Welcome to Season 2 of Cook with Us!

The Cook with Us team @chefsteve, @pandamama and @offoodandart, is happy to open Season 2 of Cook with Us. To those who have been participating or following Cook with Us, welcome back and we hope you had a wonderful break! To those who are new, we welcome you and hope you join in and enjoy the delicious creations of the community.

We have some exciting news to share with you. Please watch for the newsletter coming out on July 3rd to find out what's cooking. For now, let's go straight to the Week 15 theme.

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The theme for Cook with Us #15

National Holiday Foods

No Mystery Theme this Week

National holidays are a great time to take a break from work and relax with friends and family. Some national holidays have strong associations with certain foods. For example in the United States, Thanksgiving dinner traditionally means roast turkey with stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce. Fourth of July (American independence day) is more open ended but is associated with grilled foods and salads. On July 4th, you can expect people to be grilling burgers and hotdogs and serving them with sides like potato salad, macaroni salad or baked beans. This week in CwU, we want to learn about your national holiday foods. Make a traditional dish that is associated with one of your country’s national holidays or your version of a national holiday dish. We know that CwU members follow all kinds of diets and we welcome your updated versions of traditional foods. Please tell us about your holiday and any traditions associated with it. Since the CwU community is so International this is a great way for us to learn more about the foods and traditions of many different cultures.

We decided to not have a mystery theme this week as the options for national holiday foods is endless.

Good luck and we look forward to seeing your creations as well as learning from your national holidays!

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The Cook with Us Calendar

You can plan ahead! Below is the Cook with Us Calendar for the first 4 weeks of Season 2.

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Cook with Us is on Discord

To join, please follow the steps below.

- Create a Discord account if first time on Discord. It's best to use your Steemit username.

- Download the Discord app which can be found here.

- Click on this link to join the Cook with Us channel.

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The Cook with Us Contest

The Cook with Us team is very excited to welcome you and look forward to getting to know you as we cook or create dishes together. It is our intention to build a community of people that enjoy cooking and sharing with each other.

The contest is divided into two groups. The first group is the General Pool and the second is the Winners' Circle. Each group will have three winners ranking from 1st place to 3rd place. Every contestant starts in the General Pool. The 1st place winner in the General Pool advances to the Winners' Circle in the next round.

We are pleased to announce the following prizes for each group:

• First place - 5 SBD

• Second place - 3 SBD

• Third place - 1 SBD

Winners' Circle

The following, if participating in Cook with Us #15, will be competing in the Winners' Circle.

• @ground2feet

• @loveself

• @foodforsoul

• @whattheduck

• @deimus

• @blackberryskunk

• @cooknbake

• @dianadee

• @alansthoughs

• @lizelle

• @gladysstillwagon

• @carolynstahl

• @plantstoplanks

• @pusteblume

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Cook with Us Official Contest Rules

Please take some time to review the contest rules below. We understand that a lot of work is put into every post and we do not want to disqualify anyone for not following the rules. If you are unsure about any of them, just ask us for some clarification. We will be happy to help you.

Contest Entry Rules

• The title of your post should look like this: Cook with Us #15 – National Holiday Foods. For example, Cook with Us #15 - Best Homemade Apple Pie.

• The first tag on your entry must be: cookwithus.

• Upvote and resteem this @cookwithus post that you are submitting an entry for.

• The first time you enter this competition, submit a proof photo. This can be in the form of a handwritten note with your Steemit name, the name of the dish, and the date with your entry - or it can be a photograph of yourself with your dish. Thereafter, you will not need a proof photograph going forward as we will know who you are. Please do not use Photoshop for the proof photo.

• Include a description of the dish. Some examples are the taste of the dish, its origin, or the story behind it.

• Describe why your dish works. Give a brief description about why you put these ingredients together.

• Post a link to your entry in the comments section of the weekly challenge. This is the post that announces the start of the week's contest

• You can only enter one dish per entry (a dish means a single version. Not one dish two or three ways). You may only enter one entry per week.

General Contest Rules

• Contest ends every Monday 12:00 UTC.

• Results will be published no later than Thursday 12:00 UTC, three days after the contest is closed.

• Entries do not have to be original. However, if not original, please provide the source.

• While the calendar may be showing future themes, entries can only be submitted for the current week's contest and only after the official post for the contest is made. Entries submitted before the official start date or after the deadline will not be considered valid entries.

• The Cook with Us contest will cover many topics and disciplines. Make sure you check for weekly contest rules that may change due to the nature of the challenge.

• By entering @cookwithus, the contestant agrees to their material being used by the organizers for any purposes and will not be compensated should the material be published. But you, the author/photographer, will be given written credit.

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Acknowledgements

There were many people that helped us to get this competition up and running. We would like to say a BIG thank you to them all and express our sincere gratitude for their contributions.

Please show your support for @aggroed by voting for him as a witness.

We are delighted with the caricatures made for us by @bazbiscuit. Thank you Barry!

@jacklimberis made our banner and gif for us. Thank you Jack - we really appreciate all the hard and beautiful work!

Thank you @edenmichelle for making the youtube video for us. A huge thanks as well to @leelektrik for creating our logo.

Thank you VIEWLY for the View Token prizes that we will give to our contestants who make a little video of their recipes.

Please follow @zord189, @jznsamuel, @sneakyninja, @jacklimberis, @bazbiscuit, @edenmichelle, @theywillkillyou, @world5list, @world-travel-pro, and @heyitshaas. We hope to add to this list of supporters of our competition. If you would like to be a supporter of @cookwithus, please contact us. We would love to hear from you.