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The Girls are Baking: Los Angeles’ Classic Desserts (VIDEO)

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2012-10-20 Panel – Classic Desserts.mov from Chris Griffiths on Vimeo.

Saturday, October 20, 2012, at 10:30 AM at the Los Angeles Public Library

Mark Taper Auditorium, Downtown Central Library, 630 W. 5th St.

Free and open to the public

Grace Bauer and pastry chef panel speaking on…

“The Girls are Baking: Los Angeles’ Classic Desserts”

Join us for a panel discussion of desserts with some of Los Angeles’ foremost pastry chefs and authors. Culinary Historian Grace Bauer will lead the panel which will include Jane Lockhart of Sweet Lady Jane’s, Valerie Gordon, the Sweet Chef of Valerie Confections, and Pastry Chef Mariah Swan.

The panelists:
Grace Bauer: A culinary professional with decades of experience in interior design, Grace Bauer has a passion for West Coast flavor. She earned her culinary arts degree from Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Pasadena in 2007. She is a member of the James Beard Society and the California Restaurant Association. Bauer’s culinary expertise has been featured in Kit Wohl’s New Orleans Classic Seafood. The artistry that Bauer brings to the kitchen was developed from years of work as a designer. She earned a degree in interior design and started her own commercial design firm, Bauer Interiors, Inc., in New Orleans, Louisiana. She became a member of the International Interior Design Association and the Institute of Business Design, earning a spot in Who’s Who in Interior Design. She is the author of Los Angeles Classic Desserts.

Jane Lockhart: better known as Sweet Lady Jane has been serving Los Angeles for over 20 years with high quality desserts. After baking for area restaurants in her home, and acquiring a reputation for quality products, Jane Lockhart opened Sweet Lady Jane’s Bakery and restaurant on Melrose Avenue and now has a second location on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Known as “the cake designer to the stars,” Lockhart has been known to prepare such unusual creations as an entire wedding cake of cheesecake and a vegan red velvet wedding cake.
We will learn just how her Triple Berry Cream Cake and Sea Salt Brownies became an important part of the Los Angeles dessert scene.

Valerie Gordon: is known as the Sweet Chef of Valerie Confections. After beginning her culinary adventures in San Francisco she moved to Los Angeles to run the fabled Les Deux Cafés in Hollywood. In 2004 Valerie opened Valerie Confections with partner, Stan Weightman, Jr., creating artisan chocolates and other dessert specialties. These have become known throughout the country for their contemporary interpretations of chocolate confections. Learning about classic Los Angeles desserts became a passion for Valerie. In 2009 she introduced her line of these classic cakes. Through careful research she re-creates Blum’s Coffee Crunch Cake, Chasen’s Banana Cream Pie and Bullock’s Coconut Cream Pie. Her cookbook is scheduled to be released in 2013.

Mariah Swan: discovered her passion for baking and enrolled in the California School of Culinary Arts in Pasadena. Her early employment included working as Assistant Pastry Chef at Hollywood and Vine Diner where she developed an interest in classic desserts. She then moved onto Axe, in Venice, where she was employed as Baker and worked with organic produce from local farmers markets. Once she moved to Grace Restaurant under Pastry Chef Elizabeth Belkind, Swan was introduced to the doughnut. Her Wednesday night Doughnut Shoppe and National Doughnut Day menus at BLD, and the late Grace Restaurant, are extremely popular events, receiving coverage in the Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly. While perfecting the doughnut, Swan began to delve into ice cream, her favorite treat. She created the spiked milkshake programs at BLD and their monthly Milkshake Madness has been covered by various publications including the New York Times and Food Network Magazine. LA Weekly’s blog, Squid Ink, named her shakes as one of the Ten Best Milkshakes in Los Angeles recognizing them as the best spiked milkshakes in the city. Recipes for her doughnuts and milkshakes have been published in Lucy Lean’s Made in America: Our Best Chefs Reinvent Comfort Food and Grace Bauer’s Los Angeles Classic Desserts. She recently has been in research and development mode for BLD’s new sister concept icdc, appropriately named for their ice cream, donuts and coffee, slotted to open early 2013.


