Let's Talk About Food Festival

The Let's Talk About Food Festival, sponsored by the Museum Of Science and organized by Louisa Kasdon, was a huge hit this year. We attended last year's event, which was the very first and much, much smaller and we thought it was impressive even then. Here, Chefs Tiffani Faison of Sweet Cheeks Barbecue and Mary Dumont of Harvest teach children about summer fruits.

There was a main stage that featured food demos all day long, including a guest visit from Chef (and Governor) Deval Patrick. In addition, there were tons of vendors and interesting booths inspiring people from all walks of life to gather together and discuss a myriad of aspects of, what else, food.


One of the big attractions were the food trucks. As we all know, food trucks are a hot commodity right now and visitors had a large choice of trucks to visit.


In the Author's Booth we ran into our friend Julia Shanks and her co-author Brett Grohsgal, authors of THE FARMER'S KITCHEN. Julia is also a fellow Advisor to Future Chefs, so it was great seeing her.


The Kitchen Conversation booth was an interesting project, inviting people to share their thoughts on food in personal ways.


Their stories on food were recorded to be archived and shared on the web and on the air.


Future Chefs Alumni assisted at the event, too. Here, Future Chefs chat backstage with Harvard Basketball's Ivy League Player of the Year Keith Wright and Red Sox Nutritionist Tara Mardigan.


Chef Dante DeMagistris of dante and Il Casale with TBF.


Chef Tiffani Faison of Sweet Cheeks Barbecue and Future Chefs Alumni Tom Aronne.


Tommy again, here with Legal Sea Foods Chef Richard Vellante.


More Future Chefs with Chef Eric Brennan of Post 390.


Chef Dante presenting a healthy Mediterranean dish for the jocks and the Sox!


Food writer Louisa Kasdon and Chef Vellante.


Author Jeff Potter, COOKING FOR GEEKS, Joanne Chang (Flour) and Gus Rancatore (Toscanini Ice Cream) gave one of the most interesting talks on science and food. Gus spoke of how he develops new flavors and Joanne demonstrated what happens to chocolate chip cookies when you melt the butter before mixing it into the recipe. Answer: it results in a much crisper cookie. We all then got to sample the cookies!