Taste Buds Management of New Orleans, has been selected as the 2012 Restaurant Neighbor Award Winner in the mid-size business category. The Restaurant Neighbor Award was created by the National Restaurant Association (NRA) to recognize restaurants that exemplify the industry’s philanthropic spirit.

After back-to-back tornadoes hit Alabama and Missouri in 2011, New Orleans-based chefs Greg Reggio, Hans Limburgh and Gary Darling launched Three Chefs One Mission. Remembering the help they received after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, these restaurateurs wanted to respond in kind.

Leah Chase," The Queen of Creole Cuisine," has been selected as a 2012 Faces of Diversity American Dream award winner by the National Restaurant Association (NRA). The award recognizes those who have achieved the American Dream of entrepreneurship in the restaurant industry. In addition to the award, a $2,500 scholarship was given to a student in their honor. Mrs. Chase is the figurehead of Dooky Chase Restaurant in New Orleans. The NRA, in partnership with PepsiCo Foodservice, created the Faces of Diversity awards program in 2007.

This is a really cool thing for New Orleans. On Friday of this week from 1:30-4:30 Woldenberg Riverfront Park will be the site for the battle between eleven well-known Louisiana chefs, each of whom will be paired with a culinary specialists (military speak for chef)  from each of the visiting tall ships currently docked at the Port of New Orleans. Teams will compete in the use of fresh Louisiana seafood.

The star-studded culinary cast will include emcees Chef John Besh, Chef John Folse, and Louisiana Seafood Marketing and Promotion Board Executive Director (and my friend) Ewell Smith. Confirmed judges include Louisiana Eats! famous food expert Poppy Tooker (another of my good friends) and Rouses Supermarket Head Chef Jack Trueting.

The chef contestant line-up reads like a who’s who of chefs:

After having been locked up in my office for weeks I am looking forward to getting out and rejoining society this weekend.  And, while I really do not care at all about the NCAA Men's Final Four, other than that the presence of the games is a HUGE coup for New Orleans, I am very excited about the Big Dance Party on the Mississippi River at Woldenberg Park, even if the line-up is weird and all over the place.

Susan and I were thrilled when David Gallent agreed to join Kitchen & Culture. We felt that we had really scored. David is an amazing award-winning photographer with food styling skills to boot. We knew David's very unique perspective was exactly what we needed to flush out the vision we share for Louisiana Kitchen.  Everyone adores David.  He's really laid back, smart, and funny. It was hard to imagine him ever really getting riled up.

We were right. We were wrong.

We were right about the photographer and stylist angle: The magazine is going to be visually stunning, thanks to David and Scott Ott, our highly skilled and talented award-winning Creative Director. We were wrong in thinking we were just getting a staff Photographer/Stylist.  He is SO much more. Here's an excerpt from a conversation we had just this morning:

Yesterday was my honey's birthday and the celebration continues tonight with a gathering of the Usual Suspects at our casa. I worked my keister off until 11 last night dragging dirt around as I overhauled our back yard, rocking out  to Led Zeppelin, replanting what winter killed off,  and working arduously to evict Sanford and his Son from the premises. Neither Sanford nor his Son seemed to want to leave and I kept running into them in various places throughout the yard after I thought they had already left, necessitating repeated evictions anew. I am pretty sure it was The Dogs who invited Sanford and Son to roost back there in the first place.

Why fake it? Why bother?  They usually figure it out, anyway: Fat free half-and-half, pseudo "butter," tofu or seitan crumbles, soy pasta. And on and on - and other things, too.

But.

Mardi Gras was just that: One big, fat ass Tuesday that lasted a week. I snarfed  down enough varieties of king cake to call it a contest, drowned myself in all manner of gumbos, conducted a study of assorted jambalayas, ate enough fried chicken to start clucking, and drank enough wine to earn the name Bacchus (or whoever his female counterpart is/was). By Mardi Gras Day I was so sick of it all and so grossed out I spent the day happily working. I also turned to the one fake-out I heartily embrace when my jeans fit too tight or I simply feel poisoned: Fake (or faux) Pho.