Menu for Hope III: give and win fabulous prizes!

Every year, Food and Wine Bloggers from all over the world get together for a fundraising campaign called Menu for Hope. Last year, a record $17,000 was raised to help UNICEF. This year, Menu For Hope is going to benefit the UN World Food Programme, an organization that provides hunger relief for needy people worldwide.

We need you to participate and it's really easy: donate $10 and receive a raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. The more you give, the better your chance to win. Check the detailed donation instructions below.

There is an amazing list of food and wine related prizes: a meal at a renowned restaurant, a chance to have coffee with Thomas Keller, chef at The French Laundry, a dinner with Eric Azimov, the New York Times wine critic, and many more.

Now, if you are interested by everything that is related to wine, geography, history, winemaking, the whys and the hows, I have a special treat for you: my gift (use code WB16) is a copy of my two wine bibles: The Oxford Companion to Wine, 3rd Edition and the The World Atlas of Wine. Both are edited or co-edited by one of my favorite wine writers Jancis Robinson. I use these two books constantly. The atlas is indispensable if you want to understand why and how vine grow in the great wine regions of the world. And I love the 180 or so detailed maps that are included in the book. The Oxford Companion has more than 3,000 entries on anything that is related to wine. The information is so broad and detailed at the same time that I have never been disappointed; I have always found what that I was looking for.

Check the Menu for Hope III page on Chez Pim to see all the food and wine prizes. Here are the main categories:

Have a meal of your life
Delicious experiences
Feasts for the eyes: books and more
Tasty treats
Cooks' tools
and last but not least, the wine related prizes all listed by our friend Alder at Vinography: Drink yourself silly

How to donate:

1. Go to the donation page at (http://www.firstgiving.com/menuforhopeIII)

2. Make a donation, each $10 will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. Please specify which prize or prizes you'd like in the 'Personal Message' section in the donation form when confirming your donation. This is very important. Do tell us how many tickets you want to allocate per prize, and please use the prize code -for example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for UW01 and 3 for UW02.

3. If your company matches your charity donation, please remember to check the box and fill in the information so we can claim the corporate match.

4. Please also check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.

5. Check back on Chez Pim on January 15 when we announce the result of the raffle. (The drawing will be done electronically. Our friend the code wizard Derrick at Obsession with Food is responsible for the wicked application that will do the job.)

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