The content in this preview is based on the last saved version of your email - any changes made to your email that have not been saved will not be shown in this preview.

APRIL 9, 2014
LesDamesDC_EntreNews_hdr

Message from the President

Dear Sister Dames,

  

A big thank you to everyone who helped create and/or attended the Gresser/Hall FUNraiser on March 29th. It flowed so smoothly, was so pleasurable for attendees (I was one of those!), so lyrical and so delicious. Thank you to Ann Stratte, Theresa Morrison, Carla Hall, Ruth Gresser and Barbara Johnson for creating and providing the stage for the event. Thanks to the kitchen crew of Janis McLean, Bev Bates, Stacey Adams, Susan Callahan, and Susan Wallace. What a joyful flow of deliciousness you created. Winnie, Rosa, and Camilla helped set the flow. Thank you Thank you all. It was an inspiring event. 

 

To Carla and Ruth, especially, go our heartfelt thanks for generously sharing your talents, knowledge and tastes from your beautiful new cookbooks with our guests. What a treat for everyone!  

 

The March 24th Dames Who Dine Event at Bastille was delicious and fun. So many good ideas come out of these intra- Dames events. I hope each of you will be able to attend the next Dames Who Dine event in your area. Thanks to Michelle Poteaux for hosting our evening at Bastille.

 

Next up, our Turkish luncheon at Cafe Divan this Saturday. I look forward to seeing you there.

 
Warmly,

 

Drew Faulkner

President

 

drewcooks@mac.com  

2014-15 LDE-DC Board Election

  

The nomination period is now closed our 2014-15 LDE-DC chapter officers and directors. The Nominating Committee will now recommend for Board approval a single slate of candidates for an election later this month. The ballot will be sent to our chapter members via postal and email with instructions for its completion and return.  Please keep your eyes out for this important document. We need everyone's participation to elect our 2014-15 Board of Directors. 

 

2014-15 Nominating Committee,

Judy Rusignuolo, Lisa Bodager, Olga Boikess, Annie Boutin-King and Linda Roth Conte

 

Les Dames d'Escoffier International Legacy Awards

Applications for LDEI's Legacy Awards are due April 21. The Legacy Awards offer unique opportunities for non-Dame professional women to work side-by-side with outstanding Dame professionals.  If you know a female professional (non-Dame) that would want to be considered for this esteemed experience, please have her download the application at  www.ldei.org and click on 2014 Legacy Awards.

 

Should you have any questions, contact:

Committee Chairs: Allison Awerbuch, aawerbuch@abigailkirsch.com or Sue Huffman Robinson, suebhuffman@yahoo.com .

 

Six awards will be offered in five categories; one each in Culinary, Pastry, Wine, Food/Wine Journalism and two experiences in Farm to Table:

Culinary - Catering in Seattle with Lisa Dupar, Lisa Dupar Catering

Entrepreneurship -Pastry in Dallas with Shari Carlson of Desert Dreams

Wine - with Carolyn Wente, Wente Family Estates, Livermore, CA

Farm to Table - one in Atlanta jointly with Judith Winfrey, Love is Love Farm and Charlotte Swancy, Riverview Farms and one on the Big Island of Hawaii with Leslie Hill of Wailea Agricultural Group.

Food/Wine Journalism with Susan Westmoreland and Sharon Franke at Good Housekeeping Magazine

 

Travel and hotel accommodations for six (6) nights will be reimbursed for each winner up to $2,000. Applications must be submitted by April 21, 2014. Winners will be announced around June 1, 2014; experiences must be completed by October 20, 2014.
Hurrah!

   

Carla Hall for being featured in The Washington Post Magazine on April 6 or her new cookbook, Carla's Comfort Food.  

Danielle Turner for being named the area rep for WÜSTHOF ( one of our wonderful symposium sponsors).

DAMES NEWS 

   

Ruth Gresser and her partner, Barbara Johnson, opened their beautiful, modern, art-filled home to LDE-DC and Arts Works guests to celebrate the publication of Ruth's first cookbook Kitchen Workshop - Pizza and Carla Hall's latest cookbook Carla's Comfort Foods. Carla and Ruth entertained the group of 41 contributing guests with demonstrations of recipes from their books.The FUNraiser was held to support LDE-DC's scholarships and Arts Works, a non-profit whose mission is to create stronger community through the arts. Barbara Johnson is its executive director. Wente Vinyards, generously supplied lovely wines for the event. Ann Stratte was the FUNraiser chair.

