Menu for Hope 6 raffle winners
by Pim under Hope with 49 Comments
Monday, January 18, 2010
So here it is, the results of our sixth annual Menu for Hope – with the help of two hundred bloggers, two hundred and four delectable items on our raffle list, and in the span of just over two weeks, we raised $78,898.00 in support of the UN World Food Program. Yes, nearly $78K, in a recession year no less! Not bad at all. And none of these would be possible without your support – food lovers, businesses, bloggers, and our readers and supporters from all over the world. A huge big shout-out also goes to our wonderful, hard-working hosts without whose help Menu for Hope 6 wouldn't have existed – Alder of Vinography, David of The Sweet Life in Paris, Ed of Tomato, Helen of Tartelette, Shauna of Gluten Free Girl, and Tara of Seven Spoons.
Now that I'm done with thanking the academy, let's get to the fun part. Check out the list of our raffle winners below to see if you've won anything. If your name is on the list here, you'll be receiving an email about how to claim your prize in the next day or two!
AP01 Greek Cookery: From The Hellenic Heart by George Calombaris
Roger Smith
AP02 Wellbeing Check (valued at $150)
Sophie O'Neil
AP03 A cooking class for four worth $400
Suzie Lee
AP04 Four seasons of An Honest Kitchen eMagazine worth $79.80
Catherine Morey-Nase
AP05 Four seasons of An Honest Kitchen eMagazine worth $79.80
Katrina Davidson
AP06 $580 10 course degustation of Attica restaurant
Karen Wong
AP07 $250 dining voucher for Cutler & Co
Cindy Tan
AP08 A day behind the scenes on a food styling shoot with Australian Gourmet Traveller
Olivia Riordan
AP09 $649 Kitchenaid Mixer from Kitchenware Direct
Marianne Le Fevre
AP10 A one year subscription to Cuisine Magazine NZ
Miriam Gawith
AP11 Traditional Afternoon Tea for Two lucky people worth $80 at the Sir Stamford Hotel, Sydney
Ann Bartlett
AP12 TOKO Restaurant and Bar $200 food and bar tab, Sydney
olivia kay ng
AP13 Stonesoup ultimate afternoon tea pack and cookbooks
Suzie Lee
AP14 Degustation and matching wines with one night's accommodation worth $540 at Provenance Beechworth
Melissa Hicks
AP15 Bruny Island Cheese Club membership and Cheesebox worth $100 combined
Llawela Forrest
AP16 That Jess Ho's drinking tour of Carlton, Fitzroy and Collingwood
Miles Cederman-Haysom
AP17 Heilala Vanilla valued at $120
Alexandra McAndrew
AP18 Dinner for two, valued at $150 at Mezzo Bar and Grill, Melbourne
Joyce Kwok
AP19 Dinner for two, valued at $150 at Libertine,Melbourne
Prudence Mann
AP20 1 x enthusiast membership Sommeliers Australia, for one year, valued at $100
Steven Wiltshire
AP21 A case of Gembrook Hill’s current release wines valued at $433.50
jung hyun park
AP22 A case of McIvor Estate Wines current release wines valued at $330
Toby Stephens
AP23 1x $100 voucher at Le Madre Bakery valid for 12 months
Melissa Hicks
AP24 2 volume set of The Old Foodie's Menus from History
Annabelle Singaram
AP25 A case of The Wanderer’s current release wines valued at $420
deborah bower
AP26 Seat for two, At My Table
Andrea Anthony
AP27 Six months supply of specialty coffee worth $250+
Paul Fountain
AP28 Brunch for four at Auctions Rooms plus 12 Sugadeaux cupcakes total value $140
Paul Fountain
AP29 A copy of I Ate My Way Through Singapore & Vietnam, valued at AU$49.95
Jenny Tan
AP30 A copy of I Ate My Way Through Singapore & Vietnam, valued at AU$49.95
Suzie Lee
CA01 The Latest Books from Canadian Celebrity Cooks
Ligia Ortega
CA02 Windows on the World and Wine Book Bundle
Zeynep Arsel
CA03 My Favourite Things
deborah bower
CA04 Herriott Grace Handcrafted Mortar and Pestle
Diane Ruddle
CA05 Grazing
Jennifer Kellogg
CA06 One Smart Cookie
