Southern Food and Beverage Museum
Dear Friends,
The Southern Food and Beverage Museum starts the year with two exciting events in January. This weekend, we host our first Tin Chef Competition. Inspired by Iron Chef, Haley Bitterman of the Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group competes against April Bellows of Arnaud's Restaurant to make a three component plate out of the special ingredient, CANNED FOOD! JoAnne Clevinger, owner and general manager of Upperline Restaurant, and Rene Loupre, Blackened Out Blogger, sit at the Judge's Table. Our third judge will be picked out of the audience! Please bring in canned food to donate to Second Harvest Food Bank. For those of us familiar with New Orleans during hurricane season, we know that it never hurts to be able to prepare an entire meal out of canned food when our refrigerators lack power. :) For more information, please click here.
Chef Tenney Flynn of GW Fins presents one of our most exciting presentations on January 31. Chef Tenney Flynn will give a presentation on Gulf Oysters, with some fantastic tastings. The menu follows. Please click here for more information.
Oysters on the half shell with American Sturgeon caviar and uni with mignonette sauce
Pickled oysters
Creamy oyster stew with oyster butter
Oyster and mushroom pie
In addition to our upcoming events, The Southern Food and Beverage Museum ended the year with some equally exciting events and honors. The January 2009 issue of Restaurant Business magazine named us one of the 50 Great Ideas in Food for 2008. We would also like to thank the Edgar Degas Foundation, Swirl Wine, and Republic Beverage Company for generously hosting a fundraiser for us at the Degas House. Lastly, Elizabeth Pearce, Senior Curator at SoFAB, spoke about Gumbo during cooking demonastrations at the Treme Gumbo Festival.
Elizabeth Pearce, center, speaks during demonstration by Leah Chase, left. (photo courtesy of The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, Treme Creole Gumbo Festival)
Cheers,
Stephanie Carter
Editorial Director
stephanie@southernfood.org
Food News
Stephanie Carter
Cristeta ComerfordPresident-Elect Barack Obama Selects White House Chef - After much speculation regarding the next White House Chef, Michelle Obama announced Friday that Chef Cristeta Comerford will remain in her current position as White House Chef. Named to the position in 1995 by the Bushes, Comerford is the first female and the first minority to hold the position. Many people thought that a new White House Chef would be appointed because the Obamas have markedly different eating habits than the Bushes. According to the Huffington Post,
"The President who notoriously wouldn't eat anything 'green' or 'wet' is being replaced by one who loves his meals straight from the garden.
While George W. Bush spent his two terms scarfing down BLTs, white-bread grilled cheese sandwiches and burgers, President-elect Barack Obama will usher in just as big a culinary makeover as a partisan one." (Huffington Post, November 10, 2008)
However, to reduce Comerford's abilities to BLTs and burgers seems a bit narrow. In addition to the dinners she has put on during her time as White House Chef, Comerford has also trained in hotels in the U.S. and has worked in Vienna, Austria. It seems that in addition to the many formal White House dinners she has organized (and BLTs), she will be quite able to handle vegetables and a low-carbohydrate diet. The Southern Food and Beverage Museum currently has Cristeta Comerford's chef whites on display in the White House Exhibit.
Wham-O Company Produces its First Frisbee on January 13, 1957- You may be wondering what the Frisbee has to do with food and beverage. The pie tins from the Frisbie Pie Company where the inspiration for what we now know as Frisbees. According to some stories, college students found that the pie tins, once emptied of their delicious contents, provided a wonderful disc to toss around and, consequently, hours of entertainment. Other stories credit the Frisbie Pie Company delivery truck drivers with the discovery by tossing the empty pie tins during idle hours on the loading dock. Whatever the reason, I may brave the cold to run outside and toss a Frisbee in celebration. On the other hand, I could just stay in and eat pie.
