kitchenmage

A Taste for Reading benefit lunch (Seattle)

Food and books, two of my favorite things, come together next week in Seattle at A Taste for Reading(pdf), a benefit luncheon for Page Ahead. Even better, there is entertainment from an as yet unannounced school group, so you get your dose of cute kids too. Page Ahead is a children's literacy program that distributes books to kids and encourages parent and community active involvement in reading with children.

A Taste for Reading happens next Wednesday, April 9, at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center on Seattle’s Waterfront. Lunch will be served at 11:30, with the entertainment at noon. They are even promising that it will end "promptly at 1" so you can all scurry back to work. A donation will be requested (the meal is valued at ~30) and contributions over 250 will be matched.

To make (required) reservation, drop them email or call 206.461.0123.

Followup: freckled bananas, cheap!

Some days a rant is just a rant and some days it is actually a wee bit useful. I recently wrote about a vignette from a grocery store in which I saw an employee trashing perfectly good bananas - the ones that were just speckled enough to make bread from - and asked him about it. His response: nobody would buy those!

Fortunately, I also heard from a nice person from their corporate office and a store manager, who assured me that they would not be wasting perfectly edible food any more. Well, here's the proof, captured on my cell phone last time I was in the store. Cheap bananas, just right for baking.

Enjoy your banana bread!

Menu for Hope: We have a winner!

The oh-so-busy Pim has posted the list of Menu for Hope prize winners over at Chez Pim. More important than any individual winner, though, is the total. We collectively raised over $90,000. That's about a 50% increase over last year's total. Pretty darned good for a bunch of cheese sandwich freaks fans.

I am really excited to be able to start on my very, special 'cookies for Carolyn Comiskey' - Hey, I even got an alliterative winner! Do you suppose she'll like chocolate? Coconut? Creamy fillings? We will all have to wait and see what creative confection Carolyn inspires but in the meantime, go see if you won anything.

Menu for hope

Menu for Hope is a charity auction that benefits the UN World Food Programme. Led by Pim of Chez Pim, Menu for Hope raised over 60,000 last year. Here's a bit of how it works, from Pim:

Each year, food bloggers from all over the world join forces to host the Menu for Hope online raffle, offering an array of delectable culinary prizes.  For every US$10, the donor receive a virtual raffle ticket toward a prize of their choice.  This year, the prizes include once in a lifetime experiences such as touring the elBulli laboratory with Ferran Adrià, dining on a historic British meal prepared by Heston Blumenthal, or joining Harold McGee on a lunch date to satisfy a lifetime's worth of cooking curiosity.  You can also tag along with your favorite blogger on a tour of their favorite markets, restaurants, or even receive a care package fashioned especially for you from your favorite bloggers themselves.  All you need is $10 and a bit of luck.

This is my first year participating in the event, and seeing the sorts of prizes Pim lists above, I am thinking I will have to bid on a number of things as well. Coming up with a prize that will stand out just a smidge amongst the things that are likely to be up for bid - seriously, Adria, Blumenthal, and McGee - was a daunting task but I think I came up with something bid-worthy.

Are you ready for Menu for Hope?

If it's December, it's time to help feed the world!

Well, actually it's always time to feed the world but I am especially aware of it now, when the wind turns icy in the late afternoon dusk and the thought of sitting with a mug of hot tea and a warm laptop is downright inviting. How fortunate I am in that comfort. Many of you too, I am guessing.

Not everyone is quite so lucky, however, but we can help.

There are, of course, local food banks and shelters that can use your help now more than ever. America's Second Harvest is a great organization and can help you find a food bank in your area.

Think more local than even that too. Know a college student who could use a home-cooked meal with leftovers to go? Invite them over, and make extra food to be sure
there are leftovers. (Sure that's an old mom trick but I have yet to be refused when I innocently say, "How ever did I end up with two chickens for the four of us? Take one home...?")

Or you can go global...

do you support public radio?

If you are one of those folks who donate to public radio, please consider doing so tomorrow to  KMUN in Astoria, Oregon between 10-12 (west coast) tomorrow. someoneElse will be on All Kinds of Folk and it's pledge drive time so I am angling for quick donations and thus more music, less begging.

There are rumors of me having to speak too. One can only hope the rumors are not true because, while I like music, I know nothing about it. "I gave it a ten because it's got a good beat and you can knead bread to it!" is my fallback position. Again, I think more money=less talk - in which case, I may be writing checks myself!

The KMUN audio stream is available online, either via their preferred method, which involves installing software that lets your machine host bits of the stream (meaning your upstream bandwidth and some hard drive space) or my preferred method of snagging the stream here and plugging it into something like Windows Media Player.

If you decide to contribute, please tell the nice person on the phone that you are a friend of kitchenMage. I'd love to feel a presence from the food-people out there. Sort of like a big invisible hug while I am in radioland, which is so not my usual hangout.

KMUN
Donation info page
Donate here
503.325.0010
1.800.528.0010

climate convergence in skamokawa this week

In the midst of global climate change and with the lack of a sane energy policy at the front of many people in evenTinierTown's minds, there is a bit of hope on the horizon - or at least a great weekend.

The west coast Climate Convergence is slated for this week in Skamokawa, WA (yep, evenTinierTown is on the map!). During this event, a lot of crunchy granola folks will converge on evenTinierTown, talk climate change, party and listen to people like Starhawk speak. (hmmm, are there people 'like' Starhawk?)

There will be educational sessions during the day and keynote speeches followed by live music on multiple evenings. I am planning on hitting the sessions about how climate change is impacting the flora and fauna of the Pacific Northwest (and the rest of the world too) including the food supply, both purchased and homegrown.

Food related sessions include:

• Organic gardening in the pacific northwest
• Food systems and climate change
• Introduction to permaculture
• ABCs of guerilla kitchens

Also, if you have ever wanted to feed hundreds of ravenous folks they are still looking for volunteers of all sorts.

My friend, Robert Pyle (or Butterfly Bob, as we call him), will be speaking on butterflies, the region, and perhaps even slug sex. He's always an interesting guy to listen to. There are also several sessions on LNG and other regional energy concerns. Plus great people, activist training, live music...and people like Starhawk. Depending on your perspective, it could be educational, entertaining, or more likely both.

The convergence officially starts Thursday (they are fixing up the local fairgrounds and Grange today) and continues through the weekend to wrap up on Tuesday. If you decide to venture out this way, drop me a note and I can get you in touch with some great bed and breakfasts, point you at the Friday Farmer's market, or other such as you might need.

Featured presenter list
Full schedule grid (pdf)

Dish up literacy!

Remember the old line: Reading is fundamental? Seems that the idea of literacy as a foundation for life in a post-industrial society has been losing ground since they (whoever "they" are) decided that kids need Ritalin and Game Boys rather than books, so I really have to applaud any group that's still working on literacy as if it mattered.

As you might imagine, I was delighted to hear about Dish Up Literacy, a project of Page Ahead, a children's literacy group in Seattle, which offers one of the most pleasant ways of giving to a good cause: go out for a meal. Food+books, what could be better?

On August 3rd, a range of restaurants in six Washington counties, all corporate-owned Denny's in Washington will donate a portion of their sales to Page Ahead, which will distribute books to school-age children with the proceeds. You can choose anything from a nice dinner to a quick lunch, or maybe both!

Unfortunately for me, no restaurants down my way are participating, so I am counting on my readers in the state to go out to dinner for me. Call it a favor to me if you need the excuse. Your assignment: eat at a participating restaurant on August 3, 2006. Tough job, I know, but I think you can handle it.