If you’ve ever wanted to write a cookbook, this seminar detailed below offers a wealth of information to help.  For every Slow Food member that signs up, Lisa Ekus-Safter and Virginia Willis will donate $10 back to our Slow Food New Orleans Chapter. And they’re offering a must-have new cookbook from this fall’s forthcoming list: The revised edition of the Food Substitution Bible.

JULY 20, 2010 – Join experienced literary agent Lisa Ekus-Saffer and cookbook author Virginia Willis for their COOKBOOK PUBLISHING 101 course to be held at The Southern Food and Beverage Museum, Tuesday July 20, 2010 from 6 pm to 9 pm at 1 Poydras Street, New Orleans, LA 70130.

In COOKBOOK PUBLISHING 101, Lisa Ekus-Saffer, literary agent since the year 2000 with over 200 successful book deals and cookbook publicist for award-winning titles including The Splendid Table, The Cake Bible, The Union Square Café Cookbook, and The Country Cooking of France, and Virginia Willis, chef, food writer, and author of the critically acclaimed Bon Appétit, Y’all, Recipes and Stories of Three Generations of Southern Cooking, help aspiring authors navigate through the exciting, yet challenging world of publishing. Offered in a classroom setting, COOKBOOK PUBLISHING 101 seeks to educate and inspire those who dream of writing a
cookbook and examines the publishing process from all angles and perspectives.

Topics to be covered during this program include:

• Helpful resources for locating and working with a literary agent
• Pros and Cons of Working with an literary agent
• What exactly is a proposal and how do I create one
• Building marketing, platform, and brand
• Recipe research, writing, and testing
• Proposals and cover letters
• Crafting your Unique Selling Point
• Nuts and bolts — practical finances and what to expect
• Agent as advocate during the publishing process
• Getting to know the players in the culinary publishing world
• Organizations to network through and join
• Self Publishing options and possibilities

For more information or to register: please visit the Southern Food & Beverage Museum
website.
Course details: COOKBOOK PUBLISHING 101 – Tuesday, July 20, 2010 from 6 pm to 9 pm at
the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, 1 Poydras Street, New Orleans, LA 70130.
Limited to 25 participants. Tuition: $199. Registration and payment available online at the
Southern Food & Beverage Museum website.

Rushed to publication as a result of the Gulf oil disaster, “Endangered Foods of the Gulf South” also offers scientific documentation regarding Louisiana’s imperiled food culture.

What:  A Louisiana Eat In to demonstrate to the nation that Louisiana seafood is still available, safe and delicious in conjunction with the publication of Gary Nabhan’s”Endangered Foods of the Gulf South.”  Many of the authors will be on hand to sign copies of the publication.

Chef Chris Lusk of Café Adelaide, Louisiana’s 2010 Seafood King, Chef Stephen Stryjewski of Cochon and Chefs Collaborative board member; and Jay Nix of Parkway Bakery will serve delicious dishes made with Louisiana seafood free of charge.

Thomas Mann will debut his new line of seafood jewelry, designed to both bring attention to the oil spill situation and to benefit local nonprofits who are working to help the ongoing situation.

Louisiana Cookin’ Magazine will distribute copies of seafood centric issues.

Ewell Smith of Louisiana Seafood & Promotion Board  will be available to discuss the current state of Louisiana Seafood

When:  Thursday, July 15th, 2010 from 4- 6 PM

Where: Crescent City Farmers Market Mid-City, 3700 Orleans Avenue (at Bayou St. John)

By: Gary Paul Nabhan, Leigh Belanger and Regina Fitzsimmons

Vermilionaire: An inhabitant of Southern Louisiana who benefits from the region’s rich culture and environment.

Vermilionaire is also the title of a recording by the Lost Bayou Ramblers, a Cajun band from Louisiana whose title track is a traditional song of going down to the bayou to fish, hunt, and trap, and never dying of hunger. As oil pours beneath the surface of the water in the Gulf of Mexico and makes its way to the coast, the families which have lived in close connection to the Gulf’s unique habitat continue to be threatened by both man-made and natural pressures.

