SFA Symposium - It is that Time of the Year Again!

Tomorrow I am heading to Oxford for the 12th annual Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium. This is my favorite time of the year! Last year the theme was The Liquid South, from Well Water to Sparkling Muscadine. I learned about Buttermilk, Mexican Cokes, and Bootlegging. I even tasted my first Van Winkle Handmade Bourbon! I enjoyed Junior Johnson talk about his moonshine (botlegging days) and his later days in NASCAR racing.

This is a weekend where academics, writers, cooks, and intellectually curious eaters to come to a better understanding of Southern culture and Southern cookery. It is a great way to spend a weekend learning about southern food, meeting new people and eating. It is also a weekend where the whiskey flows all night, catfish is fried and people enjoy each other's love for food and culture. To listen to old podcasts click here.

I am so excited to get back to Mississippi and see my old friends and enjoy the weekend with some foodies.

This year the theme is Music and Food: Exploring Interdependent Cultural Expressions.

"Over the course of four days of lectures and performances, as well as breakfasts, dinners, and suppers, we will unlock the key to what Memphis Minnie really meant when she sang, “I’m selling my pork chops/But I’m giving my gravy away.”
New Orleans will get its due, by way of red beans and rice and jazz. So will Texas blues. And Tennessee country. And hip hop from the ATL.
We’ll stage a ballet and a goat roast. We’ll feed on deep-fried catish and slow-simmered greens. We’ll take you down to the crossroads where food and music meet, and we’ll sketch the ways in which these cultural expressions are complementary."

I will be twittering all weekend! Follow me! I'll post pictures and a blog after the event. It is going to be so much fun!

I took the photos at the past two symposiums. John T. Edge wanted a bacon forest two years ago when the theme was about Hogs - due to the year of the Pig. The top picture is a dish I still dream about - Atlanta Chef Anne Quatrano's Pickled Shrimp. It is amazing! So full of flavor and spice. (Now you can get it at Abattoir).

Bar-B-Q For A Good Cause...

Peachtree Road Farmers Market & Jim 'N Nicks Bar-B-Q
Saturday, October 17

Come out to the Market to eat some lip-smacking BBQ for a good cause! Jim n' Nicks Bar-B-Q will be at the Market on Saturday, Oct. 17, from 10 am-1 pm to help raise... funds for local farms battered by Georgia's recent floods. Bring your family and friends out for some Market shopping, live music, BBQ, and lemonade. Sandwiches are just $10 with 100% of the profits going to the Peachtree Road Farmers Fund, a source of financial support for the farmers of the Peachtree Road Farmers Market. Rain or shine.

www.peachtreeroadfarmersmarket.com
www.jimnnicks.com

More Sad News! Via Elisa closing its doors...

Elisa Gambino with Via Elisa is closing her shop in Atlanta after 7 years due to the economy. She is discontinuing her line of handmade pasta and will close her westside Italian food shop on October 17th; however, she will continue to sell her jarred pasta sauces through Whole Foods Markets. Hurry up and buy some today! It freezes well!

Here is her Announcement:

Dear Fellow Pasta and Pasta Sauce Enthusiasts,

Via Elisa’s store – but not our sauces — will end what has been a glorious seven-year run in Atlanta at the close of business on Saturday, October 17, the latest victim of an unforgiving economy.

Though that will mark the last day we will make our award-winning pasta and the last day our store will be open, I want you to know that we will continue to make our sauces, whose sales have grown despite the economic climate.

Since the line of Via Elisa sauces sold at Whole Foods Markets throughout six states in the South does very well, I will focus on developing Via Elisa as a sauce company. All three of our sauces -Passionately Perfect Tomato,
Diavoletta and Sofia’s Sicilian Caper – are available in 16-oz. and 32-oz. jars.

Between the flooding and the economy, there has been much sad news here in Atlanta, and when I think of the loss that so many people have suffered, this bit of news seems trivial in comparison. I am thankful to all of you
who have supported Via Elisa since we opened our doors in 2002. I have been overwhelmed by your kindness and dedication to the success of Via Elisa and I hope you will continue to support the sauces as I streamline our business. I have always enjoyed delivering pasta to the people in the neighborhoods, markets and our store. I am confident I will enjoy promoting and selling our sauces as well.

A supply of Via Elisa pasta and ravioli is available at Whole Foods Markets here in Atlanta (as we have just shipped out a fresh batch). You know where to find it! We will also continue to accept your orders until October 16 and I hope you will stock up. Everything we make freezes well.

On a closing note I want to thank the incredible and dedicated staff of professionals who work here at Via Elisa. Without Dave, Tina, Bess, Noe, Maryland, Darnell and Dahlia, Via Elisa would not have been possible. Their dedication to Via Elisa has inspired me daily and has kept me going over the years. Their contribution to the business has been immeasurable. Please thank them when you come to the shop.

And please do come by, say hello and pick up your pasta, ravioli, sauces, meats, cheeses, vinegars and oils at least one last time. The store will be open and we will be here making pasta through Saturday, October 17 and we would love to see you.

As I have always said, a two-pasta day is a good day! And if you are looking for sauce, all of our 16 ounce sizes are still on sale at Whole Foods Markets in the South for only $3.49 until October 13th.

