It's that time of year! The 7th Annual Oyster Cookoff is November 7-9 at The Hangout in Gulf Shores, Alabama. This event has become the biggest party of the year for me and is one of my favorite weekends on the Gulf. The weather is perfect, the crowds are gone, and the oysters are in season and absolutely beautiful. Best of all, it is FREE to attend!

Come to the 2014 Hangout Oyster Cookoff November 7th-9th! We kick it off with a Craft Brew Festival on Friday night and wrap it all up with a Sunday brunch. Come hang out with us and enjoy the Gulf at the very best time of the year.

Come join me for one of the best parties on the beach! The Hangout Oyster Cookoff is a celebration of the season: oysters, football, craft beers, and great friends! And all of this on the world's most beautiful white sugar sand beaches of Gulf Shore… — Come join me for one of the best parties on the beach! The Hangout Oyster Cookoff is a celebration of the season: oysters, football, craft beers, and great friends! And all of this on the world's most beautiful white sugar sand beaches of Gulf Shores, Alabama.

Turquoise Place is always my home away from home on the Gulf Coast. The condos have huge kitchens and each has its own private hot tub on the balcony. AND a grill. AND the most beautiful view of the Gulf you will ever see. Paradise.

I've asked my Season 8 Food Network Star friends to come back this year! Come meet Michele Ragussis, Linkie Marais, Nikki Martin, and Ippy Aiona. They will be preparing oysters their way on the BIG GREEN EGG stage beginning at 11:00 am.

I'm also bringing in one of my very favorite chef-friends as co-host for the party of the year... Chef Jason Roberts. You may have seen him recently on the Rachael Ray Show, or on The Chew, or on the Cooking Channel. This guy is one fierce chef! A Kiwi currently living and working in Australia and New York, he donates his time to help No Kid Hungry and has biked hundreds of miles to raise awareness and funds.

Jason and I are hosting a pairing dinner on the beach on Saturday night, November 8th at The Gulf with Ole Smoky Moonshine and New Belgium Beer. My other Food Network friends will donate a recipe to pair with beer or moonshine. It's going to be a blast. Best of all, we will raise both awareness and funds for No Kid Hungry at a time of the year when they need it most.

For more information: HANGOUTCOOKOFF.COM

I have got quite the week in front of me. Some of it is exciting and some is like jail.

The jail part is self imposed. I put myself on lockdown. No phone. No Facebook. I'd say no computer but I have to write. Suddenly, I'm having a flashback to Food Network Star.... ugh. Here's why I'm in self-imposed hiatus.... I'm trying to finish editing the collection of recipes I have gathered for an upcoming cookbook called Birmingham's Best Bites: A Collection of Recipes from Your Favorite Restaurants which will benefit the Birmingham Public Library. I loved the library as a kid and would ride my bike there almost daily in the summer to get new books to read. I bet I read every sports, horse, or Nancy Drew book they had in the place. Here's me... I always fell asleep with a library book on my head.

I'm writing the book with my good friend Chanda Temple, who is the Public Relations Director at the library. Our deadline is this week so I'm on lockdown until I finish. The book will be a great way for the library to raise funds for events and special programs and it will also help the restaurants with their visibility, too. The book launch party happens as the conclusion of this year's Eat, Drink, Read, Write Festival on October 10,2014. I'm helping throw the party. Here's a link to tickets if you want to come. They are only $10. Purchase EDRW Birmingham's Best Bites & Instagrammy's Tickets.

You have to be there to buy the cookbook and there are only a limited number of copies available. Besides, it is going to be a great party with lots of wonderful best bites! There are recipes from Birmingham's James Beard Award winners and nominees: Chef Frank Stitt and Highlands Bar and Grill, Chef Chris Hastings, Hot and Hot Fish Club, Chef James Lewis, Bettola at Pepper Place, Jim 'n Nicks, Ollie Irene, and the iconic The Bright Star in Bessemer. There are recipes from favorite food trucks like Shindigs and Dreamcakes to new-comers like Avondale's Hotbox, Bottle & Bone at Uptown, and the highly anticipated Galley & Garden from Chef James Boyce, Little Savannah, Satterfield's, DoDiYo's, Jinsei, Maki Fresh, Eagles Restaurant, and Ashley Mac and so many, many more have stepped up to participate.

Chanda Temple and I preview our cookbook, Birmingham's Best Bites: Recipes from Birmingham's Restaurants, Bars and Food Trucks

We've even included a "days gone by" section with a history of Birmingham restaurants and recipes from some favorites that have closed. That section includes the recipe for my Chocolate Roulage recipe, inspired by a landmark Birmingham restaurant called Cobb Lane which closed long ago. We used to go there back in the day for special occasions like bridesmaids luncheons and baby showers and the primary reason was for the Roulage. Yes, rou-lage. Not roulade. Yes. I know the French pronounce the rolled up thingie a "rou-lade" but here in Birmingham Alabama, it is and always will be pronounced rou-lage.

This book will be the perfect present for your foodie friends so get a few and keep them for special occasions. The images are by local photographers Arden Ward Upton and Mo Davis of Arden Photography. The photos are stunning and will make the book all the more special. Here is a sneak peek: