It’s amazing to see the kind of changes a connected world is bringing to food consumption and food production. Even before the internet, consider what the printed word did for food. Those of you who watched Julie & Julia, saw the beginning of a revolution in cooking brought to the US by a cook book. More specifically it was brought by a cook, Julia Child, who talked to the masses through a book and through television. Suddenly new ways of making food became readily available.

In the new millenia, a blog started by Julie Powell who cooked her way through Julia’s cookbook brought millions more to try out new food, new cooking techniques and have more appreciation for food.

The connected world is changing us even more. It’s not even on the PC any more. A friend just sent me a link to foodie, an iphone application that gives you real-time news about restaurants and deals in Chicago. The Chicago limit is, I’m sure, a question of marketing and having to find the deals. There’s no reason why the app wouldn’t work anywhere in the world.

On my blackberry, I now have Yelp mobile that helps me find reviewed restaurants next to me, and a recipe application that lets me search for ingredients I need while at the supermarket. Suddenly I’m not limited to making spaghetti and marinara sauce, and I don’t have to do a lot of research before I start shopping.

So what brought this post on? Whole Foods is hosting an event next week around New Media and food, or social networks and food: A New York New Food Media Panel. You can read more about the event in The Food Section. auntieChef.com is all about democratizing food production and letting small food producers reach us, the people looking for good food. In a sense, we’re enabling UGF – User Generated Food. I’d love to be at the event though it’s sold out, so I’m shamelessly making a public plea – please please, are there any tickets left?

We are what we eat and what we eat is changing. The future looks very exciting (even if I don’t make it to the event)!

Warming up the stove...

Our friend JJ Gonson (a fabulous locavore chef, and a true supporter of the auntieChef team from the beginning!) is hosting “O.N.C.E. in Hell: Dante’s Inferno in 10 Courses” December 15, 16, and 17th at Oberon, the American Repertory Theatre‘s Harvard Square venue.

Yes, a culinary and theatrical interpretation of Dante’s “Divine Comedy.”

The delicious courses promise to be heavenly.  Diners will enjoy plates of some Purgatory.  Luxuriate in some locovore Lust.  I can’t even imagine what she’ll come up with for Gluttony, Wrath, Violence… ?  She’s hard at work perfecting some of the sinful foodie delights for the night.  “I was thinking about how to really do Avarice right, truth be told,” she wrote to me.  The course has to be sufficiently “greedy or spendy.”

And how about Heresy?  “Heresy has just been hard for everyone, but a lot of things happen in Heresy.” So true.

Major points for toasty ambiance?

Fair warning, my veggie friends – apparently, its hard to be sinful and vegetarian at the same time – this particular O.N.C.E. will be geared towards the carnivorous.

JJ is the whirlwind locavore culinary talent behind O.N.C.E. (“One Night Culinary Event”).  For those of you who may not be in-tune with the Boston locavore intelligensia, O.N.C.E. is basically a scrumptious 3-hour, 10-course, locally-sourced dinner party conceived of and prepared by JJ’s crew at Cusine en Locale.

So check it out – nothing like a delicious Inferno to warm up the winter nights!