What do you eat when the grapes are ripe? Well, if you're surrounded by vineyards in northern Italy, you take your grapes and make a merenda, a snack, by pressing them into focaccia dough, sprinkling on olive oil, sugar, maybe a little anise seed, and baking the whole thing puffy and golden. And you call it schiacciata d'uva, which translates, appropriately enough, as "squashed grape thing."

But what if you can't get to Italy this autumn? While I was living in New York City, I discovered schiacciata d'uva on the fall menu at the Sullivan Street Bakery, along with a bunch of other rustic Italian-inspired breads and pastries. I'd walk 8 blocks from my office in Hell's Kitchen to get a slice in a paper bag, then eat all of it on the way back, wiping olive oil from my fingers as I went and wishing I'd bought two.

Spring, summer, and winter, I'd make the same walk for a slice of their Roman-style, thin-crust pizzas, topped with mushrooms or celery root, radicchio or potato. And they were good, but fall's grape flatbread was spectacular: pockets of juicy sweetness nestled into chewy, yeasty crust and crumb, accented by the surprising, subtly medicinal-herbal scent of anise.

Last time I checked, we had a lot of grapes growing around here, And what with all the slick Italian pizza joints around, you'd think we'd be rolling in grape-topped foccacia right about now. But nope: just as New York City has no Indian pizza, San Francisco has no schiacciata d'uva, as far as I've been able to discover. But, you have yeast, you have grapes, you have flour, sugar, a little anise seed and an inch or so of last night's white wine, and you can make your own.

This recipe began from the Focaccia from Genoa recipe in Carol Field's cookbook Focaccia: Simple Breads from the Italian Oven, further adapted by baker/blogger Jen McAllister, then messed around with in my own kitchen. Jen, who became a friend while we were both living the sweet outer-borough life in NYC (she in Queens, me in Brooklyn), wrote one of my favorite blogs, Prepare to Meet Your Bakerina. We shared a similar obsession with making bread, cake, jam, and pie, and an equal enthusiasm for the late Laurie Colwin, out-of-print British cookbooks, and the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow in Arkansas, where we both did fellowships.

Sadly, law school's gain is the blogosphere's loss; she's now out on the West Coast, a good thing, but too busy as a lawyer-to-be to blog much anymore. Happily, though, her site offers a big archive to sift through, including step-by-step pictures of this very focaccia in action.

But, back to the schiacciata. Given that the word means "squashed," this is a thinner, flatter focaccia than the usual fluffy mattress. It's mostly crust and topping, with just a thin layer of chewy, pull-y crumb inside. Tiny garnet-colored champagne grapes are perfect for this, but most red, blue, or purple seedless grapes would be fine. I wouldn't use Concords or Muscats, though, as they're too sweet and strongly flavored.

Unless you have a huge aversion to anything remotely licorice-flavored, don't skip the anise seeds. You don't need a lot of them, but you do need some. If you have some larger-crystal sugar, like turbinado (also sold under the brand name Sugar in the Raw), it adds a pleasant crunch.

This is a delicious before-dinner nosh with a little smudge of ripe, oozy tallegio. For breakfast the next morning, I'd warm up a slab in the toaster oven and serve it with some of Bellwether's crescenza cheese, the recipe for which these Marin cheesemakers learned from a small dairy near Milan. Buon appetito!

Schiacciata d'Uva

Sponge
1 cup flour
2/3 cup lukewarm water
1 tsp regular yeast
Dough
1/2 cup tepid water
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup white white
2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups flour
olive oil for bowl
Topping
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cups grapes, removed from stems
1/2 tsp anise seeds, or to taste
1-2 tbsp sugar

1. To make the sponge, dissolve yeast in a little of the lukewarm water. Add flour to the yeast mixture, then stir in enough water to make a stiff dough. You may not need all the water.

2. Cover sponge and let rise until softened and very bubbly, about 2 hours.

3. Scoop sponge (it will be sticky and stringy) into the bowl of a stand mixer, if you have one, or into a regular large bowl if not. Using the paddle attachment or a wooden spoon, beat in the water, olive oil, wine, and salt. Add the flour in 3 parts, beating well after each addition. The dough should be fairly slack.

