OCQ Tweet Up: Food Idea Marathon - All day, all night

Please join us on Wednesday, March 23rd for the #OurCookQuest Food Fest marathon chat. We have folks lined up to post ingredients for you to respond with your immediate inspirations, recipe links, or whatever else comes to mind. There will be one ingredient posted every ten minutes from 8 AM EST to 1 AM EST the next day. That's seventeen hours of continuous food chatting and 102 total ingredients.

Swing by for an hour block to chat with a handle you know, pop in and out to comment on ingredients posted or join in because you are interested in the current theme. We organized this tweetup because we all know how much people who love food enjoy sharing their ideas and knowledge.

Here's the list of our eighteen generous volunteers who will be tossing out inspiring ingredients. Below are their start times, handles, themes and ingredient number assignments.

8am - @eatingtheweek - eat right with color - In1 to 6
9am - @poodle_power - breakfast - In7 to 12
10am - @veryculinary - dessert - In13 to 18
11am - @savvyhost - TBD - In19 to 24
12pm - @vagablonde515 - Mediterranean - In25 to 30
1pm - @authorjane & @silvanamondo - hungry for spring - In31 to 36
2pm - @heather_atwood - TBD - In37 to 42
3pm - @culinaryvixen - perplexing produce - In43 to 48
4pm - @thedailypalette - seasonal - In49 to 54
5pm - @ridining - sustainable seafood - In55 to 60
6pm - @oursweetlife - Italian -In61 to 66
7pm - @familyfoodie - ethnic food - In67 to 72
8pm - @ourcookquest - a surprise - In73 to 78
9pm - @chefatthemarket - farmers' market - In79 to 84
10pm - @bethanyrydmark - Zanzibar - In85 to 90
11pm - @nieceymo - sweet - In91 to 96
12am - @kimhonan - TBD - In97 to 102


Here are some brief instructions for those of you new to Twitter # chats.

Option 1: If you only plan on quickly checking out the chat & posting a few tweets.
  • Use the Twitter search function during the time of the chat and search for: #ourcookquest. This will display all of the tweets with #ourcookquest.
  • If you want to post a tweet to the chat, add #ourcookquest to any part of your post.
Option 2: If you plan on chatting for an extended period

OCQ Tweet Up: Joining Local Food Forces

A new #TweetUp started to connect everyone who has an interest in supporting local food. Our first chat was held on Wednesday, February 16th and it was quite the success. It was wonderful to see folks sharing knowledge and learning. The enthusiasm made me see how passionate people are about good food. There were a lot of amazing folks who truly appreciate the efforts of their favorite farms, purveyors and restaurants.

OCQ is all about community and the local food pages below were created to share what we learned about local.

Check out the informative Q&A exchange on local food basics and thoughts on being a locavore - http://ourcookquest.blogspot.com/p/local-food-chat.html

We started a nationwide local food master list to make it easier for you find what's available your area - http://ourcookquest.blogspot.com/p/local-food-master-list.html

Future #OurCookQuest chats will be scheduled at least three days in advance. The tentative date for the next one is March 16th at 10pm EST. The focus is farmers and their plans for Spring. Please encourage your favorite farms to join the chat to tell us about their products and help spread the word on better food choices. If they're not on Twitter, swing by and be their advocate.

Food tastes so much better when it's grown by people who care about what you eat.

OCQ's "Special of the Week" Recipe Contest, A Community Supported Effort


Ingredient Guessing Game*

PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT THE CONTEST IS CLOSED.

Thank you for your interest in the community supported recipe contest.  It is community supported because:

1. The prizes are being donated by generous parties.
2. The judges are from all over (US & Canada) and have a wide range of culinary experience.
3. A large group of food enthusiasts took the time to spread the word to bring you here. 

The focus of this contest is fun and I hope everyone who is involved has some. We're glad you're here to showcase your creativity and look forward to seeing what you come up with.

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Background Story

I recently had an exchange with Lisa Waddle of  FineCooking.com.  It started with her tweet about Sustainable Sundays being the new Meatless Monday. A few tweets later, I proposed a recipe contest.

That was the easy part. The daunting task was organizing the event and I knew that I couldn't do it all myself. I decided to use the power of social media to find volunteers. I pounded the pavement and was able to find a lot of generous folks willing to spare their time and donate to the prize pool.

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What Do You Have to Do to Enter?
(See the Contest Rules page for all the requirements prior to submitting your entry.)

Come up with a recipe that has a catchy name. The use of alliteration is suggested, but not required. For example: Turmeric Tomato Turkey Tagine.

Highlight the recipe with a local/sustainable ingredient from a purveyor you support.

Snap a couple of pictures (one plated, one in process).

Email it to us.

Contest Rules Page

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What Do I Have the Opportunity to Win?

There is a prize pool that is building. Most of the contributions are recently released cookbooks from well known authors. A good portion of them are signed copies.

