Last weekend I volunteered for The Fall Garden Festival out at City Park Botanical Garden. It was a gorgeous weekend. The sun was shining, it was not too hot and the humidity was low. That is fall for us here in South Louisiana.

The festival hosted plant sales from local nurseries, a scarecrow trail, arts and crafts, food, music and plenty of activities for the kids. This year there was an entire area dedicated to urban farming represented by the Food and Farm Network, Tulane City Center, Grow Dat Youth Farm, Future Proof, Ye Olde College Inn, EcoUrban and the Emeril Lagasse Foundation. There were exhibits on city chickens, composting, building raised beds, backyard vegetable gardens, solar energy and cooking demonstrations using seasonal produce. Read more »

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is encouraging Americans to participate in Food Day on October 24, 2011. Food Day is an initiative to inspire the nation to improve their diets, focus on food policy, expand access to nutritious and healthy foods, support fair working conditions for food and farm workers and support sustainable agriculture which will in turn protect our environment. Food Day is modeled after Earth Day, a day which brings awareness to environmental protection and conservation. Like Earth Day, Food Day events and activities begin at a local level and can range from teaching children to plant vegetable seeds in the community garden to hosting a dinner derived from only local ingredients to going to your local farmer’s market and talking to a farmer.

Food Day is all about bringing attention to what we eat, how we eat and where our food comes from. It is about transforming our lives through our diet.  It is also about supporting our local community and hopefully beginning to solve our communities’ food problems such as food deserts and hunger. Food Day is supported by Slow Food USA, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, the Farmers Market Coalition, Chefs Collaborative and is backed by an advisory board that includes Michael Pollan, Marion Nestle, Alice Waters, Dan Barber Nora Pouillon, and Michael Leviton, the chair of the Chefs Collaborative Board.

Food Day’s motto is “eat real”. So what does that mean? It means eating meals that are centered on fruits, vegetables and whole grains and eating foods that are minimally processed. It is about getting Americans to think about food in a whole new way; creating healthy eating habits that support a just, sustainable, and affordable food system for all Americans. It is imperative that we go out to the farmers markets, the local co-op, or get into the garden and then get back into our kitchens and start cooking. It is important not only for our health, but for the health of the environment and the health our communities.

Goals of Food Day

Events are being held nationwide to celebrate Food Day. You can go to the Food Day website to find a local coordinator for events being held in your region. I have noticed that there is not a single event posted for New Orleans yet Anchorage, Alaska has five events posted. Come on New Orleans! Host your own food day event by giving a cooking class, visiting a farm, planting an herb garden or hosting a healthy pot luck dinner and then post your event on the Food Day map. Together we can make Food Day successful.

I will be attending Chefs Collaborative National Summit here in New Orleans on Food Day. Chefs Collaborative which is a non-profit organization for chefs and culinary professionals that focuses on “changing the sustainable food landscape using the power of connections, education and responsible buying decisions.” I am really looking forward to attending this event and learning more about how I can help my community.

This Friday the Culinary Team at Emeril’s Homebase will be attending a culinary symposium at Loyola University. Our colleague Daphne Derven will be a speaker at the event. She is speaking about fighting hunger in New Orleans in her speech titled Food and Social Justice in New Orleans: A Plenary Session on Fighting Hunger. I have just finished reading her paper written on the subject and am amazed by  some of the facts and figures regarding hunger not just in New Orleans but throughout the United States.

The symposium covers a wide range of topics such as Culinary History as Public History, Foodways as Cultural Identity in New Orleans, and the geography of food. It all sounds incredibly interesting and I am really looking forward to the lectures.

Live to Eat Symposium

I had the opportunity to visit Stone Barns Agricultural Center which is a non-profit farm, educational center just north of Manhattan in Pocantico Hills, New York. I think I may have mentioned in a previous post that I have always wanted to visit Stone Barns. For one thing, I just love upstate New York. My father’s family was from there and I spent my summers in Westchester. The farm at Stone Barns is centered on sustainable agriculture and one of their main goals is to teach people about what sustainable really means. They host workshops on soil building, green house gardening, foraging, egg collecting, bee keeping and more. If I lived closer I would be there every weekend possible. It is an amazing resource center.

