Goettsch approached leaders at The Culinary Institute of America (CIA), the world's premier culinary college, in the spring of 2007 with the company's vision. No such program existed, according to Dr. Victor Gielisse, Certified Master Chef (C.M.C.), Certified Hospitality Educator (C.H.E.) and associate vice president of the CIA. Gielisse noted the industry void in advanced education that provides perspective on creativity, innovation, leadership and management for chefs at the five-year and above experience level. The Culinary Enrichment and Innovation Program (CEIP) was created by the CIA and Hormel Foods to build tomorrow's culinary leaders and address a growing concern for employee retention by providing creative, competitive staff development.

Sixteen students will attend four highly intense three-day sessions at the CIA's Hyde Park Campus in New York over the course of 18 months. Each educational module will include classroom teaching from a select group of Certified Master Chefs based at the CIA (there are only 60 such chefs in the world), one-on-one interaction with leading industry culinarians, and hands-on time in the kitchen. CEIP curriculum has been created by the CIA in coordination with Hormel Foods. Graduates of the program will receive advanced certification from the CIA and become members of the Hormel Circle of Innovation.

Hormel Foods and the CIA will accept applications for the program through Aug. 1, 2008. Notification of acceptance will occur by Aug. 29, 2008, and the inaugural class will be held in October of this year. Interested parties will find the application and additional information on the program at www.ceipinfo.com.

"The values of innovation, leadership and entrepreneurship are at the heart of Hormel Foods' long-standing heritage," Goettsch said. "We are honored to partner with the CIA, the world's premier culinary college, to build this exciting and influential program."

About Hormel Foods

Hormel Foods Corporation, based in Austin, Minn., is a multinational manufacturer and marketer of consumer-branded food and meat products, many of which are among the best known and trusted in the food industry. The company leverages its extensive expertise, innovation and high competencies in pork and turkey processing and marketing to bring quality, value-added brands to the global marketplace. In each of the past nine years, Hormel Foods was named one of "The 400 Best Big Companies in America" by Forbes magazine. The company enjoys a strong reputation among consumers, retail grocers, foodservice and industrial customers for products highly regarded for quality, taste, nutrition, convenience and value. For more information, visit www.hormelfoods.com.

About The Culinary Institute of America

Founded in 1946, The Culinary Institute of America is an independent, not-for-profit college offering bachelor's and associate degrees, as well as certificate programs, in either culinary arts or baking and pastry arts. As the world's premier culinary college, the CIA has a network of more than 37,000 alumni that includes industry leaders such as Grant Achatz, Anthony Bourdain, Cat Cora, Harold Dieterle, Steve Ells, Todd English, Duff Goldman, Sara Moulton, Charlie Palmer, and Roy Yamaguchi. The college has campuses in New York (Hyde Park), California (The CIA at Greystone, St. Helena), and Texas (San Antonio), as well as an additional location in New York City (Astor Center, Manhattan). In addition to its degree programs, the CIA also offers courses for professionals and food enthusiasts, as well as wine education. For more information, and a complete listing of program offerings at each site, visit the CIA online at www.ciachef.edu.

SOURCE: Hormel Foods

Hormel Foods
Sue Sorensen Lee, 952-926-2140
Foodservice Division Public Relations
sue@leepublicrelations.com

-- 5 Books (B&N Review): A topic-by-topic guide to essential and intriguing books. Each week, readers will find five suggested reading titles to sharpen their knowledge on a particular subject. 5 Books launches this week with selections on Money, Paris and Baseball.

-- The Book Files (B&N Studio): An original Web video series uncovering the extraordinary stories related to books old and new, famous and obscure. The series debuts this week with James Joyce's Dubliners. Upcoming episodes feature Jerzy Kosinski's Steps and Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel's Green Eggs and Ham.

"Barnes & Noble stores have always been a natural home for booklovers," said Mike Skagerlind, vice president and head of digital media for Barnes & Noble.com. "We are developing this unique, high quality content and programming in order to make Barnes & Noble.com a natural home for booklovers on the Web. We are very committed to doing this right and have engaged a variety of passionate and brilliant writers and filmmakers to do something that nobody else has done."

