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Wine Party Preparation
2007-10-26 13:28:16
Last night was kind of exciting. I got home to find a package waiting for me. That’s right, my duck liver had arrived! As I opened it, the first thing I saw was a bunch of those horrible styrofoam peanuts. I hate those thing! But lurking just below the peanuts, under ice packs, was a load of good stuff! I got the foie gras; a 1.65 pound duck liver, from Hudson Valley Foie Gras. This was suggested because they feed with soy mixed in with the corn, and D’Artagnan feeds with only corn. The soy mix results in a firmer liver, which lends itself well to pan searing. Also in the delivered treasure were 4 tubs of duck fat, duck sausage and wild boar sausage and bacon. Good stuff to be trying over the week! The one item I got into for the party last night was crepes. They refrigerate very well, so I took the opportunity to get them done before Saturday. (more…)
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A Little Humor On The Side
2007-10-23 12:02:10
I’m getting some stuff ready to post tomorrow, on the little social experiment that friends helped me with earlier in the month. In the meantime, my dad sent this to me again. It’s a bit many have already read, but those that haven’t can now. Those that have already read it, it’s still funny.  I’d love to credit it to someone, but I couldn’t find where it started (if you know and have proof, let me know so I can give proper credit, please): The Chili Contest Note: Please take time to read this slowly. If you pay attention to the first two judges, the reaction of the third judge is even better. For those of you who have lived in Texas, you know how true this is. They actually have a Chili Cook-off about the time Halloween comes around. It takes up a major portion of a parking lot at the San Antonio City Park. Judge #3 was an inexperienced Chili taster named Frank, who was visiting from Springfield, IL. Frank: “Recently, I was honored to be s
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Thanks!!!
2007-10-22 14:29:20
I wanted to take a moment and thank all the new readers for coming by, looking around, and posting comments. It’s really a great feeling to see how many of you seem to like chocolate chip cookies! If only I had 365 chocolate cookie recipes to post for each day of the year, but then I’d be double the size I already am. Feel free to email me (there’s a link under the “About Me” section on the left). I’m open to suggestions, topics, etc. I’m open to advertising, too! (though only if I approve of what’s being advertised) I’ve got several things upcoming that might be fun: Some online friends took photos of a week’s worth of meals, and I’ll be posting the results from several that sent me their photos. It’s not all pretty, trust me! Nika Boyce is going to be teaching me more about taking photos, and we’re both going to share what we come up with simultaneously. It should be a great way to get some easy tips
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Is There Barbecue In Chillicothe, Ohio?
2007-10-21 22:17:24
The third weekend of October seems to usually be the best weekend for fall color in Ohio . Saturday, my wife and I decided to drive to south-central Ohio to see some color, as the Cincinnati area is kind of dull this year due to drought. We got in the convertible and drove east to Wilmington, Ohio, then continue east from there, staying on country roads and avoiding divided highways. After about an hour and a half, we ended up in the Chillicothe area. Chillicothe isn’t a big town and it’s not on an interstate highway. It does carry the disctinction of being the first state capitol of Ohio. As we got near town, we saw signs for the Adena House, and, having no set plans, followed the signs to see what the Adena House is. It turns out it was the home/estate of Thomas Worthington, called the father of Ohio’s statehood and the sixth governor of Ohio. It was a gorgeous day, starting off in the low 50’s and getting up to about 73 during the day. The sky had ni
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Pittsburgh’s Strip District
2007-10-19 14:07:01
I’ve been talking about Pittsburgh for a couple of weeks now, since our weekend trip there. It really is a great city, I think. A lot of people think of it as soot covered and dirty, but that’s the old Pittsburgh, pre-early 80’s. I’ll warn you now: there are lots of photos in this post! The city has a lot to offer for a long weekend trip. The airport isn’t far out of town, so it’s a quick ride into the city. When you do enter the city, especially at night, you can’t help but be wowed by the skyline when you come out of the tunnel. The Southside has trendy and local shops and restaurants, and Station Square has a great collection of shops and restaurants along with a view of downtown and access to the Incline. Shadyside at one point had more mansions per area than anywhere else in the country. Next to Shadyside is Carnegie-Mellon, perennially one of the top schools in the country; it’s also a great place to catch a show as their dr
Read more: Strip , District

