CAMP SHOALS APRIL 20-21

In concert with the annual Alabama Adventure Weekend, held in and around Florence and Tuscumbia, Alabama, the SFA is offering CAMP SHOALS, a ticketed event-within-an-event. (To get an idea of what happened at the 2006 Adventure Weekend, click here.)

For an $85 registration fee, a lucky few will dine on rabbit and watercress, cooked by Scott Peacock of Watershed Restaurant and Frank Stitt of Highlands Bar and Grill. Also included is a chicken stew dinner and a few other perqs. As a registrant, you will become a co-producer of an SFA documentary short on the old guard cooks of the area.

Registration is available online. Just click the photo at the top of the home page.

WHAT'S COOKING IN NEW ORLEANS?

The Historic New Orleans Collection will present an array of special programming in conjunction with the exhibit What's Cooking in New Orleans?: Culinary Traditions of the Cresecent City, including the Twelfth Annual Williams Research Center Symposium, Food for Thought, on Saturday, January 20, at the Wyndham Hotel at Canal Place.

The day-long program features culinary experts, including Jessica Harris, Tom Fitzmorris, Jan Longone, Susan Tucker, Wendy Woloson, Sally K. Reeves, and Poppy Tooker.

The registration fee for the symposium is $60 for adults and $40 for students and includes a reception and viewing of What's Cooking in New Orleans? on January 19, from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. A complete schedule and online registration are available at www.hnoc.org/programs/symposia.php or call (504) 523-4662.

KITCHEN IMAGES WANTED

As part of our new traveling exhibition, America's Kitchens, we at Historic New England are looking for images of kitchens from across the country. We are looking for recent photographs showing people in the kitchen eating, celebrating, working, entertaining, or simply the kitchen itself. Please include a sentence or two about your favorite kitchen memories, or about what you love or hate about your kitchen. To submit a photo and stories about your kitchens, or for more information visit www.AmericasKitchens.org

If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact Joanne Flaherty at jflaherty@historicnewengland.org or 978-521-4788, ext. 718.

I SUPPORT FRIED CHICKEN BENEFITTING THE SCOTCH HOUSE

Since January 2006, the Southern Foodways Alliance has been working to save the Scotch House. The rebuilding effort has raised $140,000, and over 100 SFA members and friends have volunteered on site to restore Ms. Seaton's home and workplace. As 2006 draws to a close the Scotch House rebuilding project continues, but $20,000 is still needed to complete the work.

Won't you please become a supporter of the Scotch House? You can help by purchasing the first fried chicken plates to come out of the new kitchen.

For your $250 donation, you'll receive a certificate good for two plates of fried chicken at the Scotch House. Redeem them on opening day, or hold onto them longer if you wish. Whenever you're able to visit the Scotch House, Ms. Seaton will fix you a plate.

To register, click here:
http://www.southernfoodways.com/supportfriedchicken.shtml

WILLIE MAE SEATON INTERVIEW PART OF "NEW ORLEANS EATS"

For nearly fifty uninterrupted years, Willie Mae Seaton presided on Saint Ann Street in New Orleans' Seventh Ward, first as the bartender at Willie Mae's Scotch House and then, following an expansion, as the establishment's chef. At one point in its history, the Scotch House topped out at five employees, including Willie Mae's late daughter Lillie, but the proprietress eventually scaled back. "I don't like no big, big restaurant," she explained. Just prior to Hurricane Katrina, Willie Mae's son, Charles, and her grand-daughter, Kerry, tended to the 28 customers the restaurant could accommodate at one sitting, while Willie Mae herself, at 89 years old, fried chicken to a stunning crisp, seasoned red beans with garlic and pickle tips, and simmered okra and tomato into summery gumbos.

Go here to read the interview.
Go here to help rebuild Willie Mae's Scotch House.

NEW ORLEANS EATS: TELL US A STORY

In an effort to document and celebrate our nation's love affair with New Orleans food, Tabasco and the SFA want to hear from you. Tell us your seminal New Orleans food story. Your first taste of oysters Rockefeller. Your initial encounter with gumbo.

Call our digital voicemail service at 888-841-6153 and share your defining memory of dining in New Orleans. You can also share those memories by sending an email to nolaeats@earthlink.net.

Once we have assembled a tasty selection, we'll post them online as part of New Orleans Eats, An Oral History Project. Windows users can sample our first batch of interviews here:
mms://130.74.84.77/omo/cmp/nolaeats.wma