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For the 14th year, we are encouraging fourth graders throughout Houston to put pen to paper for our story writing contest around favorite holiday foods. This annual contest encourages students to write thoughtfully and descriptively about their favorite holiday foods and traditions. It also focuses students on the importance of family meals while providing teachers with a powerful tool to support their core objectives in language arts. Additionally, it helps students explore the many facets of food and recipes, including step-by-step procedures and measurements, as well as their diverse cultural histories and family traditions.

Submissions are due by October 25, 2019. Teachers at participating schools will select one winning essay from their student submissions for entry in the citywide contest. One essay per school will be accepted by the Foundation. Advance registration is required through Jennifer Fridley at [email protected], and the contest is open to all Houston elementary schools. Schools implementing the Foundation's Seed-to-Plate Nutrition Education™ are already pre-registered for the contest.

"Recipe for Success created our annual writing contest to encourage students to focus on the importance of building family food traditions and offering a fun, festive opportunity to practice writing skills that support state test standards," said Gracie Cavnar, founder and CEO of Recipe for Success Foundation Founder. "This is one of the cornerstone tools Recipe for Success uses to weave our healthy food messaging into the curriculum of our participating Seed-to-Plate Nutrition Education schools."

The grand-prize winner will be recognized during Recipe for Success Foundation's Fashion in the Fields at Hope Farms on Sunday, November 10 and roll up their sleeves in January 2020 as Chef for a Day to prepare a celebratory meal at Bistro Menil, alongside Greg Martin one of Houston's celebrity chefs. The student chef and celebrity chef then share that meal with the student's family, friends and school representatives. The winning essay will be showcased online at www.recipe4success.org.

The 2018 winner was Nadia Rosado (pictured above) from MacGregor Elementary School in HISD, who wrote a beautiful story about her abuelita's (grandmother) "famous" empanadas. Excerpts from Rosado's contest entry explained how "Empanada's are one of the few foods that unites all of Latin American. I bet that my Abuelita's empanadas are some of the best in the world. They are simply delish!" For the winning story, Nadia got to spend a day being a chef alongside Greg Martin, chef/proprietor of Bistro Menil. The two spent the day in the kitchen, prepping a meal for the Rosado family.

Maggie Flecknoe and CW39 showed up at RecipeHouse to get some delicious VegOut! recipe inspiration from Chef Greg Martin of Bistro Menil. From a Super Veggie Bowl to Braised Chinese Cabbage and Sauteed Swiss Chard with Balsamic Vinegar, Greg helped us check off 13 Veg right off the bat. Maggie started a CW39 team so you can join her in the fun as part of your new years resolution to get healthy, but we warn you--she's pretty competitive. Jump in the fun of #VegOut2019 at vegoutwithrfs.org and see the entire segment with Maggie HERE.

With Welcome Home Baskets brimming with fresh food and kitchen supplies, the Recipe for Success Team hit the road today at noon to Deliver Hope to six veterans and their families who were particularly hard-hit by Hurricane Harvey

In 2017, along with so many Houstonians, these Veterans battled the raging floodwaters of Hurricane Harvey and so many who lost their homes are still in the arduous process of rebuilding their lives. The Foundation was particularly concerned with the interruption of home cooked family meals.

"Our kitchens are the hearts of our homes-where our families and friends share meals and stories, and where life is anchored and celebrated. We wanted to help restore our neighbor's kitchens, filling them with healthy food and the means to cook and serve it," says Recipe for Success Founder, Gracie Cavnar. "Now six families can enjoy these moments again and begin building new memories."

Recipe for Success put out a call for help throughout its network of chefs and supporters and many responded. The first Delivering Hope Welcome Home Baskets are brimming with just-harvested produce from Hope Farms and supplies donated by Chef Thomas Keller and AllClad, along with personalized favorite cookbooks presented by global members of the International Women's Forum and pantry staples donated by Executive Women International.

Beginning today, the families, which include grandparents and grandchildren, a husband-and-wife-veteran duo, and a single father and his son, will receive regular deliveries of fresh produce from Hope Farms for a year, so now these Houstonians who have given so much can focus on cooking, celebrating life and making memories in their new homes.