4. Using a dough hook, knead until smooth and elastic, about 6 minutes. Or, knead by hand for 10-12 minutes. Try lightly oiling your hands if dough sticks to them. If the dough gets goopy and threatens to wrap around your hands and turn them into enormous gooey dough paws, add a little more flour, but go easy. Better to suffer a little now than to end up with a tight, heavy bread later.

5. Swish a couple of teaspoons of olive oil around a big clean bowl. Turn the dough into it, turn to coat, then cover the bowl and let the dough rise in a warmish place for 2 to 3 hours. Because you're using a fairly small amount of yeast, don't expect a big jump at this stage of the game. But it should rise somewhat, and have a nice supple, stretchy texture.

6. Lightly oil a large sheet pan, about 10 x 15. Punch down the dough and turn it out onto the sheet pan, spreading and stretching until it is forms a nice even rectangle. Dimple the dough with your fingertips. Brush with 1 tablespoon of olive oil.

7. Let dough rise again for another 40 minutes or so. Preheat oven to 425F. Just before baking, dimple the dough again and brush with another tablespoon of oil. Scatter grapes over dough, followed by anise and sugar.

8. Bake on middle rack for 30-35 minutes, until gently puffed and golden brown.

BlogHer Food '09 Keynote with Ree Drummond, David Lebovitz and Elise Bauer

Founded in 2005, BlogHer's mission is to create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment. Today, it reaches more than 15 million women each month via a Web hub with a listing of over 22,000 blogs by women (ranging from topics on politics, news, and technology, to food, health and family), a publishing network of more than 2500 blog affiliates, and annual conferences like the inaugural BlogHer Food '09 which took place Saturday, September 26th.

I felt giddy as a school girl as I ran my finger down the list of speakers lined up:

David Lebovitz, David Lebovitz: Living the Sweet Life in Paris
Diane Cu and Todd Porter, White on Rice Couple
Elise Bauer, Simply Recipes
Heidi Swanson, 101 Cookbooks
Helen Dujardin, Tartelette
Jaden Hair, Steamy Kitchen
Matt Armendariz, Matt Bites
Pim Techamuanvivit, Chez Pim/Menu for Hope
Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman Cooks
...among others.

These are the blogs I turned to for inspiration and guidance when I first decided to create my own. These are the people I looked to and thought, yes, that is what I want to do! To carve out a little space of my own, building my own story with each scrap of experience, word, or crumb I shared with the world.

As I sat amongst 300 fellow food writers/bloggers, rapt with attention as our blog crushes talked about the trials and tribulations, joys and inspirations of food blogging, I felt a wonderful sense of community. Regardless of where we were from, what we liked to write about, how long we've been at it, we had at least one thing in common...food. And the inexplicable need to talk about it.

And talk we did.

The day was divided into three tracks: Visual, Vocation, and Values, with speakers represented from diverse backgrounds and perspectives.

"Developing Your Visual Voice" -- Matt Armendariz and Heidi Swanson

The Visual Track focused on food photography -- developing your visual voice, basic principles and techniques, and how to take your photography to a new level.

"Your blog is great...now what?" -- Jaden Hair, Helen Dujardin and Amy Sherman

The Vocation Track delved into best practices on building a better blog, blogging as a profession, developing business relationships online and offline, and protecting yourself and your work. Bay Area Bites' very own, Amy Sherman from Cooking with Amy moderated a panel in this track all about letting your blog lead the way to new opportunities.

BAB also represented on the Values Track, with Jen Maiser, the woman behind the Eat Local Challenge, leading a discussion on "The Politics of Food...and Food Blogs" -- the very deliberate movement to change minds within and about the food industry. This track also explored "How Food Blogs Can Save the World," with discussions on how bloggers can support issues they care about, and how to take that action offline as a volunteer or activist.

And, of course, there was food.

