Announcing The 2012 Foodie Photo Scavenger Hunt! (Now World-Wide; with over $3500 in prizes from The Culinary Institute of America)

Readers, are you ready for something outrageous? Something unbelievable? Something so over-the-top that you might pinch yourself and wonder if it’s April 1st?

Well have I got news for you! The Culinary Institute of America—the world's premier culinary college—has agreed to sponsor my first-ever WORLD WIDE Foodie Photo Scavenger Hunt. They’re offering up to the 1st place winning team a FOUR DAY Culinary Boot Camp worth over $3500 (not to mention books and DVDs for the 2nd and 3rd place winners).

Long time readers of my blog know that I’ve done scavenger hunts before (see here and here) but they’ve always been limited to New York. Now I’m crafting one that can be enjoyed by anyone, anywhere in the world. The only stipulation is that, to claim your CIA Culinary Boot Camp prize, you’ll have to transport yourself to one of the CIA’s campuses (in either New York, Texas or California) and arrange for your own accommodations. But that’s a small price to pay for four intensive days of culinary education that includes lectures, hands-on cooking in the acclaimed CIA classroom-kitchens and dining in one of the student-run campus restaurants.

So here’s the drill: this Friday, May 4th, at 5 PM E.S.T., I’m going to post the scavenger hunt list and the official rules. There will be many, many paths for you to take---if I do my job correctly, it’ll be impossible for you to accomplish everything on the list by the time the hunt is over (Sunday night, May 6th, at midnight E.S.T.). Each entry will have various permutations (for example: eating a pink marshmallow, 5 points; eating a pink marshmallow while wearing pink, 10 points; eating a pink marshmallow while wearing pink and holding a Pink CD in your other hand, 15 points) so that, in the end, the point spread should be pretty wide.

Also, for my own sanity, I’m going to have everyone self-score so I only have to carefully evaluate the top 20 submissions. That way if you self-score 300 and another team self-scores 400, I can analyze the 400 submission and if it’s correct, I don’t have to waste time analyzing the 300 submission. Even if you don’t end up winning the grand prize of the CIA Culinary Boot Camp for two (or our 2nd and 3rd place prizes) this scavenger hunt is sure to be a blast.

So check back on Friday and get ready for the adventure of a lifetime! And thanks, of course, to the Culinary Institute of America for their awesome, unbelievable prize. For more info on the CIA's wide array of exciting Culinary Boot Camp classes, visit www.ciachef.edu/enthusiasts or call 800-888-7850!