Gingerbread Habitats for Humanity

On Friday, December 16, 2011, the JWU Chapter of Habitat for Humanity hosted a gingerbread competition and silent auction here at the Culinary Arts Museum. All proceeds went to benefit Habitat for Humanity.

Nineteen gingerbread houses were on display, and were built by members of the Johnson & Wales community, employees and students alike. Below are the fantastic creations that were made for the contest. You may even recognize some of the buildings!

The Culinary Arts Museum will be closed for the holiday break

 

Holiday Hours:

The museum will be closed from Friday, December 23, 2011 - Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Regular hours will resume on Wednesday January 4, 2012

We wish you all a very happy holiday and a safe and happy new year!!

And the butter lives on

On Sunday, June 26 Norma "Duffy" Lyon passed away in Marshalltown, IA.  If the name doesn't ring a cow bell to you, perhaps you have heard of the "Butter-Cow Lady" of the Iowa State Fair.  Ms. Lyon studied animal science at Iowa State University in the late 1940s.  Her artistic talent was discovered by an artist-in-residence there after he saw an ice sculpture that she had made for the university's winter festival. In 1960, she became the official sculptor of the life-sized Butter Cow, the dairy industry's symbol at the Iowa State Fair since 1911. Ms. Lyon also made sculptures of celebrities, comic-strip characters, and themes from well-known works of art. Her most ambitious sculpture was a recreation of "The Last Supper," made in 1999.

Although we never had the privilege of having her at our own country fair midway (if you've never been here before, yes, we do have our very own scaled-down version of a midway - smack dab in the center of the museum - as part of our "Country Fair to Culinary Olympics" exhibit), she certainly was a presence known at many fairs across the country. She was such a well-known and influential force in Iowa that Barack Obama asked for her endorsement during his election campaign there in 2007.  Ms. Lyon appeared on several television shows, including "Today," "The Tonight Show," and on "Late Night With David Letterman."  She retired from butter sculpting at the Iowa State Fair in 2006.

In butter-related news, the Iowa state fair kicked off this week. And, of course, Duffy was mentioned in this New York Times article about the 100 year legacy of the state fair. Chef Gary Welling of Johnson & Wales also weighed in on the history of the dairy sculpture. Here's to all the deep-fried food on a stick that you can eat!

Bruce Newbury is bringing his broadcast back to the museum!

Local radio host Bruce Newbury will broadcast his show, "The Tasting Room," live from the Culinary Arts Museum on Sunday, August 7, 2011.  "The Tasting Room" airs Sundays from 11:00 am - 12:00 noon.

If you can't make it to the museum on Sunday, tune in to your local radio station: AM790 in the Providence - Newport, RI - New Bedford - Cape Cod MA area, 830AM in the Boston - Worcester MA - NH - ME - VT area or 980 AM in the New London - Eastern CT region.

What does it take to get a cup of coffee around here?

Every summer, the Johnson & Wales Admissions department hosts a Career Explorations program for high school sophomores and juniors. Essentially, students have the opportunity to spend time at Johnson & Wales immersed in what it would be like to live and go to school here in the field of choice.

Registration for the culinary program is held here at the museum, and it always packs the house! Today we got some great shots from inside the Ever Ready diner.

Hopefully these people aren't waiting to order breakfast, they'll be waiting a while...

"What a cowinkidink!" - Bugs Bunny

Some of you may know that we tweeted for the first time today.  Some of you may also know that we constantly field all sorts of requests from people who want to donate to the museum. Our most recent acquisition, a donation from a JWU staff member, is a collection of menus from restaurants in Rhode Island and Colorado. As we were going through the collection this morning, we came across this menu. Now if that isn't a coincidence, I don't know what is!

 

Upon some further research, it seems like Tweet's Balzano's Family Restaurant in Bristol, RI is a place of special significance for those who grew up in the Bristol area.

Follow culinarymuseum on Twitter!

Fruit Cakes: Not just for Christmas anymore (or at least they weren't in 1891)

In this, the season of weddings, what better recipe to share than one for wedding cake?
(And don't forget the Harries' Baking Powder! The advertisement for Harries' was found on the page facing recipe below).

Do any of you bakers out there have any idea how many people a recipe like this would feed?

Wedding Fruit Cake
Six pounds of raisins, six pounds of currants, one pound of chopped fine blanched almonds, three pounds of citron, orange and lemon peel, three pounds of dark-brown sugar, two and a quarter pounds of butter, three pounds of sifted flour, one and a half ounces of mace, three teaspoonfuls of rose water, three wine-glassfuls of brandy, three of wine, and thirty fresh eggs, beaten very light.  Mix these ingredients well together and take the cake to the bakery, making the engagement beforehand to have it baked.

-from Palatable Dishes: A Practical Guide to Good Living, arranged and compiled by Sarah J. Cutter, 1891.

culinary.org wins again!

As some of you may know, back in March the museum's website was awarded the Best in Class award for museum websites by the Interactive Media Awards. Well, we've done it again (thanks to the design team at (add)ventures, of course)!

Every year, the New England Museum Association hosts a Publication Award Competition for all member museums. Eligible categories include books, invitations, promotional materials and websites, to name a few. This year, our site won the Judges Choice award for museums with an operating budget of under $500,000. This year, there were 206 publications from 64 museums entered in sixteen different categories.

A huge thank you is also due to our staff for the hard work and many hours that were devoted to compiling visual and written content for the web, and for their collaboration with the (add)ventures team throughout the site's development process. We here at the museum look forward to a long partnership with (add)ventures as we continue to add new features and content to our website.