Rocco and the lunching ladies

While overcooked pasta for lunch left much to be desired for, it appeared that Rocco DiSpirito did some damage control with his amped up charm, flying from table to table (dizzying as it may have been).

TuttiFoodie and Scharffen Berger hit the sweet spot with its Chocolate Adventure Contest demo with Elizabeth Falkner, Executive Chef of Citizen Cake and Orson.

The concept of the Chocolate Adventure Contest is to create an inventive recipe using Scharffen Berger chocolate and least one of their 17 listed "adventure ingredients." Chef Faulkner demonstrated her confectionary prowess by using 11 of them in her Chocolate Adventure Box, layering all sorts of goodies like homemade pandan-flavored marshmallow, peanut butter, cumin, and corn nuts, among other things.

Chef Elizabeth Falkner gets sticky

Chocolate Adventure Box

Now for the fun part…

Dive in! (Gudrun from Kitchen Gadget Girl goes fishing)

Yeaup, really get in there (Photo credit: Amy Wilson, Streaming Gourmet)

After we were sufficiently sugar-high, the Closing Keynote treated us to an open discussion with Elise Bauer, Ree Drummond and David Lebovitz -- three accomplished bloggers who have been at this a while. With very different styles and approaches to blogging, it was interesting to hear how they responded to similar challenges of sustaining momentum and avoiding burnout. It was also reassuring to hear that 1 post typically takes them anywhere from 4-6 hours to complete...and that it doesn't always come easy to them.

Party time: Todd Porter, Diane Cu and David Lebovitz

BlogHer Food '09 was very much about community, support, and growth. More coverage on the conference can be found in the live-blogging forums, but for a quick recap, here are my 5 take-aways from the sessions:

• Create opportunities -- Put yourself out there. Talk to people. Network. Step away from the computer.

• Come from a place of authenticity -- Sincerity goes a long way.

• If a business is what you want, treat it like a business -- Have a plan, make goals, create a vision that will keep you inspired.

• Share more than just the sugar and the flour -- People want a person and a life behind the blog. Don’t be afraid to share your story.

• Writer's block and burn out -- Happens to the best. Remind yourself of what you want. Do what makes you happy.

At the end of the day though, the highlight was getting to meet so many kindred souls. The weird and beautiful thing about blogging is how well you get to know someone from a distance. It was a real pleasure meeting many bloggers I've been following for months, and in the end, I guess that's what it's really about. Human connection (over something good to eat).

Joy, Gourmeted

The joint endeavor of Mission District housemates Kale Daikon and Eggplant Kohlrabi (a.k.a. Katrina Dodson and Erin Klenow), Weird Vegetables sprouts a cut above most local food blogs. Do not, for starters, confuse it with a younger, much less weird San Francisco-based rival going by the same name, a site dedicated, seemingly quite seriously, to "celebrating diversity throughout the plant kingdom." In contrast, the one of which I write inhabits a special dimension of biological whimsy, where the crisper spills forth a menagerie of anthropomorphic leaves, roots, and legumes, and a trip to the farmer's market feels like a twisted safari through unfamiliar lands. Stuffed into the blog's strange sieve of language and thought, vegetables are not merely waxed, sticker-tagged produce; they are characters. Identities, needs, wants, and feelings squirm within their husks and peels as well as flavors and nutrients. For Dodson and Klenow, they are ripe springboards for gleeful leaps into philosophy, linguistics, and general poetic absurdity as well as cookery.

Each entry often starts with a vegetable one of them has picked up at the store or market. From there, the specimen is assessed, first as object, then as food, an introduction irrigated with historical context and preparation suggestions, and subsequently sacrificed at the altar of their imagination. Take, for example, the August 2008 post on the lemon cucumber, in which Dodson sums up the chosen veggie as "a piece of produce that boasts the vaguely exotic yet familiar allure of the hybrid, the indeterminate, the mestizo...this fruit masquerading as a vegetable disguised as a fruit (a kind of double drag, F to V to F)." In the April 2009 treatise on farro ("Long Ago, a Farro Way"), a lisp-kissed summary of The Princess Bride acts as preamble to a discussion of the ancient grain's venerability and value, "farro" being, after all, a word perhaps best spoken with "a faraway look" in one's eyes. Clearly, vegetables are weird, often much weirder than we think, and the ways in which people treat these things they plant and eat says something about people too: namely, that they are weird as well. In early June, I visited the bloggers at their house. We skipped through the magic mustard greens garden, scouted scapes, and talked turnips.

