2nd Annual Juneteenth Skillet Gathering

This past Sunday Hot Pepper and Thyme celebrated the CFNI 2nd Annual Juneteenth Skillet Gathering with several colleagues, family and friends. For those who don't know about Juneteenth, the holiday recognizes when Texas slaves were made aware of their emancipation in 1865. It's a day to honor our ancestors by reflecting and rejoicing the Africa diaspora.

In turn, our Skillet Gatherings are a a celebration of community, food and conversation. Since I've been highlighting this month Jessica Harris' "Beyond Gumbo, Creole Fusion Food from the Atlantic Rim," Sunday's menu included her French Guyana green mango salad (see June 5 blog), Columbian-style fried Tilapia (see June 11 blog), Brazilian greens Mineira style(p. 192) plus hot sauce (p. 143), New Orleans creole tomato and vidalia onion salad (p. 123), Costa Rican corn pancakes (p. 71), and Mexican watermelon agua fresca (p. 346). And for dessert, we had vanilla ice cream with peach schnapps and fresh peach slices. Needless to say, the food was not only colorful, but tastey and a big hit with everyone. Take a look at the picture of the food.

I have to especially comment on the greens. The recipe called for sauteeing onion and garlic in olive oil, adding the greens (kale or collards) and cooking them for 5 minutes. Well, my southern roots baulked at the idea of cooking greens for only 5 minutes! Whoever heard of such a thing, everyone knows you gotta add water (for the pot liquor) and cook greens down and for ever, until they're good and tender. However wanting to be as true to the recipe as possible, I "massaged" the greens breaking them up into small pieces, didn't add water, but I cooked them for about 15 minutes. Amazingly, they were wonderful. No salt and pepper, just the flavor of the greens combined with the onion and garlic. The greens were served at room temperature after the hot sauce (combination of juice of 3 limes, 2 tsps minced onion, 1 tsp minced fresh cilantro, minced, jalepeno pepper to taste, salt & pepper to taste) was drizzled over them. Delicious!

Our conversation mainly focused on CFNI plans to participate in the launching of Food Day, October 24, http://www.foodday.org/, which is being spearheaded by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Food Day is to be both a celebration of real, healthy food and a powerful, grassroots movement for change. People interested in issues such as nutrition, the environment, agriculture, and hunger should be able to use Food Day to advance their programs. We shared our ideas about how we wanted to recognize the event and asked our guests for comments and suggestions. They were very interested in the concept and several people even volunteered to help plan the event. After a lively conversation, we ended our Juneteenth Skillet Gathering with seconds on the vanilla ice cream, peach schnapps, and peach slices.