[title type="h5"]
Day Six After The Storm
Sunday, September 4, 2005[/title]
The best way to handle a stressful situation is to do something about it--anything. Those of us who are in exile, watching our city in its coma, can be driven nuts by thinking about the implications of it unless we get to work.
Before the storm, I had a major cookbook nearing completion, planned for publication later this year. I now have the time to finish it in rapid order. It's a collection of my best recipes from my newsletters, articles, and radio shows from my thirty-three years of writing about New Orleans food, and it's a fairly comprehensive collection of classic and innovative recipes, mostly Creole and Cajun.
I have decided to donate most of the profits from this book to the relief and recovery effort. And to add a subtitle to it. It will be called New Orleans Food: As It Was, and Will Be Again. In addition to the money it raises, it is my hope that whatever publicity it gets will keep New Orleans food in the minds of people in the rest of the country. That will be very important in our recovery.
I have been busying myself finding a publisher for this book. If I can't find one shortly, I will publish it myself. I'm looking for a printer who will work with me on getting the book out rapidly. I'll let you know the progress of that. If by some off-chance you have a connection with a publisher, please let me know at tom@nomenu.com.
My other major project right now is to create an alliance with Zagat, Fodor's, Frommer's, or some other publisher of restaurant guides around the country to produce a national version of my radio show, giving and taking dining and restaurant advice for every city in America. One of my motivations for this is to keep the profile of New Orleans as a great food city alive and well until the big renaissance we'll have down the road. I am asking my radio station group to help me get this on the air; they have been so great about everything else during this crisis that I hope they will.
Again, if you know of a radio station wherever you are that sounds like the kind of station where a food show might make sense, please let me and them know.