The new content initiatives join popular series that have launched over the past three months, including Barnes & Noble Tagged!, Book Obsessed and Cover Story.

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 800 bookstores in 50 states. For the fourth year in a row, the company is the nation's top bookseller brand, as determined by a brand's overall strength based on its combination of familiarity, quality and purchase intent, according to the EquiTrend(R) Brand Study by Harris Interactive(R). Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web's largest e-commerce sites.

General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company's corporate website: http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com.

SOURCE: Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc.
Carolyn J. Brown
Corporate Communications
212-633-4062
cbrown@bn.com

"We are so pleased to welcome tonight's winners into the celebrated circle of James Beard Foundation Awards recipients," said Susan Ungaro, president, James Beard Foundation. "This is truly an esteemed group and their work, efforts and dedication to their craft have been recognized by their peers as setting them apart from the rest. This was a wonderful year and we were very happy to also celebrate artisans from around the country, whose important work can some times be overshadowed, as part of the gala festivities."

Five regional restaurants were honored at the ceremony with the America's Classic Award:

    --  Bagaduce Lunch; Owner: Judy Astbury (Brookville, ME)
    --  Irma's Restaurant; Owner: Irma Galvan (Houston, TX)
    --  Maneki; Owner: Jean Nakamaya (Seattle, WA)
    --  Jumbo's; Owner: Bobby Flam (Miami, FL)
    --  Tufano's Vernon Park Tap; Owner: Joseph DiBuono (Chicago, IL)

On Saturday, June 7, 2008, the James Beard Foundation Who's Who of Food & Beverage in America Awards were announced at an invitation-only reception hosted by Gourmet magazine, marking the first time the Foundation honored the new Who's Who inductees at a separate event. This year's inductees included:

    --  Dan Barber; Chef/Owner: Blue Hill (NYC) and Blue Hill at Stone Barns
        (Pocantino Hills, NY)
    --  Anthony Bourdain; Author and Chef (NYC)
    --  Nancy Oakes; Chef: Boulevard (San Francisco)
    --  Russ Parsons; Writer, The Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles)
    --  Zanne Early Stewart; Former Executive Food Editor, Gourmet (NYC)
    --  Steve Sullivan; Founder/Owner, Acme Bread Company (Berkeley, CA)

The Journalism and Broadcast Media awards were announced at a separate dinner event on Friday, June 6, 2008 at the Hudson Theatre where Junot Diaz received the MFK Distinguished Writing Award for "He'll Take Alto" which appeared in the September 2007 issue of Gourmet. Other highlights include:

    --  Television Food Special: Top Chef Holiday Special; hosts: Tom
        Collicchio and Padma Lakshmi
    --  Webcast: Stewards of the Land; Hosts: Jay Selman, Brian Clark, Eric
        Anderson
    --  Multimedia Writing on Food: Josh Ozersky and Daniel Maurer,
        NYMag.com's Grub Street Blog
    --  Website Focusing on Food, Beverage, Restaurant, or Nutrition:
        Epicurious.com; Tanya Steel
    --  Magazine Feature Writing About Restaurants and/or Chefs: Howie Kahn,
        GQ, "The Wandering Chef" (6/07)
    --  Newspaper Feature Writing About Restaurants and/or Chefs: Brett
        Anderson, The Times-Picayune, "Landmark Decisions: A Five-Part Series
        Chroniciling the Ruin and Restoration of a Classic New Orleans
        Restaurant" (9/2/07-9/6/07)

For complete list of winners in all categories, please visit www.jamesbeard.org.

Established in 1990, the James Beard Foundation Awards recognize culinary professionals for excellence and achievement in their field and, with each year, continues to emphasize the Foundation's mission: to celebrate, preserve, and nurture America's culinary heritage and diversity. All award winners receive a certificate and a bronze medallion engraved with the James Beard Foundation Awards insignia. There are no cash awards. To select the nominees and winners, independent volunteer panels of more than 600 food and beverage from around the country vote on specific Awards categories. The trustees and staff of the James Beard Foundation do not vote. The independent accounting firm of Lutz & Carr tabulates ballots.

