CAROLINA EATS ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

As part of our Sept. 7-9 Camp Carolina event in Chapel Hill, we're honoring three locals with our Tabasco Guardian of the Tradition award. In early June SFA oral historian Amy Evans sat down with the awardees to gather the stories of their lifework. Those stories are collected here as the Chapel Hill Eats oral history project. Meet Keith Allen, who has manned the pits at Allen & Son Barbeque every day for close to forty years. Read about Cliff Collins's long tenure in the meat cutting industry and find out how things have changed. And listen to Mildred Council, better known as Mama Dip, laugh about Craig Claiborne's first visit to her restaurant. Meet the people who are the guardians of North Carolina's foodways traditions.

New Book from the SFA's Joe York!

With Signs Following: Photographs from the Southern Religious Roadside

By Joe York; introduction by Charles Reagan Wilson
University Press of Mississippi, $25

From hand-rendered folk signs to high-dollar church marquees, religious messages and imagery saturate the landscape of the American South. In With Signs Following, York introduces readers to the role of artistic, witty advertising from Southern churches and believers. In seventy black and white images of religious signs and other ephemera, York simultaneously presents the factual while encouraging reflection and introspection.

In his introduction to the volume, Charles Reagan Wilson accurately outlines the aim of the project. York, he explains, explores the intersection of an abiding religious folk culture in the South and modern ways, finding religious people quite self-consciously selling God. The roadside is the medium for the message."

SOFAB'S "INVITATION TO THE SOUTHERN TABLE"

Save the date for the Southern Food and Beverage Museum's (SoFAB's) "Invitation to the Southern Table," a benefit and menu collecting event at the Inn at Hunt Phelan, in Memphis, Tennessee, on Monday, September 17, from 6:30 p.m. - 9 p.m. Guests are encouraged to bring menus from area restaurants to complete a collection that will include menus from all southern restaurants.

The menus are part of the SoFAB's archives. The goal of the menu project is to gather a menu from every restaurant in the south to help people better appreciate the south's culinary histories, cultures, traditions and economies.

Attendees will enjoy a variety of dishes along with a signature cocktail created especially for this event. Tickets are $100 per person or $110 at the door. To purchase tickets or for further information, please contact The Southern Food and Beverage Museum at 504-578-8280 or visit www.southernfood.org.

EAST NASHVILLE TOMATO ART FEST IS AUGUST 11

Tomatoes: a uniter, not a divider -- bringing together fruits and vegetables.

SFA-ers who trekked to Nashville last summer will remember the hospitality of the East Nashville gang who invited us to join them for the Tomato Art Festival. Now the fourth annual Tomoato Art Fest is on the horizon, scheduled for August 11. Check out their Web site, www.tomatoartfest.com, for details on all the activities: the infamous Bloody Mary competition, the ugly tomato contest, the pizza recipe invitational and -- new this year -- the tomato songwriters' CD. The festival is free and open to the public. All are invited, and everyone should attend.

CHARLESTON FIELD TRIP PHOTOS ONLINE

SFA's trip to the Lowcountry is now online. See photos from the weekend here:
www.bluecrablabs.com (photos by Pableaux Johnson)
http://photolab.etsu.edu/images/SFACharleston07/ (photos by Fred Sauceman)

Many thanks is due to our Charleston contingent, whose hospitality made for a memorable event.

FOOD FOR THE SOUL AT THE BROOKS MUSEUM

Southern Foodways Alliance director John T. Edge and University of Mississippi filmmaker Joe York will present an exclusive screening of York's film "Above the Line: Saving Willie Mae's Scotch House" on Friday at 7 p.m. at The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.

The film tells the story of the destruction of 91-year-old Willie Mae Seaton's award-winning Scotch House restaurant during Hurricane Katrina. In the past year and a half since the storm, a group of volunteers from the Southern Food Alliance, led by Oxford restaurateur John Currence, has worked to rebuild this New Orleans landmark.

The screening will be followed by a tasting of soul food provided by Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken and other local restaurants at the Brushmark restaurant.

Tickets are $10 for Brooks members and $20 for non-members. Advance reservations are strongly recommended and can be purchased online at brooksmuseum.org or by calling 901-544-6208.