FUNraiser Prep chefs Janis McLean Stacey Adams. Not pictured: Bev who tested Ruth's cookbook recipes. Bates, Susan Callahan and Susan Wallace
Ruth Gresser demonstrating perfect pizzas
Carla Hall, Ruth Gresser and Donna Packer who tested Ruth's cookbook recipes.
PROGRAMS   
      

EXPLORING TURKEY'S CULINARY HERITAGE

WITH BANU OZDEN, THE DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS AT YESAM (Yemek Sanatlar Merkizi or Culinary Arts Center) IN ISTANBUL, TURKEY

DATE: Saturday, April 12

TIME: 11:30 a.m.- 2:00 p.m.

PLACE: Café Divan 1834 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC 20007

PRICE: $50 Dames, $65 Non-Dames

 

DAMES BOOK CLUB - (DAMES ONLY)

DATE: Monday, April TBD

TIME: 7:30 pm

PLACE:  Susan Callahan's home, 10106 Greenrock Road, Silver Spring, MD 20901  

PRICE: FREE. Host provides snacks and beverages

BOOK SELECTION: Serve it Forth - M.F.K. Fisher; Cooked - Michael Pollan; Garlic and Sapphires - Ruth Reichl; A Cooks Tour - Anthony Bourdain; Dinner with Famous Women:  From Cleopatra to Indira Gandhi - Eugenia Van Vliet; A Thousand Years over a Hot Stove:  A History of American Women Told through Food, Recipes, and Remembrances - Laura Schenone; Yes, Chef: A Memoir - Marcus Samuelsson; The Big Oyster:  A History on the Half Shell - Mark Kurlansky; The Billionaires' Vinegar:  The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine - Benjamin Wallace; Birdseye: The Adventures of Curious Man - Mark Kurlansky

DAMES CORNER- GAIL FORMAN 

 

 

Years ago, Barbara Tropp, the late restaurateur and cookery writer who helped popularize Chinese cuisine in this country, told Gail Forman that she had a vinegar tongue, referring to a Chinese way of describing a person's taste preferences. Gail agrees. She much prefers salty, sour and spicy flavors. She recalls that every day, on her way home from school in Brooklyn, NY, she would stop for a snack of a sour pickle or pickled tomato or a slice of pizza or an egg roll.

 

Exposure to ethnic foods was a constant in her life from early on. But Gail always had a special affinity for Asian foods. When her family would dine out, it was often at a Chinese restaurant. When she, her mother and her aunt would go on their annual shopping trip to catch the sales in Manhattan's garment district, they would lunch in Chinatown. When she and husband-to-be, Dick, were dating, every Friday they would walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to eat in Chinatown. He even proposed marriage in a Chinese restaurant.

 

Gail was at Brooklyn College when they married, but immediately transferred to the University of Maryland (UMD) where Dick was studying for his doctorate in physics. It was the nine-week European trip to celebrate earning that Ph.D. that sealed Gail's interest in food. She began cooking in earnest upon her return, and soon their single male colleagues were showing up at their apartment for dinners. At the same time, Gail was earning an M.A. in English while working as a teaching assistant.

 

Seven years into their marriage, they moved to Rhode Island for Dick's post doctoral work at Brown University. Gail taught at Rhode Island Junior College, worked on her Ph.D. and the next year gave birth to their son, Ross, now a professor of English at the University of Warwick in England.

 

Upon the family's return to Maryland, Gail became an instructor at UMD, finished her Ph.D and began her 36-year teaching career at Montgomery College. For a while though, Gail had been yearning to write movie reviews as a side interest. Luckily, a colleague's wife introduced her to the editor of the Potomac Almanac. But it was a food writer the editor needed. Gail had just prepared a Chinese New Year party for 50; so, she told the editor about it and was paid $10 to write the story. Gail ended up with a regular food column. She then approached the Journal Newspapers where she later met Jane Mengenhauser when Jane became the paper's food editor and began writing regular freelance food articles for her as well as for The Washington Star and The Washington Post. Gail also wrote a weekly column for the Baltimore Sun Magazine for a number of years. Most of the stories were drawn from Gail's world travels with Dick and Ross. They loved Southeast Asia but also visited India, Latin America and North Africa, among other regions.

