"food festival" news and stories

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

• The King of Texas graciously shares his tips for grilling steak.
• Giada remains svelte by eating whenever she wants -- you can too.
• Enjoy these cupcakes instead of the hackneyed wedding cake.
• The Best New Chefs bring it at the Aspen Food & Wine Classic.
• Pepino el Pyu is the perfect Colorado cocktail.
• Exclusive, revealing shots of the Voltaggio twins.
• Even chefs can rough it in tents.

Valentine's Day is a little more than a week away and so it is time to start celebrating all things chocolate. Our friends over at Culinate are hosting a contest in which they'll be sending both a reader (and their guest) and a food blogger (as well as their guest) to Copia Center's Death by Chocolate Festival in Napa Valley. Entering is easy, just head over to the Culinate contest page, sign up and choose your favorite food blogger. You enter yourself when you vote and put your preferred blogger one step closer to winning as well.

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The annual foodie-fest that is the Singapore Food Festival will begin on the 1st July.

According to the Singapore Tourist Board chilli crab is the favourite dish among tourists - so what a better way than to kick of the festival than with a mega chilli crab festival (Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza).  The dish will be one of the many local delights that will be highlighted at the festival through food carnivals and cooking competitions.

The festival attracted more than 300,000 visitors last year and the organisers - Reed Exhibitions and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) - hope to top the figures this year. To tie in with the World Cup season, the festival will also feature unique dishes based on a football theme but there is plenty more occuring for those trying to escape the footie.

The Singapore Tourism Board, said that "During this period, there's the Great Singapore Sale, there's the Arts Festival that's on-going, so there's this buzz there. There's this vibrant event scene in Singapore, so be it eating, dining (or) shopping, there is something for everyone during this period."

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The Independent Food Festival and Awards is an online event dedicated to the idea that people should share their favorite foods and food experiences to help rekindle a love of and interest in food in general. Judging by the fact that the event seems to be several times the size of last year's festival, this second annual event seems to be a success so far. 

You may have seen their logo on some of your favorite food blogs last year, when 30 well-known blogs were selected to act as jury members and contribute a favorite food-related thing to the online festival. Every jury member creates their own award and awards it as they see fit. The bloggers' awards are being announced over the course of five days, since there are quite a few more participants than last year. Since all the categories and awards are independently generated, it is difficult to say what you might expect to find amongst the nominees, but it is certain to be something delicious judging from the entries so far.