To celebrate the 10th anniversary of C&Z, I am hosting 10 giveaways throughout the month of October. Keep checking back for chances to win wonderful products I’ve discovered and loved over the past decade!

Our second giveaway prize is a Super Peel baking peel, as recently featured on America’s Test Kitchen as one of four must-have tools for serious pizza lovers.

The Super Peel is a beautifully crafted wooden peel with a cloth conveyor belt that wraps around it, making it very easy to transfer your pizzas and breads onto a hot baking stone or baking sheet.

I bought my own four years ago, and have been using it happily — with a little thrill every time, so well it works — for many of the breads and pizzas I’ve since featured on Chocolate & Zucchini.

The Super Peel is made in the US at a woodworking facility in upstate New York that employs people with disabilities. Over fifteen steps are required to make each peel from raw lumber, and most are done by hand or with hand-operated power tools.

For this giveaway, Gary Casper, the passionate inventor of the Super Peel, is offering the deluxe peel made with local black cherry hardwood, sanded smooth and hand-sealed with a food-safe cutting board oil. It will be fitted with one of the brand new flax linen transfer cloths he has just special-ordered.

To participate, leave a comment below (in English or in French) telling me about your most successful bread or pizza experiment. And if you’re on Facebook, please consider liking the Super Peel page (and the C&Z page, too!).

You have until Friday, October 11, midnight Paris time to enter; I will then draw one entry randomly and announce it here. Gary has generously agreed to ship internationally, so you’re welcome to play regardless of your location; please make sure you enter your email address correctly so I can contact you if you win.

Good luck! And check back on Monday for a new giveaway.

WE HAVE A WINNER!

I have drawn an entry at random using random.org (see screen capture below), and I am pleased to announce the winner is PlumGaga, who says she’s loved teaching her grandchildren to turn out loaves of good bread. Congratulations PlumGaga, and thank you all for entering with such cool baking experiments!

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of C&Z, I am hosting 10 giveaways throughout the month of October. Keep checking back for chances to win wonderful prizes I’ve discovered and loved over the past decade!

Our first giveaway prize is an eight-bar chocolate sampler from Chocolate Naive, a bean-to-bar chocolate company run by Domantas Užpalis in the Lithuanian countryside.

I have had the opportunity to taste Domantas’ incredible hand-signed chocolates* and to discuss his unique philosophy, and I am certain that you will be as enthused as I am by his work.

I am therefore delighted to be able to offer you a boxed set of eight chocolate bars from his “Back to the Origins” collection. This assortment includes one bar each of:

– Milk chocolate with salted caramel
– Milk chocolate with hazelnut cream
– Milk chocolate (Java/Papua New Guinea)
– Dark chocolate (Trinidad and Tobago)
– Dark chocolate with creamy coffee
– Dark chocolate with forest honey
– Dark chocolate with sugar crystals (my favorite!)
– Dark chocolate (Peru pure nacional, limited edition)

To participate, leave a comment below (in English or in French) telling me about your absolute favorite chocolate bar. And if you’re on Facebook, please consider liking the Chocolate Naive page (and of course, the C&Z page, too!).

You have until Wednesday, October 9, midnight Paris time to enter; I will then draw one entry randomly and announce it here. Domantas has generously agreed to ship internationally, so you’re welcome to play regardless of your location; please make sure you enter your email address correctly so I can contact you if you win.

Good luck, and check back this Friday for a new giveaway!

WE GOT A WINNER!

I have drawn an entry at random using random.org (see screen capture below), and I am pleased to announce the winner is Christina Oldenburg, who nominated Trader Joe’s Pound Plus Dark Chocolate as her favorite. Congratulations Christina, and thank you all for entering with such tempting choices! I’ve added many to my to-try list.

* Disclosure

Domantas has sent me samples of his chocolates for tasting, with no obligation to write about them. All opinions expressed are my own.

A few of my favorite finds and reads for September:

~ Lots of new cafés opening in Paris this fall.

~ Plant foods and just how much protein they contain.

~ Dishwasher cooking: faddish or clever?

~ A blog devoted to Quebec French + illustrated expressions.

~ Caitlin Moran‘s letter of posthumous advice to her daughter, originally published in The Times.

~ Vintage French medical posters.

~ Samantha Lee’s shockingly cute edible scenes.

~ Making flax seed mayonnaise and turmeric tea.

~ My friend Kristen Beddard is The Kale Crusader.

~ Six tips to tidy up your pantry.

~ How a short fast can help you beat jetlag.

~ David Jaggard on what it’s like to be an American in Paris.

~ Dan Barber on the perils of farm-to-table cooking.

~ National flags, made edible.

~ Twelve types of procrastinators. Which one(s!) are you?

Ten years ago, after a conversation with Maxence over shabu-shabu at a wonderful — but now extinct — Japanese restaurant in Montmartre, I decided to create Chocolate & Zucchini. I needed a space to write about the many things that make me happy at the greenmarket, in the kitchen and at the table, and I wanted a chance to reach out to like-minded cooks.

The first recipe I ever published was one for chouquettes, or sugar puffs, and I’m really glad it was, because ten years later I am still just as excited about them as I am about this blog.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: Chocolate & Zucchini has changed my life. It has allowed me to build a career around the things I love the most: cooking, writing, learning, eating, sharing, exploring. It has widened my world view while simultaneously making me feel connected, it has taught me that nothing beats pursuing your dreams, and it has allowed me to meet — virtually and in real life — more fascinating and passionate people in ten years than I expected to in a lifetime.

Naturally, none of this would have happened without you, your presence, your support, your messages, your stories. So I want to thank you for everything that you’ve given me over the past ten years, and tell you how grateful and honored I am that you come here, and read what I have to say, and cook what I suggest you do, and come back to tell me about it. Here’s to ten more!

As a 10th anniversary gift to the blog, I am preparing a complete redesign of the site: it is well under way, and should be ready in the next couple of months.

And as a 10th anniversary gift to you, I will be holding ten giveaways throughout the month of October, each offering you a chance to win one of the many fabulous things I’ve discovered and fell in love with these past ten years.

Please come back on Wednesday for the first one!