If ever you needed a good excuse to drink, this is probably it.

This Sunday, May 19, Circle of Concern, an organization that feeds the hungry and provides assistance to low-income families in western St. Louis County, will host an event it's calling Amazing Taste. At the event guests will be able to taste more than 600 unique wines, beers and spirits from at least 90 vendors partnered with Lukas Liquor Superstore.

Wine, beer, spirits and helping others. Call Gut Check philanthropic, 'cause we're in!

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Dearie by Bob Spitz.

There are arguably two waves of cooking that unfolded in America during the 20th century: before Julia Child and after. Last August, right in time for what would have been Child's 100th birthday, historical biographer Bob Spitz -- of best-sellers The Beatles: The Biography and Dylan: A Biography -- released Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child, a comprehensive tome chronicling Child's life. Much like Child herself, the first half of the pages are filled with her family history, her childhood, her days spent boozing at Smith College, her time working in the United States Office of Strategic Services, the precursor of today's Central Intelligence Agency.

Almost halfway through the book we find a 40-year-old Julia Child learning to cook for the first time in her life -- and soon perfecting cooking French cuisine, soon becoming an international phenomenon with the publishing of Mastering The Art of French Cooking. By age 51 she had ascended to television stardom and forever changed the medium and cooking forever with the debut of smash-hit TV show The French Chef.

Next week Spitz stops in St. Louis to discuss his book, on Tuesday, May 7, at 7 p.m. at Left Bank Books (321 North Tenth Street; 314-436-3049) in downtown St. Louis.

Always curious to learn more about the fascinating life of Julia Child, Gut Check called up Bob Spitz for a chat about the chef, why she hated Italian food and how she's essentially the Beatles of modern American cooking.

Click through for the chance to enter to win a copy of Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child.

Update: Congrats to commenter nikolembrown, who logged the following winning comment: "Bifteck Saute Bercy (Pan-broiled steak with shallot and white wine sauce). Any recipe she has that combines wine and butter is ALWAYS amazing."

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Liz Miller

Chef Clara Moore at Local Harvest Grocery in Kirkwood.

Update: Moore and Sorrell launched their Kickstarter campaign last evening. As of this writing, the project has $1,175 in pledges and 29 days to go. Our original post follows.
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In recent months chef Clara Moore moved from St. Louis to Seattle, Washington, leaving her position as executive chef and regional manager of local grocery and restaurant chain Local Harvest Cafe & Catering. She now divides time between her hometown, St. Louis, and Seattle, and she's still a business partner at Local Harvest.

Now comes news that Moore is writing a cookbook and St. Louis grocery-store guide titled Shop Like a Chef: A Food Lover's Guide to St. Louis Neighborhoods, with plans to fund the project through a Kickstarter campaign slated to launch Wednesday, April 24.

Curious to learn more about the book, we gave Moore a call.

See also:
-Chef Clara Moore Leaving Local Harvest Cafe & Catering
-Chef's Choice: Clara Moore of Local Harvest Cafe and Catering

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First it was cadavers. Then it was ghosts and then sex. Now, unwitting science journalist and author Mary Roach is tackling food and all the weird stuff our bodies do when we eat it.

Roach's new book, Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, comes out April 1, and she'll be stopping by St. Louis later in the month on her book tour.

Roach started out as a magazine journalist, but eventually parlayed her column for Salon.com into her first book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Next, she investigated the afterlife in Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, then came Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.

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Mohawked mixologist and Sanctuaria (4198 Manchester Avenue; 314-535-9700) bar manager Matt Seiter will be mixing drinks from his recently released book Sanctuaria: The Dive Bar of Cocktails: How We Rewrote the Rules and Recipes One Cocktail at a Time at Taste tonight from 5 to 7 p.m.

Seiter has already visited cities such as New Orleans and New York to promote the book, but this is the first St. Louis-based event since its release party at Sanctuaria in December.

