Come meet your favorite cookbook authors, food writers and food bloggers at the IACP Book & Blog Festival on April 1st! Schmooze with them, buy their books, get books signed and much more.
As a part of its annual conference, “The Fashion of Food,” the International Association of Culinary Professionals will be opening its doors to the public for a Book & Blog Festival featuring ninety of the top cookbook authors, culinary writers, and food bloggers. The event gives both IACP members and the public a chance to meet, greet, and discover top culinary writers in a festive, fun environment with music, giveaways, and, of course, books. Already renowned for its book authors, this year’s event adds prominent bloggers and new apps to the Festival.
I’m definitely still full from our “Year Of The Dragon” Chinese New Year Potluck event. Two weeks later?! How much food did I eat?
While the food was PLENTIFUL and STUPENDOUS and while I definitely had my fill, I’m brimming from our friends who bring their enthusiasm and their best to every event that Ken and I host.
I love the lead up to this event: The #TigerCNYPL twitter feed lights up with questions like “What should I make?”; “What are you making?”; “Please make… !” speculating and scheming. I love being the keeper of the menu. It’s both sweet torture and a thrill each time I ring the virtual gong, adding each dish to the feast and announcing it on the feed.
As the menu grows bigger and the day of the event grows nearer, the anticipatory tweets get more frenzied. Everyone is excited about tasting each others food and getting to spend time with one another. A fun-filled feast and love fest—what more could you want?
Well, there is one moment, as the host, I could live without…
When you go to a party that’s hosted by a person who LOVES and makes GREAT food, you know it’s going to be a FABULOUS party because GREAT food makes a party.
But there’s a step up from this, and that’s when you go to a party filled with hundreds of people who LOVE and make GREAT food and there’s GREAT food and drink, to boot. That, my friends, is a FOOD LOVE FEST!
That was the scene at Santos Party House last Monday for the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Launch Party for “The Fashion of Food” Program. In March 2012, the IACP annual conference is coming to New York City for the first time in thirty years. The theme of the upcoming conference is the The Fashion of Food: an exploration of where food, fashion and media connect.
I’m working with the IACP host committee to help make the New York conference a smashing success and we decided that we needed to celebrate with a BIG OL’ PARTAY!!!!
And what a party it was with cookbook authors, celebrity chefs, entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, chefs, writers, bloggers, food PR professionals, food app developers, butchers, bakers, salumi makers, brand representatives, recipe testers, nutritionists, journalists, hobbyists, photographers, radio hosts, culinary historians, and so many more culinary professionals from all over the tri-state and beyond in attendance.
What I loved was the range in ages and lifestyles. At one point someone said, “If a non-food person walked into this event, he would not be able to understand what brought this diverse group of people together in the same room.” But everyone who was there knew. All the IACP members know. It’s the LOVE of FOOD.
It’s baaaaaack! By popular demand and because we had such an incredible time last year, Ken and I are hosting the “Year of the Dragon” Chinese New Year Potluck on February 4th, 2012.
I hosted my first Chinese New Year feast party around 20 years ago, with over 30 dishes and I cooked E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G myself. When the guests arrived, my hands were bleeding and I was nearly comatose! I remember my mother saying to me, “WHAT DID YOU DO?” It was a killer party and I did it because I wanted to throw a party that I thought I’d never be invited to.
Last year, when Ken and I threw the first Chinese New Year Potluck I realized how crazy I’d been!!! This is how to do it! The tri-state food blogger and friends community came together, each bringing a dish and together we wound up with a stupendous feast of amazing foods from all over Asia… and we ate it! We ate every bit of it—seriously… there were no leftovers. So save-the-date and plan to spend the afternoon feasting on Asian food with your favorite food loving friends!
Here’s Ken’s beautiful recap of our event from last year with delicious pictures.
Here’s mine with the list of all the dishes that were served.
CHINESE NEW YEAR POTLUCK MENU
Bahn Xeo: Crispy Saigon Pancakes with Shrimp (savory), Chinese Broccoli with Oyster Sauce and Toasted Sesame Chocolate Dipped Kumquats (sweet) Jackie Gordon @divathatateny… this is my blog….
Have you stood face-to-face with over a thousand cookies that you could eat and take home to feast on? If you haven’t, you totally should!
I had the absolute DELIGHT! of hosting NYC COOKIE Swap yesterday with Maggy Keets, Gail Dosik and Ken Leung. What a fun event! The local and not so local food community came out in droves with their A-GAME cookies and it was STUPENDOUS!
I made: Cranberry Pepita Rugelach with Apple Honey Jelly | Stained Glass Ginger Cookies | Peppermint Chocolate Bark Stars
On Twitter the other day, Mdvani (@LadiesWhoLunch), who I believe is vegan, asked me how to make sweet potatoes on behalf of a friend. I tweeted three ways:
Peeled and roasted rounds with slivers of garlic on each slice in olive oil and S&P
Peeled and casseroled chunks with fresh apples, dried cranberries, maple syrup, butter and S&P
Whipped with milk or cream, butter, brown sugar and sweet spices.
Then I said, “Use coconut milk if you want them to be vegan.” That, was a moment of GENIUS! And that’s how I made them for Thanksgiving and they were FANTABULOUS!
I found this recipe, many years ago, for the Chinese Laundry Cafe’s “Feta And Garlic Pate” online and it had this explanation: “This funky little cafe is a regular hangout for Queen’s university students. Lucky students. This recipe comes from the owner, Ann Marie Rousseau.”
I lightened the original recipe which had six tablespoons of butter in it, by leaving that out and added a lot more feta and a little more sour cream. I decided to roast the garlic so I added a lot more of it since the flavor of roasted garlic is softer. Oh, and I increased the scallions, too. You can substitute chives. Maybe with all that butter you could mold it and serve it like a terrine. I thought it was unnecessary. Now it’s got balls—Just the way I like it!
I used this as one of the layers in the Roasted Garlic & Feta, Butternut Squash, Beet & Cranberry Parfait on my Thanksgiving 2011 Menu
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday bar NONE! Cooking and eating delicious food with my wonderful family and friends, laughing, reminiscing and making new memories is the BEST DAY of the year.
If I could have Thanksgiving every day my world would be a better place. I really think it should be a mandatory once-a-month occurrence for every family and families of friends. Cooking food with people you love and sharing it is a visceral bonding experience. It’s like a testimony to LOVE. Plan to get in the kitchen, cook meals together and share them more often. If more people did this our worlds would be a better places and the world would surely improve. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!
