New Orleans food

R.I.P. Jim Core, anchor farmer at Crescent City Farmers Market and Covington Farmers Market

ImageI arrived at the Covington Farmers Market and saw Jan almost immediately. Sadly, she told me that she had news this morning that one of the shared vendors between CCFM and CVM had passed away overnight.It was not entirely unexpected, but still a shock. We talked quietly of Jim and Gladys for a few minutes and then I spoke to AJ, their grandson (the up and coming farmer in the family) who valiantly came to sell on this sad morning. Jim would have agreed with AJ on that. Now is the time to support the family as only a market community can – with small moments of consideration and shared memories. Thanks Jim for your never-ending innovation and humor. We’ll do our best to assist Taylor’s Happy Oaks Farm.

Click here to learn what the Crescent City Farmers Market is doing to honor Jim

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New campus HQ OK’d for Nicholls culinary school

Believe it or not, my food obsessed city of New Orleans is NOT the home of a dozen first-rate culinary schools; well, actually zero would be the number that we currently have. There has long been talk of Johnson and Wales putting a school in the NOLa area, but this program and school in a new campus headquarters along the Mississippi River Delta of Louisiana (about 50 miles outside of New Orleans) appeals to me more.
Chef John Folse has been extremely dedicated in building this program and his deep commitment to finding homegrown food professionals is commendable, as has been his long time support of the region’s farmers markets. On top of that, he has the encyclopedia on Cajun and Creole cuisine, a highly regarded reference book: Folse Encyclopedia and his cheese making operation is also excellent and one of the few artisanal cheese operations at this level in our state: Bittersweet Plantation

So, to wrap up, a good guy who has done as much as he can to build food systems in his home state. More like him are always welcome.

New campus HQ OK'd for Nicholls culinary school.

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New Agtivist: Jenga Mwendo grows community in New Orleans | Grist

I met Jenga when she assisted Sankofa Community Development Corporation with the beginnings of what became the Sankofa Farmers Market. That market is in its third iteration now but still, is the only other farmers market besides Crescent City Farmers Market’s three that exists in New Orleans. I know- only 4 in New Orleans? It seems hard to believe…
She struck me then as a serious yet warm young woman who was committed to her community’s health and to leading the good health and well-being of her own family. In other words, I liked her immediately and expected great things.
What she represents in the lower 9 is almost unfathomable to many Americans-one person who is spending her life helping her small, struggling community without any real gain to herself.And doing it in small, quiet ways that rejoice in the re-discovery of the cultural assets of her home.

New Agtivist: Jenga Mwendo grows community in New Orleans | Grist.

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Leah Chase: Paintings by Gustave Blache III @ NOMA | New Orleans Museum of Art

Leave it to my city to hold an exhibit of paintings of one of our favorite chefs and restauranteurs, Leah Chase. Dooky Chase Restaurant was the headquarters of the civil rights movement in the 1960s in New Orleans, and was one of the few places where black and white people sat together. Add to that the importance of the location (it anchors the 6th ward and Treme), the multi-generational kitchen (grandson has now joined Miss Leah in the kitchen), the long memory of our food culture held there (I once waited for Miss Leah to make me a 5 gallon bucket of proper sweet tea for an event at the farmers market which she did by getting on a ladder and taking the largest spoon I ever saw to stir it up), and her warmth with everyone she comes in contact with and you end up with the long list of reasons to thank Miss Leah and the rest of the Chase family for their devotion to New Orleans.

Leah Chase: Paintings by Gustave Blache III @ NOMA | New Orleans Museum of Art.

 

Also give a listen to Leah Chase, jazz singer- no, not the matriarch, but her daughter who is one of the premier jazz vocalists in the area.
Leah Chase jazz album
 

 

 

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