Monday, December 11, 2006

Menu for Hope.

Would you like to know the Food History of your birthday? Or some other special day?

You are presumably interested in the historical aspects of food if you are reading this blog. If you would like a chance to win a personalised food history for the day of your choice, and at the same time to make a contribution to helping the world's hungry, please read on.

As part of the international food-blogging community's effort to raise money for "Menu for Hope III" I am offering a prize of a personalised "Food History of the Day", for any day of the year that the winner cares to chose. This is the first time I have been involved in a blogging effort such as this and I am delighted.

First: the background.

Last year food bloggers around the world raised $17,000 for UNICEF. This year the campaign is in aid of the World Food Program, which was set up in 1963 as the United Nations frontline agency in the fight against global hunger. In 2003, the WFP fed 104 million people in 81 countries, including refugees and internally displaced people and families left homeless by natural disaster. WFP relief workers do whatever it takes to get food to those in need.

Next: how you can participate.

Some fantastic prizes have been donated all around the world. You can buy raffle tickets for as many of these as you wish, for US$10, between now and December 22nd. The winners will be announced on January 15th 2007. The details as to what prizes are available, and how to buy tickets are below, but before you jump ahead, here is what I am offering as my prize.


"Food History of Your Day".

I will write a food history for any day of the year chosen by the winner. It will be somewhere between 4-8 pages, and will include all sorts of facts and factoids on events and people and publications that are associated with that exact day. There will certainly be historic diary entries, and at least one historic menu. Naturally there will be several historic recipes that fit the events or people of the day.

It would make a great gift for a food-lover who has everything - it might even inspire a birthday dinner based on the menu of the day! If the winner cares to give me some personal details (not too personal!) for the desired recipient, I can personalise it even further.

I undertake to complete this within a week of the winner advising me of the date and any other information. I can email or snail-mail the history.

For more information:

The main instigator and host is Pim at Chez Pim. The complete list of prizes will be on Pim's site.

The Regional host for the Asia-Pacific region is Helen at Grab Your Fork.

The donation page is at First Giving.

How you donate:

IMPORTANT: The code for my prize is AP13.

1. Go to the donation page at First Giving.

2. Make a donation. Each $10 will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. Please specify which prize or prizes you'd like in the 'Personal Message' section in the donation form when confirming your donation. Do tell us how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code -for example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for AP01 and 3 for AP02.

3. For US donors, if your company has agreed to match your charity donation, please remember to check the box and fill in the information so we may claim the corporate match.

4. Please also check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

5. Check back on Chez Pim on January 15 when we announce the results of the raffle. (The drawing will be done electronically. Our friend the code wizard Derrick at Obsession with Food is responsible for the wicked application that will do the job.)

Thankyou in Advance.

Please help this great international project. Ten dollars is a mere 2-4 cups of coffee from the coffee-shop of your choice. Unless you frequent very expensive coffee shops of course, in which case it might only be one cup of coffee. And if you can afford $10 for one cup of coffee you can afford to make a generous donation!

REMINDER: the code for the personalised Food History is AP13.

5 comments:

  1. I've been reading your blog for a few days now, and I really enjoy it. Thank you for putting so much love into it. I don't know if a donation will be possible at the moment, but I may like to purchase one of your offered prize for a future birthday present. I hope that will be possible.

    Emily

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  2. Hello Emily; thanks for your interest. Let me know when you are ready, and we can discuss it.

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  3. What a lovely present this would make for my baby girl! Not that she's interested in food yet (unless you count breastmilk) :-)

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  4. Hello Liz and baby daughter. We definitely count breastmilk as food, but perhaps your daughter is not ready yet to read her birthday food history. We might need to wait until she is at least 12 months, dont you think?

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  5. What a lovley prize. Totally unique.

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