Continental Style from Caesar to Thermidor: Classic Dining in America (Non-CHSC event)

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Saturday, November 17, 2012, at 2:00 PM at the Pacific Palisades Library

861 Alma Real Drive, Pacific Palisades CA 90272

Free and open to the public

Peter Moruzzi speaking on…

“Continental Style from Caesar to Thermidor: Classic Dining in America”

Nightlife historian (and CHSC member) Peter Moruzzi takes you to America’s finest mid-century restaurants – continental style fine dining establishments, historic steakhouses, lounge restaurants and Polynesian palaces – that persevere in U.S. cities large and small. Through exclusive new and vintage photographs, Moruzzi celebrates culinary pioneers and multi-generation restaurateurs, uncovers authentic gems, and debunks the predicted demise of the white tablecloth restaurant. A rollicking journey from past to present.
Historian and preservationist Peter Moruzzi is passionate about the mid-20th century: its nightlife, classic dining, and architecture. He chaired the Los Angeles Conservancy’s Modern Committee from 1992 to 1997, then founded the Palm Springs Modern Committee (PS ModCom), a historic preservation organization, in 1999. He is the author of the illustrated histories “Havana Before Castro: When Cuba Was a Tropical Playground” and “Palm Springs Holiday: A Vintage Tour From Palm Springs to the Salton Sea,” both published by Gibbs Smith. Moruzzi resides in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles and in Palm Springs.

This event is free to the public.

American Originals: Rethinking the Pillsbury Bake-Off (VIDEO)

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 Recipes for goodies after the talk!

Orange Kiss-Me Cake Recipe with Sheila’s Notes!

Saturday, November 10, 2012, at 10:30 AM at the Los Angeles Public Library

Mark Taper Auditorium, Downtown Central Library, 630 W. 5th St.

Free and open to the public

Laura Shapiro on…

American Originals: Rethinking the Pillsbury Bake-Off

The 1950′s and 1960′s were tumultuous decades in American food history, and nowhere is there better evidence of their contribution to our culinary sensibility than in the Pillsbury Bake-Off. The Bake-Off is often represented as a mirror of American cooking, but in truth, it’s far more of a case study in domestic ingenuity, honoring the impulse to invent, manipulate, and cajole. At mid-century, the startling configurations that won acclaim at the Bake-Off made perfect sense to the judges and contestants because they understood these dishes as emblems of pure creativity, rather than expressions of appetite. In this talk, Ms Shapiro will describe the rise of originality as a virtue in American cooking, exemplified by the triumph of Magic Marshmallow Crescent Puffs at the 1969 Bake-Off.

Laura Shapiro was a columnist at The Real Paper (Boston) before beginning a 16-year run at Newsweek, where she covered food, women’s issues and the arts and won several journalism awards. Her essays, reviews and features have also appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Gourmet, Gastronomica, Slate and many other publications. Her first book was Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century (1986), which the University of California Press has reissued with a new Afterword. She is also the author of Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America (Viking, 2004), and Julia Child (Penguin Lives, 2007), which won the award for Literary Food Writing from the International Association of Culinary Professionals in 2008. Her work is represented in the Library of America’s American Food Writing, The Virago Book of Food, and Best Food Writing 2002. She is a frequent speaker and panelist on culinary history, and contributed a regular column on a wide range of food topics to gourmet.com, the Gourmet magazine website. During 2009-10 she was a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.

Most recently, she was co-curator for “Lunch Hour NYC,” an acclaimed exhibition documenting the mingled histories of New York City and the American midday meal, which opened at the New York Public Library in June 2012.

Tunnel of Fudge Cake

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For everyone who was at our November 2012 meeting – American Originals: Rethinking the Pillsbury Bake-Off, here’s the recipe that was discussed from the Nordic Ware site by one of our members. It sounds delicious!

A grand winner in a national baking contest! Very rich and moist with a buttery flavor.

Ingredients

Cake:

1 3/4 cups butter or margarine, softened
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
6 eggs
2 cups powdered sugar
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa
2 cups chopped walnuts*

Glaze:

3/4 cup powered sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons milk

Preparation

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 12 cup Bundt Pan. In large bowl beat margarine and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually add powdered sugar; blend well. By hand, stir in remaining cake ingredients until well blended. Spoon batter into prepared pan; spread evenly. Bake at 350 degrees for 58-62 minutes**. Cool upright in pan on cooling rack 1 hour, invert onto serving plate. Cool completely.

In small bowl, combine glaze ingredients until well blended. Spoon over top of cake, allowing some to run down sides. Store tightly covered. 16 servings.

*Nuts are essential for the success of the recipe.

**Since this cake has a soft tunnel of fudge, ordinary doneness test cannot be used. Accurate oven temperature and baking time are critical.

High Altitude – Above 3500 feet; Increase flour to 2 1/4 cups plus 3 tablespoons.

Andy Smith speaks on “American Drinking History” (VIDEO)

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Andrew F. Smith teaches culinary history at the New School University in New York. He is the author or editor of 23 books, including his latest, American Tuna: The Rise and Fall of an Improbable Food (University of California Press, 2012)


Saturday, December 8, 2012, at 10:30 AM at the Los Angeles Public Library

Mark Taper Auditorium, Downtown Central Library, 630 W. 5th St.

