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A huge thanks to WHOLE FOODS MARKET NORTHEAST REGION for their commitment to the upcoming April trip. Their generosity of gift cards will help provide groceries for our projects both in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward as well as Ocean Springs, MS.

Thanks you Whole Foods Market for allowing http://www.usofacomputers.com your good food to do a lot of good!

When ICON ESTATES contacted us and asked “do you think you could use a winemaker on your next trip?” we didn’t hesitate to shout a resounding “yes!”  The resulting collaboration is an incredibly exciting and unique sponsorship.  FRANCISCAN has generously agreed to sponsor a wine-pairing dinner for the entire CulinaryCorps team at Bourbon House on Sunday, April 19th.

Michael Eckstein, Franciscan’s winemaker, has paired up with Darin Nesbit, the executive chef of Bourbon House, to craft a multi-course menu featuring Franciscan’s wines.

In tandem with the meal, Michael will be giving the group a short lesson on the art of wine-blending  featuring his Magnificat.  We have no doubt it will be a night to remember http://www.jovencitosconcamara.com and thank Icon Estates and Franciscan Estate for their tremendous generosity and willingness to share their love of their craft with us.

A special thanks to the folks at BOURBON HOUSE (Lee Anne, Darin, Barry and Wesley) for pulling together the evening so seamlessly.

We would like to thank TEN SPEED PRESS for their generous donation on our behalf of over 25 cookbooks to Edible Schoolyard New Orleans.  Edible Schoolyard’s Chef/Forager, April Neujean, received the brimming box last week and was excited to find “books I’ve been wanting for a very long time in there.  I’m already thinking of some great lesson plan ideas!!”

We are incredibly excited to be a part of the Ray Ban outlet genesis of the Edible Schoolyard’s cookbook library.  Thank you TEN SPEED PRESS for your commitment not only to quality books but to sharing the ideas within.

CulinaryCorps is now recruiting for an official TRIP PHOTOGRAPHER.

For full details, please visit our post on Idealist.org.

CulinaryCorps® is now accepting applications for the next service trip to New Orleans and the Missisippi Gulf Coast from April 16-22.  A total of 10 qualified culinary professionals will be chosen to complete 5 days of culinary service while learning about the cuisine of the community through insider Maglie Calcio tours, tastings and events.

A generous grant from Zwilling J.A. Henckels has allowed us to reduce the cost of participation for all participants.  The application deadline is March 14, 2009.

For details, click here

To receive an application, e-mail culinarycorps@gmail.com

Cook the change you want to see in the world.  Apply today!

We are pleased to announce a newly created category of sponsorship, Platinum Patrons, in recognition of Zwillling JA Henckels.

This tier of philanthropy was created specifically for Zwilling JA Henckels, and denotes donors who contribute over $5,000 to our efforts. Creating world-class cutlery and kitchen equipment for over 275 years, Henckels also has a profound commitment to community development.

For those of you not familiar with the genesis of CulinaryCorps, Zwilling JA Henckels provided our first opportunity to visit post-Katrina New Orleans via their Cutting Edge Culinary Student Scholarship program. A partnership with Share Our Strength, the 20 scholarship recipients were given an all-expenses paid trip to Share Our Strength’s Conference of Leaders. Zwilling JA Henckels’ generosity allowed us to witness the recovery efforts of New Orleans, interact with local chef luminaries like Leah Chase and Frank Brigtsen, eat our way through the cuisine of a great city and get utterly transformed along the way.

From that one trip, CulinaryCorps was born. And now JA Henckels is once again backing our efforts in a big way. CulinaryCorps has recently received a 1-year development grant http://www.magliettedacalcioit.com that will provide necessary funding to help create and launch trips to a new portfolio of communities around the country.

We are so honored to have Zwilling JA Henckels as our first Platinum Patron. Our heartfelt thanks goes out to a company with a lot of heart.

Allison L. joined us for our March 2007 trip to New Orleans. The youngest of our crew, she was wise well beyond her years and amazingly adept at the pastry arts (she is a recent graduate of the CIA). Her prose, Doing Good With Good Food, is a wonderful encapsulation of the people, the food and the community service Cheap NFL Jerseys that filled the week. We couldn’t have written it better ourselves.

Many thanks to Sarah Copeland, writer for the Food Network’s excellent Behind the Scenes blog for giving CulinaryCorps a nod in her recent post about culanthropic outreach, Good Eats. We hope she can join a trip sometime soon!

From the New York Times Magazine – Food Fights!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Written by Adam Fisher

Culanthropy: Two years ago, the New York City chef Christine Carroll was painting a New Orleans high school with a post-Katrina volunteer group when she realized that she was no painter. But she could cook; so could everyone she knew. And New Orleans needed nourishment. Once home, she started cheap oakley sunglasses organizing CulinaryCorps, a charity that recruits squads of chefs and culinary student for weeklong trips to New Orleans, where they might be asked to cook dinner for a Habitat for Humanity crew one night and the still-stoveless residents of the Lower Ninth Ward the next.
Mornings are spent volunteering: teaching elementary-school kids about growing vegetables or helping to recover flood-damaged cookbooks from venerated restaurants. The focus is not just on feeding the hungry but also on keeping the city’s food traditions alive. “We give them our version of shrimp and grits, and then http://www.oakleyonorder.com/ when they come back for seconds, they share their secret family recipes,” says Carroll.

Of the 75 chefs who have gone through the program, two have moved to New Orleans to make culinary philanthropy — or “culanthropy” – a full-time project. Next year, Carroll says, she hopes to take her Sauciers Sans Frontieres idea to places like Appalachia and Puerto Rico.

As cooks, few things get us more fired-up than an behemoth of a grill. So it was with great pleasure that CulinaryCorps was able to coordinate the donation of this fantastic Viking specimen to our friends at Edible Schoolyard NOLA.

A Real Beauty

This 41″ outdoor gas grill (complete with two side burners and one heck of a sparkle) was generously donated by the folks at Viking for the TASTE 3 conference raffle. Through a dramatic series of events (including a teary-eyed acceptance over a crowded auditorium) the grill landed into the lap of CulinaryCorps.

Finding a home for our fortuitous donation was not the problem; in many ways we wished we split it up into pieces and like the spider plant, grow a grill for ALL of our project partners. However, with onyl one to give, the gift has found a home at Edible Schoolyard’s second site, Charter Middle, who are in the first stages of introducing their magnificent cooking and gardening program to the campus. We cheap oakley sunglasses thought that a bit of fire-power could really help the process along so happy grilling ESYNOLA!

A special thanks to Elisabeth A. from Viking for helping to coordinate the donation and the shipping.