And the Award for America’s Worst Cook Goes To…

Laura McNamara

The American Egg BoardNo. That’s not a typo. The American Egg Board really has an award for ‘America’s Worst Cook’. This year’s “kitchen klutz” winner prepared Thanksgiving Stuffing in a clothes dryer.

It’s not often that a clothes dryer is a part of cooking Thanksgiving dinner, but then again, you probably haven’t spent much time with Shannon Mountjoy and her family. Her sister, Debby, has, and when she heard about the American Egg Board’s “Search for America’s Worst Cook” contest, she knew that Shannon’s infamous Thanksgiving stuffing — prepared in a clothes dryer — would be a top contender.

The “Search for America’s Worst Cook” contest was launched to find the home “cook” who needed the most help in the kitchen — and today it’s official: Out of nearly 700 entries, Shannon Mountjoy of Houston, Tex. has been selected as “America’s Worst Cook.”

Shannon gets a cooking makeover:
Years after her infamous Thanksgiving meal, Shannon still struggles when it comes to preparing quick and easy meals. But, that is all about to change. As the winner of the “America’s Worst Cook” contest, Shannon and a guest will soon be whisked off to New York City, where in addition to cooking classes at the famed Institute of Culinary Education, they also will receive a personal egg cooking lesson from Howard Helmer.
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Ag Groups, Food

New ‘Ag Tag’ For Maine Drivers

Laura McNamara

A sample of Maine's new Ag Tag License PlateDrivers in Maine have a new option for displaying their agriculture pride on their bumper. No, I’m not talking about a bumper sticker. I’m talking about a license plate. The Morning Sentinel based in Waterville, Maine reports that new license plates supporting Maine agriculture went on sale in October. The plates depict a sunrise, emerging over a farm and rolling cropland. The glowing sunrise silhouettes a farmer and a young girl, walking hand-in-hand.

Maine’s agriculture license plate — one of six state specialty plates that raise money for various programs — became available Oct. 1. It can be purchased in 355 municipal offices around the states and at 13 Bureau of Motor Vehicles branch offices.

Exact numbers on how many of the plates have been sold won’t be available until mid-November, but several branch offices reported that first-month sales were brisk. The state printed about 4,500 plates.

Click here to view the entire article.

Farming

Farm-City Get Together

Chuck Zimmerman

Fun Facts BookmarksNational Farm-City Week doesn’t officially start until November 16 but we’re going to kick things off tomorrow in Washington, DC at the National Farm-City Week Luncheon. So that’s where I’m headed today.

In case you didn’t know it, the National Farm-City Council has materials available for schools to help educate children about agriculture. These Fun Facts bookmarks are an example. You can order them online.

If you want to plan a last minute farm-city event in your area then use some of the resources they have available.

Uncategorized

Meeting With Horse Photographers

Chuck Zimmerman

ZimmCast-1434 - Karen and Larry WilliamsThis week you get to learn about equine photography through an interview with Karen and Larry Williams, Larry Williams Photography. I met them at the World Championship Appaloosa Show and really enjoyed seeing how their system works. They take a lot of pictures and have to manage them through backups and uploading to their website for sale. Watching Larry work with horses shows that he’s got a lot of patience!

The program concludes this week with music from the Podsafe Music Network. This week’s song is “Hot Doggin” by the Deerfoot. I’ll be going on my annual deer hunt in a few days so I was glad to find them.

You can download and listen to the ZimmCast here: Listen To ZimmCastZimmCast 143 (11 min MP3)

Or listen to this week’s ZimmCast right now:zimmcast144-11-05-07.mp3

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired which you can subscribe to using the link in our sidebar. You can also subscribe in iTunes

Audio, Horses

Corn Smut Contest

Chuck Zimmerman

Corn SmutCorn smut is not pretty. But that’s what the National Corn Growers Association is looking for.

Actually they’re looking for a different kind of corn smut:

Pick up a newspaper, turn on the evening news, listen to the radio. Corn growers are polluting the water, eroding the soil, causing global hunger. We’d cry if it weren’t so darn outrageous. Instead, we believe it’s time honor the naysayers of production agriculture with an award uniquely their own: The Corn Smut Award.

Corn Commentary invites its readers to submit nominees and categories for the award. But allow us to get things started. In the next few weeks we’ll be sharing our nominees in the following categories.

Most Outrageous Headline
Most Hyperbole in a Quote
Worst Movie
Most Worn-Out Spokesperson

The corn smut picture is via Cornell University.

Corn

Make The Logo Bigger Cream

Chuck Zimmerman

Make The Logo Bigger CreamAs if a song about making the logo bigger wasn’t enough, now we’ve got Make The Logo Bigger Cream.

This stuff, “Improves brand recognition, grabs customer’s attention, works in just minutes and goes on smooth.”

Learn more about it with the video you’ll find on the homepage.

It’s brought to you by Agency Fusion.

“You need to MAKE MY LOGO BIGGER!,” clients say. While some requests may seem ridiculous, your clients still depend on you to help them get noticed and make them look good.

That’s where we come in. We’re Agency Fusion, a web development firm dedicated to helping you build and maintain websites that look exactly the way you design them.

via Adrants

Agencies

The Moose Says Party

Chuck Zimmerman

Party MooseIt’s hard to believe we’re about to enter the holiday season. However, as the party moose will attest, “It’s here.”

Of course the party moose means a BCS Communications party. I’m sure there will be more.

Make sure your friends in agricultural marketing know about your holiday party by letting us know here at AgWired.

Agencies

Heading Home With a Bang

Chuck Zimmerman

Diana OlsonIt’s time for the agriblogger to hit the road home. The World Championship Appaloosa Show has been great fun.

Last night’s program included a short show by Diana Olson who is President of the Arizona Cowboy Mounted Shooters Association. She has a beautiful horse and just in case anyone was nodding off after a long day she woke them up.

Thanks to Steve Taylor and his staff at the ApHC for working with me and having come spend a couple days blogging there show.

2007 World Championship Appaloosa Show Photo Album

Horses

I Wish I Were A Lipizzaner

Chuck Zimmerman

The Lipizzaner MoveI grew up in Sarasota, FL near where the famous Lipizzaner Stallions had a facility so I got to see this move quite a few times. Last night here at the World Championship Appaloosa Show this move got a big “ooh” from the crowd and I just happened to be ready to take a picture.

This was right before the Rope Race Invitational while each contestant was being auctioned in a Calcutta to raise money for Appaloosa youth scholarships. If you don’t know what a rope race is then you’re missing some excitement. Basically the contestants race to a wire that has ropes dangling from it where they have to grab one. The problem is there’s one less rope than contestants. So in each heat the number of contestants drops by one until only one person with a rope is left. You can watch the first heat on YouTube:

2007 World Championship Appaloosa Show Photo Album

Horses

Farm-City Week Luncheon

Chuck Zimmerman

Farm CityPretty soon it will be National Farm-City Week. It’s held the week before Thanksgiving. To kick it off I’ll be attending the National Farm-City Week Kickoff Luncheon in Washington, DC next week.

The luncheon will begin at 11:30 a.m., and the keynote speaker/entertainer is motivational speaker and country music artist Michael Peterson. The award-winning country music artist not only sings, but also speaks eloquently about the value of agriculture and those involved in it.

We all know Michael will do a great job since we’ve seen him perform before. I’m really looking forward to it. I also want to thank New Holland for sponsoring my coverage of this year’s event.

Ag Groups