NEW YORK, June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- How can eating a delicious meal prepared by some of the country's top chefs, using local ingredients, lead to more food for the neediest families? Epicurious.com, the award-winning food Web site, created Wine.Dine.Donate. to answer that question.

Now in its third year, Wine.Dine.Donate. participants have provided nearly one million meals to hungry families via America's Second Harvest, the nation's leading hunger relief organization. Whether by attending a Wine.Dine.Donate. event or throwing a dinner party and donating online, Epicurious.com provides multiple ways to feed the more than 25 million Americans, including 9 million children, served by America's Second Harvest's network of local food banks each year. Dinners are being held in San Francisco, Chicago and New York this year, and will be prepared by leading chefs including Traci Des Jardins, Michael Kornick and John A. Schaefer. Many of the ingredients for the meals will be provided by local farmers who will be in attendance at the events.

"As food prices continue to skyrocket and incomes are more and more stretched, supporting your local food bank becomes even more important," says Tanya Steel, editor-in-chief of Epicurious.com. "This year is worse than ever before, as between 15 and 20 percent more people are being served by food banks this year as compared to one year ago, with fewer donations."

This year's exclusive Wine.Dine.Donate. events will be held as follows:

-- Chicago -- Thursday, July 24th -- MK Restaurant with Chefs Michael Kornick and Pastry Chef Amy Sampson.

-- San Francisco -- Wednesday, July 30th -- Acme Chophouse with Chefs Traci Des Jardins and Citizen Cake's Elizabeth Faulkner.

-- New York -- Wednesday, September 17th -- Irving Mill with Chefs John A. Schaefer and Hearth's Marco Canora.

Tickets to Wine.Dine.Donate. dinners are $125 per person and all proceeds go to America's Second Harvest. Attendees will receive eco-friendly reusable gift bags with products from Bertolli Premium Pasta Sauce, OXO and TasteBook.

If attending a party is more than your calendar will allow, Epicurious.com offers one more easy way to help the hungry through America's Second Harvest. Host a dinner party for friends at home using one of the thousands of menus on Epicurious.com and encourage attendees to donate directly to the organization by clicking on the link provided on Epicurious.com.

For more information on Wine.Dine.Donate., or to purchase tickets to the Wine.Dine.Donate. dinners at top restaurants around the country, please visit http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/entertaining/winedinedonate/winedined onate. (Due to length of URL, please copy and paste into browser.)

Epicurious.com, a CondeNet site, is a premier award-winning food Web site, which incorporates more than 35,000 professionally tested recipes from the premier brands in food journalism, 50,000 member-submitted recipes, and web-exclusive original content from Epicurious.com editors and leading food authorities around the world. Epicurious offers a wealth of articles and tips focused on cooking, entertaining, wine, cocktails, and shopping.

CondeNet is the leading creator and developer of upscale lifestyle brands online, providing enjoyable, useful services that build upon the heritage of the world's most prestigious magazines. The company publishes online properties in the categories of food (Epicurious.com and NutritionData.com); travel (Concierge.com, HotelChatter.com and Jaunted.com); fashion (Style.com); men's lifestyle (Men.Style.com); technology (Wired.com, Reddit, Ars Technica, Webmonkey and HotWired), and teen (flip.com). CondeNet is an Internet unit of Conde Nast Publications.

    Contact:
    Allison Braley
    Epicurious.com Media Relations
    Phone:  (212) 790-4487
    Email:  Allison_braley@condenast.com

Source: Epicurious.com