Do friends and family show up for dinner (invited or not) when you're fixing your special abalone recipe? Maybe you don't cook abalone, but you love, love, love eating it.

If so, then pack your bags and head for Fort Bragg and MAPA's Abalone Cookoff.

It's a one day event, Saturday, October 9, at Noyo Harbor in Fort Bragg.

The Abalone Cook-Off is a competition for cooks who prepare their favorite wild abalone recipe in hopes of winning a grand prize. You can be a cook, or a judge, or just come for the fun activities happening at the event.

Judging is the only way to taste abalone - just buy a Cook-Off Tasting Ticket to try approximately 10 different recipes and vote for your favorite.

If you're a cook, you're in luck! They need 10 more cooks - so sign up quick.

Cooks provide their own abalone, prepare tastes for 200 people, and compete for a fabulous prize. The winning cook receives their choice of either 8 Days & 7 Nights at a Private Villa in the Yucatan OR a $1000 Cash/Check Prize!

There's no entry fee to attend the festival and enjoy the music, craft faire and ambiance. However, if you want to taste abalone, you will need an Abalone Cook-Off Tasting Ticket. With or without a ticket, you may purchase fine Mendocino wines, clam chowder, t-shirts, raffle tickets & participate in the silent auction.

Money raised at the Abalone Cook-Off & Festival helps fund natural & cultural heritage programs in our local state parks to raise awareness of our interconnection with the life, land, water and air around us, and to inspire protection and preservation of our parklands - and our planet.

Visit the cook-off web site for more information:  http://www.mendoparks.org/Abalone/default.html