All along the coast, from the Florida Keys to the mouth of the Rio Grande on the Texas-Mexico border, folks like the Vermilionaires have been forced from their homelands as their jobs have been lost, their lands flooded or contaminated and their properties ruined. We find among them some of the most marginalized peoples in the United States: long-term residents such as the Houma, Cajun, Creole, Seminole, Miccosukee, African, Cuban, “Cracker,” Choctaw, and Creek, as well as hard-working immigrants from Sicilian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Central American and Mexican ethnic enclaves.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has already been called the worst man-made disaster in the history of the United States. But even that label does not capture all the dimensions of this tragedy. Since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in August and September of 2005, to the present attempts to mop up oil covering an area greater than the size of Connecticut , some of the rural, food-producing counties of the Louisiana ‘s Gulf Coast have lost half of their former residents. They have felt forced to leave the state in search of better, safer opportunities elsewhere. Due to these disasters, human lives —as well their traditional relationships with their plant and animal neighbors— have been changed forever.

Our concern here is twofold: First and foremost, to avoid the loss of livelihoods for the culturally diverse food producers who live near the Gulf of Mexico, who are already feeling their access to fish, shellfish and waterfowl limited by the spill. Second, to stop of the loss of the many wild species and domesticated food varieties upon which the remaining inhabitants of the Gulf Coast nutritionally, economically and ecologically depend.

Among the many long-term consequences from the oil spill will be a pervasive disruption of some of the most unique farming, fishing, hunting and culinary communities left on the planet—not only in the Gulf Coast states of the U.S., but also in Mexico and Cuba as well. These communities deserve what we might call “environmental and food justice,” since our government agencies have been both slow and inefficient in protecting their basic human needs.

Many former Gulf Coast residents who farmed or gardened there have literally left jars of their family’s heirloom vegetable seeds in sheds and cupboards to rot or slowly die, breaking a chain of agricultural transmission of seeds and knowledge that began centuries ago. Some of the remaining gardeners and farmers also happen to be part-time fishermen, oyster harvesters, gator hunters or shrimpers and they now see other perils looming on their horizon as fishing areas are closed and important spawning grounds are in danger of being choked off by the approaching oil.

Working the land and water, these people—with their minds, eyes, hands and backs—have fed much of America for centuries. The overwhelming majority of shrimp harvested in the U.S. come from the Gulf of Mexico and its adjacent estuaries and rivers. Well over 120 fish species are commercially harvested along the Gulf Coast , from drum, flounder, and sheepshead, to to countless populations of crawfish, crabs, oysters and clams, each with a distinctive flavor. Over seventy percent of all ducks and geese that migrate through the heartlands of North America depend upon stopover sanctuaries in the coastal wetlands of the Gulf. Many of America ‘s most unique foods—from crawfish jambalaya, Creole cream cheese and Gumbo filé, to Apalachicola oysters, Pineywoods beef and Tabasco peppers—are rooted in Gulf Coast traditions.

One key way that you can help the people and ecosystems of the Gulf Coast recover from yet another catastrophe is by actively purchasing and promoting their food products during this time of uncertainty. Fishermen will not be selling oil-contaminated or otherwise threatened species. To the contrary, they desperately need income from the remaining foods that they are able to safely harvest. Poppy Tooker’s rallying cry of “Eat It To Save It” has perhaps never been more fitting If we want a diversity of healthy foods on our tables, we need to support the food producers who have been tenacious in providing them, or they will turn to other sources of income to make ends meet. Farmers will cull the rare varieties out of their orchards or fields if there is no market for them; fishermen will set sail for the most marketable catch elsewhere if no one values the knowledge and skill they invest in coaxing the most delicious foods from the waters they know best.

The following list of edible species and varieties at risk in the Gulf Coast foodshed includes both those potentially affected by the spill on a massive scale (“oil-damaged”), and those which were already of conservation concern before the April 10, 2010 Macondow blow-out, 40 miles southeast of the Louisiana coast. Our list of foods at risk includes 244 distinctly-named stocks, varieties, subspecies and species, and more than half of them are found in the Gulf and the rivers, bayous, wetlands and estuaries connected to it.

Of those 244 place-based foods, experts anticipate that access to at least 137 will be directly affected by the oil spill. In other words, more than half of the distinctive foods associated with world-famous Creole and Cajun cuisines are being put at further risk by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, even though many of them had not yet fully recovered from the effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Aside from investing your buying power as a consumer in the market recovery of fishing and farming in the Gulf Coast, we encourage you to give what donations you can to some of the organizations listed below. We also urge you to support a new initiative we are proposing to designate New Orleans a UNESCO City of Gastronomy, because its intangible culinary heritage is now in urgent need of safeguarding. So let’s vote with our mouths, bellies and pocketbooks for the speedy recovery of the food-producing cultures dependent on the health of the Gulf of Mexico , for their culinary traditions are clearly an irreplaceable component of our World Heritage. The Vermilionaires are in danger of losing their riches.