Andrew Simmons: I like how your blog shares practical advice about actually cooking vegetables but also presents them as vibrant players in a somewhat goofy bio-cultural drama. What got you into vegetables? Did the blog evolve organically?

Katrina Dodson: I go to farmers' markets all the time and I spend a lot of time around food people, so I've learned something about vegetables from them as well.

AS: Why are vegetables weird?

KD: Certain types of vegetables can be weird because people don't normally eat them or aren't used to them, or they can be more common individual vegetables, like carrots and potatoes, that just look weird. I'm also really interested in the weirdness of language and how strange the naming of vegetables can be. I'm working on a Ph.D. in comparative literature right now so I think about metaphors all the time. That's the latest level of weirdness on the blog, the newest terrain.

Erin Klenow: I like how the name of a vegetable can freak someone out. The fact that something is called a blood orange is enough to get people to avoid eating it. And nipple fruit? It's pretty funny.

KD: Also known as titty fruit.

EK: It's often noted that people have aversions to eating gross parts of animals but when I mention a certain vegetable to some people, they just go ew ew ew.

KD: There's also the misguided idea that vegetarianism is boring, like you run out of things to eat because you just eat vegetables and nothing else. We're not vegetarians, by the way.

EK: When people ask me if I'm a vegetarian, I just say I only eat expensive meat.

KD: I taught a class at Berkeley on food called "Eating and Being Eaten." It was all about how food is always more than just food. Having that dialogue in my head really affected the blog.

AS: What did the class read?

KD: A lot of different things. There was a food politics section. We read some of The Omnivore's Dilemma, and talked about My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki and Kafka's A Hunger Artist. There was a whole meat theme. We talked about cannibalism too, because that’s a topic I’m really interested in.

AS: You have to bring that up at some point when you're talking about the idea of eating meat.

KD: There's a necessary violence that happens in the mere act of survival. You have to acknowledge it. Even vegetarians consume living things.

AS: When you write about vegetables, they sound like animals or aliens, bizarre creatures that might scuttle off the table. It's carnivorous, in a sense. Why don't you write about fruit?

EK: We do sometimes.

KD: They're technically a subset of vegetables. Vegetables are weirder than fruit though. People are more okay with weird fruit. They're sugary, luscious, and voluptuous. Fruit is meant to seduce. That's its biological function. Vegetables are gross. They have weird outgrowths. They're all like take it or leave it. In the lemon cucumber post, we talked about how "vegetable" is a cultural determination whereas "fruit" is biological. A fruit is any plant with an enclosed seed that comes from a flower. That's scientifically established, but vegetables are really undefined. They're just the edible parts of plants. Technically, anything goes.

AS: Erin, do you work in the food world?

EK: I was a waitress for a long time. Three years ago, I worked as an expeditor at Quince. I had to learn everything on the menu. I read a lot of food writing too. I grew up in Sonoma so I was always close to people who produced food, though I wasn't very conscious of it until later.

KD: I'm from San Francisco. We went to Berkeley together.

AS: I liked how, in the black radish entry, you compiled a list of black foods to see, in part, what they have in common. They're all polarizing. I've eaten black radish before so I think I know what you're talking about when you describe it as being "very radish-y." How would you describe a "radish-y" person?

KD: Kind of abrasive. Kind of funny. Acerbic. Sometimes goes a little too far.

EK: A little refreshing but also overwhelming.

AS: If you were a vegetable, which would you be?

KD: I'm clearly Kale Daikon -- my initials. I said onion once when someone asked me that but it's not, you know, because I have so many layers and you have to peel them off...

