Wanna win a $500 Gift Certificate to cooking.com?

Cooking.com is giving one away!  If you look to the left you will find a poll with a pretty picture of Paula Deen. Vote for one of the options and enter to win a $500 shopping spree!  But while you are at it head over to cooking.com to see the new recipes & celebrity chef section.   Especially Guy Fieri's section.  He will forever have a very special place in my heart because he visited the hospital that Baby Sam was at undergoing chemo. (Speaking of Sam, here is a GREAT update!  But grab a hankie...you will need it!)

But Guy's visit to Sam really got me thinking about how foodtv (or as Jill at BabyRabies calls it - PFPW/Porn For Pregnant Women) has changed the way we think and approach food.  I know it has for me!  But then again I still remember when the Food Channel first came to cable tv here in MN.  It was over 10 years ago and I remember watching Ready, Set, Cook and thinking that it was corny but way too much fun.  I also fell in love with Sara Moulton, a woman who still inspires me every day.  I think of how much I learned and how inspired I was to get into the kitchen and really create!

And now look at what has happened.  The shows have come a long way since those Ready, Set, Cook and the early days of the FoodNetwork.  Shows like Top Chef on Bravo  and Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution on ABC are changing the way we think about food.  We have movies like Food Inc and Supersize Me that are making us examine our food sources and how we use food as both nourishment and entertainment.  Chefs really are celebrities now.  Personally, I love it!  I love when people talk about food, think about food and get in the kitchen to work with and play with food.

So what better way to think and play with food than to have $500 to spend on fun cooking items?  You can cook like your favorite celebrity and outfit your kitchen with everything from silly salts and pepper grinders to fancy schmancy serving dishes.  And if you win you HAVE to get a Le Creuset.  Anything from them.  Because they rock.  Whatever you might dream of or need, cooking.com has.

So register.  Enter.  Today.  And tomorrow too.  Because you can enter everyday until they pick a winner.  And it would make me very, very happy if someone I knew won. :)