Happy Holidays!

Projeto Mandioca

IACP member Fran Osseo-Asare was in Rio de Janeiro and met with fellow colleagues Margarida Nogueira and Teresa Corçao during the Tapioca cooking contest for brazilian school children. Check out Fran's video here or visit Betumi blog.

Menu For Hope

IACP members are going crazy! Giving away their hard earned books, precious personal kitchen favorites, cooking dinners and teaching classes—all for FREE!
Where, Why, How? Find out how IACP members and other food bloggers are making a giant holiday present together at www.ChezPim.com.

A Lesson on The Power of the weB-LOG.
When Pim Techamuanvivit of the very popular blog- Chez Pim calls her food blogging friends to arms, they listen. That’s because she is as smart as she is kind. Pim recognized the power of blogs long before most of us even knew what one was. Food & Wine magazine, The New York Times, London’s Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald all have written about Pim and her blog. Thousands of readers check in with her everyday to see what she is writing about—from Michelin-starred restaurants to her fiery homemade Thai chili sauce.

What would you do if you had that kind of audience? In 2004, Pim tested the waters of reader’s and fellow food bloggers’ generosity after the Indonesian tsunami by establishing an on-line raffle called Menu For Hope. For just $10 dollars, you could buy a raffle ticket to win one of hundreds of prized foodie prizes: dinners at top restaurants, private cooking lessons, baskets of favored gourmet food from around the blogging world. And there were cook books and more cook books- signed, annotated and well-loved. It was a wild success.

Since then, Pim focused her attentions on a single wonderful idea dear to many hearts including mine. Through The UN World Food Program there is a special school lunch program in Lesotho, Africa that will benefit from the proceeds raised by this year’s Menu for Hope IV. The food used to feed the children (sometimes their only daily meal) is grown locally and benefits the farming families themselves. In Pim’s words, “We chose to support the school lunch program because providing food for the children not only keeps them alive, but keeps them in school so that they learn the skills to feed themselves in the future. We chose to support the program in Lesotho because it is a model program in local procurement - buying food locally to support local farmers and the local economy.”

Today, in the last week of the 4th annual Menu for Hope, we are well shy to surpass last year’s $62,000 raised. We just have a few days to meet this goal left- deadline of Dec 21st has been extended over the weekend. IACP member blogging participants offering great personal prizes include Dorie Greenspan, Judy Witts, David Lebovitz, Heidi Swansonand many more. Want to win a Kitchenaid mixer with ice cream attachment? A week in Tuscany? One of my prized Cassoulet bowls? To check out the list of all prizes offered worldwide got to http://www.chezpim.com/blogs/2007/12/menu-for-hope-4.html. For donating just $10 US, you might win a prized El Bulli tour with Ferran Adria in Spain, dinner at Dan Barber’s Blue Hills restaurant, or lunch with charming Harold McGee. Go to http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhope4 and help IACP international members reach out. Instructions for choosing prizes and donating are also on my blog at http://katehill.blogspot.com/2007/12/menu-for-hope-cassoulet-dreams.html

Since IACP members now have our own Global Blog where we, too, have an immediate voice in our extended worldwide community, I ask my fellow IACP members to join me in supporting this generous food blogging community. Thanks Elena Hernández and Scott Givot for inviting this post.

In Peace and Friendship,
Kate Hill- cooking and writing in Southwest France at www.katehill.blogspot.com

d' Pintxos: I World Fair & Congress on bite-size cooking

D'Pintxos will take place for the first time in San Sebastian, Spain from December 12 - 14. Pinxtos is the Basque word for "pinchos", which in Spanish means "brochette" or any food served on a skewer. The event will feature Spain's top chefs Juan Mari Arzak and his daughter Elena, Andoni Luis Adúriz, Manuel Tejedor, Sergi Arola, Pedro Subijana, and international chefs from the USA, Japan, Mexico, and Venezuela. For more information on this original event, visit the event's website here.