so much butter. and cheese. from Kerrygold USA

Oh, hi. I was just sitting here thinking how sad it was that the Pity Party was over and we weren’t hashtagging like insane Twitter monkeys. Life getting back to normal is so empty, isn’t it? Wallowing felt so much more natural.

Then along came Kerrygold USA. And I love them. Hard.

They want to give us butter. And cheese. For a year.

There are no words.

Before we get into the details, please go follow KerrygoldUSA on Twitter. And maybe thank them for being awesome.

the great dairy giveaway from Kerrygold

Here’s the awesomeness:

Our Year’s Supply of Kerrygold Cheeses & Butters entails:

• Twelve monthly deliveries of a selection of cheese and butter, made up of six pieces of cheese and/or butter from the Kerrygold range (including Dubliner, Blarney Castle, Swiss, Aged Cheddar, Reduced Fat Cheddar, Salted Butter, Unsalted Butter, and Garlic & Herb Butter).
• If you’re not a cheese eater, you are weird. Just joking. No, really, you are. But if you prefer to receive the awesomeness in only butter, that can be arranged. These Kerrygold people want you to be happy. Butter = love. Butterlove.
• I’ll announce the randomly-drawn winner on Twitter on Thursday night at 9:00 pm Eastern.
• You are eligible to win if you registered for the Pity Party AND if you didn’t attend BlogHer Food. Registration is closed.

All Kerrygold cows are grass-fed on Ireland’s intensely green grass; that’s why the butter is so gold – it’s all natural from the beta-carotene in the grass. Also, the cows get no growth hormones. The cows also get adorable names like “Flower” and “Moonbeam,” and they moo with the most delightful accent.  That last bit may not be true.

You know who doesn’t like this giveaway? No one. It is full of delicious love.

Love you, Kerrygold. Love you so much.

special writing workshop from Kathleen Finn

Kathleen Finn is the real deal.

She’s the author of The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry. I remember listening to her interviews on NPR for the book and knew I liked her. She’s also the Chair of the Food Writers, Editors & Publishers section ofthe International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP).

I’ve spent more time than I care to admit reading her blog this week. Every word means something. Nothing is wasted. Her writing is inspiring and shocking (in a good way) in how each word has weight, but it all comes off as effortless. I don’t know how she does it. But she does. Every single post is pure craft and art and full of life.

Kathleen is  running a writing workshop weekend over November 5-7.  I want to go. And she’s offering all of the Pity Party-ers a discount to the workshop.

There are only a couple of spaces left. The cost for the weekend is $345, but for Pity Party participants  can sign up for $295. That includes a champagne reception (it’s like she totally understands us), all meals except Sunday lunch, wine (again, she totally understands what we need), snacks and 2 1/4 days of course work. Get all the details here: HungryForWords_Intensive_Food Writing_November2010 (PDF)

This is based on a weekend writing class that Kathleen do at the Richard Hugo House in Seattle once a year. Go. The agenda sounds brilliant. And you’ll be a better writer when you come home. (Also, you’re saving $50, so that is brilliant.)

Help with her next book

Also, here’s your chance to help Kathleen with her next book, Changing Courses. And she has prizes. She totally gets us.

Kathleen is seeking volunteer recipe testers for her next book. She gives away incentive prizes each month. This past month, the prizes included a great Wusthof chef’s knife, Calphalon cookware and more. If people test six recipes or more and provide feedback, they’ll be included in the acknowledgements section of her next book. All the recipes are designed to teach techniques to inspire more confidence in home cooking. Just send Kathleen an email for information.

Thanks, Kathleen!

the haze of a pity hangover – new prizes

Well.

That was fun. Sad fun. But fun.

Headaches, regret, hurt feelings by more than a few because they didn’t win anything. Today had it all, didn’t it.

But as we are picking up the pieces of our lives and feeling quite pleased that some BlogHer Food participants had to take redeye flights home and had difficulty packing all their swag from their galas, we found four more gifts to giveaway. Plus, if you live in the US, we have a gift for almost all of you (Sorry, rest of the world. Add to your wallowing).