 

Jane sponsored Gail to become a Dame and Gail immediately signed on to LDE-DC's program committee under chair Ann Yonkers. Ann recognized and encouraged Gail's organizational talents. That proved to be the start of Gail's alternate career as an event planner.

 

Carol Cutler presented a French culinary program for The Smithsonian Associates. The Smithsonian wanted more food programs, but Carol wasn't interested. Gail was. So, for the next 19 years, she organized hundreds of programs on myriad subjects for Smithsonian Associates, presented by well-known speakers.

 

While teaching full-time, caring for her family, writing freelance and organizing Smithsonian Associates programs, Gail has always been active in Dames. She has served on its board regularly over the past 30 years and often chaired the program committee. Her breadth and depth of food programming knowledge led to her proposing what is our chapter's bi-annual symposium. She envisioned an academic conference with a keynote and simultaneous sessions. There have been some adjustments along the way, but the basics of Gail's idea have prevailed. Just like her vinegar tongue. (She still loves sour pickles.)

OF INTEREST

 

DC Central Kitchen's The Campus Kitchen's Benefit:

The DINING WITH THE CHEFS EVENT on April 21, 2014. To purchase tickets, please visit: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e8f9q8bra1baef14&llr=cqisc9oab&showPage=true  

 

Editor's Note

 

ENTRE NEWS is published on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month. Deadline for HURRAH! and other news is the first and third Thursday of each month. Please send a BRIEF paragraph with your professional and personal news that you would like your sister Dames to know about in HURRAH!

 

HURRAH! is not meant as an advertising opportunity for a cooking class or event, rather it offers a shout out to members for recent accomplishments and honors.

 

And, we will try this for a while to see how it works: OF INTEREST will now offer Dames a chance to let their sister chapter members know about events they are involved in that might be of interest to a majority of the membership. OF INTEREST entries can be NO LONGER than 75 words. Less is always better.

 

Send information to EN Editor Katherine Newell Smith kns4pr@erols.com  

 

Thank you for you continued interest and participation.

 

Katherine Newell Smith

Editor, Entre News

In this issue
 
Having Trouble Logging into www.lesdamesdc.org?

 

To log into the "Members Only" section of our website to make reservations and find chapter documents, remember to click on "Members Only" on the top menu bar.  Then sign in to your account.  You must use the email address recorded in your account plus the secret password you created.  It is not possible for our Chapter Web Administrator to retrieve a Dame's password --only you know the password you created for your account.

THE SOLUTION: If you don't remember your login email address or password, send an email to DC Chapter Web Administrator CiCi Williamson, ciciwmson@aol.com, and she will let you know what email address is listed for your account.  She will assign a new password in the database, and then you can use the new password to get into your account. After you get into the members-only area of the website, please update your account information and you can change your password to whatever you like (which will again be secret and not retrievable).   In order to save time for everyone, each Dame needs to record somewhere her login email address and password for www.lesdamesdc.org.

 

It is important to update your contact information on both Les Dames DC website and Les Dames d'Escoffier International site www.ldei.org.

If you need with assistance with your LDEI account please contact Executive Director Greg Jewell at  info@ldei.org  or call (502) 456-1851.

Without up-to-date contact info our communications will not reach you!
Social Media Connections

 

Connect with Sister Dames

Like us on Facebook 

Follow us on Twitter 
 
We need ALL members who have FB and Twitter accounts to follow and actively re-tweet our members' tweets to spread the great news about our activities and programs!

Connect with Les Dames d'Escoffier International

Please share news, events and updates.  Join the LDEI members-only LinkedIn Group to stay connected with other Dames.


Like us on Facebook   View our profile on LinkedIn
Join a Committee....
You were invited to join Dames because of your talents and achievements and you promised to be part of our chapter's committee work; so, now it is time to
Get Involved!

Our committees offer the perfect opportunity to get to know your sister Dames, share your skills and to give back to the community through service.  Every committee needs dedicated participants. Please contact the committee chairs and offer your time and skills, now.

