Healthy Cooking Chefs, Authors Featured at AJC Decatur Book Festival

From a news release:

Food issues and healthy cooking authors and chefs will be featured at this weekend’s 2014 Atlanta Journal-Constitution Decatur Book Festival presented by DeKalb Medical.

The healthy and local segment will celebrate the qualities that make a local community strong, including the farm-to-table movement. Underpinning the segment is the new Springer Mountain Kitchen Stage. Seating 250 guests and equipped with a full-functioning kitchen, this outdoor cooking stage will feature nine different cooking demonstrations from world-renowned chefs.

AJC DBF Programming Director Philip Rafshoon says the new track and cooking stage are sure to bring more flair to the festival experience. “We’re very excited to bring something so different and unique to the festival this year,” Rafshoon says. “We strive to involve creative minds from every literary field, and beyond! This new track and cooking stage help us fulfill that goal.”

Healthy and Local schedule highlights include:

Healthy Eating

· The Beekman Boys — Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell, The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Vegetable Cookbook

o The Beekman Boys founded Beekman 1802, a company based around their 60-acre farm in upstate New York. Keep an eye out for the King of Pop flavor inspired by one of their recipes.

· Nina Planck, The Real Food Cookbook

o Planck is a farmer’s daughter who founded the London Farmers’ Markets. She speaks and writes about real food and home cooking.

· Lisa Howard, Healthier Gluten-Free

o Howard is a recipe developer, food writer, cooking instructor, and culinary speaker whose passion is helping people understand the health aspects of food while also embracing the creative, fun side of being in the kitchen.

· Jennifer McGruther, The Nourished Kitchen

o McGruther is a food educator and creator of the award-winning traditional foods website NourishedKitchen.com. BestsellerThe Nourished Kitchen is her first cookbook.

Food Issues

· Daron Joffe, Citizen Farmers

o Joffe, also known as Farmer D, designs and builds biodynamic farms and gardens all over the country. Local favorite Susan Puckett, who contributed to Citizen Farmers, will join Joffe for a DBF presentation.

· Philip Lymbery, Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat

o Lymbery analyzes the global food production industry and discusses a better way to source our food.

Featured Authors

· Colman Andrews, My Usual Table

o Andrews co-founded Saveur Magazine and was its editor-in-chief from 2002-2006. The recipient of eight James Beard Awards, Andrews is currently the editorial director of TheDailyMeal.com, a food and wine mega-site.

· Daniel Shumski, Will It Waffle?

o Shumski is a journalist and teacher who founded the website WillItWaffle.com.

· Charmian Christie, The Messy Baker

o Christie, author of food blog TheMessyBaker.com, is a judge for Taste Canada – The Food Writing Awards.

Southern Cooking and Food

· Brys Stephens, The New Southern Table

o Stephens is an author, food writer, and photographer based in Charleston, S.C. He has written for numerous magazines and periodicals and is the founder of the food and cooking website CookThink.com.

· Jennifer Hill Booker, Field Peas to Foie Gras

o A popular Atlanta-based chef, Booker creates dishes with both Southern and French influences. Booker’s new book, Field Peas to Foie Gras, launches at this year’s festival.

· Marcie Cohen Ferris, The Edible South

o In her richly illustrated book, Ferris traces the roots of Southern cooking and persuasively argues that the region’s food is intimately connected to the politics of power.

· Jodi Helmer, Farm Fresh Georgia

o Helmer presents details on over 400 Georgia-based farms and farm attractions, information on pertinent “agro trends” (such as farm-to-table), and 13 different recipes.

· Martha Ezzard, The Second Bud

o Lawyer, writer, and farm winery owner, Ezzard left Colorado to return to Georgia and her husband’s family farm, Tiger Mountain. Ezzard received the Georgia Author of the Year Award for this memoir/autobiography.

The full Healthy and Local track schedule can be found at: www.decaturbookfestival.com/2014/schedule/track.php?id=10.

The Atlanta Journal–Constitution Decatur Book Festival presented by DeKalb Medical (AJC DBF) is the largest independent book festival in the country, and the fourth largest overall. Over Labor Day weekend (Aug. 29-31), tens of thousands from metro Atlanta and beyond will share the historic downtown Decatur Square with world–class authors, illustrators, editors, publishers, and booksellers for a weekend filled with literature, music, food, and fun.

For more information, visit www.DecaturBookFestival.com, “like” Decatur Book Festival on Facebook, or follow @DBookFestival on Twitter.