Jaay’s Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies
2007-10-18 14:46:32
Jaay Dunlap posted a chocolate chip cookie recipe in November 2006 on JustBaking.net that sounded good enough I wanted to try it, and, man alive, am I glad I did! I’ve made these before, but never when I had the chance to get some shots of the process. The recipe is simple, and includes the same stuff that most any other recipe has. There’s sugar, egg, vanilla, baking soda, flour, salt and chocolate chips (or chunks in this case). Oh, I can’t orget the butter… There’s definitely butter in these puppies. What is different is the proportions of the ingredients. This recipe calls for a 2:1 ratio of brown to white sugar. I want to try making this with all Turbinado sugar to see how that works, too. Another major difference is that I’d always read to cream the butter, usually at room temperature, with the sugars. This recipe instead calls for using melted butter. (The formal recipe is listed at the bottom of this entry). (more…)
Read more: Chocolate , Cookies

Chocolate Taste Test
2007-10-17 11:51:19
My recent trip to Pittsburgh has left me all kinds of stuff about which to write. One store that we tend to revisit in the Strip District is Mon Aimee Chocolat. Mon Aimee Chocolat is a bit of a fluff store, to be honest, but it’s not too froo-froo. The store is tastefully done, but it’s just high priced candy. But boy is some of that stuff good! One item I love is an M&M type chocolate, with cayenne pepper. They used to have sea salt as well as black pepper, but they don’t anymore, and I think those two were even better. I’m not a big candy eater, actually, but there are some things that I do love. English candy bars, mostly Flake, in fact, are some of my favorites. I probably like Flake bars as much because of memories when I was 11, and my family was in England on vacation. We got softserve ice cream cones, and each one had a small Flake bar stuck in it. If you haven’t tried a Flake, do so… It’s basically what its name says, fl
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A Pig A Day Calendar
2007-10-17 00:51:54
For those of us that live and breathe barbecue, what could be better than a pig a day? For 2008, it can happen! The “A Pig A Day Calendar - Icons of Barbecue” is now on sale! The calendar features logos and signs from barbecuers of all types: competition teams, restaurants, caterers, etc. And Bucky McOinkum’s Barbecue was selected as one of the teams represented. Not only that, but we’re April 26/27 (a weekend), and April 26th is my anniversary, so it’s a great choice! The calendars are only $12.99 and can purchased on the website or via Amazon.


Getting Ready for Foie Gras
2007-10-16 09:41:40
My wife and I are having our annual wine party in just less than 2 weeks, on October 27th. I always pick a theme for the wines, and each couple brings one red wine and one white wine that fits the theme. So far, we’ve done “Anything Goes” for the first 2 years, then “US Wines Not From California”, and “Southern Hemisphere Wines Not From Australia”. This year, I decided to go mainstream, and we’re doing “French Wines”. We do the party a bit differently than I’m told I should do wine parties. Most of our friends aren’t that into wines, so we don’t do any formal scoring. I do hand out paper for note taking, and we discuss our impression of the wines’ color, bouquet, and taste. But there are too many people to do a standard tasting, which is fine with us. I think we’re expecting 20 this year, and most advice is to limit a wine tasting party to 8. This is about fun, not being perfect. What hap


My Second Favorite Fries
2007-10-12 15:15:47
I’m still on the Pittsburgh trip. I really do enjoy going there, and not just for food, but Pittsburgh has some of the best food around, especially considering the size of the city. How many cities have a doneness of steak named after them? I’ve heard of NY Strip, but that’s just a cut of meat. Pittsburgh rare has a specific meaning to doneness… Anyone know what it is? Pittsburgh Rare is also the appropriate name of a steakhouse in the city, and a very good one, from what I’m told. From the title of this entry, you can probably guess that my second favorite fries are found in Pittsburgh, and you’d guess right. What are my favorite? The Paris Las Vegas Casino & Hotel, which I’ve probably talked about before, has a great restaurant called Mon Ami Gabi, which is also found in the Chicago area and Bethesda, MD. They have great steaks, and all are served with frites (French for fries, I guess). The steaks are good (I had the Roquefort
Read more: Second , Favorite