January Events
Bourbon House and New Orleans Bourbon Society Welcome Kentucky Bourbon Distillers
Date: Thursday, January 15, 2009
Where: Upstairs at Bourbon House, 144 Bourbon Street, New Orleans
Time: 5:30-7:30
Cost: $20 inclusive per person
Contact: reservations by email: nobs@bourbonhouse.com or by phone: 504-274-1829
New Orleans native, Hunter Chavanne of KBD, Ltd. will lead an informal guided tasting of his award-winning Small Batch Boutique Bourbons. The relaxed get together includes hors d'oeuvres and cocktails for $20 inclusive per person. Signed bottles will be available for sale with proceeds benefiting the Southern Food & Beverage Museum. Information on Bourbon Society, click here.
Tin Chef Competition
Date: January 17, 2009
Where: Southern Food and Beverage Museum, Riverwalk Marketplace, Julia Street Entrance
Time: 1 p.m.
Cost: Museum admission required; SoFAB members free
Contact: 504-569-0405
Inspired by Iron Chef, Haley Bitterman of the Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group competes against April Bellows of Arnaud's Restaurant to make a three component plate out of the special ingredient, CANNED FOOD! JoAnne Clevinger, owner and general manager of Upperline Restaurant, and Rene Loupre, Blackened Out Blogger, sit at the Judge's Table. Our third judge will be picked out of the audience! Please bring in canned food to donate to Second Harvest Food Bank. For those of us familiar with New Orleans during hurricane season, we know that it never hurts to be able to prepare an entire meal out of canned food when our refrigerators lack power.
Cochon Ball: A Pig Field Folly
Date: Saturday, January 17, 2009
Where: The Brickyard, on Chartres at Montegut. In the Bywater, New Orleans
Time: Foosball starts approx. 3pm. Pig roast eating approx. starts 5-6pm
COCHON BALL: A PIG FIELD FOLLY is the first of its kind - a celebration of pork, the legacy of oral histories, and the playfulness of table foosball brought to life size. With true serendipity, our Cochon Ball landed on the day dedicated to the Patron Saint of swine, sausage and bacon! With such fortuity, we are devoted to increasing the fun percentages while eating down good cooked pork- tasty decadence…
Opening Reception: Our Food-Our Culture
Date: January 23, 2009
Where: Southern Food and Beverage Museum, Riverwalk Marketplace, Julia Street Entrance
Time: noon
Cost: museum admission required, SoFAB members free
Contact: 504-569-0405
Kids! Come by SoFAB to create your own Fleur de Lis Masterpiece out of Red Beans and Rice
Date: January 23, 2009
Where: Southern Food and Beverage Museum, Riverwalk Marketplace, Julia Street Entrance
Time: 10 a.m-6 p.m.
Cost: Kids 12 and under - no charge for admission, others: museum admission required, SoFAB members free
Contact: 504-569-0405
Chef Tenney Flynn of GW Fins - Gulf Oysters
Date: January 31, 2009
Where: Pearce/Johnston Tasting Room, The Southern Food and Beverage Museum, Riverwalk Marketplace, Julia Street Entrance
Time: 2 p.m.
Cost: Museum admission required, SoFAB members free
Contact: Reserve a spot with stephanie@southernfood.org
photo by stephanie carterOysters on the half shell with American Sturgeon caviar and uni with mignonette sauce
Pickled oysters
Creamy oyster stew with oyster butter
Oyster and mushroom pie
click here for more information
A Quick Bite
Susannah Albert-Chandhok
photo by Stephanie Carter It’s 2009, a new year for new eating. Across the South, many sat down at one p.m. on New Year’s Day, after a very late night, and wrote out, as if it were a grocery list, “This year I resolve to,” and then listed and listed. Our resolutions are our hopes for the year to come, and writing it all out is a comforting task, as if we can dictate the words on the uncertain page ahead of us. Many people resolve, putting the past behind with a simple rip of the page, to lose weight or to eat healthier. Indeed, this resolution is like a firecracker; it burns and sparkles with baby blue hope and golden stars of possibilities, for less than a second, then turning into dust and miserably falling from the smoky sky. The second coming of the resolution is on Ash Wednesday, after a decadent Mardi Gras, when not only do we resolve to eat healthier, but to give up sweets or candy or high fructose corn syrup. After we finish the King Cake leftovers, that is. Then for the rest of the year, we make a new resolution to put off our old resolutions until next year.