AS: But the onion is so common, the cheapest vegetable in the store...

KD: I was feeling like one at the time.

EK: I've always identified with eggplant -- for Erin, I guess. Eggplant are a little inconsistent. They can be delicious and creamy or bitter.

AS: I don't want to read too much into that, but you might be the kind of person that, given proper attention and care, can be a very pleasant cohort in friendship...

EK: I like that it's purple.

KD: I have to say that now I've picked up more of an affinity to the carrot. They're unexpectedly weird.

EK: I could be a turnip too now that I think about it. Roasted, they're so good. I like them but I think about things I want to eat and they aren't usually something I'd want to be.

AS: Maybe be something no one would eat.

KD: Like bracken? But they serve it at Cha-Ya.

Listen Live to Eating Out in the Bay Area on KQED 88.5FM Thu, Apr 9, 2009 -- 10:00 AM.

Listen to the audio archive of Eating Out in the Bay Area on KQED's Forum. (archive posts 4/9 late eve)


Eating Out in the Bay Area
The San Francisco Chronicle just released its annual list of the Bay Area's 100 Top Restaurants. We'll talk about the new list with restaurant critic Michael Bauer. We'll also talk with food writer Marcia Gagliardi and Zagat editor Meesha Halm about some of the area's better budget deals, and look at the relevancy of restaurant criticism in the era of blogs and Yelp.

Host: Michael Krasny

Guests:
Marcia Gagliardi, freelance food writer and author of the e-column "The Tablehopper."

Michael Bauer, executive food and wine editor and restaurant critic for The San Francisco Chronicle. Bauer writes SFGate's food blog: Between Meals.

Meesha Halm, local editor of the Zagat Bay Area Restaurant Guide

Via Eat Me Daily

I spend entirely too much time on the Internet. Sometimes I'm working, sometimes I go into a Facebook Scramble trance, and other times, I am taking a look at what other food bloggers are doing.

There are, for better or for worse, a dizzying amount of food blogs out there. And most of them are, frankly, unappetizing. The sinister flash photography, the "look-what-I-had-for-dinner" sharing, the heavy reliance on the exclamation point, the word "yummy" or the suffix "-icious." It's enough make me show you what-I-had-for-dinner. After I have eaten it.

And don't get me started on the number of cupcake blogs out there or I shall cry.

Fortunately, there are a few places of refuge: sites that sparkle like the Emerald City set against the background of a sky blackened by millions of flying, food blogging monkeys.

The following are my current web crushes, in no particular order. One is relatively famous and respected in the food world, one should be, and the other is just plain interesting. They are sites that always have me coming back for more. If you don't know them already, you should. Give them a little look-see. If you're anything like me, you'll be hooked instantly.

David Lebovitz

Photo by David Lebovitz

You probably already know him or, at least know of him. If you don't, you should. He's one of the most visible food bloggers around. And for very good reason. Lebovitz is a pastry wiz who made a name for himself right here in the Bay Area. Now an American in Paris, he shares his experience of living in a city that many Americans fantasized about without the irritating look-at-me-I'm-in-Paris tone of other writers, for which I am deeply grateful. In fact, he can even mention cupcakes without upsetting me. Of course, showgirls were a mitigating factor.

His recipes and food photography are solid and enticing, his writing style is concise and informative yet chatty and personable. David Lebovitz might heart Neufchâtel, but I heart his blog.

Ezra Pound Cake

Photo-- Ezra Pound Cake

Several weeks ago, while trolling about the Internet, I found a food photography website. I couldn't tell you the name. What I can tell you is that, as I was thumbing through the thumbnails of dessert photos and whatnots, I discovered that most of the images I was clicking on were taken from the same food blog. Ezra Pound Cake. I clicked on over to the website, just kicking myself for not having thought up that name before this particular blogger did.

Ezra Pound Cake. It's just plain brilliant. Rebecca Crump, the force behind the blog, describes the name as a "Wheel of Fortune-style Before & After phrase, like Toby Keith Urban or Whitney Houston Texas." It spells out her own "before" and "after" as a writer-turned-baker. And, man, can she do both.

