You can also eat for a good cause. The Claim Jumper restaurant in Wheeling is donating sales of its Motherlode Cake to the Little City Foundation this weekend.

But if you want to make a big fondue and kick it up a notch, you can get gallon jugs of Tabasco for $36.95.

You bet. The Greater Chicago Food Depository has taken as many as 20 tractor-trailer loads of food in one night from a show at McCormick Place, including giant wheels of cheese and whole hams.

It’s probably not the same four bidders who’ve driven the price of the Webkinz Tree Frog to $20, but you never know.

A dash of this, a gallon of that

Brennan, who’s on the organization’s food council, provided 50- gallon drums, and City Harvest picked them up in a refrigerated truck.

World’s largest cake?

That was enough for the Guinness Book of World Records to call it world’s largest. End of story? Not quite. They donated the fondue to charity.

Stop by tonight and Ms. Illinois, Heidi Ekstrom, is supposed to be there to sign autographs.

I like the look of the Slainte messenger bag, but so do seven other people. Bidding’s at $95.

Cubs tickets, Sox tickets, Bears tickets, even a Bulls Game Day Fantasy for four ($2,900) are there.

As the Food Marketing Institute show wound down, for instance, the food depository divvied the place into zones and scattered 200 walkie-talkie equipped volunteers to scoop up the food, said depository spokeswoman Ruth Igoe.

The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race crews posed for photos this week, and while the 153rd race next month might sound quintessentially British, the crews aren’t.

There are already four bids for a day in the kitchen at Carlos, the French restaurant in Highland Park. You get an autographed cookbook, too. Current bid’s $275.

cwhitehead@suntimes.com

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