On Wednesday, March 20, Linda Watson, author of the book "Wildly Affordable Organic," will speak at the third annual luncheon, sponsored by the Sanford BPW and catered by Mrs. Lacy's.

Watson >will share how she turned an English degree and a sense of adventure into a career that let her write procedures, lead programmers, develop games, run a company, change the world, and cook up a storm.

Watson started the Cook for Good project after becoming obsessed with the national Food Stamp Challenge: living on a dollar a meal per person for a week. Her three-week experiment became a lifestyle, the website >CookforGood.com, the book >"Wildly Affordable Organic," and now the >"Wildly Good Cook" >videos and teachers' training program. She teaches cooking classes and gives talks on thrift, sustainability and food justice across the country.

She's had an odd but thrilling career so far, including developing a top-secret expert system for the Institute for Defense Analyses, working with authors Tom Clancy and Douglas Adams on computer games, riding the dot-com wave with Egarden.com, and being the director of her county political party and the Raleigh Independent Business Alliance.

She also writes for The Huffington Post, GoodVeg, and DrGreene.com. She has a certificate in plant-based nutrition from the T. Collin Campbell Foundation and eCornell. She's a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals.

Watson and her husband, Bruce, live in Raleigh.

The luncheon will take place at the McSwain Extension Education and Agriculture Center at >2420 Tramway Road in Sanford. Doors will open at 11:45 a.m.

Those interested may register at www.sanfordbpw.org or by sending a check to Sanford BPW at >P.O. Box 4791, Sanford, NC 27330. The cost is $12 per person, which covers lunch and the program. >