Christine Smithrim
CA07 Fresco 24-centimetre Frying Pan
Leonard Gross
CA08 Fresco 24-centimetre Frying Pan
Daniel Peiser
CA09 Fresco 24-centimetre Frying Pan
Peter Klynstra
CA10 Fresco 24-centimetre Frying Pan
Mark Quigley
CA11 Comfort and Restoration with Brownies
Shelley Aubry
CA12 A Taste of British Columbia
Ligia Ortega
EU01 Made in Italy Gourmet Chocolate Basket
Frieda Brioschi
EU02 2 tickets for the "Tour de France of Wine" at O Chateau in Paris
Anne Schwartz
EU03 2 tickets for the "Wine and Cheese Lunch" at O Chateau in Paris
Cindy Ruth
EU04 The BloggerAid Cook Book
Serena Ayers
EU05 Plant-based Cooking Class in Paris
Jennifer Higgins
EU06 A "Sweet" Collection from a French Candy Store
Tegan Schmidt
EU07 Signed copies of Chocolate & Zucchini and Clotilde's Edible Adventures in Paris
Alice Boussicaut
EU08 A dough whisk and a sample of Clotilde's natural starter
Tamsin Ballard
EU09 A Taza Chocolate tasting set
Katarina Tierer
EU10 An extensive set of reusable bags from flip & tumble
Leah Bevington
EU11 Real Turkish Delights (lokum) from Cemilzade, Istanbul
Elise Bauer
EU12 Taste of Italy for Hope
Norah Palmateer
EU13 A Year of Home Baked Goods
Zoe Dryga
EU14 Dinner for Two at Hidden Kitchen in Paris
Jann Mumford
EU15 A signed copy of Hungry for Paris
Jennifer Higgins
EU16 City Walk Tour from Context Travel
Zoe Dryga
EU17 3 hour walking tour of Paris Aligre Market with a native
Zoe Dryga
EU18 Gourmet Tour of London for 4
Richard Kaszeta
EU19 Personalized one-day Paris itinerary
Gayle Thompson
EU20 A Taste of Sussex: Jams, Pickles, Honey
Sarah Tilley
EU21 Paris Gourmet Tour for 5 people
Smruti Shah
EU22 Italian Cooking Apron, Shopping Bag and Recipe Notepad
Chiara Maieron
EU23 "My Italians" Wine Tasting in Rome
Jerry DeQuetteville
EU24 Monday at the Market in Florence Tour
Jan Keshen
EU25 Japanese Delicacies
Kristina Johnson
EU26 Bento Boxes and Accessories
Nicole Oandasan
EU27 Mediterranean & Middle East Cookbooks and London Cooking Class
Barbara Burton
EU28 French Gourmet Basket of Delicacies
Elizabeth Rupp
EU29 Five Culinaria Books
Serena Ayers
EU30 Paris Gastronomic Itinerary
adrian head
EU31 Market Tour & Cooking Class in Burgundy
Jonathan Jarritt
EU32 French Conversation Classes in Paris (package 1)
John Pilgrim
EU33 French Conversation Classes in Paris (package 2)
David Lebovitz
EU34 Private Chocolate Tour & Tasting at Rococo Chocolate in London
Kasha Klosowska-Hartwig
EU35 2 Night B&B Stay in Piedmont for 2 with Market Tour
wouter rosekrans
EU36 Kenwood Chef Classic Mixer
Elin Davies
EU37 A Year of Bernachon Chocolate Bars
Phyllis Polk
EU38 Mega Mix of Moleskine Notebooks
Phu Son Nguyen
EU39 Room for Dessert, Ripe for Dessert & The Sweet Life in Paris
Shana Worthen
EU40 Ginger Elizabeth Hatbox Chocolate Collection
Judi oe
EU41 Collection of Eight Best-of-Baking Books
Joseph Chernila
EU42 Krups Professional Deep-Fryer
Armelle Deforge
EU43 A private tour for 4 people on the Chelsea Chocolate Ecstasy Tour
Richard Kaszeta
EU44 Askinosie Chocolate Baker's Basket
Paula Scharf
UE01 One Day Macarons Making Workshop
Sallie Pritchard
UE02 Three 8×12 art prints by Helene Dujardin OR Hands-on 1 day food photography & styling workshop with Helene.
Stephanie LaMastus-West
UE03 New West Knifeworks "Phoenix 9"
Michael Dundas
UE04 Eat Boutique Gift Box
Ligia Ortega
UE05 Weekend at Farnum Hill Orchard
Jennifer Mingolello
UE06 2 night-stay in Chelsea Studio Appartment, New York City. (value $250)
Mildred Cody
UE07 A Round on Us – Custom Beer Tasting
Allison Bailey
UE08 Box of LA Burdick Chocolate Mice
Lourdes Lopez
UE09 Day of bread making with Mary a.k.a Breadchick
Athena Fotiadis
UE10 J. A. Henckels Professional "S" 7' Santoku knife + 5 bags of Impact Granola.
