CHoWLine - Back Issues

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May 2005

Agenda: Election of officers for the 2005-06 year

Nominees' bios are included in this issue.

Program: The Mediterranean's Colorful Contributions to American Confectionery

Our speaker is Shirley Cherkasky, whose research on the history of birthday cakes is ongoing.

Report: April 10 Meeting

Francine Berkowitz asked members for suggestions on kitchen equipment to be demonstrated at the Smithsonian's Festival of American Folklife in June/July, and also reminded that she is recruiting CHoW members to work as volunteers for the demonstrations.

Elisabetta Castleman spoke to the group on "Italian Regional Cuisines."

Refreshments included Tuscan white bean salad brought by Amy Snyder; Stella d'Oro cookies by Francine Berkowitz; "Little Yellow Diamonds," northern Italian cornmeal and pine nut cookies (baker unknown); and Fave Dolci (Sweet Beans), by Felice Caspar who noted that they are traditionally served on All Souls Day in southern Italy, stemming from the ancient custom of offering beans to Proserpine and Pluto the Roman goddess and god of the Underworld.

News of Our Members

An article in the March 30 issue of the Maryland Gazette by Renee Catacalos on the Riversdale Kitchen Guild's open hearth cooking classes was titled "Keeping the home fires burning," and featured a picture and quotes by Katy Hayes, one of the Kitchen Guild's volunteers. To read the article, go to:http://www.gazette.net/200513/entertainment/ converstory/267746-1.html

Longone Center's First Symposium

May 13-15: Four CHoW members will be attending the meeting in Ann Arbor as well as a preliminary discussion at noon on May 13 about forming a national network of culinary history organizations with the tentative title of National Association of Culinary History Organizations (NACHO).

CHoW Culinary Collection

Two more books have been added to the culinary collection at the American History Museum: Amal Naj's Peppers: A Story of Hot Pursuits and the Wartime (WWII) Edition of The Victory Binding of the American Woman's Cook Book, edited by Ruth Berolzheimer.

Food on the Bookshelf

Vanilla: The Cultural History of the World's Favorite Flavor and Fragrance by Patricia Rain (Tarcher Penguin, 2004, $22.95) explores the incredibly diverse impact of vanilla on the worlds of food, medicine, psychology and even politics.

Being Dead is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral by Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hayes (New York: Miramax Books, 2005. 236 pp. $19.95) has such an intriguing title that one can hardly resist running out to buy it. Most of the text is comprised of recipes from Greenville, Mississippi, families and suggested as suitable for funeral meals.

Food on TV

In case you missed the first two episodes of the three-part series "The Meaning of Food" on PBS (Chanel 26), you may still be able to catch the last in the series, "Food and Family," on Thursday, April 21 at 10 pm.

On The Reading Table

Meeting notice, Culinary Historians of Chicago, April 2005.
Meeting notice, Culinary Historians of New York, April, 2005.
Meeting e-notice, Culinary Historians of Northern California, April 2005.

Nominees: 2005-06 Board of Directors

President - Kari Barrett addresses food policy issues in her work as a Senior Advisor in the Office of Legislation of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Her interests include U.S. Atlantic Coast and Tidewater foodways, pre-Civil War American food history, and food writing. She has worked in a number of restaurants and currently assists at L'Academie de Cuisine in Bethesda. Kari has served as a director on the CHoW board for the past two years.

Vice President - Laura Gilliam has been a CHoW member since 2002 and has served as treasurer for the past two years. She has a broad interest in culinary matters but with a particular emphasis on cookbooks. She also has been responsible for the CHoW Culinary Collection, including supervising its move from the GWU Eckles Library to the National Museum of American History.

Secretary - Claire Cassidy has done research on nutritional and medical anthropology, including projects in Belize and Sri Lanka, as well as teaching at the University of Minnesota, of Maryland, and elsewhere. Later, as a consultant, she was involved in the first nationwide survey of patient attitudes toward and uses of acupuncture care. She is now a licensed acupuncturist and a writer/editor of scholarly publications on nutrition, foods, and medicine.

Treasurer - Katherine Livingston was for many years the book review editor of Science magazine. With an academic background in philosophy, she combines a longtime interest in cooking with interests in social history and the history of science. She served as CHoW treasurer in 2001-03 and has been a director for the past two years.

Director (Shared) - Felice Casper & Bryna Freyer. Felice is Director of Administration for B'nai B'rith. During her 23+ years there, she has worked in: Research and Planning, Leadership Training, Senior Housing, Continuing Jewish Education/Publishing. After graduation from the University of Virginia with majors in English literature and religious studies, she briefly tried her hand at cooking professionally but has been content with cooking as a way to relax.

Bryna, a collector of Victorian silverplate, is interested in how specialized tableware relates to food trends. As a curator at the National Museum of African Art, she also studies African art that is food-related, and is interested in the growing diversity in the Washington Metropolitan area.

Director - Dianne Hennessy King is a television journalist and teacher. This past year she produced a program on "Media and Gender Bias," gave the keynote address for a symposium on "Writing Your Personal History," and taught classes on "Writing a Cookbook." She has served as president and, for the past two years, as vice president of CHoW.

Director - Claudia Kousoulas is an urban planner with Montgomery County and also a freelance food and feature writer, with articles in Washington Woman and Mothering. She reviews (and cooks from) an average of about 60 books annually, interviewing authors and chefs. Her cookbook reviews appear in Cookbook Digest and at Books-for-Cooks.com. She has served as CHoW president for the past two years.

 

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