This evening Seiter will be mixing up a handful of the 150 drink recipes listed in his book, including the "Ping Pong," with sloe gin, creme de violette and lemon ($6); "Diki Diki," with Calvados, Swedish punsch and grapefruit ($6); and the "St. Louis Southside" with gin, ginger liqueur, lemon, absinthe, club soda and mint ($8).

He will also be selling copies of the book and tells Gut Check that he will autograph copies if people ask him to, but admits, "I don't know how many people in town know that I even wrote a book."

See also:
-Sanctuaria Releases First Cocktail Book Written by Bar Manager Matt Seiter
-Sanctuaria Bar Manager Matt Seiter Talks New Cocktail Book Before Tonight's Release Party

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Gut Check sure likes to dine out -- lucky for us, it's in the job description -- but we love to reach into the kitchen drawer to try out a recipe or two, too. More often than not, our cursor clicks over to the Smitten Kitchen cooking and baking blog for some inspiring domestic advice spelled out in detailed steps, complete with charming anecdotes and almost unfair photographs demonstrating the process and illustrating the end goal. True, our food never looks quite as beautiful as Perelman's, but with her helpful instructions, it at least tastes great.

This past fall, author Perelman reached beyond the computer screen and planted her years of self-taught findings into physical print with The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. On Friday, March 1, she brings her book tour to Left Bank Books (321 North 10th Street; 314-436-3049). At 7 p.m., she'll discuss and sign copies of the cookbook, available for purchase at Left Bank Books. Read on for a short Q&A with Perelman.

Click through to enter to win a copy of The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook!

Update: Congrats to commenter kpbakery, who submitted the winning comment. We're pretty smitten with the idea of salted caramel tuxedo brownies, too.

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Here's to you, Nicolas Appert! Let's toast with the jar you invented.

Today marks the beginning of National Canned Food Month. Why is February National Canned Food Month? Well, are there any locally-grown fresh fruits and vegetables you'd want to eat at this time of year? Yeah, didn't think so.

Before we launch into our month-long celebration of soups and vegetables, sardines and SpaghettiOs, beer and Clamato and all other things canned, let us raise a Mason jar in a toast to Nicolas Appert, the father of canned food.

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Last month, Gut Check spoke with Sanctuaria (4198 Manchester Avenue; 314-535-9700) bar manager Matt Seiter about his upcoming cocktail book The Dive Bar of Cocktails: How We Rewrote the Rules and Recipes One Cocktail at a Time based the restaurant's on drink menu. The book's official release date is Tuesday, December 11, with a book-release party, "Cocktails by Candlelight," scheduled for tonight at 7 p.m. at Sanctuaria.

Curious to learn more about the cocktail book, recipes therein and book release party, we caught up with Seiter.

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Sanctuaria (4198 Manchester Avenue; 314-535-9700) announced this week that its releasing a cocktail book penned by its acclaimed bar manager Matt Seiter titled The Dive Bar of Cocktails: How We Rewrote the Rules and Recipes One Cocktail at a Time. A book-release party titled "Cocktails by Candlelight" is scheduled to coincide with the restaurant's third anniversary on Monday, December 10, at 7 p.m. at Sanctuaria. The book's official release date is Tuesday, December 11.

Gut Check caught up with Seiter to find out what's inside the cocktail book and what to expect at Sanctuaria's upcoming shindig.

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Remember a few weeks ago when we showed you the book trailer for Fifty Shades of Chicken, the new cookbook inspired by this summer's "literary" sensation that really puts the "porn" in "food porn"? Of course you do! Gut Check is by no means the world's most expert chicken-trusser, but after seeing that video, the process has been so indelibly printed on our consciousness, we're sure the voice of Patrick Stewart (or his soundalike) will always be there to guide us any time we're confronted with a raw chicken and a length of kitchen twine.

A few days after we discovered the book trailer, a copy of the book itself came winging its way to us from the publisher. Oh, the ecstasy, the complete abandon we felt when we finally got a chance to finger its glossy pages!

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