The Brighter Planet Blog

We’re a few weeks into our Mastering the Art of Sustainable Cooking contest, which we launched to help inspire and open a conversation about saving energy in the kitchen. We’ve seen some great stories come in, from Maine to California. Here’s a round-up of our three winners thus far:

Our first winner, FloridaPitBoss, is all about BBQing and enjoying the Florida sunshine. He has cleverly cut back on his carbon footprint by lining his Weber kettle grill. He’ll be eating in style with a prize of carbon neutral utensils from Guyot Designs.

JeffThorp knows a thing or two about chicken. His tip will make your mouth water, and give you three ideas for using chicken leftovers and saving energy.

We hope Jeff is currently enjoying organic yogurt and goodies from Stonyfield Farms.

Trinidadbay gets in touch with her hunter/gatherer roots, and collects huckleberries to make jam for her family to enjoy year-round.  She’ll be reducing her “forkprint” with bamboo utensils from To-Go Ware.

Here’s the scoop:  The contest will continue through December 2009. Anyone can share their sustainable cooking experiences through the “conservation tips” branch of our website. Entrants complete one or more of 25 cooking-related tips, share their stories and photos, and compete to win Amazon Kindles and other environmentally-oriented prizes. (As our friends at Treehugger reported, the Kindle is actually “greener than the printed word.” Have one of these around and stop buying new books, and you’ll reduce your carbon footprint).

How do you make sure you’re up for the Kindles? Get votes! You can vote for your favorites by clicking the “I like this” link. The final winners are determined through a combination of voting and a judging panel that includes Alice Waters, Bill McKibben, and Gary Hirshberg.

Next week’s winners will receive subscriptions to EatingWell Magazine. You don’t have to be a pro to have a winning story.  Go ahead, check out the contest here!

-Carolyn