Free and open to the public

Andrew F. Smith on…

American Drinking History

What is American Drink? Is it warmed-over traditional British beverages, such as tea, ale, hard cider, syllabubs, toddies? Or is it versions of ethnic beverages brought by successive waves of immigrants – lager and pilsner, sangria, tequila, bubble tea? Or is it the fiercely marketed creations of America’s beverage industry – Kentucky Bourbon, Kool-Aid, Snapple, Coors, Coca-Cola? Why do Americans drink the beverages that we do? These questions — and more — will be answered by culinary historian Andrew F. Smith, whose latest book is Drinking History: 15 Turning Points in the Making of American Beverages.

Andy Smith teaches food history, food controversies and professional food writing at the New School University in New York City. He is the author or editor of twenty-three books, including his latest, American Tuna: The Rise and Fall of an Improbable Food; Drinking History: 15 Turning Points in the Making of American Beverages; and the 3-volume, second edition of the Oxford Encyclopedia on Food and Drink in America. He has written more than three hundred articles in academic journals, popular magazines and newspapers, and has served as historical consultant to several television series, including PBS’s “What We Eat and Why” and “The History Detectives,” the Food Network’s “Heavyweights,” the History Channel’s “American Eats,” and Discovery’s “How Stuff is Made.”

Charles Perry’s 2013 Lecture – Eating My Way Across Uzbekistan (VIDEO)

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Charles Perry

Saturday, January 12, 2013, at 10:30 AM
at the Los Angeles Public Library

Mark Taper Auditorium, Downtown Central Library, 630 W. 5th St.

Free and open to the public

Charles Perry speaking on…

Eating My Way Across Uzbekistan

Click for Recipes from today’s Lecture

Charles says, “I’m reporting on my expedition to Uzbekistan shortly after the country became independent in order to research Central Asian food. I visited Tashkent, the Ferghana Valley, Samarkand and Bukhara, talked with a number of bakers and cooks, developed a taste for horsemeat sausage and steamed pumpkin dumplings and had a poignant meeting with the family of the most famous Uzbek food writer, with whom I had corresponded in the Eighties. I also collected Uzbek cooking equipment and will bring a qazan (hemispherical caldron), a sach (convex griddle) and a number of chekiches (bread punches).”

Charles Perry is the president and co-founder of the Culinary Historians of Southern California. He was a major contributor to the Oxford Companion to Food, has served as a trustee of the annual Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery and was a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times Food Section from 1990 to 2008. He has translated four medieval Arabic recipe collections and is currently establishing the text of a fourth, based on eight manuscripts.

CHSC Members Only Special Event

Date: Tuesday January 15, at 7 PM

Members Only Event: Uzbek dinner at EuroAsia in Encino

Outline: Uzbekistan has a fascinating cuisine that is little known outside the country, and we have an opportunity to sample this exotic way of dining at one of the only restaurants in Southern California that knows how to prepare it. The menu will include a tomato and pepper salad, Tashkent radish and beef salad, Shurpa soup of beef and vegetables with dill, Sopmsa, the Cenreal Asian cousin of a somosa, Khanum, a unique steamed dumpling with onions and peppers, and chicken kebab with Central Asian pilaf. Charles Perry will give some background on the specific dishes we will be having, as well as Uzbek etiquette.
Space is limited, and this is open to current CHSC members with one guest each. The restaurant does not serve wine or beer, but you may bring your own.
Cost: $35.00, including dinner, tax, and modest tip. To reserve a space and receive further information, send an email to richard@richardfoss.com.
Space is limited and reservations are required.

Noël Riley Fitch discussing “Journeys with Julia” (VIDEO)

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Noël Riley Fitch


Saturday, February 9, 2013, at 10:30 AM
at the Los Angeles Public Library

Mark Taper Auditorium, Downtown Central Library, 630 W. 5th St.

Free and open to the public

Noël Riley Fitch and Bert Sonnenfeld, with Nancy Zaslavsky discussing…

Journeys with Julia

Bert Sonnenfeld

Noël Riley Fitch is a biographer and historian of expatriate intellectuals in Paris in the first half of the 20th century. She is the author of several books on Paris as well as the author of the biographies of Sylvia Beach, Anaïs Nin, and Julia Child.

Noël was the only biographer exclusively authorized by Julia Child to write her biography, published in 1997, Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child. The 2012 edition has a new introduction.
Noël will be joined by her husband, culinary historian Bert Sonnenfeld, a long-time friend of CHSC. Nancy Zaslavsky will moderate and question the two about their lunches, dinners, cocktails, and romps through France (and elsewhere) with Julia over the years.