Recipe for Success Foundation worked with Combined Arms to circulate an application for assistance for Harvey-impacted Veteran families with children under twelve in the home. Here is what one veteran said about his life after Harvey:

"The hurricane forced me to evaluate life in a number of ways, what is and is not important, priorities, belongings and lifestyle. I have since been eating better and cooking more at home for my son and I. I have very little in decorations, as it feels less like a home and more like a temporary situation since we had to leave. I believe having my own new items will aide that sense of "home." I have been blessed to receive used dishes and pans from others, and as I can I buy replacement items, so this would be a great blessing to replace those with something of my own. I know there are a number of people who had it worse than me and I am blessed that I have a place, I can cook, and have managed to get by. So I would request that if I am considered and it came down to me and another family, they be considered first. I am grateful for this opportunity."

What an evening it was. Guests assembled at Neiman Marcus on February 28 to meet Lela Rose, enjoy cocktails and a fashion show, and support our programs. Our VIPs ended the evening in Mariposa restaurant, where they dined on tomato tartare, sous-vide halibut, and panna cotta, a three-course meal created by A Fare Extraordinaire's executive chef, Ryan Bouillet.

Lela Rose loves food and entertaining, so she was an ideal partner for Dress For Dinner. Her enthusiasm was evident throughout the evening, and she spent a lot of time conversing with our guests, whose generous support allowed us to raise more than $30,000, all of which will go toward funding our missions. Houston Chronicle Fashion Editor, Joy Sewing began the show with an interview of Rose and then we were treated to a look at her spring collection, which met with enthusiastic applause.

Co-chairs Ally Shell-van Koolwijk and Jeff Shell put on a great show, and spoke with pasion about the importance of teaching children how to eat well. Some of our notable guests included Karen Lerner, original founder of A Fare Extraordinaire, and the catering firm's current owner, Rachael Volz and her husband, Jason; Diane Lokey Farb; Dr. Wissam Khan and Fatema Khan (in photo); Dr. Sippi Khurana and Ajay Khurana; Curry Glassell and her son, Nathan Glassell; Kimberly Miller and Carolyn Tanner; Tammie and Andy Johnson; BJ and Bob Shell; Stacey and Al Lindseth; Sheree and Norman Frede; Jennifer Swallen and Melissa Sugulas; Roz Pactor; and Marsha Montemayor.

We were blown away by Neimans' support--even transforming a major window in honor of Hope Farms.

Read some of our fabulous media coverage in PaperCity, The Houston Chronicle and My Red Glasses. Click here for our own post event release, and make plans to Dress For DInner in 2019!

Excited to partner with instaglamhouston in thier Instagram #VegOut2018 CampaignBecause beauty really starts from within, they have teamed up with us to help spread the word of the importance of nutrition and to let you all see just how they are doing it here in Houston. Follow them on stagram to keep up: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfd-jQ9HXY4/

We love to honor our Mexican roots and culture with tacos made of every imaginable ingredient.

Have you tried using eggplant? This kid-friendly recipe cooks in the oven giving you time to prep the other fixings. It's part off our Eat the Rainbow curriculum from Seed-to-Plate Nutrition Education™ culinary classroom lesson plans. If a 4th grader can do it, we are confident that you can too!

Get the recipe from our www.vegoutwithrfs.org or HERE.

How mollifying, late afternoon, when one is alone
and lunch is long over, to stop at the cafeteria

for a slice of key lime pie. You take a table
by the window and turn your back to the room

as if you have much to think about, when in reality
you are staring blankly at an almost rainy blank

sky and the windblown gestures of trees. You don't
linger, eating deliberately, carving each forkful

into equal parts topping and filling, which
together create tiny bifurcated hillocks of cloud

and meadow with a sandy crust below,
the topping the color of fine creamery butter,

the filling a green so pale, so diluted, its hue
is almost invisible. The ice water you sip

with your pie lends an appropriate austerity
to the occasion. There are others here:

the tall bleached blonde and her mother stirring
their coffee, the khakied group from an office

overearnestly eating a late lunch, the cashier
leafing through her newspaper. When you rise,

brush off your lap, and pause to take stock
of the one untouched dollop of cream

on your plate (obeisance to the pie gods),
your crumpled napkin, fork, and the old

airport parking tag you fished out of your
wallet when you paid the cashier, it is as if

you were never here, you never ate this slice
of pie, you never sat in this chair, chewing

and watching nothing out the window, thinking
of nothing except how finite pie is.

My greatest culinary experience was made all the more so by being in a completely unexpected time and place. 

