Foodie Events in NOLA

The Southern Food and Beverage Museum is hosting the first-ever Food Symposium and Literary Feast this weekend, in what should be the first in a series of food-writer friendly events in the Big Easy. The readers and writers conference will bring together food writers, food professionals, gourmets, and everyday foodies together, in an exchange of ideas, expertise, and a good recipe or two. The focus of this years event will be "The World's Fairs in New Orleans and Inventing Creole and Cajun Cuisine," and discussions will be conducted by local food figures such as Susan Tucker, Judy Walker, Peggy Scott LaBorde, Lawrence N. Powell, and others. Lunch will be provided in the ticket price. Check out the website for more information. 

The Big Read Kickoff Party and Food Symposium Reception will be held this Friday from 6:00 to 9:00 PM, featuring free food (sweets, gumbo, red beans and rice, a dish from Leah Chase), new exhibits, and book signings from local writers Sara Roahen (Gumbo Tales); Jerry Strahan (Managing Ignatius); and Bill Loehfelm, (Fresh Kills and Bloodroot). 

-Check out the Garden District Bookshop's book signing event with local chef John Besh this Tuesday. The chef will sign his new book, "My New Orleans," and discuss various aspects of his culinary life and times.

From the Garden District Book Shop's mailing list:

Upcoming Events:  My New Orleans  by John Besh 

  Discussion & Booksigning Tuesday Oct. 27  5:30-7:00 PM  

My New Orleans will change the way you look at New Orleans cooking and the way you see World-famous chef John Besh. It's 16 chapters of culture, history, essay and insight, and pure goodness. Besh tells us the story of his New Orleans by the season and by the dish. Archival, four-color, location photography along with ingredient information make the Big Easy easy to tackle in home kitchens. Cooks will salivate over the 200 recipes that honor and celebrate everything New Orleans.

Chef Susan Spicer of Bayona will be on hand at the Bookshop November 9th at 6:00 PM, to discuss Daniel Boulod's Letters to a Young Chef. Like all Cookbook Club meetings, this event will be held pot-luck style: that means good food, good conversation, and a fascinating discussion on the ins and outs of the restaurant industry. Don't miss it. 

Sara Roahen Discusses Gumbo Tales at the Garden District Book Shop

Sara Roahen Speaks at Garden District Book Shop


 Garden District Bookshop owner Britton Trice introduces Sara Roahen.

"Gumbo Tales" author Sara Roahen spoke to the Book Shop's Cookbook Club Monday, discussing her book and the pleasures of the New Orleans table. "Gumbo Tales" is the subject of this years One Book New Orleans program, and the book's journey through a host of the Crescent City's favorite dishes is a real delight to read. Roahen brings alive the characters and flavors that define the way New Orleans eats, from artisan snowball makers to the folks who run Liuzza's at the Track to Miss Lovie's seafood gumbo. Scrupulously researched and vividly written, Gumbo Tales is an unmissable read for anyone interested in the history and the stories behind our city's cuisine.

A podcast of the discussion at the Cookbook Club may be downloaded here.



The Garden District Book Shop Cookbook Club is all about food, and participants brought a host of delicious treats to share. One Book New Orleans representatives provided an entire turducken and oyster dressing from Langensteins, as well as a big plater of home-made Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches.


The turducken prior to carving.

Yes, folks, that's what a turducken looks like. It's a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a hen. With stuffing in it. Chef Paul Prudhomme, never one to shy from decadence, is said to have invented these beasts not too long ago, and they've been popular ever since. Some gourmets revile the mighty Turducken as too over the top, a heinous display of unbridled decadence, but I gotta say, the flavor was just plain delicious. Just don't think about the entire process too much.


Carving the mighty turducken.

Sara Roahen's adventure in turducken making can be read at the Gambit's website. I quote: " The turducken offers no excuses. A deboned, stuffed chicken enfolded in a deboned, stuffed duck sewn into a deboned, stuffed turkey, roasted together for a quarter of a day and wetted with duck fat gravy -- what could it possibly say in its own defense?"