Chocolate Pot with Burnt Caramel and Sea Salt
2007-10-31 15:29:18
I can hardly believe that my trip to Pittsburgh was only 2 1/2 weeks ago; our October has been really full! When I was there, I got a great candy bar that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, from Chocopologie, that was dark chocolate with burnt caramel and sea salt. Great stuff! If this is the only entry you’re reading here, you haven’t yet heard about the wine party we had last weekend, but it was not only a great party, it also has provided me with all kinds of stuff to write about. I made a dessert for the party to mimic the candy bar I got in Pittsburgh. The dessert started with something I saw as I flipped through the channels a while back. I found a recipe for chocolate creme fraiche pot; I don’t really care much for the show it came from, but then Alton Brown is about the only food show host I really like, but the dish looked interested because it 1) sounds good, and 2) is really easy to make. So for a big party or just when you don’t have time, th
Read more: Chocolate

Grilled Steak au Poivre
2007-10-30 19:21:05
When we have our wine party every year, I try to do a variety of food for the party. Sometimes, I make whatever I want, but I’m trying to get better at following the theme of the wines. I select the wine theme in advance so guests can get wines that fit. We’ve done American wines that aren’t from California, southern hemisphere wines that aren’t from Australia, and anything goes. This year’s theme was French wines, if you haven’t read anything else I’ve written about the party. Each couple was asked to bring two French wines, one red and one white. They were also asked to look up something about the wine to share, whether it’s about the vineyard, the grape, that particular wine, the appellation, whatever. (Appellations are distinct areas were grapes for wines are grown). It wasn’t anything too difficult, and Vince helped some by looking up their wines on his iPhone connected to our household wireless! I talked about the foi
Read more: Grilled , Steak

Foie Gras
2007-10-29 09:33:53
Here it is at last! The foie gras I’d been so looking forward to preparing and eating. The big question: was it worth it? The answer: a definite YES! This stuff is like heaven on a fork. Here’s the progression of how things went: If you look at any posts this week, they’ll most likely be from our 2007 wine party. This was, I guess, the featured dish of the party (outside of the wine, that is). I’d been looking into whether I’m pro-foie gras or anti-foie gras in an earlier post. My conclusion was that I’m pro. So I put in my order, and the foie gras got here last Thursday. (more…)


Wine Party 2007
2007-10-28 21:42:23
It’s been a hectic few days getting ready for last night. My wife and I had our 5th annual wine party. We’ve gone from just a few people, to a dozen to twenty. That’s about 2 1/2 times what is recommended for a wine party, but we don’t care… We’re not trying to do a really formal wine tasting; we’re trying to enjoy the night with friends and finding some wines that we might like that we hadn’t tried before. It’s almost more fun to try some wines that are the worst wines. But more on that later. The way our wine party goes is pretty simple, and pretty much against the accepted wine tasting process. We start with the food, which is supposed to be later, after the tasting. I fixed all the food. Then we start tasting wines. Each couple that comes brings 2 wines, a red and a white. The theme this year was French wines, so all the wines were French. As I’ve said before, I try to do a couple of main dishes with several c
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Results Of A Social Experiment
2007-11-03 17:29:20
I don’t know why I got this in mind to try, but it was kind of fun; for a week at the beginning of the month of October, I asked several people to take photos of all of their meals for the week. Originally, I was going to post the photos of just one meal, but I ended up asking for a picture of each meal, on random days. My wife picked the days. We ended up with Tuesday’s breakfast, Wednesday’s lunch and Sunday’s dinner. Here are the results, starting with mine: Breakfast on Tuesday was a simple iced coffee and Egg McMuffin from, you know it, McDonald’s. The view out the windshield is just on the edge of the town were I live. And since I have a rule of no eating in the car, I stood outside the car while I ate the Egg McMuffin. Lunch was just a quick bowl of beef stew that I picked up at the cafe at the office. It came with cornbread and was actually pretty decent. The people that sit around me thought it was funny that I put down cloth napkins to c
Read more: Social , Experiment

