Menu for Hope 6

It's Menu For Hope time, gosh that snuck up fast. Ed is hosting the Asia Pacific prize list so hop over and make your selections.

If you're unfamiliar with this amazing blogosphere phenomena read all about it at Chez Pim, the founder of the event. Take a wee diversion checking out what's on offer in the other regions too as some can be sent to this side of the world, or you may be traveling in 2010 and want a few nights in a NY staying in an apartment in Chelsea or to dine in interesting restaurants far from our shores.

There's even a super dooper new widget to make donating even easier.

What are you waiting for?

Menu for Hope and Bittman’s kitchen

Even if I have to be out of the house in a matter of minutes, I have a leave pass to spruik the annual wonderfulness that is “Menu For Hope” (number 5). It snuck up on us with less fanfare this year but the aim is the same as usual. You have until Christmas eve to buy a $(US)10 ticket or three and go into the draw for many wonderful, food oriented prizes. Ed is hosting the Australasian end so check out Tomato for all the details. Am too busy to do a full link fest but be assured he’ll tell you how to do it and link to the founder, Pim’s, full list of world prizes, some of which can be shipped to this far corner of the world.

The money you donate goes to feed those who can’t afford to feed themselves, this year through the UN World Food Programme school lunch program in Lesotho.


While there is so much hunger and deprivation in the world, its amazing how self centred we still are with our claims of being hard done by here in the affluent West. My favourite article of the week comes from the delightful Mark Bittman, who could have subtitled the piece “shut up and quit whinging”. After posting photos of him cooking in his small NY kitchen he was flooded with responses from people who queried how on earth he could create such good food from such an inadequate space. I love his response. It’s what I say to myself whenever I hanker for a wider oven, top line appliances or even a house big enough to devote a whole room to cooking. I also remember that I lived in this house for many years with a sink, old cooker and no storage. It’s not what you’ve got, it’s how you use it.

If I don’t get a chance to nip back here in the coming week – solstice greetings to one and all. I hope the New Year brings all that you desire, plus a little happiness to the kids in Lesotho.

running out of chocolate in the pantry is not the same as the global food shortage

I am wondering if it is just a little obscene at a time of increasing awareness about global food shortages, to be spending so much time writing about the joys of eating.

So I am going to take a moment to give thanks for having adequate personal resources to be able to shop each week at a plentiful market. Sure I shudder at the price of organic fruit most days but at least I have the choice to shop elsewhere if eating conventionally is better than having no fruit at all. What a luxury.

There has been a flurry of media activity this week, as a result of the IMF meeting last weekend, warning about global food shortages. Sure diverting land once dedicated for food to crops for biofuel is a large part of the problem. It is such a typical quick fix reaction to try to solve one problem by creating another. Global warming is already impacting on food costs in Australia where drought and floods are affecting production costs, so too the high cost of oil to cart the stuff around this vast land. Increased wealth in countries like China, creating a greater market for meat, coupled with a looming recession and inflation in the west are shooting prices up around the world. But can’t we take a step back from the hullabaloo and think holistically for a change? This article on the rising cost of food in India looks at not only the problems,

Already, about half of India was not eating full meals; going through days without food. With the price rise, I can see about 70 to 80 per cent of India will be pushed into hunger and starvation

but provides broader analysis of the real problems and appropriate ways of finding a solution.

In the meantime, I give thanks for the ability to put food on my table and support organisations like Oxfam and world food programs through Chez Pim’s ingenious annual Menu For Hope.

I’ll get off my soapbox now but first I ask all of us food oriented folk to spend a moment contemplating the issue and see what other ways we can find to make a ripple of change in the global food shortage crisis.

menu for Hope 4

If you are a regular food blog reader you know what special place this time of year has in our hearts and wallets. Chez Pim's wonderful fundraiser to feed those who can't afford to put food on their plate "Menu for Hope" is now it's 4th year. A worldwide, blog-based fundraiser which is quite simply brilliant. Menu for Hope is an online raffle with such a wealth of food related prizes for a mere (US)$10 a ticket you'd be a fool not to enter.




Helen from Grab Your Fork is hostess with the mostess once more for collating the Asia Pacific Prizes. From homemade stout to degustations at amazing restaurants, it is once more an exciting treasure trove to whet your donations.

If you really want to get excited, especially if you have any travel coming up in 2008, the worldwide line up of prizes has quitely blown my mind and made me wish I had a trip booked to take advantage of market tours, cooking schools or even a personal tour of elBulli kitchen laboratory at the new Alícia Institute with Ferran Adrià himself. To see the entire line up of prizes and donate towards the cause skip over to Chez Pim's Menu for Hope 4.