The 2008 James Beard Foundation Awards were presented in association with All-Clad Metalcrafters and American Express(R) (the official card of the James Beard Foundation); Supporting Sponsors: Green & Black's(R), illy Caffe North America, Inc., Lexus, Southern Wine & Spirits of New York, S.Pellegrino(R) Sparkling Natural Mineral Water, Viking Range Corporation, Waterford Wedgwood; and Gala Reception Sponsors: Chefwear, Ecolab, and Rums of Puerto Rico.

About the James Beard Foundation - www.jamesbeard.org

The James Beard Foundation is dedicated to celebrating, preserving, and nurturing America's culinary heritage and diversity in order to elevate the appreciation of our culinary excellence. A cookbook author and teacher with an encyclopedic knowledge about food, James Beard, who died in 1985, was a champion of American cuisine. He helped educate and mentor generations of professional chefs and food enthusiasts. Today, the Beard Foundation continues in the same spirit by administering a number of diverse programs that include educational initiatives, food industry awards, scholarships to culinary schools, and publications, and by maintaining the historic James Beard House in New York City's Greenwich Village as a "performance space" for visiting chefs. For more information, please visit www.jamesbeard.org .

SOURCE James Beard Foundation

http://www.jamesbeard.org

"You know you're doing a lot of things right when you're nominated for a Webby Award," said Eileen Gittins, Blurb's founder and CEO. "Our website reflects our passion and commitment to helping people and communities create and share their work and their stories via books. We're thrilled to be nominated for a Webby; it's validating, exciting, and incredibly flattering."

Hailed as the "Oscars of the Internet" by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, including websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile websites. The Webby Awards is presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a 550-person judging academy whose members include Internet co-inventor Vinton Cerf, R/GA's Chief Bob Greenberg, "Simpson's" creator Matt Groening, Arianna Huffington, and Harvey Weinstein.

Blurb shares the spotlight with exceptional company. Websites such as Anthony Bourdain's Top Chef Blog, Best Week Ever from VH1, GQ, Style.com, ESPN.com, Slate Magazine, NYTimes.com, Wired.com, Pentax Photo Gallery, Nike Golf, Atom Films, BBC News, Flickr, and Moo are just a few of the sites up for Webby Awards.

Previous Webby Awards winners include Amazon.com, eBay, Yahoo!, iTunes, Google, FedEx, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, Salon Magazine, Evite, Meetup, Wikipedia, Flickr, Comedy Central, PBS, and The Onion.

This year's winners will be announced on May 6, 2008 and honored at a star-studded gala in New York City on June 10th.

To create a Blurb book, all users start by downloading Blurb BookSmart(TM) software from the Blurb website. Blurb's BookSmart software is free, runs on a Mac or PC, and offers a wide variety of book layouts created by professional book designers. Blurb enables anyone to affordably make, share, market, and sell beautiful, bookstore-quality books.

About Blurb

Blurb is a company and a community that believes passionately in the power of books: making, reading, sharing, and selling them. Blurb is flexible and smart enough to help anyone make a book -- photographers, creative professionals, bloggers, artists, writers, travelers, everyone. Blurb's bookstore and online marketing tools let people share, market, and sell their books, and keep 100% of the markup. Blurb's community features empower socially connected groups of consumers and professionals to create Blurb books together.

Blurb has been recognized as an OnMedia 100 winner by AlwaysOn in 2008, named a Momentum 15 company by Dealmaker Media in 2007, awarded the 2007 Pixel Awards Geek Winner, and recently nominated for a 2008 Webby Award. Blurb was founded by Eileen Gittins in 2004 and is funded by Canaan Partners and Anthem Venture Partners. Blurb BookSmart(TM) software is free for Mac or PC at http://www.blurb.com.

About The Webby Awards

Hailed as the "Oscars of the Internet" by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, including websites, interactive advertising, online film and video, and mobile websites. Established in 1996, the 12th Annual Webby Awards received a record 9,500 entries from all 50 states and over 60 countries worldwide. The Webby Awards is presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Sponsors and Partners of The Webby Awards include: Adobe; The Creative Group; .ORG; The Barbarian Group; Level3; Adweek; Fortune; Variety; Wired; IDG: Brightcove; PricewaterhouseCoopers; 2advanced.Net; KobeMail and Museum of the Moving Image.

SOURCE Blurb

http://www.blurb.com