After a long week working in Manhattan I convinced my friends Liz and Steve to go up for the day. I didn’t have to work very hard to convince them. They often take workshops up there and love getting out to the farm. It wasn’t really the nicest day, overcast, sort of cold and threatening rain but it didn’t much matter to me. I was just thrilled to explore the farm.

I was anxious to check out the green houses because I had heard so much about them. They cover 22,000 square feet, half an acre, which is intensely planted with dozens of varieties of crops grown year round. Some of the more interesting features are the retractable roofs and dirt floors. I was also impressed by the irrigation system.

Garlic, shallots and onions as well as winter squashes are put up in the green house for storage.

I headed down to the barns. My first stop was the brooder barn.

The little chicks are precious, I just wanted to pick one up and put it in my pocket.

We headed down the hill behind the barns and into the forest. I was told there were several litters of piglets. Unfortunately, it was lunch time and most of the piglets were nursing. This big momma was taking a break, some much needed lounge time.

As we wandered through the forest we saw a coyote and a few little rabbits hanging around.I get so excited over wild life! Even a rabbit.

Out of the woods and up the hill to see the turkeys.

Are they fattening up for Thanksgiving?

The sheep are pastured and moved almost daily from pasture to pasture.

Colorful bums.

The sheep dog was dutifully tending his sheep.

I’m not sure if these chickens are layers or meat chickens.

The bee hives are colorfully painted and just swarming with bees. (P.S. I have always wanted to keep bees!)

Stone Barns is simply incredible. I only wish we had been able to stay for dinner. Blue Hill at Stone Barns is only open for dinner and unfortunately we had to head home. Most of what is grown on the farm is used at Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Blue Hill in Manhattan. I will have to schedule another trip just to eat.

Stone Barns hosts numerous workshops on gardening, foraging, composting, bee keeping and more. I highly encourage people to visit the center. I left feeling so inspired.

Stone Barns Program Calendar

Finally! One of the first copies of Sizzling Skillets and Other One Pot Wonders has landed on my desk! This long awaited arrival of our latest cookbook project has me and my team reminiscing over some of our favorite dishes from the book. We couldn’t wait to try some of them again:  congee, kimchi-fried rice, jap chae, only to name a few. With the One Pot, Three Weeks promotional blogger party going on, we felt we had to join in on the cooking fun. Stacey has plans to make kimchi-fried rice tomorrow, but I happily spent time in the test kitchen today making our beloved congee.

A friend of mine turned me on to the Chinese rice soup known as congee (a.k.a. jook) several years ago. After introducing it to my colleagues here in the test kitchen, it quickly became one of the Emeril’s Culinary Team’s favorite go-to dishes. It is a comforting dish that is always well-received, especially when rainy and cool outside. In the simplest terms, it’s a thick rice soup made from long, slow simmering of rice in broth. We usually make a stock with pork and chicken, with hints of aromatic ginger, garlic, scallions, and cilantro. Here it is simmering away!

Once the broth is just right, it is strained, the meats are shredded for garnish, and then the rice is cooked low and slow in the broth until it literally falls apart. Here is the strained broth simmering with the rice. Sometimes I can’t resist adding a few additional pieces of ginger and scallions to make sure it’s extra flavorful. (Just make sure you remove these before serving.)

The finished soup is then garnished with the shredded meats, cilantro leaves, crispy garlic, crispy shallots, sliced scallions, soy sauce, fish sauce, sesame oil, and spicy sesame oil – all to taste. It’s one of those dishes that you can easily tailor to use what’s available. Today I used an already made pork stock and so the soup turned out a bit darker in color than the recipe created for Sizzling Skillets…but boy, was it good. The crispy shallots and crispy garlic can be purchased in Asian markets already prepared if you’re not up to frying at home. Friends and family love garnishing their own bowls to taste with just the right amounts of stuff so please, don’t even think of skipping the garnishes – they elevate this soup to something truly special.

Kitchen tip: The small Japanese mandolines work well for slicing the garlic and shallots to the same thickness, which makes a big difference when frying. This way all the pieces end up done more or less at the same time. Once you’ve done this a few times you’ll see how important this is!