Café du Monde, Hubigs Pies, and Louisiana Food Traditions and Stories (Non-CHSC event)

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Saturday, February 16, 2013, at 2:00 PM at the Pacific Palisades Library

861 Alma Real Drive, Pacific Palisades CA 90272

Free and open to the public

Peggy Sweeney-McDonald speaking on…

” Café du Monde, Hubigs Pies, and Louisiana Food Traditions and Stories”

No state is as famous for food and good living as Louisiana, but tourists are mostly unaware of the traditions behind the cuisine. Peggy Sweeney-McDonald grew up in Baton Rouge and has spent years collecting stories about the relationship between food and the culture of Louisiana. She will tell the fascinating stories about some culinary specialties, places, and traditions that are dear to Louisiana natives. Whether or not you have heard of P&J Oysters, Kleinpeter Dairy, Dooky Chase, or Hubig’s Pies, knowing more about these will help you understand Southern food and culture. Peggy will be available to sign books after the lecture.

Peggy Sweeney-McDonald is the author of “Meanwhile, Back at Café du Monde,” which started as a live show in Louisiana and has spawned shows in Mississippi and California, an award-winning book, and a TV pilot. She is working on a companion book of California food stories, and is active as an event planner and theatrical producer. Shows are scheduled in Los Angeles – check her website at meanwhilebackatcafedumonde.com.


Barbara Haber speaks on “Cooking in Captivity: How American Civilians Survived WWII in Japanese Prison Camps”

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Barbara Haber


Saturday, March 9, 2013, at 10:30 AM
at the Los Angeles Public Library

Mark Taper Auditorium, Downtown Central Library, 630 W. 5th St.

Free and open to the public

Barbara Haber speaks on…

Cooking in Captivity: How American Civilians Survived WWII in Japanese Prison Camps

Immediately after attacking Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invaded the Philippines and imprisoned thousands of American civilians who spent the war years deprived of food. Many internees recorded their experiences, among them Natalie Crouter, a remarkable Boston-bred woman who kept a diary that describes how food preoccupied every prisoner. They talked about it, dreamed about it, and used any available resource to cook ersatz dishes that got them through the war. Barbara Haber will share her research and insights about Crouter and other internees who spent the war years in prison camps.

Barbara Haber is a food historian and the former curator of books at Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library at Harvard University where she built a major collection of cookbooks and other books related to food and its history. She is the author of From Hardtack to Home Fries: An Uncommon History of American Cooks and Meals. A former director of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, Haber currently serves on the Awards Committee and chairs the Who’s Who Committee of the James Beard Foundation. She is a regular contributor to ZesterDaily.com and is a frequent speaker on topics related to the history of food.She was elected to the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who in Food and Beverage in America and received the M.F.K. Fisher Award from Les Dames d’Escoffier

Kitty Morse speaks on “Memories of the Kasbah!”

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Kitty Morse


Saturday, April 13, 2013, at 10:30 AM
at the Los Angeles Public Library

Mark Taper Auditorium, Downtown Central Library, 630 W. 5th St.

Free and open to the public

Kitty Morse speaks on…

Memories of the Kasbah!

Casablanca-born Kitty Morse, an expert on Moroccan cuisine, warmly coaxes you into her late father’s Moorish mansion.

Mint Tea and Minarets: A Banquet of Moroccan Memories

Mint Tea and Minarets: A Banquet of Moroccan Memories, published 2012, evokes the legacy of generations of cooks and celebrants at Dar Zitoun, the author’s late father’s painstakingly restored riad that soars above the banks of the Mother of Spring River, within the ramparts of the 16th century medina of Azemmour, south of Casablanca. And Dar Zitoun, the House of the Olive Tree, has many delicious stories to tell.

Kitty Morse was born in Casablanca, of a French mother and British father, and emigrated to the United States in 1964. She returns frequently to Morocco to spend time at her family’s riad, Dar Zitoun. Kitty’s career as a food writer, cooking teacher, and lecturer, spans more than twenty-five years. She is the author of nine cookbooks, five of them on the cuisine of Morocco and North Africa. They include Cooking at the Kasbah: Recipes from my Moroccan Kitchen now in its ninth printing (Chronicle), The Scent of Orange Blossoms (Ten Speed Press), and The California Farm Cookbook (Pelican).

Los Angeles Heritage Day

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The Culinary Historians of Southern California joined over 70 other heritage groups on Sunday, April 14, 2013, to celebrate the history of our diverse community. We gathered in the Pico House at El Pueblo Historical Park, the birthplace of Los Angeles and home of world famous Olvera Street. There were representatives from historic homes, museums, historical societies, and cultural awareness groups. Classic vehicles, tours, and activities for the whole family rounded out the day.

The Culinary Historians were ably represented by President Charles Perry, who participated in the Heritage Showcase with his presentation on the history of cafeterias in Los Angeles. Assisting at the CHSC table, giving out information and Charles’ fabulous ginger snaps, were members Doris Arima, Joanna Erdos, Jan Fahey, Sharon Pruhs, and Pamela Quon,. Also helping out were future members Rosibel Guzman and Marlene Bronte.

