LOUISIANA BOOK FESTIVAL TO OFFER VARIETY OF FOOD PROGRAMS

The Louisiana Book Festival will offer a range of programs sure to please food-loving attendees. Along with the return of its popular cooking demonstration tent, the festival will feature food-related book presentations and programs.

Several volumes of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture are featured at this year’s festival, including a volume on food. Julia Reed will talk about But Mama Always Put Vodka in her Sangria!, a book of essays with related Southern kitchen wisdom and recipes.

Elsa Hahne will discuss The Gravy: In the Kitchen with New Orleans Musicians, which visits 44 New Orleans musicians as they share favorite recipes.

Johnette Downing’s How to Dress a Po’ Boy teaches kids and adults alike the art of the New Orleans-style po’ boy. The Children’s Pavilion will feature a special craft to go with Downing’s book — making a po’ boy book with different ingredients of the sandwich serving as the book’s pages.

The festival’s cooking demo tent is back this year with a full day of cooking events. The tent will feature demonstrations by chefs and cookbook authors including Kit Wohl, Poppy Tooker and Helana Brigman.

A cookbook co-written by the Louisiana Restaurant Association Education Foundation and the George Rodrigue Foundation is being featured this year. Chef Peter Sclafani of Ruffino’s, accompanied by students from the ProStart High School Culinary and Restaurant Management Program, will demonstrate recipes, and there will be an exhibit of the winning art that appears in the book.

Food vendors will be set up along Spanish Town Road between the State Library and State Capitol. The Louisiana Book Festival is 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2 in Capitol Park in downtown Baton Rouge.

For more information, visit www.LouisianaBookFestival.org. Also look for book festival updates on Facebook and Twitter.