One of the characteristics I love most about Arkansas is the fact that things tie together easily because there are so few of us. There are two degrees of separation among those who were born and raised here: If you don't know the person with whom you're visiting, you'll learn within five minutes that you know a lot of the same people.

The ties that bind us together were never more evident than on a Monday night late last month as I emceed the annual induction ceremony for the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame. Two of the four finalists in the Food-Themed Event of the Year category were the Tontitown Grape Festival in northwest Arkansas and the Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church's annual spaghetti dinner in southeast Arkansas.