L.A. Heritage Day is organized by the Los Angeles Heritage Alliance. For more information, please visit their website at laheritage.org
CHSC booth CHSC ladies photo (1) photo (2) photo

Jon Krampner speaks on “Creamy & Crunchy – An Informal History of Peanut Butter”

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Saturday, May 11, 2013, at 10:30 AM at the Los Angeles Public Library

Mark Taper Auditorium, Downtown Central Library, 630 W. 5th St.

Free and open to the public

Jon Krampner speaks on…

“Creamy & Crunchy – An Informal History of Peanut Butter”

Peanut butter is one of the most popular American foods. When was it created? What are the stories behind the three major brands, Jif, Skippy and Peter Pan? When did natural or old-fashioned peanut butter start to make its comeback? How does the peanut butter of today differ from the peanut butter of a century ago? Why do Americans like peanut butter better than (almost) anyone else? Why are peanut allergies climbing? Jon Krampner, author of the first history of peanut butter, Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food (Columbia University Press), tells you everything you ever wanted to know about peanut butter but couldn’t ask because it was stuck to the roof of your mouth.

Jon Krampner, who has had a lifetime on-and-off affair with peanut butter, is the author of two previous books, The Man in the Shadows: Fred Coe and the Golden Age of Television (Rutgers University Press, 1997) and Female Brando: The Legend of Kim Stanley (Watson-Guptill/ Backstage Books, 2006). He lives in Los Angeles and has a slight preference for crunchy.

He is a native of Brooklyn, New York, having grown up in Park Slope before it became hip. The only two foods he consistently ate as a child were hamburgers and peanut butter, and his mother recently reminded him that he even used to put peanut butter on spaghetti.

When he went away to college, he stopped eating peanut butter to see what else the world held gastronomically, and didn’t resume eating it until the early 1980′s. After a romance ended painfully, he hit the Skippy jar instead of hitting the bottle. His weight ballooned, and he had to go to a gym and consult a nutritionist to get it back under control. He stopped eating it again, and only resumed when he started working on this book. He insists that he only eats it now for research purposes.

He has worked on this book for six years, interviewing leading figures from the peanut and peanut butter industries, immersing himself in library stacks and the Internet, making several trips to the peanut-growing regions of the South and even trying to wrap his head around the organic chemistry of hydrogenating peanut butter.

The Egyptian Goes Egyptian!

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Saturday, May 18, 2013, at begins at 1:00 PM ends by 5 PM

Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles

Theatre is between Las Palmas and McCadden, just east of Highland Avenue in Hollywood. Selma Avenue is just south of the theatre. Parking details at www.egyptiantheatre.com. The Egyptian is a very short walk east from the Hollywood & Highland Metro Station

To attend, RSVP to rsvp@americancinematheque.com with ‘Big Read Egyptian Event’ in the subject line and pay at the door: $11.00 general public, $9.00 seniors, $7.00 each for up to two tickets per CHSC member.

Questions? Email info@americancinematheque.com.


An Afternoon of Egyptian Food Culture
and Cinema at the Egyptian Theatre

Co‐Presented by TheNEA’s Big Read Program, American Cinematheque, and the Culinary Historians of Southern California


Come to the Egyptian Theatre for a lecture on Egyptian food history and culture, followed by a screening of a rarely seen masterpiece of Egyptian cinema! Historian, author, and food scholar Charles Perry will explain Arabic food culture in general and Egyptian food in particular, noting how the Nile River’s seafood and irrigation has fostered a diet that is unique in the Arab world.

Charles Perry majored in Middle Eastern Languages at PrincetonUniversity and the University of California, Berkeley. From1968 to 1976, he was an editor and staff writer at
Rolling Stone Magazine in San Francisco.He later wrote forthe Los Angeles Timesfood section and authored the firstmodern English translation ofthe famousmedieval “Baghdad
Cookery Book. Charles has been published widely on food history and isthe president and co‐founder ofthe Culinary Historians of Southern California.

Following the lecture and a sampling of Egyptian refreshments, there will be a screening of “Terrorism and Kebab,” a masterpiece of Egyptian film starring Adel Imam, who has been
called the Charlie Chaplin of Arabic cinema. In this 1992 film Imam plays Ahmed, a citizen of Cairo who goesto a government building to try to get his children into a betterschool. After
a comic hunt for the elusive bureaucrat who can actually fulfill his request, Ahmed is mistaken for a terrorist and accidentally takes hundreds of people hostage. There are many
surprises as Ahmed and other misfits caught up in the situation try to resolve it, and this gentle satire shows the good nature of Egyptians who deal with the sloth and corruption
that have long plagued Egyptian governmentservices.

