We've Started

I can finally announce that real work - the kind that stirs up dust - has begun in our exhibit spaces. This week-end we will begin setting up the library and uncrating the artifacts that have been in storage, and really beginning to plan the flow of the museum. People are beginning to join - at our specially discounted rate pre-opening rate - and they are beginning to volunteer. It is so exciting to see all of our dreams for a fabulous institution materialized.

In addition to the tangible progress that we are experiencing, people in other cities in the South and out of the South are offering to help through fundraising parties and through opportunities for us to appear and speak. And books are coming into our library. And photographs and other documents are being offered for the archive. Menus continue to be collected.

And we are making international connections to France and England. We hope that these connections will grow and reach into other countries.

Thanks to all of you for your support, your ideas and your imagination.

authenticity

I've been working on creating the Louisiana food exhibit, which is daunting and I am constantly reminded of what I haven't covered and then realize I can never cover it all and even if I could, it wouldn't all fit in the space and somehow that is comforting. Anyway, I am working on the Red Beans section and have consulted notes from a talk I gave at Satchmo Fest last summer on red beans where I served Louis Armstrong's recipe for red beans, and was remembering the experience. And questions from that talk got tangled up with talks I used to give at Hermann-Grima where I did hearth cooking demonstrations. And people would ask "Is that authentic?" and I wanted to ask them "For when? For whom?" Because even cooking over a hearth cannot be "authentic" when you store your cold ingredients in a refrigerator. But it especially cannot be authentic when you are a free white woman cooking in the 21st century and not an enslaved black woman you get to take the food home with you to your air-conditioned house when the volunteering is over instead of serving them to the family who owns you and then making something else for yourself over that same hot hearth.

And asking whether these beans taste like the beans Louis ate is impossible for me to answer, but I'd hazard to answer "Yes and No." Because with this type of cooking, one rarely follows a recipe exactly. And when you cook with sausage, every pot tastes differently because every link is different. But mainly, I think that every time we eat something, even if we make it the exact same way as our mother or grandfather or Louis Armstrong, if we were there to watch them do it, every time is different because our circumstances are different. Food tastes different if you are happy or sad or with friends or alone or sober or drunk or if the weather is lovely or hot or freezing or you are worried about paying your obscene Entergy bill or tax bill or are happy because you just got a raise. And that's why it's culture and that's why it's art and that's why we get to build a whole museum around it. Well, all we have to do is build it. Back to the beans...

Getting started- Get a bargain

Until now, we have been holding back on the process of opening. But now we can begin sharing. WE ARE ABOUT TO OPEN! Scream it from the rooftops. Our exhibits are exciting, people have been supportive. Now is the time for everyone to jump on board and join. We are offering a great bargain to those who join now. Your membership is good for one year from the time of opening, but if you join now you get a great discount. Since all Southerners appreciate a bargain, take a look.

We are also looking for products for our gift shop. Please let us know if you have a great Southern culinary product - food, linens, jewelry, anything. We want to include special items that represent the South.

If you have any artifacts, books or other materials that you no longer want, let us know. We are most willing recipients. People tell us that we'll be sorry, but that hasn't happened yet. We have located many treasures.

We look forward to seeing you on June 7, 2008 at the Riverwalk.

Getting my Master's

So every day I learn something new about my state. Like we had cowboys. And rice farmers are also crawfish farmers. And access to flour was expensive and rare for a long time. Even though there is a lot of administrative work in my day, I still get to research and read about my state and its history. I feel like I am getting the Master's that I've always wanted. Except without the debt. How lucky am I?

title float

Tonight I received an email from Echoing Green . According to their website "Since 1987, Echoing Green has provided seed funding and support to nearly 450 social entrepreneurs with bold ideas for social change in order to launch groundbreaking organizations around the world." This email informed me I had been nominated as a participant in a leadership training session in New Orleans. Among the many skills I am promised to pick up at this session is the ability to "Transform enemies into allies, hatred into goodwill, and conflict into collaboration". Wow. I barely transform my laundry into clean, folded clothes. I wonder what kind of facility I'll have with transforming hatred....But really, though I am poking fun at the enemies part, I am heartened to know that Liz (that's who reccomended me) thinks that I am a "compelling, emerging leader in the New Orleans community." And as my composition students might say "It made me think."

It made me think, or rather reminded me, that this work that I am doing:writing summaries of rice production in Louisiana, figuring out how to create a paper mache ox to pull a plow that has been donated to us, creating collages of menus we have collected over time and giving lectures about the Menu Project, pestering people for money and artifact donations, talking with food anthropologists on the phone for over an hour about flour distribution west of the Atchafalaya Basin prior to railroads, and asking my mom and step-father to be on call to help paint our space if necessary...all of these individual tasks, some silly, some tiresome, some fascinating are small pieces in this giant tinker toy of an institution that Liz and I have been assembling stick by stick and now it's finally starting to look like a building.

I have always know that this institution will draw people's attention to the city, put New Orleans in the news in a positive way, encourage people to come here and visit and spend their money and go home and tell people what a great time they had and what all they learned about Southern food. And as a lover of this city, these are important attributes. But I am finally learning to look past that into the future, long after my ashes are scattered into the Mississippi River following the St Anne parade on Mardi Gras Day (FYI that's how I wanna go). I am helping to create something that will preserve, protect and sustain a crucial part of this country's culture, history, and soul. I see so clearly how this will go on and on. It's way too cool to fizzle out and die, even after Liz and I are no longer there as its main cheerleaders. I am making something that will do greater work than I could ever do in my lifetime. How cool is that? I feel like Gandhi. Except for the vegetarian part. And the fasting part. And taking on the British Empire. And getting assasinated, okay, maybe not like Gandhi at all. But still, very, very pleased and proud.

In the meantime, I'll go learn how to transform my enemies into friends. Hey, like Gandhi!
As to being an emerging, compelling leader? I'll get back to you on that. Gotta go do some laundry first...

Waiting to Exhale

I am trying to write the blog entry and not say anything. We are so close to our announcement that I am afraid that I will let things slip out too soon. So this entry will be short to avert temptation. Keep watching. SoFAB is about to explode into a full blown institution. Please become part of it.

I will also use the time to once again encourage you to enter things into our wiki. Biographies, histories, entries about food. Your entry is welcome. And if you feel that you cannot enter something, send us the copy so that we can enter it for you. Our wiki will gradually become THE place to find information about the food and drink of the American South.

Edible Hero!

So I got some great news yesterday, which I really needed in the middle of this nasty flu like thing I've been fighting since Saturday. SoFAB has been named an Edible Hero by Edible Memphis Magazine readers. Edible Communities, which links all Edible Magazines, decided to organize an Edible Heroes contest. There were several catagories and SoFAB was nominated under Favorite Non-Profit featured in the magazine. Anyone in Memphis could vote. What makes this so affirming is WE AREN'T EVEN LOCATED IN MEMPHIS, and yet, the Memphis community sees that the work we are doing benefits and represents them. I guess the time I spent in Memphis had a bigger impact than I had imagined. We are so grateful to be ackowledged for our work and hope to continue to be a favorite non-profit (and hero!) in Memphis and beyond.