Food Photo 101 - Gearing up
2007-11-02 11:30:45
Or… “How To Make Your Food Look As Good As It Tastes”. We’re gearing up to start our online adventure in food photography. Nika of Nika’s Culinary has set up a forum for the ‘class’ here. Also, there’s a Flickr group called Food Photo 101. We’re really hoping for participation. If you haven’t seen Nika’s work, check out her photos here. I’m really excited that she agreed to do this, and I’m looking forward to learning a lot. I stole this info from her post: Course Objective: To guide interested budding food photographers through the technical and creative barriers they may be experiencing with their Point and Shoot (P&S) or DSLR cameras. We will cover: hardware (cameras, lighting, computers, other tech) software (capture and post processing tools) wetware (food styling) creative aspects (composition, lighting dynamics, etc) Philosophy: We are going to do this in a way that, we hope, gives you


Food Photo 101 - Lesson 1 Results
2007-11-08 03:23:40
Nika put together a great lesson for our first week. This is the second part of these lessons. After getting Nika’s lesson, I’m going through them, then posting the results. Why? I’ve seen a lot of tips on different sites where photographers listed things to do. I haven’t seen someone that’s not a photographer (like me) go through the tips and show their results. I’m not always going to get fantastic results, I’m sure. I hope to show progress, and hopefully have others taking the class see that they don’t have to be experts to get good results from their cameras. I’m also looking forward to seeing what others come up with in their blogs and in our Food Photo 101 forum and Flickr group. On to the lesson! I can honestly say I hadn’t taken the trouble to just play around with a setting at a time; I’ve done a lot of post processing to get settings the way I wanted them. I’m not going to act like I have it all t


Brioche - Beautiful, Buttery Brioche
2007-11-07 12:59:44
Now that Food Photo 101 is started, I still don’t want to stop cooking and talking about cooking. With that, I realized I still haven’t posted about the bread I made for the wine party we had a couple of weeks ago. The foie gras I made gave me the opportunity to try a new kind of bread, brioche. What is brioche? For those that don’t know that it’s a little slice of buttery heaven, here’s a formal definition: bri·oche /ˈbrioʊʃ, -ɒʃ; Fr. briˈɔʃ/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[bree-ohsh, -osh; Fr. bree-awsh n. A soft, light-textured bread made from eggs, butter, flour, and yeast and formed into a roll or a bun. Really, that lists things in the wrong order; butter should be the first thing, because this bread is loaded with it! There’s almost as much butter as there is flour in this recipe. I made the Rich Man’s Brioche , though there were 2 other versions, each with different levels of butter, adding other dairy to
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Food Photo 101 - Lesson 1!
2007-11-06 05:15:24
With this being the first Food Photo 101 lesson (yea!), and on Tuesday, this is Nika’s lesson that I’ll be following with my results on Thursday. So keep in mind that these are Nika’s words, not mine: Click here for a printable PDF version of this post (Kiwano Horned Melon, shot with a 4 MP Fujifilm Finepix S3100) Welcome to all of you following along! I would like to thank each of you for writing to us about your interest in this project. Curt and I have been overwhelmed by the response, making us feel even more inspired. Rationale: As I mentioned in the first post in this series (Food Photo 101: Photography for Foodies), I strongly believe that there is quite a lot of capability in your average low-cost digicam or Point & Shoot (P&S) camera. Why? Because I was able to get some interesting images with my P&S by doing a few very fundamental things, other than pointing and shooting. For example, I shot the photo above with my 4 MP Fujifilm Finepix


