10 décembre 2007
Menu For Hope 4: Ptipois' in.
This year, Ptipois takes part in Menu For Hope 4, an annual raffle in support of the UN World Food Programme, created and organized by my friend Pim Techamuanvivit on her blog Chez Pim. To know all about it, go to Pim's blog where everything is clearly explained (hey, you can even win a baby goat!). You should also visit Foodbeam, Fanny's blog — Fanny takes care of the raffle for Europe and there is a lot of important info on her site.
Here's a summary:
For $10, you get a raffle ticket that may make you the happy owner of a prize of your choice, offered by one of the participants — restaurateur, producer, food writer or journalist, or any foodie that has something to share. The more you give, the better your chances of winning are. See the prize list on Chez Pim; frankly it is quite amazing.
The collected sums entirely go to the WFP — United Nations World Food Programme, the world's largest food aid agency.
This year, the funds raised by Menu for Hope 4 will be earmarked for the school lunch program in Lesotho, Africa. Providing food for the children not only keeps them alive, but helps them stay in school so that they learn the skills to feed themselves in the future. The program also supports local and community farming. Promoting local agriculture and food production using sustainable agricultural methods — and thus improving world environment — makes this program particularly interesting and, needless to say, quite fitting for a foodie raffle.
The prize
Ptipois' blog, this year, as a mirror blog to its French original version Chez Ptipois, chooses to donate the author's (yeah, well, my) latest book, La Table du Thé, which has been commented here and elsewhere. I will, of course, send the prize by mail to the happy winner.
One word of warning though: since I am about to stay for one whole month in a distant country, I will not be able to send the prize before January 15, 2008.
Practical info
Virtual raffle tickets should be purchased between December 10 and 21, 2007.
The code for this prize is EU29.
To purchase your raffle ticket, go to this page. Donation is done by credit card.
Other prizes are displayed here on Pim's blog.
07 décembre 2007
At last, Love Apple Farm has a blog!
In case you didn't know already, I am happy to inform you that Cynthia Sandberg and Love Apple Farm — that really cool biodynamic vegetable garden associated with chef David Kinch's Manresa restaurant in Los Gatos — have their blog at last, Grow Better Veggies.
Do not fail to visit it regularly. You will find a lot of vegetable eye candy, Cynthia's adventures as a passionate vegetable grower, and plenty of useful tips and information on the lovely art of growing good things.
Here at Ptipois' we're all fans of Love Apple Farm and Manresa. Below are links to this blog's posts that are dedicated to them:
1. The Spring's serial: Alain Passard at Manresa
2. The way of the radish
3. The leek's path
4. Vegetable portraits
5. The tao of carrot
I also should add that the Manresa-Passard saga is far from over on this blog. See you later, then. Meanwhile, go drool with desire while viewing the heirloom tomatoes on Cynthia's blog.
This wonderful world
Paris, rue Saint-Dominique, Nov. 30.
I just read that sea-urchin larvae were shaped like Eiffel Towers.
I did not indulge in illicit substances, I found it on Wikipedia.
Apart from that, everything OK?