Seven small-scale North Carolina farms contributed the ingredients to Earth Fare Market and Cafe‘s Sweet Potato Salad and Sesame Kale concoction, slated to be honored as the “Best Dish in North Carolina” at the N.C. State Fair next week. The award, sponsored by the N.C. Department of Agriculture, was created to recognize chefs who regularly use N.C.-grown products in their cookery. The award will be presented during Paula Deen’s Oct. 17 show at the Dorton Arena in Raleigh.
Ess, ess! (That’s the Yiddish equivalent of ringing the dinner bell.) The Hard Lox Festival, Asheville’s annual Jewish food festival, returns this month with blintzes, babkas and pastrami on rye. In addition to food, the event features music, dancing and a Torah on display. The Oct. 21 event runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Battery Park, near the Grove Arcade. For more information, visit www.hardlox.com.
Kathleen Flinn in 2003 quit her corporate job and found her calling at Le Cordon Bleu. She’s now a published memoirist. Flinn’s tales of earning her degree from the prestigious Paris academy have earned praise from simpatico author Elizabeth Gildert, who called The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry: Love, Laughter and Tears at the World’s Most Famous Cooking School “a really lovely book.” Flinn will be at Malaprop’s on Oct. 19 at 7 p.m. for a reading.