The current prize pool contributors are (listed in alpha order): Chef Jose Andres, Melissa Clark, @Cooks_Books, Suzanne Cope, Chef Stuart Reb Donald, Amanda Hesser, @HiddenBoston, Evan Kleiman & yours truly.

Prize Pool Donor Page

We will keep the prize pool open for donations until the end of the first judging stage. Please tweet us at ourcookquest if you know anyone who's interested.

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Who Else Wins?

One local/sustainable purveyor from each of the winning recipes will have a featured post on Local In Season to help promote their efforts.

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What's Up With the Picture?

Each of the seven ingredients above start with the same letter as each day of the week. The first fully completed entry contestant to guess the seven dry/dried ingredients will win a single prize from the pool.

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Sincere Thanks

A huge community of food enthusiasts made this happen. We couldn't have done it without your support.

I want to start by thanking all the judges on the panel for sacrificing their free time to make this all possible. I hope that we'll learn a little more about each other and share culinary knowledge as we go through the process.

Your Judges Page

A big shout out to our prize donors! We recognize that their wonderful contributions are key to gaining all the attention and excitement. Brilliant!

Last, but not least, I want to thank all of OCQ's followers for supporting our efforts and getting the word out.


* Photo inspired by Jane Ward and her daughter.

Prize Pool

Our list of generous donors and their contributions:

Amanda Hesser of the New York Times & Food52.com - Her most recent work:  The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century

Evan Kleiman of KCRW's Good Food  - Three of her signed works:  Cucina Fresca, Cucina Rustica & Angeli Caffe: Pizza, Pasta, Panini

@HiddenBoston of HiddenBoston.com - Fifteen Minute Meals by Emalee Chapman

Chef Jose Andres of Think Food Group - "Made in Spain" package (signed cookbook, DVD series and CD)

Lisa Waddle of FineCooking.com - Two sets of two special recipe editions of Fine Cooking magazine

Melissa Clark of the New York Times & MelissaClark.net - Her signed work: In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite: 150 Recipes and Stories About the Food You Love

Suzanne Cope of the Locavore in the City Blog - Easy Healthy published by Love Food (no author) & Party Food by Jan Stephenson

JD of the Our Cook Quest Blog - Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman & Heat by Bill Buford

@Cooks_Books of CooksandBooksandRecipes.com - Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work by Aki Kamozawa & H. Alexander Talbot

Chef Stuart Reb Donald of WannabeTVChef.com - His most recent work: Third Coast Cuisine: Recipes from the Gulf of Mexico

Your Judges

In alphabetical order by first name/handle, the panel of judges. Except for me at the end.

Brian J. Geiger
@thefoodgeek
Charlottesville, VA
Freelance food writer, appearing in thefoodgeek.com and Fine Cooking
Magazine, and Kitchen Mysteries at FineCooking.com. He specializes in
the science of food.
http://thefoodgeek.com/

“Cooks_Books”
@Cooks_Books
Hot-off-the-Press Cookbooks, Straight-from-the-Oven Recipes
http://www.cooksandbooksandrecipes.com/

Eunice Montes
@Nieceymo LA & OC
Assistant Pastry Chef & Creative Design Director @CupcakesMB. With a
passion for everything in food, wine, hospitality & fashion ;)
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/nieceymo?ref=profile

Evan Kleiman
@evankleiman
Los Angeles
Culinary Multitasker
http://kcrw.com/goodfood

Jane Ward
@authorjane
Amesbury, Massachusetts
a curious and restless individual who looks for
meaning-understanding-commonality-connection through food and fiction
writing http://authorjaneward.wordpress.com/

Jen Hoffmeister
@piccantedolce
Toronto
A foodie & home cook with a passion for local eating real food made
from scratch with love. http://piccantedolce.blogspot.com/

Jon Ross-Wiley, Co-founder
@localinseason
Boston, MA
Better food is the reason http://www.localinseason.com/

Judie K
@foodiejudie
Boston, MA
Loves having food in her life :)! Cooking & baking at home to planning
& cooking for small events, I enjoy the many aspects of food (incl:
sharing + growing). http://www.foodcandy.com/AccountView.aspx?id=928

Lisa Waddle
@FC_Lisa
Newtown, Connecticut
Managing Editor of the most exciting food magazine on newsstands.
http://finecooking.com

Nareg Artinian
@TKTruck
Los Angeles County
The foundation of The TK Truck’s cuisine, The Tikkeh Kabob, is a time
honored and perfected recipe that draws from the ethnic flavors of
Armenia and Lebanon. http://www.thetktruck.com/

Suzanne Cope
@locavoreincity
Somerville/Boston, MA
Eating, reading and writing in the city. http://www.locavoreinthecity.com/

 JD
@ourcookquest
Culinary enthusiasts working together to learn from passionate people
who influence the way we think about food. Ideas and posts
welcome. /ourcookquest/p/plan.html

Ready to work together? Get in touch.