To see the complete list of winners, click here.

Cheers to all winners and competitors!

"Found in Collection"

As you can imagine, we here at the Culinary Arts Museum uncover all sorts of treasures, eccentricities and/or things that provoke the question "what is that?" on a daily basis. The latest is a Cunard Line menu from a Feb 7, 1967 cruise to the West Indies. On the right side of the menu is a category labeled "Farinaceous" (otherwise known as starches) - not something you see everyday. There is one menu item listed in this category: Delmonico Rarebits. For those of you who have not heard of the delicious, savory treat that is Welsh Rarebits, it is essentially toast topped with a cheese sauce made with ale (similar to fondue). Often times it is put under a broiler to create a fantastic cheesy crust over the top. There seems to be no recipe for "Delmonico Rarebits," so it is possible that the rarebits listed on this menu were made in the style of those at Delmonico's Restaurant. It is also possible that the chef used the term Delmonico to add credibility to the dish, because Delmonico's Restaurant - the country's first restaurant, which opened its doors in Manhattan in 1837 - was synonymous with fine dining.

Here is the Delmonico's restaurant recipe for Welsh Rarebits. Try it at home and see what you think!

Welsh Rarebit - Take one pound of American cheese; cut up in small pieces. Place them in a sautoire, adding half a glassful of good ale. Season with half a teaspoonful of red pepper. Stir it continually with a wooden spoon until the mass is well melted, which will take about ten minutes. Have six nice, fresh, large pieces of toast; arrange them on a very hot dish, and distribute the preparation equally over, serving the rarebit very hot.

-from The Delmonico Cook Book, by Alessandro Filippini

The museum will be closed for the Fourth of July weekend

The museum will close at 1:00 pm on Friday, July 1st and will remain closed through Monday, July 4th.

Regular hours will resume on Tuesday, July 5 at 10:00 am.

Have a safe and happy Fourth of July!

This menu is from our collection of Cunard Line Fourth of July menus from 1950-1989

Wisconsin cheese and Boston beer, a match made in Rhode Island!

On Tuesday, April 19, 2011, the Culinary Arts Museum hosted a beer and cheese tasting, sponsored by the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board and The Boston Beer Company, brewers of Samuel Adams. We would like to thank Sara Hill, Culinary Manager of Cheese Education for the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, and Bert Boyce, brewer for the Boston Beer Company for their educational and entertaining presentations. Of course, we would also like to thank all of those in attendance.

Pictured left to right: Sara Hill and Bert Boyce

Attendees tasting the beer and cheese pairings. It looks as though the pairing being tasted here is the Samuel Adams Latitude 48, an IPA and the Carr Valley Casa Bolo, a mixed milk cheese.

Here are a couple of interesting points from the evening:

Samuel Adams is the largest seller of craft beer in the United States, however, its sales account for just under one percent of the country's beer market.

Raw milk cheeses (cheeses made with unpasteurized milk) are allowed to be sold in the United States as long as they have been aged for at least 60 days. After this time period, the acids and salts in the cheese will have eliminated any harmful pathogens potentially existing in the cheese.

The pairings:
Samuel Adams Summer Ale ~ Holland's Family Marieke Gouda
Samuel Adams Light ~ Wisconsin 2 year Cheddar
Samuel Adams Boston Lager ~ Uplands Pleasant Ridge Reserve
Samuel Adams Latitude 48 IPA ~ Carr Valley Casa Bolo
Samuel Adams Black Lager ~ Montforte Gorgonzola
Samuel Adams Wee Heavy ~ Emmi Roth Moody Blue

To learn more about these beers and cheeses, you can visit the following websites:
www.samueladams.com
www.eatwisconsincheese.com

Bruce Newbury broadcasts live from the museum this Sunday!

Local radio host Bruce Newbury will broadcast his show, "The Tasting Room," live from the Culinary Arts Museum on Sunday, April 10, 2011.  "The Tasting Room" airs Sundays from 11:00 am - 12:00 noon. 

If you can't make it to the museum on Sunday, tune in to your local radio station: AM790 in the Providence - Newport, RI - New Bedford - Cape Cod MA area, 830AM in the Boston - Worcester MA - NH - ME - VT area or 980 AM in the New London - Eastern CT region.

Special promotion for the Culinary Arts Museum

Eversave.com has chosen the Culinary Arts Museum as the featured save for the Providence area, starting today. The promotion, which runs through Thursday, offers buyers two admissions for the price of one ($7 for a $14 value).  Click the link below for more details.

http://www.eversave.com/providence

We hope to see you here soon!

From the Midway to the Runway

If you've been to the museum, this piece of fashion art may look familiar to you.  This dress, constructed with laminated vintage string bean can labels and cellophane tape, was made by fifteen-year-old Monica Hofstadter.  She designed the dress expressly for the museum's "Country Fair to Culinary Olympics" exhibit, which was installed in 2007.  Monica's inspiration came from a 1964 creation made of butter cartons for Princess Kay of the Milky Way, the ambassador to the Minnesota State Fair, who is responsible for the promotion of the dairy industry.


Now in her second year of the Fashion Design program at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City, Monica has recently won the Student Prize in the Vogue Knitting "Magic of Mohair" design competition, sponsored by Mohair South Africa.  As a finalist in the competition, her mohair dress was showcased January 21-23 at Vogue Knitting LIVE in New York City.  On January 22, it was announced that she was the student winner.  As a result, her dress, along with instructions for knitting, will be featured in Vogue Knitting magazine, on the Mohair South Africa website and in other Mohair South Africa media.

Please join us in congratulating Monica for this great accomplishment!!