Food Photo 101 - Lesson 2 Results
2007-11-15 05:39:40
Lesson 2 was all about directing light. I was hoping to have some good morning light again, as the time change means that it’s too dark when I get home to have much light coming into the dining room. Unfortunately, mornings this week have been cloudy, so not much luck for me having good natural light. I want to thank Nika for another great lesson… This one will prove to be really useful right from the start. I figured this was a good way to try out how white balance would need to change for the light in the dining room, and I ended up with using the ‘Incandescent setting’. Task 1: My Light Bouncing Equipment I mostly used foamcore. This is can be found at art supply stores, and it bascially posterboard glued to a white styrofoam core, which gives some stiffness so it will stand up without bending. I picked up a few sheets of foamcore: 3 white, 2 black and one kind of a silvery grey. I also took a piece of cardboard and wrapped it with aluminum foil and sna
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Food Photo 101 - Lesson 2
2007-11-13 18:24:28
It’s time for for the 2nd lesson in Food Photo 101! Without further ado, here it is, in Nika’s words: Welcome back! I was so impressed by all of the work you all did on the last lesson, great job!We have begun to familiarize ourselves with our cameras with the last exercise (Food Photo 101: First Principles), putting your hands to work on the settings and knobs and dials and such. Its ok if it still feels overwhelming because familiarity through practice is the only way to master these things. For me, as I put this course together, I feel this tension between getting people started on basics and helping people keep motivated by seeing improvement in their photos immediately. Today’s lesson should yield some positive changes for you. So, in today’s second Food Photo 101 class we are taking a break from the camera-geek-speak! (Cheers heard from the balcony) We are also not going to be camera-specific. These ideas are common to any format, be it pin-hole, digica


Food Photo 101 - Lesson 1 Recap
2007-11-11 14:24:04
The Sunday Recap is Nika’s review of the week’s lesson. I look at this as kind of the instructor’s review of my work. So, in Nika’s words… It has been a fantastic week! We have had more than 80 people sign up to participate and we have several submissions of image sets at the flickr Food Photo 101 group. We have gotten so many lovely emails that have thanked us for starting this series. Thank you for your support.There are quite a few sites out there that do pointers and such for food photography but I think that this series has one huge difference - You! Because we are working through this together this will be a much more interesting process. I can’t thank you all enough for participating.Curt has crafted an amazing newsletter that you can get at this link (pending) in which he reviews his lesson outcomes and that of some of the other participants. Curt has done an amazing job of taking this first lesson to heart and really going analytical.


Thanksgiving
2007-11-21 13:31:03
I hope I’m not disappointing anyone by not having a lot of Thanksgiving food this year. I’m doing the same as last year, pretty much, so if you search on ‘Thanksgiving’, you’ll get lots of stuff from 2006. Instead, I’m relaxing a bit this week, if you call fixing a huge turkey and a regular turkey, cookies earlier this week and turkeys last week relaxing. Family is coming into town, which should be good. I know I’m getting older. The holiday confirms it. It used to be that not only would I go to some relative’s house for holidays, but I might even sit at the kid’s table. Now, holidays are at my house. We don’t have a kid’s table, but you never know when that might change (not for us, but for others). There’s good enough reason to have things at our house. My mom and sister have less than an hour drive, so they come down. My dad and stepmother are coming up from Atlanta, and my mom and dad can get along even


Food Photo 101 - On Holiday
2007-11-20 09:03:04
One thing I realized I don’t think I’ve emphasized for Food Photo 101 is that this is an evolving instructional series. Nika and I talked about topics, but she’s coming up with the lesson organically and as she’s inspired. Because of this, we realized this week that life needed to take priority over the class. With Thanksgiving this week, we’re both really busy, and Nika has kids that rely on her, too. We plan on keeping up a weekly lesson whenever possible, but not to the detriment of our families and lives, which I’m sure everyone understands. So this week won’t have a lesson. I think it’s a great opportunity to practice the first 2 lessons or to get caught up, and Thanksgiving dinner has lots of chances to do so. I want to wish everyone a fantastic Thanksgiving; I hope you’re all spending time with loved ones and have the chance to reflect on things for which you’re thankful.
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Food Photo 101 - Lesson 2 Review
2007-11-18 05:22:10
Here we have Nika’s review of my work for Food Photo 101 Lesson 2, along with several others that are following along… This week we had quite a few people contribute their results to the Food Photo 101 flickr pool. I am going to go through Curt’s results as well as those of the other participants, which include: LaRecetteDuJour Vegan Noodle Big Mill BB Lets start with Curt’s work In the series of images below you can see his set up and bounces on the bottom row and a series of shots on a tabletop with various permutations of bounce and mirror/foil. I have put a blue circle over the shot with his set up and a red circle over the shot with no bounce. This next series of shots shows, at the bottom, the conditions which Curt liked the most out of the first batch. I have put an orange circle over those. You can see how he was experimenting with using the foil to focus some sharp light on different parts of the subject across those two shots. I think that I would like to


