Slow Food Fall Heat arrives Sunday

Slow Food Baton Rouge hosts its inaugural fall fundraising event, Slow Food Fall Heat, this Sunday. The event kicks off at 4 p.m. at the Orangerie at LSU AgCenter’s Burden Center (Map it!).

After overwhelming demand for a second seasonal event following the annual spring Dinner in the Field farm tour and five-course meal, the local organization decided to put on this festive competition and fundraiser. Elton Hyndman, Slow Food Baton Rouge vice president and local chef/restaurateur, says the event will feature six chefs cooking appetizers to go along with Tin Roof’s Voodoo Bengal pale ale. Competing chefs include Scott Love from Blend Wine Bar, Brad Andries from Stroube’s, Ryan Andre from Le Creole, Jennifer Cornelius of Nino’s and Alan Niemand of Oscar’s Pizza Joint. Hyndman will also roast a quarter hog for pork tacos and prepare a slaw. Cocktails will include mint juleps and mojitos, and local band Minos the Saint will perform.

The event will allow patrons to vote for their favorite plates from the chefs, and a panel of local “celebrity” judges will also give their opinions on the dishes.

Though Slow Food Baton Rouge is still a young organization, starting in 2009, Hyndman says the growth of the movement here has been strong.

“When I first arrived in Baton Rouge about seven-and-a-half years ago, the movement was definitely in the beginning stages,” he says. “In the last two to three years, the amount of growth and support has been massive.”

Since opening his two restaurants, Nino’s and Oscar’s Pizza, Hyndman has noticed an increase in local produce coming into his kitchens.

“I’ve only been an official, card-carrying member of the organization for a few months, but I always look to source locally whenever I can,” he says. “Each year, we get more and more local ingredients. There are moments in the summer where our kitchen’s produce is 80-85% sourced locally.”

If you talk to Hyndman long enough about the slow food movement, he’s prone to expand on the benefits and advantages of using as much local produce as possible.

“We can talk about the socioeconomic side of it, but at the end of the day, this produce is better for you and tastes better,” he says. “That’s the business I’m in.”

Tickets for the event are $125 per person and $200 for a couple. You can purchase tickets here.

Proceeds will go to benefit Slow Food Baton Rouge’s Greauxing Healthy Baton Rouge, which organizes hands-on gardening and nutrition educational programming in local schools.

The cookoff is part of a week of events leading up to the Mayor-President Kip Holden’s Healthy BR program celebration of National Food Day on Oct. 24. For more information, on National Food Day, check out Maggie Heyn Richardson’s article.