This program is sponsored by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and the Culinary Historians of Southern California. The Culinary Historians explore food and culture around the world and here in Los Angeles, and also maintain and contribute to the culinary collections at the Los Angeles Public Library. You can learn more about the group’s free lecture series and other programs at chscsite.org. This program is run in conjunction with The Big Read, which is encouraging Angelenos to read and discuss the novel “The Thief and the Dogs” by Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz. You can learn more about this book and other events celebrating Egyptian culture in Los Angeles at http://www.neabigread.org “The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.”

American Cinematheque is a non‐profit viewer‐supported arts and cultural organization.

William Rubel speaks on “Song of the Wheat: The History of Bread, Grains, and Leavenings from Pre-history to Today”

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Saturday, June 8, 2013, at 10:30 AM at the Los Angeles Public Library

Mark Taper Auditorium, Downtown Central Library, 630 W. 5th St.

Free and open to the public

William Rubel speaks on…

Song of the Wheat: The History of Bread, Grains, and Leavenings from Pre-history to Today


Bread from the Upper Paleolithic to Today

Archeobotanical evidence suggests that bread was made in the Fertile Crescent ten thousand years before the invention of agriculture. For thousands of years it was a food, but not the food. Agriculture made bread an agent of change. Bread built the first Fertile Crescent cities and the civilizations of which we are heir. I will offer a general history of bread with am emphasis on actual breads that people touched, smelled, chewed, and had opinions about. I will attempt to show how bread history can help answer questions that are pertinent today such as, why is wheat the world’s biggest crop by acreage? Why are today’s American artisan bakers so attracted to sourdough leavening? Why do each of us define a “good bread” the way we do?

I will describe breads that fed the gods, breads that stink, breads that were fed to fighting cocks to help them win their fights, breads that were served to humiliate and torture prisoners, breads eaten by landless field hands, and breads of the good life.

Bread is a manufactured product, not an agricultural crop. Nothing about the bread we eat is accidental. The choice of flour, its level of refinement, the bread’s size, shape, and ornamentation, qualities of crust and crumb, type of leavening and the flavor it imparts, and more are under the baker’s control. As with most of our material objects, bread carries social markers. The almost unlimited range of nuances possible when making bread make it an unusually rich carrier of cultural messages. What kinds of messages were historically encoded in loaves and how do we get at those messages considering the fact that bread is ephemeral and there are virtually no records of historic breads?

The last few months my research has been focused on uncovering the English vocabulary of bread from 1500 through to 1900. I will share with you some of the craft terms I have recently found, precise definitions of measures that will be helpful redacting early recipes, and what is most exciting to me, a lost vocabulary that describes poverty breads and what the elites thought of them. Taken together, this delving deeply into vocabulary offers insights into the breads that are and are not found in our cookbooks and bakery shelves.

Bread reflects culture. As our culture changes so will (again) our breads. The definition of “good bread” is not written in the stars. I hope to leave you with a sense of where bread comes from and where it might go in next decades and centuries.


Biography

William Rubel is a writer living in Santa Cruz. He is the author of The Magic of Fire: Hearth Cooking: One Hundred Recipes for Fireplace and Campfire and Bread, a Global History. He is now writing a history of bread for UC Press. William writes on traditional food ways and for Mother Earth News. His most recent article was on distilling alcohol at home. A longtime mushroom collector, William’s article in Economic Botany on the historic esculent uses of Amanita muscaria, it is the iconic red mushroom with white dots so favored by children’s book illustrators, has inspired a reappraisal of that mushrooms edibility. William is the founder and co-editor of Stone Soup, the magazine by children.

CHSC Members Only Filipino Market & Dinner

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On March 10th, a group of CHSC members spent an afternoon exploring Filipino food and culture. We started at the Island Pacific Market, where the company’s chef who had flown in from San Francisco for the occasion explained Filipino food products and led tours.

Click on any image below for a full screen slideshow.

Chef Explains Fish Sauce Chef In Meat Department Toby The Pig Mad And Toby Adobo Nation News Crew Lumpia Full Room Dining Violinist Singing Server

After the tour of the market and a little time to shop, we went to the nearby LA Rose Café, where owner Lemuel Bagalot had arranged a feast. One of the first things we saw upon entering was a roast pig – members couldn’t resist having their pictures taken with it.

Our visit to both the market and restaurant was covered by the local Filipino TV show Adobo Nation, and they shot footage of the pig too.

The restaurant was completely full, and we enjoyed Lumpia (Filipino eggrolls), chicken empanadas, vegetables with crab and coconut milk, beef Mechado, chicken Inasal, pork adobo, and desserts.

As dinner progressed, we were serenaded by a pianist, a violinist who preforms with the Manila Symphony Orchestra, and a server who belted out love songs in Tagalog and English.

