Giada De Laurentiis is famous for her simple Italian food, her annoyingly cute accent when pronouncing Parmigiano Reggiano, and her ability to look darn good while slaving over a hot stove. (Why can't we have a personal hair and makeup staff on call in our kitchen? Huh?) The enviable chef adds do-gooder to her list of attributes, now auctioning off, for Oxfam America, the chance for one winner and three friends to come to the Los Angeles set of her Food Network show Giada at Home to watch filming, tour the set, and lunch with Giada herself. Bidding runs now through October 8.

If you live with foodies-in-training, check out What’s On Your Plate?, a documentary that follows two 11-year-old girls from Manhattan who go to the country, enjoy farm-fresh foods, and return to the city inspired to find out how their food is produced--and how it gets all the way to our restaurants, cafeterias, and kitchen tables. During the course of their journey, the girls interviewed farmers, activists, shopkeepers, friends, and family members about what they like to eat and why. Check out the trailer—it has us very excited to see the film!

What's on Your Plate? is currently screening at select theaters across the country and will be hopefully be available for rent or purchase in the next year.

The September 21 issue of The Nation taps eating heavyweights such as Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, and Dan Barber to discuss the democratization of food, school-lunch reform, and community gardens, among other hot topics.

Oh joy, it's another food recall: The FDA and the CDC is warning consumers not to eat Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough, and Nestle has issued a voluntary recall of the product. All of this is in response to an E. coli outbreak that started in March. Since then, there have been 65 victims including 25 hospitalizations, including 7 severe complications. The contamination has spread through 29 states. No one has died.

If you find yourself obsessing over this, do take a gander over at Fooducate to learn more about the outbreak and what you can do. Then make some of your own safe and delicious cookies using Smitten Kitchen's favorite recipe.

(Image via PR Newswire)

Adriana Velez, What I Made for Dinner

I was lucky enough to see the premiere of Food Inc., and I was totally blown away. It's a documentary about our food system--imagine the film version of The Omnivore's Dilemma, only much, much more.

The segment that really got me was about a mother, Barbara Kowalcyk, who became a food-safety activist when her 2 1/2-year old son, Kevin, died as a result of E. coli poisoning from a hamburger. That story sent me searching the website for ways to get involved, like reading about the Child Nutrition Act Reathorization.

Food Inc. is coming your way soon! It's in theaters starting today, Friday, June 12 in New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. See this page for a list of other opening dates around the country.

Julie Alvin, Editorial Assistant

Food bloggers sound off on favorite recipes and time-saving tips:

Uncooked pasta sauces are perfect for warm months--check out Epi-Log's favorites.

Cafe Mom recommends this low-sugar lemonade for summer stands.

Find more time to cook with these 10 tips from the Bon Appetit Blog.

The Atlantic Food Channel explores the issue of outsourcing agriculture.

Food and Wine's blog reviews the new cookbook Well Preserved.