Hello everyone!

Welcome to the “new/old” Sound Kitchen. We’ve put the programme back together: instead of two smaller programs on two days, The Sound Kitchen is now one programme on one day – Saturday, at 4:52, 6:22, and 7:52 universal time.

You’ll hear the winner’s names announced and the week’s quiz question, along with all the other ingredients you have grown accustomed to: your letters and essays, “On This Day”, quirky facts and news, interviews, and great music … so tune in every Saturday!

Cookbook update: it’s there! It actually happened! The Sound Kitchen Listeners’ Cookbook is on our website!

It is not completely finished, so if you don’t yet see your recipe, don’t worry. Anthony Terrade, without whom none of this would have happened, is still working on it. Just click on the Cookbook link, and you’re there. There's a link on the Sound Kitchen Facebook page, too.

Don’t hesitate to use the zoom arrows in the upper left-hand corner – the little forks marking the countries where recipes come from are a bit stacked up, but if you zoom in, they unstick and you can see the titles. Click on the title, and the recipe appears. Enjoy!

Do send me your comments – and your photos – both of your dishes and of yourself.
Also, if you are interested in corresponding with other Sound Kitchen listeners, let me know. I’ll figure out a way to get you together, most likely through a special page on our website.

Roland Garros 2012

The quiz: this week’s question was read on 16 June and was about the French Open Tennis Tournament,  Roland Garros, as it’s called in France. I asked you to send in the names of the players who won the Women’s Singles, and the Men’s Singles.

The answer is: for the women, Russian Maria Sharapova. She beat Italian Sara Errani, and with that victory, became the 10th woman to complete a career Grand Slam.

For the men, Spaniard Rafael Nadal beat Serbian Novak Djokovic. This was Nadal’s seventh singles championship victory at the French Open, which is a record! The former record-holder was Bjorn Bjorg, with six.

The winners this week are: Mr Fansu Janneh, from Banjul, The Gambia; Mr Mohammed Faizan, a member of the Bellary Youth DX Club from Karnataka, India; Mr Jean Forget, from Attleboro, Massachusetts, in the US; Mrs Fareeda Farooq Azam, from Lahore, Pakistan, and Mr Paul Tangeni Ndjambula, from Swakopmund, Namibia.

Congratulations, winners!

This week’s question is about the pop star Madonna.

As the RFI English website says, Madonna “is known for doing exactly what she wants when she wants”. And what she wanted to do, she did, in a concert in Tel Aviv in May. When she performed her song Nobody Knows Me, a video showed Madonna’s face morphing into well-known personalities like Hosni Mubarak, the Pope, Hitler, and … Marine Le Pen, the head of France’s far-right political party, the Front National.

Well, Marine Le Pen didn’t like how she was represented and said she would sue Madonna if her image was not removed from the video. Madonna didn’t do it – in fact, just last week she gave a concert in Paris, and that video, complete with Marine Le Pen, was part of her show. So … Le Pen is suing.

My question to you is: Why? What is in Madonna’s video Nobody Knows Me which so offends far-right French politician Marine Le Pen?

You have plenty of time to get your thoughts together and your pen to paper. We’re coming up to the summer break, which means the Sound Kitchen special recipes, special summer programmes cooked up just for you, are right around the corner.

You have until 24 September to get your answers in; the winners will be announced on the 29 September programme. As always, be sure you send your postal address in with your answer … and be sure and tell me if you are a Mr or a Mrs or a Ms or a Miss – I don’t want to get it wrong!

Send your answers to:

english.service@rfi.fr

or

Susan Owensby
RFI – The Sound Kitchen
BP 9516
75016 Paris
France

or

By SMS … Now you can send your quiz answers to The Sound Kitchen cell phone!!!!

Dial your country’s international access code, or “ + ”, then 33 6 31 12 96 82. Don’t forget to include your mailing address in your text.

Remember, it’s not just the quiz which wins you a prize. If your essay goes on the air, you’ll find a package in the mail from the Sound Kitchen. Write in about your community heroes – the people in your community who are quietly working to make the world a better place, in whatever way they can. I am still looking for your “This I Believe” essays, too. Tell us about the principles that guide your life … what you have found to be true from your very own personal experience. Or write in with your most memorable moment, and/or your proudest achievement.

Send your mini book reviews, your musical requests, your secret “guilty” pleasure (mine’s chocolate!), your tricks for remembering things, your favourite quotations and proverbs, descriptions of the local festivals you participate in, your weirdest dream, or just your general all-around thoughts to:

thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr

Include a phone number, if you can. I’d like to call you and put you on-the-air … and send you a thank-you gift for participating.

I look forward to hearing from you soon!

All the best,

Susan