'Tis the season as they say. Regardless of what type of event or fundraiser it may be, local chefs and restaurants are usually a committee's first call for contributions. No group rallies around causes as well as the food world does. Or as often. Or with as much bandwidth. Locally there seems to be a different major event every night of the week for the next few months and many are on our website’s calendars, but occasionally there is an event that resonates with me more than others. The Gift of Adoption fall event is set for November 7th at  Minneapolis Central Library. This is a great event that keeps growing every year and if you can’t make it, please consider making a donation. Adoption is an expensive proposition, and that’s a shame because there are so many families looking to grow, so many children in need of a loving home, and so many other hurdles to jump…affordability shouldn’t be an issue or a deciding factor in an adoption, but it is. GOA helps families in need, advocates for lower adoption costs across the board, and is a wonderful national organization with a local chapter that is growing every year. Your participation helps children. What could be better. Register online here, and families or individuals looking to get involved can e-mail the GOA at celebrateadoption@giftofadoption.org. The Celebrate Adoption event  is Saturday, November 7, from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Minneapolis Central Library.

Seth Bixby Daugherty has been nominated for Share Our Strength's Humanitarian Award for 2009, and winners will be announced at Share Our Strength's Conference of Leaders in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, November 8, at The Fairmont Hotel. If you want to go, you can register here. This is a huge deal for Seth, a winner of Food & Wine's 10 Best chef award who was operating at the top of the heap when he chucked it all in to found Real Food Initiatives and dedicate his career to making a difference in our food lives and our kids' food lives.

Speaking of food, I just ate a few superb meals at Sea Change and Bar La Grassa. There have been plenty of other openings in the last three months, including Lyndale Tap, Anchor Fish and Chip, and OM. So I am wondering, Which eateries are you most impressed with? Which would you frequent the most? Which would you think has the best chance to be in business five years from now?

My colleague Stephanie March wrote a funny post on her blog on Foodie File last week, and I have always drawn a line at chiming in on this blog when I could simply post a comment on her page, but I wanted you all to see her blurb and mention two things that I think are interesting. First, and I think Steph knows this and was asking the question with a smile, there is no major cable market for shows teaching people how to make dry cured sausage or burrata. Thank God for the Internet, where many chefs and writers have taken up the cause. Check out this video of making salami at The River Cottage, where they indeed know what they are doing. Secondly, Fine Living Network was awful, so replacing it with all the “talking head behind a cutting board” shows seems like an improvement to me, and loads of viewers want to see that stuff.

I like the division of labor, so to speak, because now Food Network can focus on the shows that are really popular these days, which are the food/entertainment hybrids like the absolutely dreadful drivel of Chef vs. City, where Aaron Sanchez and Chris Cosentino (two wonderful cooks) race around a town while playing mindless food guessing games and are pitted against personality deprived local foodies…or jeopardy shows where chefs need to serve 300 guests a six-course meal in half an hour or the chip implanted in their head will explode. In all seriousness, Food Network is shuffling its programming around and hopefully some good will come of all this. As someone who is in the cable TV food/entertainment game myself, I would rather show millions of people a great cheese maker and profile their work rather than show a few thousand how to make some. In my online work I like to do recipes because that’s where the eyeballs are these days. Check out and click on In The Kitchen.