The pork banh-mi were delicious as well, with fresh French bread, crunchy Vietnamese daikon and carrot slaw, mayonaisse, and lemongrass pork. Banh mi derive from Vietnam's French colonial years, and are derived from the French countryside "salad sandwich". They've become increasingly popular around the USA and are available in many venues in New Orleans: lemongrass chicken, pate, Vietnamese meatballs, tofu, and other protein sources form common filling.

Roahen wrote about Vietnamese food's impact on the local cuisine in "Gumbo Tales" - during the bookclub discussion, that section of the book prompted a hilarious discussion about the consumption of fertilized duck eggs (balut), which are considered a nice special-occasion food in Southeast Asia. Don't click on that Wikipedia link if you're eating something.

Banh mi are often referred to as "Vietnamese po-boy's" on local menus. I can see it.

For dessert, we had made-to-order snoballs, provided by William's Plum Street Snoballs, complete with all those esoteric cream flavors we love so well.





These folks are the official snoball suppliers at Jazzfest, in case you were wondering where the heck you'd seen them before. They were just the refreshing thing after a big ol' slab of turducken.



Snoball making in action. The portable snoball machine is a pretty handy piece of machinery.



We also had Langenstein's oyster dressing....



Miniature pies from the Real Pie Man, alongside some other treats....



Crawfish corn bread....



A home-made chess pie....



Marinated shrimp....



7 layer dip.....



And a host of other dishes, including some grade-A red beans and rice.

The Cookbook Club meeting and Sara Roahen's talk proved to be a big success, combining gastronomical pleasure and an illuminating discussion of the art of food writing. Next meeting is November 9th. Now you know why you should turn out.

One Book New Orleans will be conducting a variety of events revolving around "Gumbo Tales" this fall: check out the schedule on their website.

St James Cheese Company Friday Night Tastings

The St. James Cheese Company hosts Friday Night Tastings on occasion, wherein New Orleans most beloved cheese shop stays open into the evening, dishing out free cheese samples and serving the usual menu alongside I can think of few better ways to open up a good night of NOLA drinking then here: with stinky cheese, delicious small plates, and some good company. A brief account follows.



We sidled up to the cheese counter to try the evening's free sample, Ubriaco al Vino Rosso from Treviso, near Venice. It's a cow's milk cheese dipped and washed in red wine pressings, giving it a distinctively fruity tinge.



The flavor is pleasantly strong and fills the mouth. A real winner. (The Italian cheese was selected in honor of St. James cofounder Richard and cheesemonger Casey, who were on their way to the Slow Food Cheese event in Bra).




A delightful cheese sampler, composed of what the cheese monger felt looked tasty today. Top left is Garrotxa, a Spanish (Catalonia) unpasteurized goat's milk cheese, with a delicate, nutty, and smooth flavor profile. Our friend in the middle is Shropshire, an unusual English blue cheese with a tangy flavor and a sharp, creamy personality. It is widely considered to be a cross between Stilton and Cheshire cheese, but I am really startlingly under-qualified to comment on that. This one hails from Neil's Yard Dairy Bottom right is Tarantaise cheese, an artisan product hailing from Thistle Hill Farm in North Pomfret, Vermont, with a sharp and distinctive flavor.

We very much enjoyed the sweet and spicy pepper jelly, the fresh figs, and the wheat crackers served with the cheeses. A fine cheese plate, and reasonably priced at eleven dollars.



This was the evening's small plate special: mashed fava beans with lemon, topped with burrata mozzarella. I found this delicious, but my friends weren't so keen on it. I think the combination of uber-green and fresh favas with fatty, rich burrata, good olive oil, and tangy lemon juice was inspired, myself.



A panzanella salad with parmagiano-reggiano, fresh figs, and walnuts, alongside little cubes of toasted garlic french bread, in a muscadine dressing. This was pretty delightful, though I suspect the inherent tastiness of fresh figs cast a positive spin on the entire affair. The muscadine dressing was actually a little too subtle - I know that most gourmet places live in eternal fear of overdressing their salad, but I would have liked to taste it!

They'll be doing these Friday Night Tastings on a regular basis, as well as some special dinners. Get thyself on their mailing list, or lo, suffer the consequences. Something like that.

- F.G