This is just one of the test kitchen’s favorites from Sizzling Skillets and Other One Pot Wonders…on sale in bookstores next Tuesday or order online at emerils.com by clicking on https://www.emerilstore.com/prodinfo.asp?number=10CB116! If you want to see what some of the other bloggers have been cooking, check out my latest favorite blogger/photographer partnership at http://freshlybakedbyphotokitchen.blogspot.com/2011/09/emeril-lagasses-cookbook-sneak-peak_19.html and http://mangesmangi.blogspot.com/2011/09/one-pot-wonder-collaboration-with.html The photos are amazing!

Check out Martha’s blog post today!

I have always wanted to visit Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture and hope to go for the day this September when I am in NYC. Stone Barns seems like heaven on earth, seriously I would just love to move right in.  It is a working farm that focuses on sustainable agriculture, raising heirloom vegetables and fruits, heritage varieties of pigs, chicken and sheep, as well as bees. There is so much happening there I could not possibly convey it all in a short blog. I have included a link to Martha’s blog as well as links to Stone Barns and Dan Barber’s site.

Enjoy!

http://www.themarthablog.com/2011/08/a-recent-visit-to-stone-barns-center-for-food-agriculture.html

http://www.stonebarnscenter.org/

http://www.bluehillfarm.com/food/overview/team/dan-barber

I recently met a wonderful woman, Pam Broom. She has an urban garden in Central City here in New Orleans.Pam Broom named her garden The Sun Harvest Kitchen Garden because the lot was initially planted entirely with sunflowers in an effort to remediate the soil. This summer I had the opportunity to spend the morning chatting with Pam about her garden. We sat in her office which consisted of two chairs under the shade of a mulberry tree.She started Sun Harvest about two years ago in a neighborhood that may be considered a food desert in Central City, New Orleans. There are very few grocery stores; those that do exist are really just corner shops selling mostly packaged foods. The garden is fully accessible from the street, fairly close to the New Orleans Mission one of our city’s largest homeless shelters. It seems all of the neighbors have great respect for both Pam and her garden because theft and vandalism are almost nonexistent

As a dedicated and serious gardener Pam is in her garden daily greeting friend’s and neighbors as they walk by. Pam’s garden is beyond a doubt an urban oasis.When I asked Pam what techniques she uses in the garden she quickly stated that she uses a French Intensive Gardening Method. In layman’s terms, this means the garden is planted mainly for heavy production using organic methods and sustainable practices. The garden is planted with traditional culinary herbs such as mint, basil, rosemary and chives but she also grows stevia, lemon verbena, lemon thyme, pineapple sage, lavender and anis hyssop, just to name a few. There is a large bed of about 50 Padron pepper plants grown exclusively for Emeril’s restaurants. She is also growing interesting heirloom varieties like black garbanzo beans, Longhorn okra, black lima beans and bronzed fennel. She is trying to keep heirloom and heritage varieties of fruits and vegetables alive by introducing the varieties to chefs and educating both the chefs and the consumers.

Cafe Reconcile is just a few blocks away from the garden. It is a non profit restaurant that assists in teaching life skills and acts as a training ground for job skills in the food service industry. The restaurant reaches out to young people who are at risk and helps them become a member of the community and the workforce. Pam, a member of the board, works closely with the restaurant and the staff. She assists with the curriculum and hopes to establish what she describes as an artisanal apprenticeship working in the garden. Life skills illustrated through gardening. The students will be able to harvest herbs and vegetables from the garden and use them in the kitchen at Café Reconcile. They will learn how to compost, build soil, plant, harvest and generally tend to the garden. It sounds like a wonderful opportunity.

Spending time with Pam was so enlightening because you really get a sense of how committed you have to be to farm. It is not an easy job to be a farmer, urban or otherwise. Farming requires knowledge of what to grow and how to grow it, how to maintain your soil, sustainable pest management systems, composting and irrigation systems. It is hard work, often in the hot sun or even the rain. You must have a market or an outlet to sell your produce or milk or meat. But often, urban farms provide food in places where fresh food may not be available.

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This afternoon is the big kick off party for the 1st Annual New Orleans Eat Local Challenge. If you haven’t already signed up there is still time. You can sign up online or head over today to their headquarters at 1619 Oretha Castle Haley St. I stopped by there yesterday to pick up my goodie bag which includes a bag of Avery Island salt, a resource guide for buying local (up to 200 mile radius), my Eat Local Challenge T-shirt and I bought The Locavore’s Handbook by Leda Meredith.

