San Diego Food Bloggers Unite!! A Fund for Jennie

On August 12^th, seemed like the whole food blogging world was making a peanut butter pie in support of fellow blogger Jennie Perillo and her two young daughters who had lost their husband/father suddenly. As if it wasn't hard enough to deal with the loss of your partner, Jennie is having to deal with the other realities of life such as health insurance, the mortgage, and just day to day life trying to raise her girls.

So again the food bloggers unite to help Jennie out. Bloggers Without Borders is a non-profit organization that was created to raise awareness for certain issues in our communities and to spread the word via the food blogging community. Read more about Bloggers Without Borders

BWoB’s latest project: A Fund for Jennie 

Food bloggers throughout the country have organized auctions for their readers to bid on. Items include anything from baked goods to stacks of cookbooks to the blogger actually coming to your home to teach you how to cook or host a dinner party.




 

What I'm doing about it

I got an email from Marie of Meandering Eats a few days ago asking fellow San Diego Food Bloggers to help put together a basket to auction. Yup....I'm in!!

What you can do

1) Bid on our super awesome San Diego themed basket! Visit Marie's blog, Meandering Eats to check out what's up for auction. If you are interested in bidding, please leave a comment at the bottom of the post (Marie's post, not mine...you won't get anything for bidding on my page silly!) Be sure to include your email address so we can contact you if your bid wins. The auction ends on September 2 at 12:59pm, PST.  

Btw, I contributed San Diego's own Sam the Cooking Guy's newest cookbook, Just Grill This!....which I want one for myself now. The only way to pry this cookbook away from my hands is to bid. So what are you waiting for?!

2) Visit the auction page on the Bloggers Without Borders website. They are updating the site with blogs that are holding auctions. There are so many great items but a lot of the auctions will be ending soon so hurry!

3) If you are like me and the millions of people who cannot afford to bid but you would like to still contribute something, please follow the link Donate: A Fund for Jennie to make a donation for any denomination. All funds being donated at this time will be going towards A Fund for Jennie.

A huge thank you to all of you who donate or bid on the SD Food Bloggers basket! Have a great weekend!

Lil Ms. Sueshine



Peanut Butter Pie

Just like most Friday nights, my husband and I sat side by side on the couch, both working on our laptops. Both of us have been so busy lately between our regular day jobs, me with my baking orders & house sitting and my husband with his martial arts business. I logged onto my Blogger account and ran down the list of blogs that I read. Clearly, something was going on. Almost everyone had a picture of a peanut butter pie on their blog and what better reason than this: Jennie Pirello called everyone into action to make a peanut butter pie which was her husband’s favorite. Read more here.....For Mikey

It broke my heart to read the post. I’ll be honest and have never read her blog before Friday but just reading about her loss put things into perspective for me. For the past few weeks, every time the oven was turned on and the mixer started going, my own husband had been asking me, “When are you going to make me something with peanut butter and chocolate?” Each time I told him I didn’t have time. It’s sad that something like this made me stop and realize what I was doing…or better yet, not doing.

Although a day late, I made my peanut butter pie. This one was in honor of Jennie’s husband….and my own husband.




My no sugar added version of a Peanut Butter Cream Pie. My husband and I shared the first slice.

 
I just recently became part of the food blogging community in April but I’m proud to say I’m part of it. It’s amazing to me how the community had reached out to support Jennie, even though she is a stranger to a lot of us. So it’s not a recipe that I want you to get out of today’s post. What I hope you get out of it is to take some time out of your busy schedule and tell those special people in your life that you love them. Also be kind to others because you don’t know what that person you are passing on the street might be going through. Sometimes something as simple as a smile can make their day. Despite the pain she must be feeling, something like a few hundred peanut butter pies might have made Jennie’s day.