•  Crescent City Farmers Market
( http://www.crescentcityfarmersmarket.org )

•  White Boot Brigade
( http://www.whitebootbrigade.org/ )

•  Adopt-a-Mirliton Project
( http://www.crescentcityfarmersmarket.org/index.php?page=adopt-a-mirliton )

•  Cultural Resource Institute of Acadiana
( http://www.criala.org )

•  Southern Foodways Alliance
( http://www.southernfoodways.com )

•  Catch Shares in Gulf of Mexico/Texas Program of Environmental Defense
( http://www.edf.org )

•  Save Our Wetlands
( http://www.saveourwetlands.org )

•  Southern Seed Legacy
( http://www.uga.edu/ebl/ssl/ )

•  Pineywoods Cattle Registry and Breeders Association
( http://www.pcrba.org )

Download the list of Foods at Risk in the Gulf Coast Foodshed

RAFT and its partners neither condone nor endorse consumption of federal or state protected species and highly-depleted stocks. We encourage consumers to support the recovery of these species or stocks so that future generations can enjoy sustainable harvests once recovery is ensured. We also actively support community and/or tribal food sovereignty, and encorage others to do so as well.

NEW ORLEANS FOOD ACTIVIST

POPPY TOOKER DEBUTS ON RADIO

Louisiana Eats!

with

Poppy Tooker

on 89.9 WWNO FM/KTLN 90.5
Debuts June 9th:
Wednesday 6:30-7:00pm & Saturday 12:00-12:30pm
Listen Live: http://www.wwno.org or On Demand

New Orleans – On June 9, public radio station WWNO and New Orleans food activist Poppy Tooker launch Louisiana Eats!, a weekly thirty-minute radio program about food, the people who cook, and the people who love to eat well—all with a Louisiana point of view and Poppy’s distinctive Louisiana voice. The new show will air Wednesday nights, 6:30pm–7:00pm CT, repeats on Saturdays 12:00n–12:30pm CT, after the popular national food program, The Splendid Table, and on demand: http://www.wwno.org.

The inaugural program will focus necessarily on the effects of oil in the Gulf of Mexico and the dire outlook for Louisiana oysters. Poppy will talk with oystermen and other experts on the Gulf’s beloved bivalves, including: Sal Sunseri, of 134 year-old P & J Oyster Company; Chef Frank Brigtsen of Brigtsen’s Restaurant and Charlies Seafood; and Mark Schexnaydre, Coastal Region Advisor for Louisiana State University’s Sea Grant Program.

In future programs, listeners will join Poppy as she meets people who produce, cook, and eat the foods we enjoy and treasure—exploring kitchens & stores, farms & waterways where favorite foods are produced and prepared. And because Louisianans love all kinds of food, Poppy won’t limit herself to shrimp Creole and hot sauce! Coming up on the schedule: Lolis Eric Elie, screenwriter for HBO television series,Tremé, joins Poppy with tales of his African adventure with Top Chef Marcus Samuelsson.

Louisiana Eats! builds on the popularity of WWNO’s current culinary programs: nationally-distributed The Splendid Table, and local short features Market Minutes and Where Y’Eat? “Listeners have enthusiastically embraced our culinary programming,” said WWNO General Manager Paul Maassen. “Poppy Tooker is the ideal storyteller for this next step. Her life-long commitment to preserving our historic foodways adds depth and perspective that can be heard only on Louisiana Eats!”

Support for Louisiana Eats! comes from: Zatarain’s; Wine Institute of New Orleans; Nottoway Plantation & Resort, Dickie Brennan’s Family of Restaurants; Leidenheimer Baking Company; and Leitz-Eagan Funeral Home. WWNO appreciates their generous support, which helps bring more Louisiana sounds and voices to public radio.

