Share Our Strength's Taste of the Nation, one of the biggest gatherings of chef and bartending talent this year, takes place next Thursday at the Aragon Ballroom. The annual event raises money for for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, Near North Health Services and the Illinois Hunger Coalition, three organizations fighting the rise of childhood hunger in the greater Chicago area.. more ›

The USDA released its annual report on Household Food Security (which is a sanitized way of saying "hunger") yesterday and the results were sobering. An estimated 17 million households, or 14.6 percent of the population, has experienced "food insecurity" at one point in the past twelve months. These figures are the highest since the USDA started tracking numbers in 1995. more ›