Taste of Home contest The folks at the Taste of Home cooking magazine tell us that the Minneapolis/St. Paul area is its top subscriber market, so they're expecting lots of entries from here in its America's Best Loved Recipe Contest. Winners in each of four categories will be chosen by magazine judges, then readers and visitors to the Taste of Home website will decide which of the four recipes deserves the $25,000 grand prize. The four categories for original recipes are classic, light, time-saver and serves two. For details, go to www.tasteofhome.com/bestloved or send your recipe and category choice to Taste of Home: America's Best Loved Recipe Contest, 5400 S. 60th St., Greendale, WI 53129. Deadline is March 1, 2009.
Eat local challenge Lakewinds Natural Foods stores in Minnetonka, Chan-hassen and Anoka are challenging shoppers to try to eat 50 percent of their meals using products grown or produced within the five state-region during the "Eat Local America Challenge" Aug. 15 through Sept. 15. The idea behind buying locally grown produce is to decrease dependency on oil and enable consumers to have more influence on how their food is grown. To help consumers, Lakewinds denotes local food on its shelves with a local label. The kickoff for its "Eat Local Challenge" is 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at all stores, with accordion music and food samples.
Jane Jetson's kitchen? News from the cutting edge of refrigerator technology: The GE Profile bottom-freezer refrigerator comes with an LCD media center upon which you can upload family photos, access a guide to recipe substitutions and measurement conversions and tap into nutrition information, all displayed on a 7-inch touch screen just above the ice dispenser in the door. According to the GE pitch, "If the kitchen is the heart of the home, this bottom-freezer refrigerator is certainly the brain." You supply the punch line.
Carr Valley triumphs The American Cheese Society (ACS) has given top honors to Carr Valley Cheese Co. of La Valle, Wis., during its 25th annual conference and cheese competition last month in Chicago. Cheesemaker Sid Cook earned "Best of Show" for his Snow White Goat Cheddar cheese, tapped as the best among the 1,149 cheeses submitted by more than 181 producers. Carr Valley also took third for its Cave-Aged Marisa. Second place went to a producer in Galax, Va., with Meadow Creek Dairy's Grayson.
KIM ODE
