The Maine State Chapter of the March of Dimes is gearing up for its first Chef’s Auction Wednesday, Nov. 11 at Jeff’s Catering and Banquet Center in Bangor. The culinary event will put numerous packages of food and services on the auction block.

Among the offerings will be:

A barbecue for 30 from Steve’s Stagecoach Cafe in Brewer.

Dinner, champagne, roses and overnight accommodations at the Lucerne Inn.

Black Bear hockey tickets with dinner at Jasmine’s in Orono and a special gift certificate for Legends Restaurant and Sports Bar in Bangor.

A business lunch from the Red Lion in Bangor.

Donated hall at the Bangor Elks Lodge, decorations from Party With Us in Brewer, a gift certificate from Gourmet to Go in Bangor, and an ice carving from Ice Carvings by Whitman of Bangor.

Dinner for eight at your home catered by Jeff’s Catering of Bangor.

Sleigh Ride valued at $250 donated by Don “Dock” Arnold and Slender You of Brewer.

Many other gift certificates and packages will also be auctioned off.

The event will begin with a social hour at 6 p.m. and the bidding will start at 7:30. All proceeds from the benefit will go to the Maine State Chapter of the March of Dimes, whose programs are aimed at preventing birth defects and infant mortality.

For tickets or more information, call the March of Dimes at 989-3376 or 1-800-287-6346.

Cheeseburger controversy

The anniversary of the invention of the cheeseburger passed recently with alarmingly little notice. The problem is that the identity of the inventor is still open to debate.

The Dairy Council of Michigan reports that it was either Louis Ballast, owner of the now-defunct Humpty-Dumpty’s in Denver, or Carl Kaelin of Kaelin’s in Louisville, Ky. Ballast registered the “cheeseburger” as a sandwich with the Colorado secretary of state in 1935. Kaelin’s family says it was invented on Oct. 12, 1934, when Kaelin asked his wife to “lay a piece of cheese on those burgers.”

A plaque in Denver marks the spot where Humpty-Dumpty’s was located, but it is not designated as a historic site, unlike so many other odd addresses in the city. Isn’t it about time a monument or museum was erected to honor the cheeseburger, one of America’s proudest achievements?

Holiday baking hotline

Holiday helpline: Just in time for the holiday season comes news that the Nestle Baking Information Helpline is extending its hours of operation. If you need tips, suggestions or emergency assistance, you can call 800-637-8537 from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET on weekdays, from Nov. 9 through Dec. 24 (except for Nov. 26 and 27). The toll-free information line also will be open on the weekends of Nov. 21 and Dec. 19, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Cooking as a blood sport

Let’s cut — no, make that hack — right to the heart of the matter: Cooking is a blood sport. We beat, whip, skewer, truss, scald, pulverize, shred, blister, rack and devil food. Somewhere along the line, for some reason, humanity began describing food preparation in terms more suited to a street fight.

“I can’t think of any good reason for this phenomenon,” says Temple University food anthropologist Judith Good. Maybe, she says, the tough terms express “sort of a romantic and expressive energy.”

Roadkill Helper gets new life

General Mills, which makes Hamburger Helper, has dropped its suit against the maker of Roadkill Helper (a gag product) and is allowing him to sell out his current inventory — which, come to think of it, makes Roadkill Helper a limited-edition collector’s item. If you want a box, it’s $5, including postage, from Gag Foods Co., Box 6946, Woodland Park, Colo. 80866. Incidentally, 2 percent of the proceeds go to arthritis research.

Final food word of campaign

After all the broccoli and chocolate-chip cookie campaign rhetoric, we offer the last food word of the campaign to Ross Perot who boiled down the campaign to:

“So we’ve got the chicken man and the potato-chip man, and you’ve got me.”

Immortal food words

One of the greatest food quotations of all time is included in the latest edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. “Me want cookie” — the urgent plea of Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster — joins the Doors’ “Come on baby, light my fire” among the new entries.

Compiled by NEWS Staff and Wire Services.