Once again, Mario Batali will generously offer his otherworldly cooking skills to the Leelanau Conservancy’s annual Summer Picnic auction. It’s your opportunity to be coddled and fed by the great clogged chef himself in a private Leelanau County dinner for you and eleven friends. What’s it worth? Based on numbers from the last couple years, the winning bidder will pay upwards of $50,000. Check out http://www.theconservancy.com/2008picnicauctio.html for more details. Long live the Leelanau Conservancy.

Mario participated in the Epicurean Classic two years ago and put on quite a show. For all the fanfare around him, his restaurants, books, etc., he is unquestionably one of the world’s great culinary talents. I say this based on my conversations with dozens and dozens of nationally acclaimed chefs that have participated in the Classic. Almost without exception, they cite him and his books as heavy influences. He’s the real deal.

Speaking of Italian chefs, one of the 08 Classic headliners is Santa Ynez, CA chef, Leonardo Curti, owner / chef of Trattoria Grappolo. Leonardo recently authored a superb cookbook based on his restaurant. He’ll demonstrate some favorite Italian dishes at the Classic, participate in the Grand Reception on Saturday night, September 13, and also play a guest-chef-of-honor role in a Great Chef Dinner at Trattoria Stella in Traverse City, on Friday, September 12.

A James Beard Award winning author for her first cookbook, Bones, McLagan is also the author of Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes. A guest chef for the 2006 Classic, she lives and writes from her home in Toronto and is excited to make it back to Traverse City for this year’s Epicurean Classic.

The daughter of a restaurant owner, LeFavour is the author of The New Steak: Recipes for a Range of Cuts plus Savory Sides, published recently by Ten Speed Press. She has a Ph.D. from NYU, and writes with warm, witty skill, so her blog at creelefavour.com is widely wide. She lives in upstate NY.

The author of ten-plus cookbooks including the recently released Small Plates Perfect Wines: Creating Little Dishes with Big Flavors, Narlock lives in Napa Valley because she’s an avid, very knowledgeable wine lover and often writes about food and wine for Fine Cooking magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, and San Francisco Examiner, amongst other fine publications.

South Korean born then abandoned at three in a marketplace, Sunee lands in New Orleans as an adoptee and begins an independent, food-centric stretch of life culminating in Provence. Her new book, Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home is a multi-ethnic journal of self-discovery.

Foose is a Mississippi native and executive chef of the Viking Cooking School where she teaches thousands of home cooks the intricacies of bringing contemporary flair to Southern food. Her new book, Screen Doors & Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook has been hailed by Paula Deen, Matt and Ted Lee, and other dignitaries of Southern cooking.

After cooking and working her way around Greece on a private yacht, Schneider made landfall in San Diego and lost herself in the alluring flavors of Mexico’s Pacific coast cooking, and specifically the Baja. She has spent the last several years working in some of San Diego’s best kitchens and working on cookbooks including Baja: Cooking On the Edge, and Cooking with the Seasons at Rancho La Puerta.

What better way to celebrate the Midwest’s imcomparable bounty of fruit, produce, meat and fish than with innovative dishes prepared by an all-star cast of chefs from around the Great Lakes region. Complemented by Michigan’s most acclaimed wines, beers, and spirits and you have home-grown goodness par excellence. Scheduled for September 11 at the Great Lakes Culinary Institute in Traverse City, this walk-around reception will feature original recipes from Chicago’s John Manion, Carlyn Berghoff, and Chris Turano, along with Toronto’s Ted Reader, and Michigan based Rick Halberg, Jennifer Blakeslee, Eric Patterson, Ralph Humes, and Ted Cizma.

Also look for several wine tables offering medal-winning selections from L Mawby, Black Star Farms, Left Foot Charley, Shady Lanes, Longview, Bowers Harbor Vineyards, Chateau Fontaine, Good Harbor Vineyards, and Two Lads, just to name a few of the participating wineries from Michigan, and a multitude of beer styles from Bell’s, Short’s, and New Holland breweries.

Named the International Association of Cookbook Professional’s Teacher of the Year in 2004, Iyer is the author of the newly released 660 Curries: The Gateway to Indian Cooking, and The Tumeric Trail: Recipes and Memories from an Indian Childhood.