Filled with a recipes culled from her favorite websites and cook books, Crump tackles them with charm, wit, and a healthy dose of pop culture references. She is a blogger after my own heart, except with better photography, baking, and naming skills.

Ezra Pound Cake isn't budging from my blogroll.

Eat Me Daily

Meat Bingo. Photo by Mike Zortman

I don't even know where to begin with this one. Eat Me Daily is a fascinating group blog that started doing its thing in October 2008. Almost pointless to describe, this website is primarily devoted to food-related media: visual arts, television programming and commercials, cookbooks, print ads, and news-related items.

From Martha Stewart to meat bingo to frog blancmange, this site really has it going on. It is, however, not for the squeamish or, as they put it "your mom (unless your mom is awesome)."

Meet me there for a daily dose of odd.

If you eat out and read blogs and live in the Bay Area, then you've surely heard your share about the doors opening soon at this shiny, new Noe Valley restaurant.

Perhaps you've even followed the saga, Chef Brett Emerson's wild ride from inspiration through daily exasperations and deep disappointment to -- at last! -- his very own kitchen.

Chef Brett Emerson

Brett's ability to remain hopeful and focused, even through the darkest days of building a restaurant, exhilarates all of us who nurse big, dangerous dreams, the kind that frighten away even those who love us and that chew into us slowly, tenderly, insistently.

This is not a review -- too early. This is not a profile -- I'm not objective enough.

Rather, this is an open thank you note to a friend and colleague for sharing his passion with us. It is a letter of gratitude to every chef and restaurateur who takes on the worry, the stress, the pain. To cooks who sweat on the hot line. To servers who balance oversized plates and placate the oversized egos. To all the small business owners who, together, shoulder the weight of our economy.

Traces of past summers and lingering flavors.

I first met Brett nearly fifteen years ago at cooking school. Tall and angular, quiet yet warm, he aced our spice identification test -- the only one in our class who recognized whole fenugreek seeds -- and since then, we've followed each other's meanderings through one kitchen after another.

Two summers ago I was picking fat, juicy olallie berries with him as he faced a very long and rocky road of financing, construction, marketing and menu planning. His vision wouldn't allow him to take the easy path. This week I watched him, in his pristine chef whites directing his own kitchen staff, with Elan welcoming guests and pouring wine, and I realized, yes -- anything is possible.

Elan Drucker pours one of their well-selected Spanish wines.

Please support your local restaurants, all those small businesses that are the true gems of San Francisco's food world. Yes, chains may offer you a free this or that to entice you in. Yes, eateries that use expensive reservation systems are so convenient. Yes, established kitchens are safe. Yes, parking in certain neighborhoods can be a nightmare. And yes, even the best can stumble from time to time.

Contigo's dishes are simple and comfortable, yet packed with the big flavors of Spain.

But remember that they're just like our friends, with their moods and quirks and bad hair days. We'd be poor without their generosity, unhappy without their love. Behind these businesses are individuals, something we forget now as we Google and Yelp our way to a meal. Let's try to maintain the whole -- ideas and people, personal risks and community spirit -- and not reduce eating to half-stars and sassy sniping.

It'll be crazy for a few weeks at Contigo, as everything from the plumbing to the food deliveries settles into workaday smoothness. But talk to any chef and you'll know that every morning brings surprises. It's never easy feeding a roomful of strangers.

Both the menu and wine list draw from the Iberian Peninsula, with a focus on the flavors of Barcelona.

So, head over to Contigo and introduce yourself to Brett. He'll be standing there inches from you. Small restaurants of this caliber and individuality are becoming increasingly rare, with investment groups opening one "concept" after another and chef/owners long ago an endangered species. Right now, there's no better place for experiencing the excitement of dreams achieved.

Contigo
1320 Castro Street (at 24th)
San Francisco, CA 94114
(415) 285-0250
Map

Jamon waiting to be grilled.

Twitter, the microblogging site, is rapidly becoming a time-sensitive source for news and information about what is happening in the world of food. Bay Area Bites uses Twitter to share daily food highlights chosen from our favorite food & drink resources as well as share stories covered by KQED Food.

Follow Bay Area Bites on Twitter to stay up-to-date with breaking food news and events specific to KQED or relevant to the food blogosphere and beyond.

Setting up a Twitter account and following food bloggers and like-minded foodies is an excellent way to connect with the food community online.

For more information read Jen Maiser's post on Twitter and Serious Eats' post to see a list of BAB and other foodworthy bloggers to follow.

Scan the list of people that your favorite food bloggers are following to find interesting threads from people with food-related content.

You can also use Twitter search to find food-related tweets.

Here is a Twitter badge (one of two types you can generate from your own Twitter account) displaying the live feed from bayareabites:

Informative articles on Twitter and Related Applications
From TechCrunch:
How To Make Twitter Sound Like Music To Your Ears
The Top 21 Twitter Clients (According To TwitStat)
The Top 21 Twitter Applications (According to Compete)
The Real Video Twitter: 12seconds.tv (500 Alpha Invites)

From Mashable:
Twitter category -- numerous articles

I'm going to try not to sound like a grandma-in-a-rocking-chair here, but indulge me for a moment: I joined the food blog community in its infancy. When I started my blog over five years ago, there were just a handful of us around. I don't think that any of us imagined what this blog community was going to become, or predicted the explosion of food bloggers worldwide.

So, what's bringing on all this nostalgia? It's the announcement of the 5th Annual Menu for Hope -- a worldwide fundraising effort by food bloggers for a designated charity. This is an event that really highlights the magnitude of the food blogger community and its impact around the world.

This year the charity of choice is the United Nations World Food Programme, with the funds specifically going to an important school lunch program in Lesotho.

Menu for Hope is hosted by Pim of Chez Pim, and is the annual major fundraising event for food bloggers. Last year, the event raised over $90,000 for the Lesotho program.

The event is a raffle, with each ticket costing $10. Everyone can participate. There are dozens of prizes this year, broken into areas of the world:

West Coast
Wine
East Coast
Canada
Asia

Each year, the prizes get more exciting and more innovative. There are many ways to strategize your prize choices -- some choose to find the prizes with a low number of bids to increase their chances of winning. At first glance, here is my wish list for prizes I'd love to win:

Dinner for 6 at Contigo, with sommelier service by Alder of Vinography. (In Praise of Sardines, prize code UW14). Brett Emerson of In Praise of Sardines is opening his restaurant in Noe Valley within weeks. This prize will allow you and five friends to have dinner at this Catalan-inspired restaurant.

Knife of your Choice (Steamy Kitchen, prize code UE01). Win a chef's knif of your choice from New West Knifeworks.

Two boxes of Macarons from Petites Bouchees (Veronica's Test Kitchen, prize code UE04). I am a sucker for well-made macarons, and the prize of 48 macarons is too tempting to pass up.

Bo Ssam dinner for 8 at Ssam Bar (Momofuku - UE15). There are a couple of prizes that I would be willing to travel for, and if I won this dinner from Momofuku, I would be on a plane to New York City in a split second.

Lowel Ego Two Light Set (Kalyn's Kitchen - UW10). This is a great prize for all the food photographers out there. I'd love to have this prize for my indoor food photography.

Dinner with Eric Asimov (The Pour / NY Times - WB02). I get sweaty palms even imagining having dinner with Eric Asimov, but what a fun dinner it would be!

A case of small production wines from Raymond. (Raymond Vineyards - WB22). This is a carefully selected case of wine from Raymond Vineyards.

There are dozens more prizes to choose from, so please take a look for yourself and decide what to bid on! You can find out more details about Menu for Hope on Pim's site.

