[skipmartin]

Here is a quick way to do it

Modify pages.php:

require "./auth.php";
require $xcart_dir."/include/categories.php";
include "./featured_products.php";  // ADD THIS LINE

x_load('files');

and then in your static page, insert:

{include file="customer/main/featured.tpl" f_products=$f_products}

and be sure you have "Parse Smarty tags in the content of embedded pages" checked in the admin site.