Blogging Contest: Make Your Best Seasonal Pie and Win Tickets to Just Food’s Let Us Eat Local

Calling all food bloggers who love baking pies… I know there are many of you out there! This October 3 marks the fifth annual Let Us Eat Local fundraiser celebration for Just Food, the New York City-based food justice nonprofit. The event features tastings from the best restaurants in town, and toasts to local heroes of the good food movement. And this year, Just Food is introducing a pie contest where local businesses will compete with their best seasonally-inspired pies at the soiree. However, you could win two tickets to Let Us Eat Local by entering THIS pie contest, as a local blogger.

We couldn’t just leave a pie contest up to seasoned pros, after all. I know home cooks out there have some serious chops at the all-American dessert — and nobody makes ’em like moms. So if you’d like to bring a date with you to this party on October 3, at the historic Altman Building in Manhattan, please read on to enter your pie recipe post for a chance.

If you’re not a blogger (or pie-maker), you can still participate by voting on your favorite entry in this contest in a couple of weeks. In addition to the popular vote (determined by comments), we’ll reel in judges from Just Food and a couple surprise experts in the field of pie-making to weigh in on the decision as well. The readers’ vote will account for half of that decision-making process, while the panel of experts (including Jessica Gaffney, Just Food’s hardworking Events Director who came up with the professional pie contest in the first place), will account for the other half.

Here’s the drill:

1. Post a pie recipe in your blog highlighting local and seasonal ingredients by Monday, September 24th. Tell us a bit about what ingredients you used and why, and where you got them.

2. Email me at [email protected] with the link to your pie post by September 24, too.

3. On Wednesday, the 26th, I’ll post a round-up of all the entries from other bloggers here, with links to their own blogs so you can see further details. Readers can start commenting away on that post to “vote” for their favorite! Meanwhile, the judges will be checking them out to determine theirs as well.

4. By midnight on Friday, September 28th, the voting will be closed and the winning blogger will be notified on Saturday. He/she will win two general admission tickets (a $350 value) to Let Us Eat Local on October 3rd!

Sorry that this giveaway is once again ideal to only New York City-based bloggers, because the prize takes place in Manhattan. If for any reason you’re going to be in NYC on October 3 and want tickets to the event, by all means blog away, out-of-towners!

Karen Washington accepts her honor at the 2009 Let Us Eat Local

the McKinley Hightower-Beyah Youth Awards are received at Let Us Eat Local ’10

a tasty station from Cookshop in ’09

I can’t wait to see everyone’s beautiful homemade pie recipes soon. If you’d like to attend Let Us Eat Local and see the pie contest happening there, as well as try all the amazing food from the participating restaurants, you can still purchase tickets to the event here. These are all-inclusive for food, wine, beer, cocktails, live music, goody bags, inspiring speeches, good company, etc., etc., and it’s quite a bargain considering the pedigree of the participating food and drink establishments. Best part of all is that the chefs and representatives from each restaurant or winery, for example, will be in attendance to serve and chat you up. The tickets are a tax-deductible charitable donation (up to $65) to Just Food, a 501c3 nonprofit organization, and all proceeds from Let Us Eat Local benefit the charity.