The evening was a hit with the Culinary Historians, who experienced Filipino hospitality at the same time as they learned a lot about the cuisine.


Man Bites Dog: History of the Hot Dog (Non-CHSC event)

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Saturday, June 15, 2013, at 2:00 PM at the Pacific Palisades Library

861 Alma Real Drive, Pacific Palisades CA 90272

Free and open to the public

Bruce Kraig speaking on…

“Man Bites Dog: History of the Hot Dog”

Hot dogs are as American as apple pie, but how did these little sausage links become icons of American culture? This program by hot dog scholar Bruce Kraig explores the transformation of hot dogs from unassuming street fare (and dangerous food at that), to paradigms of regional expression, social mobility, and democracy. The name, hot dog, implies some standard food, but there is no agreement about the right way to serve them. From New York frankfurters, to Southern slaw dogs, to State Fair corn dogs, Detroit Coneys and Sonoran dogs in the Southwest, the variations are endless. In the New York/ New Jersey area along there are a number of variations: New Jersey ripper, Italian hot dogs vie with the good old dirty water dogs and flat griddled styles and the recent “Haute Dogs” which transform the hot dog into a gourmet option. Each variety tells us about local cultures and the people –mostly immigrants- who created them. The program will be illustrated with stunning color photos and descriptions of neighborhood venues and flashy push-carts from New York to Los Angeles.

About the speaker: Food historian Bruce Kraig is Professor Emeritus at Roosevelt University and Adjunct Faculty at Kendall College Culinary School in Chicago. His book Hot Dogs: A Global History recently won a Paris Book Fair Award, and he has appeared in national and international media including BC News and Radio New Zealand.

Click here to download a flyer for the event.

Linda Lau Anusasananan speaks on “Soul Food of the Chinese Nomads”

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Saturday, September 14, 2013, at 10:30 AM at the Los Angeles Public Library

Mark Taper Auditorium, Downtown Central Library, 630 W. 5th St.

Free and open to the public

Linda Lau Anusasananan speaks on…

Soul Food of the Chinese Nomads

Linda Lau Anusasananan, author of The Hakka Cookbook, Chinese Soul Food from around the World, traces the diverse cuisine of the Chinese nomads known as the Hakka throughout the world. Beginning in her grandmother’s kitchen in California, Anusasananan travels to her family’s home in China, and from there fans out to embrace Hakka cooking across the globe—including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada, Peru, and beyond. More than thirty home cooks and chefs share their experiences of the Hakka diaspora as they contribute over 140 recipes for everyday Chinese comfort food as well as festive specialties.

This book likens Hakka cooking to a nomadic type of “soul food,” or a hearty cooking tradition that responds to a shared history of hardship and oppression. Earthy, honest, and robust, it reflects the diversity of the estimated 75 million Hakka living in China and greater Asia, and in scattered communities around the world—yet still retains its flavorful roots. Anusasananan’s deep personal connection to the tradition, together with her extensive experience testing and developing recipes at Sunset Magazine, make this book both an intimate journey of discovery and an exciting introduction to a vibrant cuisine. Her brother, Alan Lau, gracefully weaves a visual trail through the pages with his art.

Awarded “Best Chinese Cuisine Cookbook of the World 2012″ by Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. Included in “best cookbooks of 2012″ lists for Martha Stewart Living, Saveur, Associated Press, and Toronto Globe and Mail. The Hakka Cookbook also appeared in a story by Mark Bittman in the New York Times Magazine May 2013.

Linda Lau Anusasananan formerly worked as a food writer and recipe editor for 34 years at Sunset Magazine, a lifestyle magazine for people who live in the West. There she created and tested thousands of recipes and wrote stories for the home cook. In 1987, she produced “From China’s Kitchens to Ours,” the first story written by an American magazine about home cooking in China. Her work has also appeared in Cooking Light, Yoga Journal, Zesters Daily, specialfork.com, and Flavor and Fortune.

Anusasananan has been past president of the San Francisco Chapter of Les Dames D’Escoffier and the Association of Chinese Cooking Teachers. She also created the products for JADE, a line of award-winning Asian sauces for TLA Pacific Kitchen, Inc., a company she and her husband manage.

In October 2012 her book, The Hakka Cookbook, Chinese Soul Food from around the World was released. In February 2013, the book was awarded “Best Chinese Cuisine Cookbook of the World ” by the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Paris. The book was also written up in Mark Bittman’s story in the New York Times Magazine in May.

Culinaria Query: Is Food Art? (Non-CHSC Event)

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Saturday, August 10, 2013, at 10:30 AM at the Los Angeles Public Library

Mark Taper Auditorium, Downtown Central Library, 630 W. 5th St.

Free and open to the public

Culinaria Query: Is Food Art?

