Congratulations!!

A winner of the Tate & Lyle competition was picked this morning using an online random selector.

Congratulations to Wendy, I do hope you’ll get plenty of baking joy from this parcel of goods. Please email me your details and I’ll pass them on to Tate & Lyle who will dispatch the sugars direct.

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It’s competition time again folks. This time it’s courtesy of Tate & Lyle, probably the UK’s most famous sugar company.

Tate  & Lyle has committed to making its entire retail range 100% Fairtrade and  you can get most of their sugars in Waitrose and The Co-op and they are just  starting to sell their Fairtrade granulated sugar in Tesco.

To celebrate the launch of their new Facebook Page We Love Baking, they are offering one lucky reader a selection of their sugars.

All you need to do is leave a comment here telling me your fondest baking memory. The competition will close Wednesday 25th August at midnight (GMT). I will announce the winner the following day.

Please note the competition is open to UK residents only.

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Just a quick note to say that Katie from Katie At The Kitchen Door is the lucky winner of my recent competition to win a Pestle & Mortar.

I hope Katie will be pleased with the new addition to her kitchen and will find having a pestle & mortar beneficial.

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It’s give away time again folks! This time though I’m sorry to say the competition is only open to those in the USA. The prize? A pestle and mortar.

A mortar is a bowl shaped container made of a hard wood, marble, pottery, or stone. The pestle is a bat shaped tool that is used to grind inside the mortar and pulverize grains, herbs, and other food substances.

Italian frescoes of the 15th Century show Mortars and Pestles in use by Apothecaries (ancient Pharmacists). The Molcajete, or Mexican version of the mortar and pestle appears in Mexican pre-history in the Tehuacán Valley, as early as the discovery of our hybridized present-day corn, 6,000 years ago.

The best ones are generally considered to be made of either granite or cast iron and the one I’m giving away is a large, solid, high sided granite one. High sides? Perfect if you’re a little messy like me for keeping the spices actually in the pestle.

I’m sure you’d all agree a pestle and mortar is essential kitchen equipment. Sure using the food processor is easier but the grinding process of a pestle & mortar releases the oils, and flavour essence of the substance much more effectively than a processor ever could. Depending on the food you are preparing the process can be quite labourious but if you enjoy cooking, using a mortar and pestle will simply be a greatly enjoyable part of your “craft” of food preparation.

I have the team over at CSN stores (who have more than 200 online stores that sell everything from cookware to yoga accessories to bamboo flooring to barstools) to thank for allowing me to give away this great prize.

To enter all you need to do is leave me a comment here, making it clear if you are in the US, by April 29th and I will pick a winner on May 1st. I’ll then contact the winner directly and pass their details on to CSN stores so that they can arrange dispatch of the item.

So come on, why not have a bash at entering? You might be the lucky winner.

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How do you fancy winning a trip to Vietnam?

London’s first Vietnamese street food restaurant Pho has launched a new website and to celebrate, the owners Stephen and Juliette Wall are giving away a holiday in Vietnam to two lucky customers.

Pho restaurants specialise in the national dish of Vietnam: pho – pronounced “fuh”. Stephen and Juliette got the inspiration to start Pho in London five years ago after travelling to Vietnam and being inspired by the culture and the cuisine. To thank all of their loyal customers, or pho-natics as they like to call them, they are giving away two flights and accommodation for a holiday in Ho Chi Minh, a city which inspired the couple to quit their jobs and open a Vietnamese restaurant.

For those not in the know, pho s Vietnam’s national dish. It’s their national obsession – often referred to as the “soul of the nation”. It’s quite simply a delicious and nutritious noodle soup dish eaten every day by the Vietnamese for breakfast, lunch or dinner – or sometimes for all. It’s the ultimate street food.

Pho began life in Hanoi – and while Vietnamese by birth was influenced by Chinese neighbours and the French colonists (pho sounds like feu, the French word for fire, as in pot-au-feu). As it travelled south pho developed subtle traits distinctive to the region – very much akin to Vietnamese cuisine as a whole. In the north pho is a more basic beef broth (pho bac) and there is little use of additional seasonings whereas in the south there’s a more pronounced use of herbs, greens and chillies.

Pho began to go global in the latter part of the 20th century, noticeably in France due to their colonial links and in North America where a large number of specialist “pho shops” were founded around the large Vietnamese expat communities.

Pho-natics can visit the new website and visit the competition page – with a click of the mouse they will be entered to win a holiday in Vietnam.

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Following on from my Feed The World BloggerAid Cook Book give-away, I am ready to announce the winner!

Thank you to all who participated and spread the word about this worthy cause. It really is much appreciated and I truly hope that by hosting this give-away I have in some small way actually helped to contribute and fight world poverty.

So (drum roll please), the winner, randomly picked by my Dad using a names in the hat method, is Sarah from Maison Cupcake!! Congrats Sarah, I really hope you’ll enjoy the book.

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Christmas is often seen as the time of excess and of great joy but it isn’t always that way for everyone – something the above music video brings home well.

It was the lovely Jeanne at Food Blogger Connect (see the ultra cool video below and this article here) who introduced me to the BloggerAid Cook Book, how I had managed to be blogging for over two years and not know about it before I do not know.

ALL the money from sales will go towards a very important cause. Read an (edited) excerpt from the book below.

“Food does not simply nourish the body; food also celebrates what makes the world diverse, as well as, what unites us. The BloggerAid Cook Book is a collection of international recipes illustrating that we can work together and unite for a greater cause. The authors of this cookbook are food bloggers from around the world who have endeavored to make a difference by raising funds for the World Food Programme and encompassing their passion for “all things foodie” at the same time. …

The United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) was chosen to receive the funds generated by the cookbook because of the wonderful work this organization does. The WFP has touched the lives of our members, many of whom are from countries where poverty is often a way of life. More specifically, 100% of BloggerAid’s proceeds from the cookbook will benefit the WFP’s School Meals Programme, which benefits an average of 22 million hungry children each year.”

You too can help in this endeavour by buying the book and spreading the word about it. There is so much of poverty in the world and whilst this book will not resolve every problem, the money raised is a tiny step forward towards our underprivileged fellow beings’ welfare. One day, who knows, those tiny steps will become giant leaps one day. So please help in this endeavour and promote the book in any way you can. And I emphasise once again that 100% of the proceeds from this book will go towards the World Food Program (the United Nations frontline agency) called School Meals.

You can join up to become a member of BloggerAid really easily by clicking the below link. It costs nothing but allows you to easily keep up to date with the fabulous achievements and work done by BloggerAid.

Visit BloggerAid Changing the Face of Famine

I have a copy of The BloggerAid Cook Book sitting here patiently waiting to be posted on to one lucky reader (my first ever blog giveaway whoohoo). To stand a chance of winning just leave me a comment below and a name will be randomly picked on Jan 1st.

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