Awesome Feel Good Food Events Coming Up…

Hello hello! I wanted to take a pause in the sugar coated fun that I’ve been having here at my little blog Eat the Love to let you guys know of a few things that are happening here in San Francisco as well as nationally and even internationally, all events that are awesome and worth checking out.

The first one is Taste of the Nation, an awesome fundraiser event happening on April 7th for Share our Strength, a nonprofit whose mission is to make sure no child is hungry here in the United States. Normally tickets are $95 for General Admission, $165 for VIP and $500 for Executive Level, but today, March 24th, you can buy tickets at a $10 discount at Incanto between the hours of 5:30pm and 8:30pm. On top of that Chef Cosentino will buy you a beer if you purchase a ticket tonight! Who hoo! Free beer AND a discounted ticket to one of the coolest food events of the season AND helping out the kids. Talk about a win-win-win situation.

If you can’t make it to Incanto tonight or you don’t live in San Francisco, you should still pop over to the main Taste of the Nation page and see about buying tickets for your own hometown. They are happening all over the nation and if San Francisco’s event last year is any indication of what to expect, it’ll be fantastic. Pop on over to their website to see a list of participating San Francisco restaurants, including A16, Baker & Banker, Bar Bambino, Bar Tartine, Boulevard, Fifth Floor, Incanto, Michael Mina, Orson, RN74, Spruce, Tell Tale Preserve Co, Ubuntu, Zero Zero and many many more.

Next up, on March 30th is the Online Bake Sale that my pal Sabrina over at the Tomato Tart is hosting to raise funds for Second Harvest Japan, a food bank that is currently working in Japan responding immediately to the needs of people displaced by the Earthquake and tsunami. The virtual bake sale has over 60 people donating goods from around the world. If you’re a blogger or want to donate a bake good, there’s still time to do that, just bounce over to the Tomato Tart’s blog for the details. Otherwise, visit her site on March 30th and bid on the item that you want in the auction. Be sure to bounce over there now and check out the amount of talent involved though; it’s pretty awe inspiring. The food blogging community is amazing.

I’ll be donating salted blood orange spice caramels to the virtual bake sale. I’m still tinkering with the recipe, so I can’t post a final beauty shot of them yet or even tell you exactly what all the ingredients will be, but needless to say, AJ’s students (who have been eating the experiments) have been exceedingly happy with them. And those are just the rejects! But look for a post next week with the final product and what ingredients I decided to use for them.

Blood Orange Caramels - a work in progress

A few days later, on April 2nd, the food blogging community will come together again for Bakesale for Japan, but this time in real life (ie. not virtually) to host a number of bake sales across the nation to benefit the victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. You can visit the official website and find a location near you. I’ll be at the BiRite Market location here in San Francisco donating some of my baked goods as well as my time (and possibly showing people how to fold paper cranes – something I’ve been doing since I was six years old). 18 Reasons, the sister nonprofit organization of BiRite Market will be holding an art sale concurrent with the bake sale with proceeds going to Japanese earthquake victims too, so be sure to check that out as well, just down the street.

Yeah, I folded those cranes. I'm chinky that way.

That said, I haven’t figured out what I’m going to bake for it yet, so if you have any suggestions or want anything of mine that I have made on this blog, feel free to comment below. I’ll see what I can do!

Speaking of 18 Reasons and bake sales, on May 14th between 10am and 6pm, I’ll be at the SF Food Bloggers Bake Sale that is being spearheaded nationally by Gaby Dalkin of What’s Gaby Cooking and hosted at 18 Reasons. I’m helping to organize it, so if you are in the bay area and want to donate or volunteer, feel free to drop by our blog or drop us an email. On top of raising money for Share our Strength, it’ll be a lot of fun and it’ll give all you food bloggers (and readers) a chance to not only taste some of the goods we photograph and labor over, but also to meet each other and put a real face to the virtual face you see on the computer screen. Just an FYI, I normally don’t have a cocked eyebrow like that picture above so don’t be confused when you meet me.

Last year's SF Food Blogger Bake Sale

Moving on, those of you who are Twitter may have noticed a twitter hashtag of #nudiefoodie being used a lot. Linda of Salty Seattle is organizing a number of food bloggers to bare it all (tastefully of course) for a good cause. We’ll be donating a recipe, along with a tasteful but slightly risqué, photo of ourselves in a 2012 calendar, with the proceeds going to a nonprofit benefiting the Japan victims. Wait a minute. Did I just say WE? Yes, I’m participating, though I’m not sure if that will be an incentive for people to buy the calendar or for people to NOT buy the calendar. Either way, keep an eye out for the official announcement of the calendar with more details to come. Either way, you can follow the hashtag of #nudiefoodie on Twitter if you’d like.

Finally, as a side note, if you are on Twitter (and if you aren’t, why not?), you’ll notice that I have a shiny new twitter username of @eatthelove. New username, same wry ribald wit. So why don’t you follow me? I promise to amuse you online in 140 characters or less. See you there!