Who wouldn't want to celebrate Earth Day with slices of pie? The fourth annual SEEDS pie social is 1-5 p.m. April 22.

The event raises money for the Durham Inner-City Gardeners, an urban-farming leadership development program for teens. You may have seen these teenagers selling their produce at the Durham Farmers' Market on Saturday mornings.

The cost is $10 for four slices of pie. Almost 30 restaurants and several home bakers have signed up to donate pie, including Acme Food & Beverage Co., Foster's Market, Guglhupf and Papa Mojo's Roadhouse. The pies will range from classic sweet desserts to pizza. New this  year, a panel of judges will declare one pie as the Best in Town and the public will vote for a People's Choice favorite.

While eating pie, attendees can bid on lessons in the skill share auction where instead of buying stuff, you can learn a skill. Among the lessons up for bid are how to fly a plane, brew beer, bake bread and cook Indian food.

The garden is located at 706 Gilbert Street, Durham. The event will happen rain or shine. For more information, go to http://www.seedsnc.org.

The sixth annual Empty Bowls fundraiser will be serving up bowls of soup to benefit Urban Ministries of Durham as usual. But this year, organizers have added an after party at Fullsteam Brewery  and Motorco Music Hall with a food truck roundup.

So now you have two opportunities to help the Urban Ministries of Durham's Community Cafe, which serves nearly 220,000 meals annually to those in need.

From 5:30-8 p.m. March 8, eleven restaurants will be competing for the title of "Best Soup" at The Durham Armory. You can pay $15 to enjoy some soup or $30 for soup and a handcrafted bowl made by local artisans to take home. Children age 6 and under eat for free. To buy tickets, go to  www.umdurham.org.

The participating restaurants include Guglhupf, Revolution, L'Uva, Papa Mojo's Roadhouse, Thrills from the Grill, Watts Grocery, Blu Seafood and Bar, Whole Foods, Toast, Saladelia Cafe and Mad Hatter Bakeshop and Cafe.

If you can't make the earlier event, head over to Fullsteam Brewery and Motorco Music Hall starting at 8 p.m. for the after party. Seven food trucks will be debuting a new dish and donating a percentage of their sales to Urban Ministries of Durham. The food trucks include Pie Pushers, Will & Pops, The Parlour, Chirba Chirba Dumpling, Klausie's Pizza, Only Burger and Farmhand Foods Sausage Wagon. 

REMINDER: A Southern Season runs a series of cooking classes featuring local chefs. So if you want to learn how to cook the food served at your favorite local restaurants, here are a few upcoming classes:

• Chef Masa Tsujimura of Raleigh's Waraji will be teaching a sushi class at 2 p.m. Jan. 16. The class costs $50.
• Chefs Alex Gallis of Cypress on the Hill in Chapel Hill and Chef Jeremy Blankenship of Tyler's Taproom in Carrboro are teaching together at 6 p.m. Jan. 31. The class costs $40.
• Chef Mel Melton of Papa Mojo's Roadhouse in Durham will cook as well as perform with his band, The Wicked Mojos. That class will be 2 p.m. Feb. 27. It costs $45.
• Jamil Kadoura, the gracious owner of Chapel Hill's Mediterranean Deli, will be there at  6 p.m. Mar. 8. The class costs $30.
• Justin Cole, the young new executive chef at La Residence in Chapel Hill, will be teaching at 6 p.m. March 14. The class costs $40.

To reserve your spot in any of these classes, call 929-7133 or go to www.southernseason.com

Durham chefs will be serving up soup March 5 to raise money for Urban Ministries.

The event called Empty Bowls '10 raises funds for the Durham non-profit, which provides hot meals and food pantry for those in need. 

Soup will be served 5:30-8 p.m. Friday, March 5 at the Durham Armory, 220 Foster St. Durham.

Tickets cost $30 each, which includes a one-of-a-kind keepsake bowl made by a local artist. Or you can purchase tickets for $15 to just eat soup without the keepsake bowl. Children ages 6 and under eat free. To order tickets, call 682-0538 or click HERE. 

A panel of judges and the public will each pick their own favorite soup among those served. The restaurants that will serve soup, include Blu Seafood & Bar, Papa Mojo's Roadhouse, Revolution and Nana's.

Four Square Restaurant placed 1st in the fine dining category in the annual N.C. Best Dish contest, a competition designed to get restaurants to use North Carolina products.

The Agriculture Department's press release says chef Shane Ingram's menu included "Pope Farm Lamb Carpaccio, Flat River Nursery Heirloom Tomato Gazpacho Trio, Brinkley Farms Prosciutto-wrapped Trout and Maple View Farms Buttermilk Cupcakes with Blueberry Mousse."

In the casual dining category, Papa Mojo's Roadhouse, last year's first-place winner, took second place.  Chef Mel Melton's menu included "Red Potato and Tasso Croquettes, Shrimp and Butterbean Chowder, Pan-fried Softshell Crab and Blueberry Pan Dowdie with Mapleview Vanilla Ice Cream," the release says.