 

Grants/Mentoring:

Kate Jansen

 jansenkt@comcast.net  

Cindy Kacher

ckacher@aol.com 

Scholarships: 
Diane Feffer Neas

dianeneas@gmail.com  

Michele Jacobs 

michele@unionstationevents.com 

 Green Tables: 

Danielle Turner

 chefdanielle@greattastepcs.com 

Aviva Goldfarb

aviva@thescramble.com 

Programs:

Gail Forman

gailforman@comcast.net 

Barbara Cullen & Eileen Dykes

bamc519@yahoo.com;

eileendykes@gmail.com 

Global Culinary Initiatives:

Amy Riolo

amy@amyriolo.com 

Public Relations:

Jill Collins  

jill@jillcollinspr.com 

Fundraising:

Theresa Morrison

wine@34south.com 

Entre News Update:
Please submit your Entre News information in a brief, concise statement to Katherine Newell Smith at kns4pr@erols.com .
Board Meeting Minutes
To view the latest approved board meeting minutes, go to www.lesdamesdc.org and

click on the Members Only tab and again on Member Login Page. Log in. Once you are logged in, click on the Bylaws, Roster & Minutes tab. You will see a link to the board meeting minutes. During each monthly board meeting, the board approves the previous month's minutes and they are then posted to our website. 

Revised Members-Only Section to our Website

Through the creative and diligent efforts of CiCi Williamson, our chapter's web administrator, it is easier to find chapter documents and resources, our event archives and past editions of Entre News.

 

Once you log in under Members Only, you will see a revised toolbar where you can find:

  • past and current Entre News issues posted under the News tab.
  • archives of past events in the Events dropdown menu along with upcoming events.
  • helpful files including chapter letterhead, name tag template, LDEI logos and tax-exempt certificates under Resources.
  • our chapter's standing rules, bylaws and membership roster under Bylaws, Roster & Minutes 
Quick Links
 
 

Member Milestones - Share your professional news with Dames in all Chapters in our LDEI Quarterly. Submit your news to:

MemberMilestones@aol.com - Edited by Hayley Matson Mathes (Hawaii)  

LDEI Quarterly Deadlines:

The deadline for sending in Member Milestones and Chapter News for the SPRING issue of the LDEI Quarterly is April 15, 2014. The winter 2014 issue of the LDEI Quarterly is now posted at  www.ldei.org and you should have received the magazine by now. If you have not, please check your online contact information. If it is correct, please contact Greg Jewell to make sure you are on the mailing list. 

  

PROVIDE DAME'S NAME and CHAPTER. Submit up to 50 words about honors or important business-related activities to appear in the LDEI Quarterly. You may email a quality headshot to accompany your news. Press releases and cookbook covers are not accepted. Entries received after the deadline may appear in a following issue.

  

Quarterly Guidelines:

  

Photography/Images-Electronic images must be properly focused, in color with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi (TIFF or JPEG). Cell phone photos are acceptable if they meet resolution requirements. Do not send photos taken off the internet or embedded with text in Word files or PDF files. Identify individuals in photos from left to right in the message of your email. Include photo credits, if required. CAPTIONS ARE REQUIRED FOR PUBLICATION.

 

 

M.F.K. FISHER AWARD CONTEST

The M.F.K. Fisher Award contest is open for entries with a deadline of March 31, 2014 and a $25 fee per entry. There are three categories in which to win:

  1. Culinary Books
  2. Print Media (magazine and newspaper food stories)
Internet-based food articles or blogs 
 

Each category offers a $500 prize. The overall winner will be awarded an additional $500 plus a trip to Boston to receive her award at the 2014 LDEI Annual Conference on Saturday, November 1. There will be a big do-da ceremony at the Royal Sonesta Hotel Boston, Cambridge, MA! For more information, go to ldei.org or email mfkfisher14@aol.com 


LDEI News
 

EDIBLE LONDON - A GASTRONOMIC TOUR PRESENTED BY LDEI-LONDON CHAPTER, MAY 15-18, 2014

Inspired by our chapter's Women in Gastronomy symposium, yes really! LDEI-London is planning the first ever London Gastronomic Tour May 15- 18, 2014. While the deadline has passed, you still may be able to get a spot. Contact valentina.harris@googlemail.com . The event will focus on the food in and around London and will be a wonderful opportunity to meet our sister Dames across the pond and explore an exciting food-centric city.   

 http://www.ldei.org/images/file/edible%20london%20flyer.pdf 
 
Les Dames d'Escoffier DC, www.lesdamesdc.org, Washington, DC 20013-1617
Sent by lesdamesdc.list@gmail.com in collaboration with
Constant Contact
Try email marketing for free today!