Like to eat? Feed your soul

Like to eat? Check out this press release I got from some local foodies.

For Immediate Release
June 23, 2008
Contact: Christa Glennie Seychew
716-812-1615

Buffalo NY – Calling all foodies!

Love to eat? Love to cook? Love WNY culture? Then check out Feed Your Soul Buffalo. This new culinary tourism initiative showcases exciting Western New York gastronomic adventures that feature the bounty that is our region’s legacy.

Feed Your Soul Buffalo’s objective is to package and promote the region’s culinary treasures as marketable and sellable attractions. Christa Glennie Seychew, freelance journalist and former Food and Dining Editor of Buffalo Rising Magazine and Sandy Starks, Founding Member of Slow Food Buffalo, have joined forces to create exclusive, culinary adventures.

Seychew’s experience as a food editor has led her to a unique understanding of Buffalo’s dining scene as well as the area’s remarkable agricultural resources and foodshed issues. Combined with Starks’ years of experience in crafting custom tours for area cultural institutions, the two are a perfect combination--capable of generating entertaining, informative and tasty events.

According to the International Culinary Tourism Association, ‘culinary tourism’ is defined as the pursuit of unique and memorable eating and drinking experiences. That includes food-related experiences of all kinds; it's much more comprehensive than the typical wine tastings and food festivals. Feed Your Soul will develop culinary events more engaging and inventive than what is currently available in Buffalo and much of the United States.

Additionally, Feed Your Soul’s dynamic duo is encouraging Western New Yorkers to be food tourists in their own backyards. Their inaugural event is the offering of two once-in-a-lifetime programs at the remarkable Chautauqua Institution.


‘Meet the Chefs: Ruhlman and Barber at Chautauqua’ and ‘Behind Zagat’

Each week during the summer season, the Chautauqua Institution structures their programming around a theme. This summer during the week of August 10th, the theme is “Food and Politics in the 21st Century”.

The Chautauqua Institution website describes the week of programming as follows:
“Food - from the old family recipe to the culinary arts - consumes a central role in our lives and is our most intimate and direct connection to nature. It elicits both passion and guilt, it comforts and satisfies, it sustains the body, and is a source of beauty and art. What we eat and how it arrives in our kitchens and restaurants is also influenced by political and economic decisions. From the 100-mile diet, five-star restaurants and peppy television chefs to giant agri-business, this week will add context to our understanding of how food is produced, biologically altered and distributed, the rise of organic agriculture and the simple joys of eating.”

Starks has been invited to the Chautauqua Institution to teach classes on local food issues during this session. “Realizing the fantastic opportunity the Chautauqua Institution was offering to foodies of all kinds, I spoke with the General Manager of the Athenaeum Hotel and asked if Feed Your Soul Buffalo could bring a group down from the city to create a unique experience around the food programming at the Institution,” said Starks. They happily agreed.

What Starks and Seychew have created is sure to thrill anyone with a passion for honest cooking, food writing, locavorism or sustainable agriculture. The August 11th trip consists of limo bus transportation to the Chautauqua Institution and lectures from nationally celebrated author, Food Network regular and chef, Michael Ruhlman and one of the most well-known and highly-awarded farm-to-table chefs, Dan Barber, chef/owner of Blue Hill restaurant in New York City and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a sustainable farm in Pocantico Hills, N.Y. Guests will also enjoy a special lunch prepared by Culinary Institute of America-graduate Chef Scott Bova of The Athenaeum Hotel, free time to explore the beauty of Chautauqua and a wine and cheese reception at a private home on the grounds of the Chautauqua Institution. Local chefs are very excited about this particular program and Feed Your Soul anticipates that at least a third of the guests on this adventure will be some of Buffalo’s most skilled chefs.

A second date was added to Feed Your Soul’s Chautauqua schedule when Starks and Seychew approached Diana and Gino Principe of the Mansion on Delaware Avenue. Tim Zagat of The Zagat Survey will be the featured speaker at Chautauqua on August 13th. Approaching the Principes was an obvious choice since the Zagat Survey considers the Mansion on Delaware Avenue to be the Top Boutique Hotel in the United States. Feed Your Soul’s “Behind Zagat” event begins when guests gather at the Mansion for breakfast and then travel to the Chautauqua Institution in a limo bus for the Zagat lecture. Afterwards they will enjoy a special lunch at The Athenaeum, spend some free time on the Chautauqua grounds and then return to the city for a private tour and cocktail hour at the Mansion on Delaware Avenue.

Tickets for both of these culinary adventures go on sale Monday, June 23rd. They can be purchased online or by mail. More schedule and ticketing information can be found at www.feedyoursoulbuffalo.com.

Feed Your Soul has many other exciting culinary adventures in the works. All of their events are truly unique and have limited seating, so making reservations quickly is important!

To learn more about Feed Your Soul Buffalo log onto www.feedyoursoulbuffalo.com or call Christa Seychew at 716-812-1615.