Good cooking, Good Causes--Outstanding!

I finally got around to checking out the Outstanding in a Field schedule. This group travels around the country, but mostly up and down the West coast, preparing organic meals outside on the farms where the food was produced. There are going to be several meals in Southern California in June, even one on Catalina Island, but alas, they're all sold out. Tickets start at $200. Now that's a meal to remember.

Another inspired cooking effort made possible by the Internet is Spread the Bread. This international organization, started by a mother and her three daughters in Wayland, Massachusetts, brings people together to make their favorite kinds of bread and share them with others, especially with those in need. Based on the belief that everyone is connected to bread somehow--through religion or memory or a family tradition, groups all over the country support each other in baking a million loaves of bread between September 11 and New Year's Eve to honor heroes by feeding the hungry.