Is Food Art
Are chefs artists, technicians, or skilled laborers? Can food be a medium for expression, or is it just a meal? Experience a panel discussion MODERATED BY PHILIP M. DOBARD (SOFAB institute VICE PRESIDENT) AND FEATURING BETTY FUSSELL (JAMES BEARD FOUNDATION AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST), JOHN RIVERA SEDLAR (CHEF AND OWNER OF RIVERA RESTAURANT), BRANDON BOUDET (CURRENT CHAMPION OF THE FOOD NETWORK’S ‘CHOPPED’), ANDY SMITH (PROFESSOR OF FOOD STUDIES AT THE NEW SCHOOL FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT), RICHARD FOSS (Food Historian, journalist, and culinary author), MAT GLEASON (OWNER OF COAGULA CURATORIAL), AND EMILY ZAIDEN (DIRECTOR OF THE CRAFT IN AMERICA STUDY CENTER).

Mark Thompson Lecture at Pacific Palisades

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Saturday, August 17, 2013, at 2:00 PM at the Pacific Palisades Public Library

861 Alma Real Drive, Pacific Palisades CA 90272

Free and open to the public

Mark Thompson speaks on…

In Search of the Origins of California Cuisine

The first cookbooks published in California mostly reflected the culinary heritage of the places the authors had recently left, including France, New England and the Old South. But a few early California cookbooks offered hints of a recognition that the state — with its diversity of culinary influences from around the world and astounding, year-round array of local produce – was worthy of a cuisine that it could call its own. While researching his latest book, Vintage California Cuisine, Mark Thompson found signs of an emergent, uniquely Californian culinary sensibility in cookbooks including Clayton’s Quaker Cookbook, published by a San Francisco caterer in 1883, Santa Barbara Recipes, published in 1888, and the Landmarks Club Cook Book, published in 1903 by Charles Lummis. He’ll discuss his findings, and share some of the first truly California recipes, in a talk about his exploration of early California cookbooks.

Mark, a journalist and author who divides his time between Los Angeles and Philadelphia, has also written American Character, a biography of Lummis. A crusading writer and editor, one-time Los Angeles city librarian and lifelong Indian rights activist, Lummis was also an early aficionado of Southwestern cuisine and one of the first Anglo Americans to praise chile peppers.

Linda Lau Anusasananan speaks on “Soul Food of the Chinese Nomads”

0
0

Saturday, September 14, 2013, at 10:30 AM at the Los Angeles Public Library

Mark Taper Auditorium, Downtown Central Library, 630 W. 5th St.

Free and open to the public

Linda Lau Anusasananan speaks on…

Soul Food of the Chinese Nomads

Linda Lau Anusasananan, author of The Hakka Cookbook, Chinese Soul Food from around the World, traces the diverse cuisine of the Chinese nomads known as the Hakka throughout the world. Beginning in her grandmother’s kitchen in California, Anusasananan travels to her family’s home in China, and from there fans out to embrace Hakka cooking across the globe—including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada, Peru, and beyond. More than thirty home cooks and chefs share their experiences of the Hakka diaspora as they contribute over 140 recipes for everyday Chinese comfort food as well as festive specialties.

This book likens Hakka cooking to a nomadic type of “soul food,” or a hearty cooking tradition that responds to a shared history of hardship and oppression. Earthy, honest, and robust, it reflects the diversity of the estimated 75 million Hakka living in China and greater Asia, and in scattered communities around the world—yet still retains its flavorful roots. Anusasananan’s deep personal connection to the tradition, together with her extensive experience testing and developing recipes at Sunset Magazine, make this book both an intimate journey of discovery and an exciting introduction to a vibrant cuisine. Her brother, Alan Lau, gracefully weaves a visual trail through the pages with his art.

Awarded “Best Chinese Cuisine Cookbook of the World 2012″ by Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. Included in “best cookbooks of 2012″ lists for Martha Stewart Living, Saveur, Associated Press, and Toronto Globe and Mail. The Hakka Cookbook also appeared in a story by Mark Bittman in the New York Times Magazine May 2013.

Linda Lau Anusasananan (A-NU-SA-SA-NA-NAN) formerly worked as a food writer and recipe editor for 34 years at Sunset Magazine, a lifestyle magazine for people who live in the West. There she created and tested thousands of recipes and wrote stories for the home cook. In 1987, she produced “From China’s Kitchens to Ours,” the first story written by an American magazine about home cooking in China. Her work has also appeared in Cooking Light, Yoga Journal, Zesters Daily, specialfork.com, and Flavor and Fortune.

Anusasananan has been past president of the San Francisco Chapter of Les Dames D’Escoffier and the Association of Chinese Cooking Teachers. She also created the products for JADE, a line of award-winning Asian sauces for TLA Pacific Kitchen, Inc., a company she and her husband manage.

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