In 1991 I was conducting a production of Bizet's Carmen that was touring from San Francisco Opera touring to three different Japanese cities, Nagaoka, Sendai, and Tokyo. I was in Japan in advance of the rest of the cast rehearsing an amateur chorus in lovely Nagaoka, and near the end of my few days there I was told by my hosts that they would be taking me to lunch from 11am until around 4. Since 5 hours had been allotted, I assumed we were traveling some distance but actually we traveled only to nearby Niigata, on the northwest coast of Japan, where I was taken up the hill on a snowy morning to a restaurant called The Three Cranes. 

It feels perfunctory to call it is restaurant, for it was aesthetically unlike anything one might associate with the word. The large property sloped up quite a steep hill and was an immaculate Japanese garden interspersed with small shoji-screen and glass houses, each of which was a 'table'. We climbed to a distant part of the hill and entered our little house, removed our shoes and were each escorted to a changing room where we exchanged our clothes for warm and comfortable robes. Inside the dining area, we all sat together on the floor around the table, and I was surprised to find an open area below, unseen, where my legs could dangle as though we were seated on chairs. The area below the table was warmed by a small underground fireplace, and as we sipped the first course of the lunch, a ginseng tea, it began to snow. There surely can have been no more peaceful and delicate place. 

Then the food courses began: each of them quite small and exquisitely prepared and fresh. The courses alternated between cold and hot. Each, mostly fish and vegetables, was accompanied by a different tea or small amount of sake. A great deal of time stretched between the courses so that one never felt either rushed or hungry. I cannot imagine the depth of the preparation required for a meal that was over 30 courses, each on its own set of perfectly-chosen porcelain. Never has the experience of a meal been so perfectly balanced and understated. 

That gorgeous hillside is no longer a restaurant, the land having been developed for real estate. But I treasure the pristine perfection of each of those dishes, sitting in what felt like another world and time, blanketed by the silently falling snow. 

Alex Blair shares her love of a chocolate Brazilian Cake that she can only eat when she is home in Brazil. 

Can you wax poetic about your favorite food or the memory of a meal? Then, we want to hear about it! Join our Dinner Conversation and tell us your story or write a poem. We are spending the year capturing Houstonian's culinary remembrances, treasured food traditions and life-changing meals; stories of family, friends, travel and community; threads of food memories that bind our cultures, weave communities and create generational customs. Email us: [email protected]

There's no satisfaction quite like cutting into a perfectly succulent, marbled piece of steak.  But how does that cut of deliciousness get from farm to plate?  In his critically acclaimed documentary Steak (R)Evolution, director Franck Ribière takes viewers around the world with farmers, chefs, butchers, and food journalists to uncover the art of red meat. 

Ribière's goal is not only to find the best steak out there, but also to decipher what differentiates the best steaks and makes them notable, and how the shift to smaller-scale farming organizations is affecting the beef industry.  Highlights of his scrumptious steak odyssey include the Angus country of Scotland, the Kobe beef ranches in Japan, and some of New York City's most revered butcher shops and steakhouses.

Recipe for Success is co-sponsoring a screening of Steak (R)Evolution at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on Friday, October 9^th, at 7pm, and a panel and Q&A with Glen Boudreaux from Jolie Vue Farms will immediately follow the screening.  We will also be collecting stories for our Dinner Conversations project.  If you cannot make the Friday night screening and panel, there will be one additional screening of the film on Saturday, October 10^th, at 7pm.  Watch the trailer here!

The Dinner Conversation is a new dialogue that we are starting Houston to honor our tenth anniversary, designed to celebrate our vision of a world where healthy eating is the norm and a culture where nutritious food is shared, appreciated, and celebrated.  It will be a multi-media project of personal essays, written, recorded and video interviews and photography that we will collect throughout the year.

We have plans to capture Houstonians from every neighborhood and walk of life sharing their most powerful food memories, life changing meals and fondest family food traditions, which will be honored for posterity in an electronic book.  There will be some special sections including, A Taste of Home, where we ask immigrants to divulge where in Houston they find that special ingredient, and Food of Our Grandmothers--multiple generations remembering their family food traditions creating an oral and written history of life around their dinner table.  And on one special night, we will ask all Houstonians to take a group photo at dinner, capturing a moment in time in our diverse city for social media.  Pull up to our table and dig in!