grits

Food festival season appears to be in full swing! The weekend's chock full of fancy food productions, from Scottsdale to Pebble Beach to Blue Ridge food and wine festivals. A number of your favorite celebrity chefs, like Top Chef's Fabio and Carla, Paula Deen, and Thomas Keller, will be making appearances across the nation. And what Southerner could miss out on crawfish and grits? If you think of anything we've left off, please feel free to add in below. What events will you be hitting up?

• Scottsdale, AZ: Scottsdale Culinary Festival — Apr. 14-19
• Charlotte, NC: Taste of the Nation Charlotte — Apr. 15
• San Antonio, TX: Paso Robles Grand Tasting Tour — Apr. 15
• Atlanta, GA: World Barista Championship — Apr. 15-19
• Atlanta, GA: Toast of the Town Atlanta — Apr. 16
• Austin, TX: Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival — Apr. 16-19
• Pebble Beach, CA: Pebble Beach Food & Wine Festival — Apr. 16-19
• Blowing Rock, NC: Blue Ridge Wine Festival — Apr. 16-19
• Biloxi, MS: MS Coast Coliseum Crawfish Festival — Apr. 16-19
• Springfield, MO: Rock 'n Ribs BBQ Festival — Apr. 17-18

To see the rest, read more

Kick-start your weekend with this scrumptious, Southern-inspired dish. In it, shrimp and scallions are served on a bed of cheesy grits.

The resulting meal is comforting, yet healthy. Instead of cooking the shrimp on the stove or in a deep fryer, it's broiled in the oven.

Serve with cornbread and collard greens for a completely delicious dinner. Want to look at the recipe? read more

In the height of good weather, food and festivity abound, and right about now, I'm wishing I could teleport myself around the United States. First I'd hit up Manhattan for Wine 2.0's wine sampling this week, followed by the Shrimp & Grits Festival in Georgia, and then some classic Eli's cheesecake in the Windy City. Don't miss out on these events — if you do, you'll have to wait another year!

• New York, NY: The StarChefs Rising Stars Revue New York — Sept. 16
• New York, NY: Epicurious Wine.Dine.Donate New York — Sept. 17
• New York, NY: Wine 2.0 New York — Sept. 18
• Atlantic City, NJ: Celebrity Chef Tour Atlantic City — Sept. 18
• Shawnee-on-Delaware, PA: Delaware River Food & Wine Festival — Sept. 18-21
• Nappanee, IN: Nappanee Apple Festival — Sept. 18-21
• La Crescent, MN: Applefest 08 — Sept. 18-21
• Leavenworth, WA: Wenatchee River Salmon Festival — Sept. 18-21

To see the rest, read more

This Saturday America's oldest sporting event — the Kentucky Derby — is taking place. To celebrate, round up some friends for a horse-race watching party. At the afternoon affair serve a lunch menu with dishes that are inspired by the South.

Start things off with ham biscuits and pimento cheese toasts. For the first course, serve a green salad with roasted asparagus. After the race invite everyone to join you at the table for shrimp and grits.

To take a look at these delectable recipes, read more

Polenta is made out of course or finely ground yellow or white cornmeal. It was formerly known as a peasant food, but now has become rather an upscale meal. Many restaurants are serving it, and you can also find pre-made polenta in grocery stores.

Depending on how it's prepared, polenta can range from a spoonable mush like corn grits, to a thicker pancake-type consistency that is often grilled.

Cornmeal is an excellent source of iron, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, thiamine (Vitamin B1), riboflavin (Vitamin B2), niacin (Vitamin B3) and Vitamin B6. With all this goodness, it's definitely good for you.

My favorite kind of polenta is the thicker kind because, similarly to pasta, it has a pretty bland flavor, so you can flavor it up in millions of ways.

Want to know how I make it? Then read more