A quiz and a contest

[photopress:Summer_in_a_jar.JPG,full,pp_image]

Tell me what you think this is?

Hint: it’s hugely successful here right now, it’s a genuine summer-only kind of thing and the view you are looking at might be a bit tricky.

Tomorrow I will show you the answer and give you my best of the season.

Meantime, here is something I would love for each and every one of you to do.

I have been chattering away here for years about mostly Italian cooking. I have told you what Italians say about the secrets to great Italian cooking. I have been telling you what wonderful things one can buy here to cook with and what items I was used to that cannot be bought through almost all of Italy. We’ve repeatedly gone into the essentials and talked about differences among regions. You are at this point, even if you never had cooked an Italian, real Italian, dish before, somewhat educated in the discipline.

The beautiful magazine, “La Cucina Italiana”, is sponsoring a recipe contest to celebrate publishing an American issue in English! The contest will be run from Alex’ “Blog from Italy” and I will be one of the judges. Rest assured that I will not know the names of the people whose recipes are being judged, so I can’t play teacher’s pet.

Since we are entering autumn, the recipes are to be Italian style autumnal soups using as many organic ingredients as possible. The rules are simple and will be completely laid out on Alex’ blog in a week or so. The contest entries will be sent to Alex from 12 September until 19 September.

Start thinking now about what kind of original fall soup you’d make and write up the recipe. You don’t have to test it as many times as I do, but I think you should test it at least once! Remember, it cannot be a recipe used unchanged from a cookbook, website or magazine. It should be your very own thing r adaptation.

The prizes will be one-year subscriptions to “La Cucina Italiana” and that is not a small thing. They will send them anywhere you are if you win. This is a great opportunity for readers in Kuwait, China, Korea and anywhere to be really a part of what we do here. “La Cucina Italiana” is a magazine whose Italian issues I read all the time. Unlike many cookery magazines, this one offers cookery information for the amateur as well as the professional. Beyond that it is also exquisitely produced with photography and graphic design that makes each issue a treasure trove.

This is just a heads up, and I will post to remind you the day Alex published the rules. Just Think On It, and be ready to make me proud. Because even though I won’t know who enters, if one of my readers wins, I sure want to hear about it!