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Cooks & Books: Dinner with Adrian Miller
Mar 16, 2017 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
$110Join us at The Granary to celebrate Adrian Miller’s cookbook, “The President’s Kitchen Cabinet.” Tickets are $110 per person and include dinner, a copy of the cookbook, beer from Fullsteam Brewery, service fee and tax. Reserve by calling McIntyre’s Books at 919.542.3030.
Fullsteam Brewery’s Sean Lily Wilson will be working with Adrian Miller and Chef Bedford to create a special beer for this event. “Miller’s new book affirms what those of us in the brewing industry suspected for a long time: that beer has had a long and important role in the White House,” said Wilson. “We look forward to collaborating with Adrian and Chef Colin Bedford on a White House-worthy beer.” Don’t miss this presidential dinner!
MENU
First Course
Mint Green Pea Soup with White House Roof Garden Salad
White House Executive Chef Walter Scheib for President George W. Bush
Fearrington-Fullsteam Spring (Dry Hopped Rye Saison)
Main Course
Grilled Sirloin Steak with Gourmet Sauce
Green Bean Cucumber Salad & Parmesan Slices
Chef Honore Julien, Enslaved Assistant Cooks Edith Hem Fossett
& Frances Gillette Hem for President Thomas Jefferson
Fullsteam Common Good (Kentucky Common)
Dessert
Sweet Potato Cheesecake with Pound Cake Crust
Chef Sonya Jones for President Bill Clinton
Steak Knives (Imperial Coffee Stout)
James Beard award-winning author Adrian Miller vividly tells the stories of the African Americans who worked in the presidential food service as chefs, personal cooks, butlers, stewards, and servers for every First Family since George and Martha Washington. Miller brings together the names and words of more than 150 black men and women who played remarkable roles in unforgettable events in the nation’s history. Daisy McAfee Bonner, for example, FDR’s cook at his Warm Spring’s retreat, described the president’s final day on earth in 1945; he was struck down just as his lunchtime cheese souffle emerged from the oven. Sorrowfully, but with a cook’s pride, she recalled, “He never ate that souffle, but it never fell until the minute he died.”
A treasury of information about cooking techniques and equipment, the book includes twenty recipes for which black chefs were celebrated. From Samuel Fraunces’ “onions done in the Brazilian way” for George Washington to Zephyr Wright’s popovers, beloved by LBJ’s family, Miller highlights African Americans’ contributions to our shared American foodways. Surveying the labor of enslaved people during the antebellum period and the gradual opening of employment after the Emancipation, Miller highlights how food-related work slowly became professionalized and the important part African Americans played in that process. His chronicle of the daily table in the White House proclaims a fascinating new American story.
Adrian Miller is the author of Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time, winner of a James Beard Foundation award. He worked as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton. He is a certified Kansas City Barbecue Society Judge and former Southern Foodways Alliance board member. He lives in Denver, Colorado.
About Adrian Miller
Adrian Miller is a graduate of Stanford University and Georgetown University Law School. After practicing law in Denver for several years, Adrian became a special assistant to President William Jefferson Clinton and the Deputy Director of the President’s Initiative for One America. The President’s Initiative for One America was the first free-standing White House office in history to examine and focus on closing the opportunity gaps that exist for minorities in this country. The One America office built on the foundation laid by the President’s Initiative on Race by promoting the President’s goals of educating the American public about race, and coordinating the work of the White House and federal agencies to carry out the President’s vision of One America.
Mr. Miller is also a culinary historian and a certified barbecue judge who has lectured around the country on such topics as: Black Chefs in the White House, chicken and waffles, hot sauce, kosher soul food, red drinks, soda pop, and soul food. Adrian’s award-winning book, Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time was published by the University of North Carolina Press.
About Cooks & Books
This series was founded with a premise that there’s no better way to explore a new cookbook than by talking with the author, and sampling and delving into those dishes with seriously fun and delicious discussion. It is a collaboration between Fearrington’s Executive Chef Colin Bedford and Keebe Fitch of McIntyre’s Books, one of the South’s most celebrated independent bookstores, with an amazing cookbook selection.