Multi Top Chefs and other events coming up

Our calendar is full of "Top Chefs" and other things. Consider these:

• Season 2 "Top Chef" finalist, New York chef and Charlottean Sam Talbot will be at Park Road Books in the Park Road Shopping Center (Park Road and Woodlawn) at 11 a.m. Saturday to sign copies of "The Sweet Life," his cookbook about life with diabetes. Actually, you can make that ex-New York chef. The New York magazine blog Grub Street recently reported that Talbot is leaving Surf Lodge on Montauk and says his next project will be in the Caribbean.

• May 17 will bring "Top Chef: The Tour" to Charlotte. Contestants (Bravo calls them chef'testants but that doesn't mean I have to) Hector Santiago (season 6) and Nikki Cascone (season 4) will hold an interactive cookoff (meaning you might get asked to sit down and be a judge) across from the 7th Street Public Market at 225 E. 7th St. You also get to play games, vie for prizes and buy "Top Chef" gear. Shows are at 10:30 a.m., noon and 1:30 p.m. Charlotte is the first stop for this year's 15-city tour.

• The annual Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger food drive has to be the easiest way to feed the needy there is. All you do is fill a paper bag with nonperishable food (canned meat, canned fruit, canned vegetables or cereal) and put it by your mailbox this Saturday. Your postal person will get the food to Loaves & Fishes and Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina. AARP delivered specially printed paper bags to many homes in Charlotte, but if you don't have one, you can use a regular paper grocery bag. Don't forget - this Saturday, your front door. Easy.

Sam Talbot plans Charlotte book signing

Several weeks ago, I wrote about the journey of Charlottean Sam Talbot, who started out working in local restaurants when he was 14 and was an early finalist on "Top Chef."

These days, he's not only a celebrity chef in New York, he has a book, "The Sweet Life: Diabetes Without Boundaries," that's part cookbook and part lifestyle book on how he lives the high-profile life while managing Type 1, insulin-dependent diabetes.

Talbot will be in Charlotte at 11 a.m. May 12 to sign copies of his books at Park Road Books.

He doesn't come back to Charlotte all that often, so make sure you stop by and say hello.