With Louisiana Eats! Poppy Tooker displays the same passion for local foodways that she brought to her award-winning Crescent City Farmers Market Cookbook, where she tells city’s story through the eyes of farmers, fishers, and vendors. The book received a special Tabasco Cookbook Award for historic and cultural content. New Orleans Magazine named it Cookbook of the Year. With her motto “Eat It To Save It” she has helped to revive endangered foods across the U.S. and abroad, in collaboration with Slow Food’s Ark of Taste. Poppy’s on-camera flair has made her a sought-after guest on the Food Network, the History Channel and on PBS. She provides restaurant commentary on Steppin’ Out, broadcast weekly on New Orleans public television station WYES-TV. Her many accolades include being named a Times-Picayune Hero of the Storm for her work following Hurricane Katrina. Across the country, Poppy may be best known for beating Food Net- work star Bobby Flay in a Seafood Gumbo Throwdown– he didn’t stand a chance.

WWNO is the listener-supported NPR radio station serving New Orleans and eleven parishes of southeast Louisiana, broadcasting on 89.9 FM, and on KTLN 90.5 FM in the Houma-Thibodaux area. WWNO airs NPR news and classical music, along with jazz, thought-provoking talk and information, and lively cultural entertainment. WWNO is licensed to and operated by the University of New Orleans as a public service.

Date:
Wednesday, June 2nd
Time:
6:30pm Cocktails (cash bar), 7:00pm Dinner
Cost:
$100 per person, tax and tip included
Where:
a Mano, 870 Tchoupitoulas Street
Reservations:
504.304.0635

Gambero Rosso is the world’s authority on Italian food, wine and travel. Established in 1986 it is acknowledged throughout Italy (and by those in the know internationally) as THE provider of the most up to date, impartial and expert insights into ‘saper vivere’, the Italian way of life.  Gambero Rosso’s Vini d’Italia published with Slow Food is internationally recognized to be the definitive annual guide to Italian wines. The Gambero Rosso system of assigning ‘glasses’ or ‘bicchieri’ has become the international byword for quality in Italian wines.

Each year Swirl Wine Bar & Market celebrates the best of Italy with an Italian wine dinner featuring the highest award winning wines of the Gambero Rosso, those given the “Tre Bicchieri” or 3 Glass designation. Given to less than 300 wines yearly, the Tre Bicchieri award is the highest and most prestigious honor that can be bestowed upon an Italian wine and is highly coveted by producers.

To best present the wines Swirl chooses an Italian restaurant each year that demonstrates the same commitment to superior quality and match these amazing wines with their cuisine. We are excited to hold this year’s dinner at Chef Adolfo Garcia and Chef Joshua Smith’s southern Italian restaurant, a Mano. Chef Joshua Smith’s menu will feature 6 tasting courses paired with *6 wines representing their respective regions. Antonio Molesini, Italian Wine Specialist from Republic National Beverage, and a native of Cortona, will join Swirl in hosting the event.

Fish crudo, citrus, fennel
paired with
Castello della Sala Cervaro della Sala, Umbria

Cured duck breast with seasonal berry conserve
paired with
Michele Chiarlo La Court Barbera d’Asti

Sformato di Porcini (savory mushroom mousse/custard)
paired with
Castello di Fonterutoli Chianti Classico, Toscano

Fresh pasta with lamb ragu
paired with
Feudo Maccari Saia Nero d’Avola, Sicilia

Red wine braised wild boar with polenta
paired with
Antinori Guado al Tasso, Tuscany

Bittersweet chocolate budino, hazelnuts, olive oil, sea salt
paired with
Sella & Mosca Villa Marina Cabernet, Sardegna

*As these wine are produced in limited quantity,
one 5 oz glass of wine will accompany each course

WHO: Hollygrove Market & Farm-
2 pigs, a Farmer and a Butcher, with time to salt and savor the rewards of
raising, dressing, and consuming ethically raised pastured pigs.

Speakers:
- Justin Pitts, Farmer (Jones County Mississippi)
- Chef Stephen Stryjewski, Cochon Restaurant
- Bart Bell, Crescent Pie & Sausage Company
- Justin James, Iris Restaurant
- Bill Pastellak, Hollygrove Market & Farm

WHAT: Ever want to learn more about animal husbandry and the
preparation/curing of bacon & sausage? Want to learn how to make a
great andouille? “Roast Beast” is a fundraiser to benefit Hollygrove
Market & Farm and will provide a series of workshops that include
building a smokehouse, making bacon and sausage, and baking bread in
our outdoor earthen oven (see schedule below). The evening will also
include a tasting menu of the day’s creations and fresh produce from the
farm, live music, Butcher’sWine Bar, NOLA Brewing, and other
epicurean treats!

