ASTA Conference (American Spice Trade Association)

We are currently on our way to

Tucson

, for the ASTA (American Spice Trade Association) annual meeting and trade show. We are very excited to attend this conference, as it gives us the opportunity to meet some of the world’s top suppliers of spices. There are many educational seminars and current crop reports. Hopefully there is some good and spicy food!  While the world of spices has a history as long as the history of the world, innovations in crop growing and harvesting are always taking place, and we need to be knowledgeable about this.

Gale Gand hosts book signing at The Spice House

We were delighted to host Gale Gand for a book signing and recipe tasting for her new book, Gale Gands’s Brunches, this past Thursday. Our little shops host a number of cookbook authors throughout the year, and we always feel very fortunate to be considered as an author location. We try very hard to make our signings special events.

 

Green City Market Chefs' Annual Barbecue Festival 2009

Even though the trees are just beginning to show glimpses of green, plans have long been underway for one of our favorite events of the year, the annual Green City Market Chefs' Barbecue Picnic. This year the event will be held on July 16th, so be sure and save the date. I don't imagine that most of the public has any idea what goes into putting an event of this magnitude together. Luckily, two of our favorite chef people, Carrie Nahabedian and Sarah Stegner, start the ball rolling by enlisting all of their high end chef colleagues. We have quite the line up already, with almost 50 super chefs on board! Next Carrie and Michael Nahabedian generously host all these chefs to a lovely brunch at NAHA. I feel so honored to be able to join this group of dynamic culinary people. What a treat.

State Muffins?

Recently we were playing a food trivia game. The question was what type of muffin is the Minnesota state muffin? Huh? Do we have state muffins? Well the answer was blueberry and no, alas, we do not all have state muffins. Research of state foods turns up some interesting categories, and some states are way more ambitious than others in claiming foodstuffs as their own.

Chicago, City of 10,000 Potholes

Los Angeles, city of the angels. Chicago, city of 10,000 pot holes. Has the same lovely cadence, but diametrically opposing images! We recently received an email from our alderman requesting our patience with pot hole repair, as the city has 10,000 pot holes which requires some time to fill in. I started thinking about this, and it seemed to me that number was, in actuality, a VERY positive spin on the number of pot holes. Indeed, upon investigating, an article in the Chicago Tribune states that the city has fixed 280,000 pot holes since December. This apparently is about 50 million dollars worth of repair. In a brilliant marketing strategy, Kentucky Fried Chicken offered to fill in these pot holes with only one slight catch.....

Attended a cooking demo by Grant Achatz last night

I had the opportunity to attend a cooking demo/lecture last night at Now Were Cooking, a lovely cooking school very close  to our Evanston shop location. It was a rare appearance out of the Alinea kitchen for hard working Sorcerer/Chef Grant Achatz. It was a very thought provoking presentation, I think you could call it both Food for Thought and, on Grant's part, Thought for Food.

Ranjana's Indian Cooking Classes

Another recent  wonderful program for the Culinary Historians of Chicago featured an Indian chef and author from New York, Suvir Saran  His program was quite entertaining. Yet what was most unusual, is that the program was held at the home of Ranjana Bhargava, just South of Hyde Park, Chicago. The Historical Society was unavailable, and this gracious woman agreed to hold the lecture in her lovely home, where she also teaches Indian Cooking Classes.