Stephanie Leveene
UE11 $25 gift certificate from Fleisher's Grass Fed and Organic Meats in Kingston, NY plus a copy of Cleaving.
Joseph Chernila
UE12 4 seasonal shipments of 12 cookies from Jacy Cakes LLC
Francie Salle
UE13 100% certified fair trade coffee sampler
Elizabeth Freirich
UE14 $50 gift certificate to Sucre Confectionary
Una Lee
UE15 Ethnic Chicago Neighborhood spice blends Deluxe gift box +"Taste of Chicago" Ckbk from The Spice House
Amy Pritchard
UE16 Moms’ Guide to Meal Makeovers Cookbook & Cuisinart Elite Collection 12-Cup Food Processor.
Nancy Ewing
UE17 Bacon-Lover's Candy Pack
Phu Son Nguyen
UE18 12 bars of Amano chocolate
Tracy Wang
UE19 Sweet Amandine Trio
Laurel Fechtor
UE20 Cookbook Collection by Scribner
Regina Aguas
UE21 Stainless Kitchen Tool Set by All Clad
Jaspreet Chowdhary
UE22 Nespresso Le Cube/Aeroccino Plus bundle
Veronica Perez
UE23 Vermont Foodie Gift Basket and Essential Canning Tool set.
Elizabeth Cronenwett
UE24 A Taste of Atlanta prize pack
brad kaplan
UE25 The SousVide Supreme
Nina Chang
UE26 Gift package of Stonyfield Products.
Alan Kennedy
UE27 2-piece Kitchen knife set from New West Knifeworks
christina marrie
UE28 Morgan Ranch American Wagyu.
David Grossman
UE29 Morgan Ranch American Wagyu Family BBQ Collection
Matthew Crawford
UE30 North African Spice Blend Package
Mildred Cody
UE31 Burro Foods Olive Oil
Angela Regan
UE32 The BloggerAid Cook Book + gift card from B & H photo worth US$ 50.
Radhika Vasanth
UE33 All-Clad Stainless Covered Saucepan
Annika Iltis
UE34 Signed copy of 'Everyday Harumi' (simple Japanese food for family and friends) by Harumi Kurihara
H Roseff
UE35 Mary Jane's Relaxing Soda Gift Bag
Veronica Vichit-Vadakan
UE36 "Coco" Book
Derek Slager
UE38 Kitchen Gift Package
Veronica Vichit-Vadakan
UE39 2 signed copy of The Gilded Fork: Entertaining at Home cookbook.
F Brooke Clendaniel
UE40 Red Wine Extravaganza
Veronica Vichit-Vadakan
UE41 Set of 4 Bambu Bowls
Tegan Schmidt
UE42 Midtown lunch tour with Midtown Lunch
Mary Dodd
UE43 1/2lb of black truffles from France
ori k
UW01 Photography workshop with Matt Armendariz
mary carsten
UW02 Locavore starter kit with $100 CSA certificate
Nelson Whipple
UW03 Blue Bottle Coffee and Cake from Cucina Nicolina
Tracy Wang
UW04 The Grand Tasting Menu+wine pairings for two at Michelin 2-star Manresa, plus garden tour
Jack Kingsley
UW05 Six jars of Chez Pim’s artisan marmalade and jam, and a signed copy of The Foodie Handbook
mary carsten
UW06 Dinner for two at Daniel Patterson's Michelin 2-star Coi and dinner for two at Il Cane Rosso
nick szluk
UW07 Four months subscription to Citizen Bean, plus the Welcome Kit
ori k
UW08 an *emera bag!
Charlotte Tan
UW09 Two spots in a hands-on butchering class by Ryan Farr of "4505 Meat" in San Francisco
Jennifer Maiser
UW10 $50 gift certificate to Blurb to make your own book
Jennifer Chan
UW11 Lowel Ego Photo Lights Two Light Set
Gemma Petrie
UW12 Two Day BlogHer Conference Pass donated by Blogher.
Deborah Rogers
UW13 A basket of gourmet vanilla products (175 vanilla beans of 7 different varieties.)