To donate to Menu for Hope:
1) Choose your prizes and note the prize codes.
2) Go the the First Giving site for Menu for Hope
3) Specify which prize you'd like in the "Personal Message" section according to the rules on the First Giving site.
4) If your company matches charity donations, check the appropriate box.
5) Check the box allowing the page owner to see your email address for the purposes of contacting the winners.
6) Check back on Chez Pim on January 12 to see who won!

Do you know about Twitter? It's the reason that many Bay Area food blogs have been lying dormant lately, and why mothballs are piling up on our RSS readers. Twitter is a "micro-blogging" site where users can post statements of 140 characters or less. And many of us do it, many times a day. It's quick and following your favorite bloggers is easy to do. Even if you're not interested in "tweeting" yourself, you can set up a Twitter account and follow your favorite bloggers. Just select the links below and press "follow" under the username. Then, each time you go to Twitter, you'll be able to see what everyone is up to.

Why follow Twitter? Is it just one more time-waster in a day? Maybe, but I am starting to feel differently. Folks who follow Bay Area food blogger Pim found out yesterday that Daniel Patterson had scored two Michelin stars for Coi before any large news organization had reported it. Using Twitter, you can talk directly to the corporate offices at Whole Foods. And many of us talk about the food news of the day on Twitter long before we write blog posts or comment on community boards.

Twitter is also changing the way that organizations do business. To learn more about that, check out this story about Twitter on Marketplace.

I've listed some of the Bay Area Twitter feeds that I follow below. You'll recognize the first few as authors on Bay Area Bites. This list, however, just scratches the surface. For a more comprehensive list of food bloggers on Twitter, see the Serious Eats list.

Stephanie, Grub Report
"Having hot cocoa and Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese for breakfast. Clearly, I am now 12."

Amy Sherman, Cooking with Amy
"off to buy polenta. I always think I have it on hand but then it turns out to be couscous or cornmeal..."

Bay Area Bites
"Temescal farmers' market rocks! cauliflower, artichokes, shitake mushrooms, lamb sausage...and, of course, indian food...my sunday addiction"

Shuna, Eggbeater
"One day establishments specializing in sweet things will eradicate the mis-spelling DESERT. One Day... One can hope beyond hope, yeah?"

Michael Procopio, Food for the Thoughtless
"currently working both a Wells Fargo dinner and a Morgan Stanley..."
"Fargo folks are laughing, Stanley folks are not."

Genie, The Inadvertent Gardener
"Four hours until I have to leave the house again to get to my dinner engagement. Need to make a realistic list that does not include sloth."

Pim, Chez Pim
"I can eat cream cheese frosting by the cupful, really I can, and I am...um, eating it, by the cupful..."

Kristin, Offbeat Eating
"Yum, had my first pupusa--bean and cheese--at the Alemany farmer's market. I could get used to eating those."

Biggie, Lunch in a Box
"Used a pile of beautiful tomatoes tonight in a no-cook pasta sauce with smoked mozzarella and basil. Bug approved, wants the rest in bento."

Jennifer Jeffrey
"Tamari-sesame rice cakes: eh. Not exactly what I was looking for in a mid-morning snack"

Sam, Becks & Posh
"My work colleagues raised their eyebrows at my radish-eating habits today. I took a pile of them to a meeting for a snack. They think me odd"

Denise, Chez Us
"I have to say vanilla bean spongettes w/burnt caramel sauce was OUTSTANDING! I will post all later ... tomorrow."

Sean Timberlake, Hedonia
"is making leftovers ragù: lamb/beef shank from Friday's ad hoc ossobuco, lamb chop/rabbit from Eloise last night, braising liquid & tomatoes ..."

Derrick Schneider, An Obsession with Food
"Making Heidi Swanson's 'Do-it-yourself Power Bars' because we were near Rainbow Grocery, the only store that carries all the ingredients."

Elise, Simply Recipes
"just posted my rabbit cacciatore ... Waiting for the 'You can't kill thumper!' people to descend."

Organizations I follow on Twitter
Serious Eats
Whole Foods
Center for Food Safety
American Farmland Trust
BART(so I can get to my dinner dates on time!)

And you can find me Twittering here.