"french laundry at home" news and stories

During the holidays, it seems like everywhere you turn there are plates of cookies, office lunches, parties with vast spreads of food and refrigerators filled to overflowing. However, there are many people in the world for whom this time of year does not represent edible abundance or the risk of gaining a few pounds. In order to try and change the way people think about alternative giving, three non-profit organizations that all play in role in stopping hunger, ending poverty and taking care of the planet have teamed up.

Heifer International (a non-profit that works to sustainably end hunger and poverty), Conservation International (they try to conserve the planet's living heritage) and Share Our Strength (a non-profit which works to end childhood hunger in the US) have join forces in order to get people thinking about alternative ways to be charitable this holiday season. Their program is called "Give a Better Present for a Better Future" and its goal is to get people to give at least one gift this year towards a healthier, better-fed planet and to do it in honor of someone you love.

Carol over at French Laundry at Home brought this program to my awareness and has posted about it herself. She includes a link for where you can go if you want to donate directly to Share Our Strength. Thanks for the tip, Carol!

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Because I'm fascinated by food, it should come as no surprise to any of you out there that I read a lot of food blogs. There are a bunch that I've been following a long time, and some that are relatively recent additions to my RSS reader. One that has become a new favorite of mine, is French Laundry at Home.

Carol started her project back in January and has been steadily cooking her way through Thomas Keller's cookbook ever since. She not only prepares his recipes, but documents each step along the way with pictures and notes about her progress. She is not shy admitting where she deviates from the written recipe and lets her readers know how she and her tasters enjoyed each dish. In addition to being a pretty able cook, she's an entertaining writer, and when I read her posts, I begin to feel like she's a friend of mine.

The picture above is from one of her latest posts, when she made Nectarine Salad with Green Tomato Confiture and Hazelnut Sabayon.