2007 Food Blog Award Nominations
2007-11-30 23:12:16
The nominations have begun for the 2007 Food Blog Award s, hosted by the Well Fed Network.  You can nominate your favorite food blog in one or more of 14 categories from now through December 5. Once the nominations are closed, the top five blogs in each category will be announced on December 10.  Voting then begins from that point through December 14, and the winners will be announced on December 17. If you want to nominate a blog, choose from one of the fourteen categories and post a comment with your entry.  Keep in mind that the number of entries that a blog has been nominated has no bearing, so if you see your nomination already there, adding it again doesn’t add to its chances.  And if anyone wants to nominate my blog, I won’t be offended!


Pay It Forward
2007-11-29 17:46:12
I’ve done maybe 1 or 2 web/blog ‘tag you’re it’ type things in the past, but I’ve kind of stopped doing a lot of that stuff. No one cares that my favorite movie is Bed Time for Bonzo (it’s not… Really, it’s not). There’s a new push going around that I thought was kind of cool, though, called Pay It Forward . I first saw this on Nicole’s site, Pinch My Salt, but I was too late, only to see that my friend Nika was also paying it forward on her site, Nika’s Culinaria. PIF is simple: To be involved, you have to be a current blogger, though it doesn’t have to be a food blog. The idea is that each of the three people will receive something homemade by me. Those three people have to do the same thing on their blog… Post about PIF, allow commenters to comment, and send the first three something homemade. The time frame for when I have to have sent out my homemade whatever is 1 year from today. I don’t plan


Food Photo 101 - Lesson 3 Results
2007-11-29 07:00:00
Lesson 3 is all about depth of field (DOF). One thing I’ve noticed in looking at food photos is that really shallow DOF is used a LOT with food (sometimes too much, I think). However, it can be used to really good effect to highlight the details desired while blurring those not desired.   I don’t have a stovetop that’s usable right now, thanks to my ex-propane company taking my tank instead of billing me rental for it. Of course, they did that the day before Thanksgiving! So I don’t really have any food for photo subjects. Not to worry! Christmas season is starting, and what I do have plenty of is Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer stuff. And those reading this will be seeing a lot more of our decorations over the next few weeks.   My main subject this week is Charlie-In-The-Box (CITB). Due to time, on Thursday, I’ll have only aperture settings of f/2.8, but what I varied instead of aperture was distance from the subject. Later, I’l
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Food Photo 101 - Lesson 3
2007-11-27 07:00:20
After a well deserved holiday break, here were are at Lesson 3 of Food Photo 101! I peeked at Nika’s photos for this and had a good idea that we were going to do one of the topics I’ve really been looking forward to doing, Depth of Field. Here’s the lesson, in Nika’s words… Depth of Field This week’s topic will be Depth of Field (DOF) . Remember that I am putting together a food photo glossary for those terms that may not be as commonly known. I will also try to link as many of them in the text to the wikipedia entries. What is this Depth of Field I speak of? “The depth of field is the distance in front of and beyond the subject that appears to be in focus.” (*) The wikipedia has a very extensive discussion of DOF and I would recommend your slogging through the non-math parts, maybe twice. I like to visualize the DOF as a slice of paper (representing the focal plane) that floats in front of my camera. It can have different thicknesses and posit


Chefs For Humanity
2007-11-26 11:40:58
I was contacted last week by a Chef’s For Humanity, an organization founded by Cat Cora (you might know her from Iron Chef America). The goal of the group is to gather culinary professionals and educations to fight hunger around the world. I think it’s a great group of people to push fighting world hunger, and I like that it’s outside of the political world, just a group of people trying to do what they think it right. I’m hoping to become a ‘Blogger For Humanity’; I think the blogosphere is a great place to raise awareness of what’s going on in the world. No, I don’t think just blogging about hunger is going to fix the problem. There are political issues with this topic that even the best meaning chefs won’t solve. However, there are also a lot of issues that can be lessened, and having a group that’s not part of a government is a great step toward that, I think. So how can you get involved? Here’s a press release
Read more: Chefs

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