Marybeth

East Nashville Tomato Art Fest Longs for the Perfect Pizza What makes the perfect pizza? Ask this question over a couple of cold beers and you could have a shouting match on your hands. Do you long for the stringy mozzarella over crunchy thin crust, which you enjoyed at late night hours with college friends? Can you recite the phone number to the take-out place down the street, the one with the never-as-fast-as-they-promise home delivery, but the better-than-you-can-describe pepperoni and sausage special? Or are these options far too mundane for you, the pizza gourmand who prefers a pesto base, with toppings like artichokes and goat cheese? The East Nashville Tomato Art Fest invites you to tell us about your favorite pizza in our 2007 Tomato Fest Pizza Recipe contest. Send us your story; tell us what you like and why you like it. And then give us a recipe for your best pie. Stories should be 50-100 words (no, we won’t count, but we’re just saying that it doesn’t have to be a long story). And recipes may be for the pizza of your dreams, or the closest approximation you can manage in your kitchen. Our only rule: tomatoes must be involved – some how, some way. Use them in your sauce, or as a topping. Heck, roll them into the crust. We don’t care. Just use them. E-mail submissions to mypizzaisbest@hotmail.com. We’ll post a sampling online so you can see how others like their pie. Check in on the pizza progress each Monday at the Tomato Fest Web site: www.tomatoartfest.com. And, if you’re in Nashville for the Tomato Fest on August 11, we encourage you to enter our pizza contest in person. Make your pizza, deliver it for tasting to our celebrity judges, and win fabulous prizes! Yes, we said FABULOUS prizes. And, if you’re the lucky winner, you just might see your recipe featured on a menu at a favorite Nashville pizza haunt.

The heat of summer approaches. And with the heat come homegrown tomatoes. Bursting with juice. Sweet and fluent. Paired with country-cured bacon and a sheath of iceberg lettuce, the whole affair layered between shingles of white bread. Last year, at an event in Napa, California, chef John Currence of Oxford, Mississippi, threw down the gauntlet with a fine catfish BLT. We were impressed. So at the August 11-12 Camp Nashville we'll serve catfish BLT's from chef Sean Brock, a onetime Nashville resident now cooking at McCrady's in Charleston, South Carolina. Though we recognize that the marriage of bacon, lettuce, tomato, and catfish is inspired, we are wondering how you accessorize and improvise your BLT's. Thus this call for recipes. Tell us your tricks. Share your embellishments. Send us your recipes and be sure to tell us a story of how and why this recipe came to be. We'll report back later this summer, just in time for the East Nashville Tomato Art Festival. Please be sure to include your name and a contact address (e-mail and USPS address) with each recipe and story. Submitted entries may be published by the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi. Send entries to: Mary Beth Lasseter Southern Foodways Alliance Barnard Observatory P.O. Box 1848 University, MS 38677 or e-mail to sfamail@olemiss.edu

For those who were interested in slug burgers, you might be interested in Corinth, Mississippi's annual Slugburger Festival. It's held each July, so plan your vacation accordingly. You can find more info from the Corinth Visitors Bureau, 800-748-9048. Their website was down at last check, but the phones are working!

For those in the Tupelo, Mississippi, area -- you might enjoy attending a brown bag lunch lecture this spring (March 1) to hear about the history of the Slug Burger and the annual Slug Burger Festival hosted by the city of Corinth. The Office of Outreach at the University of Mississippi is now sponsoring a southern food lunch lecture series on its satellite campuses in Tupelo and Desoto. More info at http://www.outreach.olemiss.edu/