Pot Luck!

The Schenectady County Public Library will be hosting a potluck dinner and book discussion of Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” on Tuesday August 11, at the Central Library McChesney Room (99 Clinton Street in downtown Schenectady). “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” was the runner up book in last year’s One County, One Book voting. Dinner will begin at 6pm followed by the discussion at 7pm. Annette Nielsen, community organizer and food writer, will facilitate the discussion of the book.

Registration is required by calling the Reference Desk at 518-388-4511. Registrants are encouraged to bring their favorite dish, made with some locally grown, fresh ingredients, and the recipe, too!  There will also be a drawing for a food themed basket, which includes a gift certificate for Schenectady Greenmarket, along with some treats from the market and donated books.

And speaking of Michael Pollan (which I love to do), he had a great article in yesterday’s NY Times Magazine, concerning Americans’ fascination with TV chefs coupled with our general lack of desire to actually cook for ourselves.  It’s called “Out of the Kitchen, On To the Couch,” and it’s really a sad treatise on the state of culinary affairs. 

Another cool culinary news tidbit:  The National Museum of American History recently acquired the previously “missing” wall of copper pots and utensils that belonged to Julia Child. The newly installed wall completes the 14-by-20-foot kitchen, which is on display in the exhibition “Bon Appétit! Julia Child’s Kitchen at the Smithsonian.”  Thirty French copper pots and pans and the original painted pegboard on which they hung in her house in Cambridge will be added to the original exhibition. The blue-painted pegboard shows an outline for each pot and pan, drawn by her husband Paul Child, to ensure each object would be returned to its place on the wall after use (I could really use something like that).

I had the chance to see this exhibit on a past trip to DC – and I was like a kid in a candy store.  I must have spent an hour at that exhibit, looking at the kitchen, watching the videos, just fascinated with the grande dame of gastronomy.   I can’t wait to see it again, with the missing puzzle pieces in their proper place!