So I propose a new resolution of my own to just eat better, to not deprive myself, but to really enjoy what I nourish my being with. I want to fill my body up with savory food, which I spend hours making with my mother and which is soaked in love. I want to indulge in local strawberries and dip them into dark chocolate and powdered sugar without guilt. I want to avoid food that spent its life being frozen, and take in all the food from the sweet earth of the South.
Rethinking the Classics: Greens
Stephanie Carter
After the requisite greens cooked on New Year's Day, I do not want want to see the marriage of pork product and greens for some time to come. On the other hand, my resolutions normally have me eating more vitamin-packed greens. My local market and farm, Hollygrove, helps me in doing this through my weekly Buyer's Club box, filled with so much healthful produce that I rarely have any reason to eat out. Here is one of my favorite recipes for greens.
2 pounds greens, such as mustard greens, swiss chard, or kale
olive oil
1.5 cups onion, fine dice
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 poblano chile, fine dice
12 kalamata olives, pitted and roughly chopped
1/3 c (one small container) capers, drained
salt, to taste
1. Wash the greens very well by repeatedly plunging them into clean, cold water. Remove the outer, damaged leaves. Cut into strips, about half an inch wide and one inch long.
2. Heat a large, nonreactive pot with enough olive oil to coat the bottom. Add onion and chile. Sprinkle a little salt. Cook until translucent (this is called "sweating"). Add garlic a a little salt and do the same.
3. Stir in greens, olives and capers.
4. Cooked, covered until greens are tender.
5. Taste and adjust salt as necessary.
New Exhibits
OUR FOOD - OUR CULTURE: NEW ORLEANS STUDENTS EXPLORING THE CONNECTION OF FOOD, MUSIC AND LOCAL TRADITIONS
The Southern Food and Beverage Museum is opening a new exhibit featuring artwork created by students from Mc Donogh #32 Literacy Charter School. Our Food – Our Culture: New Orleans Students Exploring the Connection of Food, Music and Local Traditions is a lively exhibit curated by local art teacher and Southern University Museum Studies student Myesha Francis. The students learned the history and development of Creole and Cajun cuisine as well as cultural traditions such as Second Line parades and Mardi Gras celebrations. The projects on display combine the ingredients from one of the city’s most famous dishes (Red Beans and Rice), jazz music and the newly adopted state symbol the Fleur - de - Lis. “The students loved learning and talking about the foods and all the unique and different ways their families prepared them,” said art teacher Myesha Francis.
The musuem is hosting an opening reception for the exhibit on Friday, January 23, 2009 at 12 noon. Kids of all ages are invited to visit the museum to create their own Fleur de Lis made of red beans and rice on Saturday January 24, 2009. The exhibit also has three lesson plans for educators which can be downloaded on The Southern Food and Beverage Museum’s website that can prepare students for a visit to the museum.
Book Review: Hail to the Chef
review by: Liz Williams
Hail to the Chef
by: Julie Hyzy
(A White House Chef Mystery #2)
Berkley (Prime Crime), December 2008
336 pages ISBN: 0425224996
Paperback
$7.99
This is the second of Julie Hyzy’s crime novels solved by her chef-protagonist, Ollie Paras. Paras, the fictional Executive Chef of the White House, finds her parallel in the current White House Executive Chef, Cristeta Comerford. Fortunately for the country I believe that Paras’ adventures are not paralleled by the adventures of Comerford. But Paras’ adventures are a fun read.
Because they take place in the White House, these adventures offer a view of the inner workings of the kitchens and other domestic offices which makes the reader feel like a Washington insider. But because things take place in the White House, there seems to be little chance that something bad can really happen and not be resolved before the end of the novel. To her credit Hyzy manages to make the reader believe that these things could happen. And that is actually frightening, because no security is foolproof.
From the standpoint of those of us who care about eating, even eating in the White House, having an observant, brave and knowledgeable Executive Chef is important. The added bonus in the book is that she can actually cook. For a fun romp through the Oval Office and the White House kitchens, complete with a menu and recipes worthy of the red, white and blue, pick up "Hail to the Chef".
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