We have a winner in the Jarlsberg Prize package shown here, and I know who it is!

Now I could just blurt it right out and tell you. But that's not very Sippity Sup is it? Nope, I like to milk it for all it's worth.

As usual I have a video to announce the winner. It's a "live" drawing and you can watch me blather on and explain the rules. Then I'll draw one name randomly and we'll all know who that lucky person is. Doesn't that sound fun?

Because this is supposed to be fun. So to keep it fun, I hope we'll all keep the winner to ourselves. Let's give that person a chance to sit through the entire video waiting and wondering in anticipation. So please don't tweet the winner or congratulate them by name here in the comments. You can cry and moan and throw a temper tantrum about losing in the comments or on twitter all you like! But really let's let the winner suffer a bit, shall we.

If you are the winner send me an email in the contact tab above and I'll arrange delivery.

“I doubt whether the world holds for anyone a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice cream”- Heywood Broun

This post is not really about ice cream, but in the second photo a young Chris Grove of Nibble Me This seems to be embracing what will become a lifelong passion. The joy of food and the strength of family. In the photo his dad seems to be working hard to bring Chris this joy. What a gift. The kind of gift that only a potent combination of summer and childhood can bring. GREG

I grew up in the sweet sticky heat of Florida summers.  I was literally “toes in the sand, head in the clouds” before I learned to walk.

I was raised in the “middle class dream” of block houses, lawn chairs, picnic tables, and family cook outs.  We spent our weekends at the YMCA and the beach.  My dad hand-churned ice cream in the backyard on summer afternoons.

Once I could walk, I beat the summer heat by getting out early and spending my mornings exploring the wide world known as “our lawn”.   I would chase anoles (lizards indigenous to Florida, not Aholes, which are indigenous to most highways).  I tried mimicking the birds that sang out to see if I could trick them into replying.  I watched ants as they busied themselves building their mounds.  I built forts for my plastic army men and streets for my Matchbox cars in my sand pit. 

But the one constant to my summer days was just about the time it was getting too hot outside, my mom would call me inside for lunch. 

You can't talk about sandwiches and not include some version of a grilled cheese sandwich. I used a sandwich press and a grill pan. Giving mine the char grilled hash-marks of a good panini. But whether you want to call this sandwich a panini or a grilled cheese doesn't matter. Because, in many ways this simple combination of flavors is everything I require in hand-held perfection.

There are very few things in life you can count on quite like a grilled cheese sandwich. As the Saveur sandwich issue states, "Plans falter and empires collapse, the no-fail recipe fails. But you can pretty much take it on faith: Grilled cheese will not disappoint."

Well my version of grilled cheese is the perfect example of a sandwich that does not disappoint. I was very careful in choosing the ingredients for this sandwich because I really wanted it to be simple but satisfying. But it got me thinking. Why is it people love grilled cheese so much? Well, for starters it may have been one of the first foods you ever learned to make. Once mastered, if you are at all like me you may have experimented with its components. New cheeses and new partners. I pretty quickly learned to look beyond the Velveeta and try other cheeses. Swiss, mozzarella, gruyere– even brie, they all make great grilled cheese.

Avocados are best when they're local and seasonal. Of course not everyone lives in a place where it's possible to get local avocados at the peak of their season. For you poor bastards, there's Chile, and Mexico and Brazil. They can supply you with all the carbon-horrific avocados you can eat.

Now I'm not judging, just let me say. Because if I lived someplace where avocados didn't literally grow on trees, I'd send my carbon footprint packing and buy all the artificially ripened fruit I could get my hands on. 'Cuz avocados are that good!

But fortunately for my status as an official member of the "Friends of Al Gore" variety hour, I can get locally grown avocados pretty much all year long.

Which means I can get rich buttery Haas many, many months of the year. Haas are terrific, especially if you have never tasted anything but Haas. But Haas are not the be all and end all when it comes to avocados. Especially in Southern California.

Still, many Californians shove the other avocado varieties aside and spend their money on the carbon horrific Haas avocados that Costco carries all year long. Which makes them dumb people. Dumb people indeed ;-)

I was a bit under the gun on this one. I knew I needed to bring a dessert to a friend's house for a impromptu dinner party. And I did have the bug to cook. So I thought good and hard about what I wanted.

Or I should say, what I thought I wanted. Because they are not quite the same thing. I thought I wanted poached pears with Champagne-ginger and saffron syrup. I thought I wanted them peeled, left whole and wholly elegant. I thought I wanted to spend 2 hours in the kitchen preparing them. I even considered sprinkling them with edible gold flakes. That's when I put on the brakes and realized I was just one cutesy step away from wrapping them in ribbon, or painting a smiley face on their pert little cheeks.

I mean I was invited for a casual meal. A tapas-style Spanish celebration to say farewell to a friend who is returning to Spain after an extended stay in Los Angeles. I'm sure my original intention of poached pears would have been lovely. But entirely inappropriate.

It's this blogging competition you see. While I'll admit there's a part of me that thrives on it. Sometimes I find myself ratcheting things up a wee bit too much. I mean really... edible gold flecks? How did that even get into my brain in the first place? Where would I even find them? So instead, I pulled back on the reins and really thought about what I wanted to eat. What I wanted to present to my friends as an expression of myself and our friendship.