Fiona Kennedy
UW14 My Nepenthe book, Big Sur basket, and $100 certificate to dine at the restaurant
jennifer parmelee
UW15 Truffle Gift Set
Phu Son Nguyen
UW16 2-hour studio session or photo tour of Pike Place Market with Valentina Vitols
Jennifer LeMesurier
UW17 Basket of artisanal foods from Foodzie.com
Laurel Morgan
UW18 Two-day artisan baking class
Candy Hanratty
UW19 signed copy of Advanced Bread and Pastry
Veronica Vichit-Vadakan
UW20 Winnie the Pooh Goes Bananas in a Box
Jenny Richards
UW21 Top Chef/Iron Chef prize package
Amy Jones
UW22 Signed copies of Ad Hoc and Fat of the Land
Angie Lin
UW23 Original photograph by Jen Yu
Lee Knapp
UW24 $100 gift certificate to Culinary School of the Rockies
Laura Vanderschaaf
UW25 $100 gift certificate to SALT in Boulder, CO
Susan Tamaki
UW26 Brownie Essentials
Carol Kowalski
UW27 Dinner for 2 at Ad Hoc, plus signed cookbook
Chris Connolly
UW28
Ad Hoc cookbook, signed
Sarah Zureick
UW29 Under Pressure, signed by Thomas Keller
Janet Stott
UW30 Momofuku cookbook, signed
eugene lee
UW31 Bacon and Cocktails print
Allison Strunka
UW32 Doughnuts kit
Lauren Levi
UW33 Fra' Mani Salumi package
Michelle Swager
UW34 La Quercia Spallacia (prosciutto-style leg)
David Mortman
UW35 Food-inspired wire sculpture
adamarie wallis
UW36 The Butcher and the Vegetarian, plus goodie basket of artisanal food products
Katie Noonan
UW37 Consulting time with Dianne Jacob, writing coach
Hank Shaw
UW38 Not Becoming My Mother
Elizabeth de Veer
UW39 Panini Presses (6 of them, so 6 chances to win!)
Suzanne Shenk
UW40 an afternoon of foraging with Langdon Cook
Marie Schall
UW41 Gluten-Free Goodness
Marie Schall
UW42 Sustainable Sushi package
Herb Chan
UW43 Photographs from Asia
Jennifer Gunterman
UW44 Coffee with Ruth Reichl
Nicole Pearce
UW45 Two classes with Cynthia Sandberg at the famous Love Apple Farm in Ben Lomond, CA
Susan Gravens
WB01 Dinner with NY Times Wine Critic Eric Asimov
Sonya Philip
WB02 The Brunello Experience: A Week's Stay at Il Palazzone in Montalcino Tuscany
Liz Mortensen
WB03 Sustainable Napa from Clif Family Winery & Holme Grown Wine Tours (incl 6 bottles)
Alejandro de Jesus
WB04 2 Nights and Wine Tasting in Santa Barbara Wine Country (incl 6 bottles)
Josh duLac
WB05 Two Magnums of Wine from Soter Vineyards (incl 2 bottles)
Christina Arndt
WB06 The Old School Wine Collection (incl. 6 bottles)
Anya Naschak
WB07 The New Guard Wine Collection (incl. 6 bottles)
ori k
WB08 Wine Book Bonanza
Lynne Newton – Carlson
WB09 Magnum + Case of Verge Syrah, and a Tour of Bradford Mountain (incl. 13 bottles)
thomas pantelis
WB10 Wine Bottle Hurricane Lanterns from Savoring Thyme Gifts
Ursula Pieper
WB11 Two Nights + Dinner +Tour in Tuscany at Il Borgo at Castello Banfi
ori k
WB12 Cape Ardor Collectors Executive Wine Gift Set (incl. 3 bottles)
Ligia Ortega
WB13 Banned in ’Bama Wine Gift Box (incl. 8 bottles)
Jeffrey Petree
WB14 A Case of Your Own Custom Blended Wine
Cindy Ruth
WB15 Stolzle Decanter and Four Wine Glasses
Ligia Ortega
WB16 Happy Canyon Wine "Horizontal" (incl. 14 bottles worth $584 retail)
Susan Brodie
WB17 Wine Jewelry, Wine Book gift package from WinewomenPSP
F Brooke Clendaniel
WB18 The Twisted Six Pack (incl. 6 bottles)
Leigh Iwanaga
WB19 The Twisted Tour and Pick Any Bottle (incl. 1 bottle)
Hank Shaw
WB20 Vinography as Your Sommelier for the Night (incl. 4 bottles)
Randi Axelrod
WB21 Brazilian Cachaças Tasting Set (incl. 5 bottles)
Jason Dietz
WB22 Dinner with Randall Grahm, a Special Bottle of Wine, and His Latest Book
Margaret Pillgrim
WB23 VIP Wine Country Tour with VIP Hostess Alana Gentry aka Girl with a Glass
Renee Kuo
WB24 Cashmere and Cabernet From Wine Valet
deborah bower
WB25 Magnum of Torbreck Wine plus Private Vineyard Tour
Edmund Thralls
WB26 A Wine Vacation at Meadowood Resort in the Napa Valley
Christina Sorenson
Hello,
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So You Want To Be a Banquet Manager
Pim — Thanks yet again for spearheading this wonderful fundraiser. Looking forward ot participating in Menu for Hope 7
Thanks so much for organizing this. What a wonderful cause and what a great response. Congrats on such good work!