WHEN: Monday March 29, 2010
Gates Open at 1:30 PM for Workshops, Dinner at 6:30 PM, Gates Close at
10 PM.

WHERE: Hollygrove Market & Farm
8301 Olive Street
New Orleans, LA 70118

WHY: Hollygrove Market & Farm is a not-for-profit urban farm that opened its
doors in October 2008 with the mission of bringing the best in fresh local
produce to underserved neighborhoods in New Orleans. Today we have an
operational urban farm complete with roaming chickens and delicious and
unusual varieties of fresh food growing right here in the city! Your
donation of $125.00 for this event is in support of the Hollygrove Market
& Farm Mission. Tickets available at HMF and on our website.

Click here for more information and to purchase tickets on line:  Hollygrove Market and Farm

When: Saturday, November 21, 5 – 7 PM
Where: Café Amelie, 912 Royal Street
Price: $30 Slow Food Members, $35 nonmembers
RSVP:  slowfoodneworleans@gmail.com

From the invasion of the Frenchies to the rise of the Greenies, American food is on the march.  Fifty years ago, Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cookery  introduced the land of the bland, canned & frozen to  the subversive idea that cooking was an art that was disciplined, intellectually rigorous and fun.  Today, Michael Pollan’s best-selling Omnivore’s Dilemma deepens that subversion by connecting cooking and eating to the abuses of industrialized agriculture and to the many greenie movements that connect ecology to health. Betty Fussell explains the breadth and depth of this half-century revolution that we’re only beginning to understand, even though its directions affect the daily lives of us all.

Café Amelie welcomes Betty Fussell and Slow Food New Orleans to their charming French Quarter patio with a decidedly local menu that includes Des Allemands Crab Cakes, Mini Wild Catfish and Cochon de Lait Sandwiches, Amelie Oysters, Bordelon Sweet Potato and Andouille Soup, Delacroix Shrimp and Grits with Corn and Andouille Sausage Macque Choux and Cherry Almond Bread Pudding with Brandied Cherry Sauce.  A special Satsuma cocktail is included.

To benefit Slow Food New Orleans, Chef Jerry Mixon and Danny Akers of Café Amelie are generously donating all proceeds.

To learn more about the amazing Betty visit www.bettyfussell.com

Ristorante Del Porto and

Welcome Books invite you to

A Slow Taste of Tuscany

A celebration and special dinner at

Ristorante Del Porto

Supported by Zagat, we present this event as part of a celebration across America of slow food and Douglas Gayeton’s new book Slow: Life in a Tuscan Town

Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Join us in honoring the simple and superb pleasure of fresh food that has been prepared slowly and locally.

Tickets are $100 and include a five-course feast highlighting local ingredients, tax, gratuity, and a signed copy of SLOW: Life in a Tuscan Town.

Please RSVP to Linda Roy
Call 985.875.1006

Del Porto, 501 East Boston St.
Covington, Louisiana
Telephone 985-875-1006

welcomebooks.com/slow/11-18 G delportoristorante.com

Joy of Oysters – an oyster tasting event

When:  Tuesday, October 20, 6 – 8pm
Where:  The Uptowner, 438 Henry Clay Avenue, NOLA
Cost:  $15 Slow Food members, $20 non-members
RSVP:  slowfoodneworleans@gmail.com

Join Taylor Shellfish’s Oyster Bill Whitbeck, author of “The Joy Of Oysters” for a comparative tasting of Pacific Northwest oysters  (Olympias, Kumomotos! YUM!)  He’ll be joined by Sal Sunseri of New Orleans’ own P & J Oysters who will be featuring Gulf oysters from various area of our region.

When: Saturday, September 12, 11a.m. to 1 p.m
Where: Edible Schoolyard New Orleans located at Samuel J. Green Charter School, 2319 Valence Street (entrance on Liberty Street.)
Cost: Free

Join Slow Food New Orleans and Edible Schoolyard New Orleans, plus participating organizations: Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools, marketumbella.org, New Orleans Food & Farm Network and the Food Policy Advisory Committee. Find out what you can do!  Sign the petition, get information, take a garden tours, and participate in children’s activities.

This is a free event which will be held rain or shine.

For more information on the event and the full press release, go to page 2.