Whole Story

If you love to cook, and you love to share your cooking with others and you love to write about it, then you should host a Big Feast!

What exactly is a Big Feast? It’s a contest put on by our friends at Food52, an online community for home cooks, and here’s how they describe it:

“It is a break from routine. It is an invitation to the unique euphoria that comes with cooking up a storm and presenting a grand and stunning spread to all your nearest and dearest. Indulging yourself in days of scheming, leafing through cookbooks, sending invitations, and hunting down that last, lingering ingredient. Long days in the kitchen with pots simmering and stand mixers whirring, building up to that glorious and convivial moment of ravenous demolition — with as many of your favorite people squeezed together around your table as you can possibly fit.” 

Contest winners write about and photograph their feasts and everything leading up to it, and share it with the Food52 community. Take a look at these past Big Feast winners on Food52’s website.

The latest Big Feast contest theme is “community giving.” Since giving back is especially meaningful when done over a shared meal — and we have a feeling many of our readers agree — come up with an idea for a Big Feast that gives back to your community. If your entry is selected, you’ll receive $1500 worth of Whole Foods Market gift cards to pay for the groceries for your feast. Then you’ll write three blog posts with photos documenting your feast, and the posts will be published on Food52 in December.

Does that sound like your idea of fun? Here are more details, important dates and how to enter:      

• Submit your feast idea (serving at least 10 people), plus ideas for two supplementary blog posts and two photography samples, by November 9 by emailing: bigfeast@food52.com.
• Food52 will pick a winner the following week and let you know if you've been chosen.
• If you're selected, Food52 will send you the gift cards, and your three blog posts will be due by December 7th.
• Food52 will publish this very special Big Feast the week of December 17th.

Visit Food52 to find out more and get inspired and then email them your Big Feast pitch. We can’t wait to help you celebrate!

Photo by James Ransom.