One question: were there supposed to be 6 winners for UW39, the 6 panini presses?
Hello Martha Blogger-I have been enjoying reading your handbook! I would love to participate in the menu for hope next year. Great job!
amazing that ori k won four of the items… hmmmmm
Pim – thanks so much for spearheading this fundraising effort. I can only imagine that it was a ton of work, but obviously a labor of love. I didn’t win anything this time around… maybe next year!
All the best to you in 2010.
Wow! This is so cool. So many great prizes all for such a wonderful cause. Congrats to all
I would love to help out with this fund next year.
Thanks for all the work, Pim!
Well done Pim. Excellent work indeed! WOW…
Same as last year – a few people won a number of prizes. While I trust the money is going to a good place I have to wonder how the drawing process is handled. I think it should be managed by a group of people, not all of whom are in the same blogger clique.
Well, it is possible that the people who won multiple times might have bought a whole bunch of raffle tickets (imagine if you donate say $2000, that’s 200 raffle tickets so the chances of that person winning is higher than someone who donated $10). Let’s not forget this is for a good cause.
great job Pim!!
Thanks
Great job Pim and crew and great job everyone for donating!
Not so amazing if you know he donated quite a few thousand dollars to the campaign. I just checked.
Thank you for defending us! You are definitely right. Some of those people donated a few thousand dollars.
Also, if you only picked from the items that only got a handful of bids from the bottom of the list you’d have a better chance at winning as well.
Also, we double, triple checked the raffle picker code to make sure it worked properly. And it did, so the repeats are definitely pure chance. Though someone may have better chance by donating more $ or simply chosing prizes from the bottom of the list with fewer bids.
The raffle selection process is fully transparent — you can request the code from Derrick Schneider, who runs the selection. (He’s made is available before, I just can’t find it at the moment).
Anybody questioning how one person can win so many items needs to go to the FirstGiving pages and look through the bids. Check how much the multiple winners bid (thousands, in some cases), and take note of what they bid on — typically they’re cherry-picking items with a low number of bids.
If you haven’t done this, and you’re casting aspersions, you should be ashamed.
The first time Pim and I noticed these seemingly odd multiple wins, I did some research and some tests. The short version: an even distribution isn’t all that likely.
Here’s the full post I wrote about my tests:
www.obsessionwithfood.com/everything_else/2008/01/randomness.html
I also posted the source code for the raffle program at:
programmingobsession.blogspot.com/2010/01/menu-for-hope-source.html
(as Jen notes, I’ve posted it before, but this is the current version, which has accrued some slight bug fixes/features over the years)
And I’m happy to answer any questions about the process (in brief: Pim sends me the spreadsheet when MFH closes; I clean up the data based on the errors my program tells me about and through an inspection of my program’s output for each line; and then I send Pim the results [in text and HTML])
Both Pim and I excuse ourselves and our immediate families from the raffle, and I generally don’t even pay attention to the winners. I just skim over the final results to see who won items that I wished I could bid on
o.w. – here’s what you can do next year:
)
1. Close to the end of the contest donate a lot, relatively speaking (you can do so anonymously until Pim rats on you
2. Assign subjective value to rewards (e.g. 1/2 lb of truffles are worth to me their retail value, other prizes are worthless to me regardless of their retail value.
Assign costs to the rewards that are proportional to the number of bids on them (e.g. a reward that has 100 tickets bid costs 10x as much as one that has 10 tickets)
Find an optimal solution given the costs and values, sprinkle with some random speculative bets for good karma.
For example, if there are only two awards, one is worth $1000 and has 1000 tickets on it and the other is worth $100 and has 50 tickets on it, then the optimal way to split 1000 tickets is to find:
maxArg(1000*(t/(t+1000)) + 100*((1000-t)/(1000-t+50))
which I think leads to placing 914 tickets on the first reward and the rest on the second.
This ends up being 27% better than just splitting the tickets evenly in the example above, I’m sure the improvement is even lower for the Menu for Hope raffle, but at least there’s some professional satisfaction in doing the right thing.
You can guess I don’t write poetry for a living.
where’s the code for randomDraw()?
Pim & Derrick & everyone who hosted – you all do an amazing job. Don’t let the naysayers get you down. I bet most of the people who donated would have done it even if there weren’t any prizes.