A Presto,
Elisa

A New Chapter In My Culinary Adventure....Cheers to the Last OITF Dinner

“Frank Stitt's lively mind, unerring palate, and easy grace have combined to make him the culinary king of Alabama."
—Gourmet

I had my last dinner with OITF in Birmingham last week. The dinner was held at Jones Valley Urban Farm a three acre farm on a formerly vacant downtown property, that grows produce and healthy communities through urban farming and youth education. What a great way to end the season! I got to spend time with my favorite chef Frank Stitt. I have been looking forward to this dinner all season. He is a well-respected chef in the south and a huge supporter of the Southern Foodways Alliance.
Known for his Provençal-influenced southern food, Stitt always uses fresh and local ingredients in his cooking.

What I also enjoy about Frank Stitt's cookbook- is that he uses food to tell stories of the south that relate to food. In many ways food has impacted his life and he tells his adventures through his recipes.
Here is a really great article- Frank Stitt, John T. Edge and Marvin Woods come together to talk about food. Frank Stitt tells of mixing the culinary traditions of both black and white in his restaurant.

“I began to take greater pride in our southern ingredients,’ he says as he weaves the black traditional food of his restaurant family with his own small Alabama farm food. “And sometimes with me, I’m blending a little bit of Provence, the south of France, with the south of the United States.” Claiming that there is something special about southern soil, Stitt continues, “Our southern ingredients hadn’t really been celebrated like the French had been doing for generations.”

One of the best parts about working for OITF I was able to connect with amazing chefs like Frank Stitt. I hope their cooking and love to their culture inspire me to write about the importance of food and see the unique stories in each person, dish and recipe.

I loved hearing Frank Stitt talk about his Porchetta from Sequatchie Cove Farms. He proudly carried it to the table to share with the farmer and guests. Most chefs hide behind the kitchen - but he was so eager to put the farmer (Bill Keener) in the spot light. His respect for the farmer was so wonderful and his love for the meal was priceless.

I can't wait to start cooking again now that I am no longer on the road. I will definitely be pulling out his cookbook. Cheers to a wonderful diner!

MENU:
McEwen & Sons deviled eggs.
JVUF sweet & spicy peppers, roasted eggplant, cracklin' cornbread & Snow's Bend snap peas.
Lady Pea Pilau with Snow's Bend butternut squash, Soul's Food Organic's cherry tomatoes, okra & basil.
Porchetta (Sequatchie Cove Farms Pork) with stone ground grits & JVUF collard greens & turnips.
Petals from the Past apple cake with rum creme angalise.

Goodbye Gourmet

NYT reported that Conde Nast just announced that it is folding three magazines including Gourmet.Gourmet Magazine has been around since 1940. This truly is a sad day for the Food Industry. I have learned so much about food and I have cooked some amazing recipes from this magazine. I am sad to see it fold.

My favorite issue, which sits on my desk all the time is the Southern Cooking Issue with essays from Edna Lewis. The essay, in which Lewis shares a lifetime’s worth of experience, was the inspiration for this entire special issue and its exploration of southern cuisine. A granddaughter of freed slaves, the late Edna Lewis left home when she was just 16 years old and went on to become a renowned chef at Manhattan’s star-studded Café Nicholson. With her four cookbooks, she was a pioneer for regional American food, spread the gospel of genuine southern cuisine, and inspired a generation of home cooks. Through her essays she explores what it means to be southern. It is beautifully written where she writes about southern food, weather, people and day-to-day life. Being from the south- it make me smile and think about things that I do or my mother does that is southern. Essays like this in Gourmet makes the magazine so unique and something I will miss. It is not just a recipe or food critic writing about a meal. The magazine talks about food and politics, food and race, food and culture....Something I think is important when you write about food.


"Southern is a mint julep. A goblet of crushed ice with a sprig of mint tucked in the side of the glass, plain sugar syrup the consistency of kerosene poured over the ice, then a jigger of bourbon. Stir and bruise the mint with a silver spoon. Sip and enjoy. Southern is a hot summer day that brings on a violent thunderstorm, cooling the air and bringing up smells of the earth..."

"Southern is a seafood gumbo of crab, okra, tomatoes, scallions, onions, green pepper, bacon, garlic, and herbs. Southern is fresh-made corn fritters, light and crisp enough to fly away. Southern is an okra pancake in a cornmeal batter. Southern is a platter of deviled crabs prepared with soaked slices of white bread torn and mixed with chopped onion, fine-cut scallions, melted butter, fresh-ground pepper, cayenne, eggs, and the best crabmeat. Baked in the oven, served hot, a morsel to die over. Southern is a pitcher of lemonade, filled with slices of lemon and a big piece of ice from the icehouse and served with buttermilk cookies. Southern is a delicious chicken salad at a bride's luncheon."

She ends her essay by saying, "The world has changed. We are now faced with picking up the pieces and trying to put them into shape, document them so the present-day young generation can see what southern food was like. The foundation on which it rested was pure ingredients, open-pollinated seed-planted and replanted for generations- natural fertilizers. We grew the seeds of what we ate, we worked with love and care."

Click here to read whole article!