Please note, you must be a registered member of the Pity Party to be eligible, and registration is closed. Sorry.

• I love Scharffen Berger chocolate. Love them. Karen and I took a tour of their chocolate-making magicland when we visited the San Francisco area. We were so impressed with the care they take in making their chocolates that we have been loyal fans ever since. Well, those wonderful Scharffen Berger folks have swooped in like a chocolate fairy to take pity on us and bring us chocolate. (These are open to everyone in the US…sorry, rest of the world. Thems the shakes.) Go follow them on Twitter.
  • The chocolate fairies of  Scharffen Berger are giving us two baking set gift baskets complete with The Essence of Chocolate, baking bars, cacao nibs, cocoa powder and Scharffen Berger branded cupcake liners! Is there anything better than chocolate to soothe your wounded soul? No. Thank you!
  • For every Pity Party-er who lives in the US and gets back to me by Monday end of day, you’re getting a coupon for $1.00 off a 3 oz Scharffen Berger chocolate bar! We buy these all the time, and I’d love to save a buck off one of their products. Email me at cmthornton at gmail.com with your name and address by end of day Monday, and you’ll get your coupon. Too late. Sorry.
  • Be sure to enter Scharffen Berger’s Chocolate Adventure Contest. You could win $20,000. That, uh, is not pitiful. Not pitiful at all.
  • Scharffen Berger Chocolate, we love you. Hugs.
• I have been obsessed with the term “soft frosted desserts” the last couple of days. I learned it from the ticings® website. I now think about frosting constantly, and ticings could make any dessert I made look brilliant (I am not a talented artist with baked goods. I’m a frosting slapper. Make of that what you will). But ticings has me covered.  Follow ticings on Twitter!
  • The winner of the ticings giveaway gets the following:
• • Decorating Halloween cupcakes is a snap with this delightful assortment of 24 edible frosting appliques from ticings. Peel & press these four original Halloween designs (boo, spider web, bite me and owl) directly onto freshly baked & frosted or store-bought cupcakes for an instant office party or halloween night get together. retail value $22.95
  • Plus you’ll get a sample of their artisan sprinkles. Which I want.

• • And the delightful, giving, not at all bitter (apparently at the wrong party) BunkyCooks has donated a leftover swag bag from a previous conference, and she didn’t even pick it over and take all the good stuff. Which I would have done. But you can walk around with this swag bag and tell people that you had to “carry it on the airplane because it is so huge and I totally couldn’t get it in my luggage OMG I AM SO AWESOME.” Thanks, BunkyCooks!

our final video – from breadandputter

Glorious. Please go follow breadandputter.

 

 

recipe development by bakingblog

There are no words that can express my feelings. Follow, please.

Cuties California Clementines & Mandarins Contest

Cuties California Clementines & Mandarins is missing us at BlogHer Food – but they wanted to offer us the chance to offer the Cuties Recipe Contest!

Contest

Help Cuties “cook” off the season by showing us your citrus prowess! Send us your delicious Cuties Recipe by November 27 and we’ll put your Clementine culinary creation to the test!

Creators of the top three recipes will receive Cuties to last the whole season and the first place recipe will earn its author a $1,000 ad buy for their website or blog!

For more information and full contest rules, e-mail Joan Wickham at jwickham@roll.com.

caramelized onion bacon spread from BlogWellDone

I would like to hang out with Chris aka BlogWellDone. Often. Especially if he’s making this.

Please follow, yes? Yes.

demystifying chocolate transfers with robynski

From the great robynski. Follow her now, please.

I learned a lot from this video. I never knew how they got those cool designs on chocolates. Now I know.

This is not sad, but I don’t have any chocolate to practice on right now, so it’s sort of sad.

strategies for dirty dishes with stetted

A thoughtful meditation on getting others to do the dishes. Follow stetted now. You will not regret it.

 

pitiful smores from jen schall at mykitchenaddiction.com

Stunning. Sad. Thanks, Jen. Go follow her.