The party tonight is from 5pm to 8pm at 1619 Oretha Castle Haley St. in the Zeitgeist Center. It sounds like it will be fun. Many of the sponsors of  the event will be there to talk about how and where to buy local ingredients. Pontchartrain Vineyards will be serving local wine and Old New Orleans Rum will offer cocktails and I was told there will be food as well.

I am really excited about taking this challenge. I have cleared out my pantry and restocked it with local items such as pecans and pecan oil, Louisiana sugar, Avery Island salt, local hot sauce, Steen’s cane vinegar and grits. Today I plan on heading over to Hollygrove Market to pick up a box of produce which will include squash, tomatoes, eggplant, blueberries, peaches, lettuces, sprouts, arugula and brown rice just to name a few.  Then I’ll head over to The Crescent City Farmers Market to pick up cheese, milk, butter, eggs, fish, shrimp and anything else that looks good. I  was a little nervous at first that I would have a hard time with this but as I start shopping and looking around there are so many local ingredients available it may not be as tough as I thought.

I have given myself a few little provisions; I am going to drink my coffee but I am going to drink only coffee that has been roasted locally such as PJ’s or CC’s and I think Coolbrew is also roasted in NOLA. I am also allowing myself beer but only the local stuff.

Going out to eat may be more of a challenge but there are a few restaurants participating. Satsuma, La Provence, Surrey’s, The Upperline and La Divinia are all sponsors of the event and I have heard that several restaurants around town will try to serve at least one dish that is mainly local. I will keep an up to date list of restaurants that are participating. Luckily, so many of our local restaurants use mainly local and regional ingredients. Hopefully the challenge will inspire our chefs to use that much more! Support for our local farmers and our local economy is so important. It is also gratifying to know that what you buy and how you eat affects your immediate community in such beneficial ways. The other benefit is to your health and the health of our environment.

The Eat Local Challenge is occurring nationwide so if you do not live in New Orleans check out the challenge in your community or start your own challenge.

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I just got back from my trip to HSN. We had an incredibly successful weekend!

For those of you who may not be familiar,  HSN is the acronym for the Home Shopping Network. Chef Emeril is a guest on the show and makes fairly regular appearances throughout the year. This particular appearance featured a TS, which in HSN lingo means a Today’s Special. The Today’s Special item is featured at the top of the hour of every show. This run featured a new fryer the Emerilware EZ Fryer 1.8. It was a hot item that sold out on HSN but is still available here at www.emerils.com. Over the weekend we also sold slow cookers, cookware sets, knife sets, a mini chopper, cookbooks and Emeril’s new line of Red Marble Steaks. We had our work cut out for us. The prep list was long and slightly daunting. Somehow we always get it all done.

There was a lot of energy and good vibes on this trip. As I mentioned in a previous post I had not been to HSN in awhile so getting together and working with the HSN kitchen team was fabulous. I was nervous that I had forgotten how to put together a tv show- that is from a kitchen standpoint- but it was just like riding a bike. You never forget and quickly you find your stride. The HSN kitchen team work together like a well oiled machine, making sure that everything goes off without a hitch. The hours are long and the work is demanding but it can also be a ton of fun.

At the end of the run we had a late night dinner at Cassis, a cute bistro in St. Petersburg. They stayed open late just for us, which was so generous. So after wrapping up a successful taping, we enjoyed a delicious meal together and had some belly aching laughs.

Now I am back in New Orleans, working on the next project.

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I was out for a walk on Sunday and bumped into a wild rooster.

Urban chickens are all the rage! Here in New Orleans people have always kept backyard chickens. I moved back to New Orleans just before Katrina, living Uptown and loving the fact that chickens just wandered around in my neighborhood. I don’t think that many people evacuated their chickens but they not only survived but have proliferated. There are now entire communities of feral chickens. No one really seems to mind. I don’t, it just seems to add to the character of this place. Things are a little different here and we definitely march to a different beat.

I took a few pics with my iPhone and I just thought it was a quirky bit of info about New Orleans that I wanted to share. I have also attached links to articles about the wild chickens of New Orleans.

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=62102724#

http://www.earthweek.com/2011/ew110422/ew110422g.html

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