Local chefs lend talents to holiday cooking series

CHAPEL HILL -- Renowned Triangle-area cooks and chefs will lend their talents to an upcoming series designed to prove a sometimes forgotten fact – that holiday food can be both delicious and healthy.

"In Good Taste: Healthy Holiday Fare" will be held 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays Nov. 3 through 24 at the Wellness Center at Meadowmont. Cost is $225 per person, and registration is due by Oct. 27.

Sponsors are the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education, the Wellness Center at Meadowmont, Carolina Catering and Wide Eye Café.

The series will help participants create a healthy and delicious holiday menu with recipes from participating chefs. Maudy Benz, food writer and author, will host the demonstration of techniques and recipes. Anne-Marie Scott, director of health education at the Wellness Center, will answer questions about nutrition and diet.

After the demonstration and discussion, participants will have an opportunity to converse with the featured chefs and enjoy a generous tasting of the dish prepared in that evening’s session.

Following is a schedule of programs and featured chefs:

• "Holiday Vegetables" with Mildred Council of Mama Dip’s Kitchen, Nov. 3: Council, "Mama Dip," was born in Chatham County. She first learned to cook by watching family members make meals using the "dump cooking" method, cooking without recipes or measuring. Council’s first job was as a family cook in Chapel Hill; she then worked at the Carolina Coffee Shop, Kappa Sigma Fraternity and St. Anthony Hall. She opened her restaurant in 1976, and UNC Press published her cookbook, "Mama Dip’s Kitchen," in 1999.
  
  
• "Holiday Appetizers" with Sara Foster of Foster’s Market, Nov. 10: Foster is the founder-owner of Foster’s Market in Durham and Chapel Hill. She has worked as a chef for Martha Stewart’s catering company, as well as for several well-known New York chefs and caterers. She has been featured in Martha Stewart Living, House Beautiful, Country Home and Southern Living, and she appears regularly on the "Martha Stewart Living" television series. Her most recent book is "Foster’s Market Cookbook," published in 2002.
  
  
• "Holiday Entrée" with Brian Stapleton of the Carolina Inn’s Crossroads Restaurant, Nov. 17: Stapleton joined the Carolina Inn’s staff in 1999. Voted "Triangle Chef of the Year" for 1999, he has worked in Palm Beach, St. Louis, Atlanta and Boston. A graduate of the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, Stapleton frequents local farmers’ markets for fresh produce. He was the guest chef at the James Beard Foundation in August and was recently a guest on Bill Friday’s "North Carolina People" on UNC-TV.
  
  
• "Holiday Desserts" with Heather Moseley of Weaver Street Market, Nov. 24: Originally from North Carolina, Moseley moved to Charleston, S.C., to specialize in baking and pastry at Johnson & Wales University’s college of culinary arts, where she graduated with highest honors with an applied science degree in baking and pastry arts. She honed her skills at the four-star Peninsula Grill in Charleston before moving back to North Carolina. She writes a monthly newsletter column for Weaver Street Market focusing on what her department is doing seasonally with fresh items.
  

The Wellness Center at Meadowmont is owned and operated by UNC Hospitals and located on Sprunt Street, right off Meadowmont Lane.

For more information or to register, click on www.fridaycenter.unc.edu/cni/goodtaste.htm or call (919) 962-2643 or (800) 845-8640.

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Friday Center contact: June Blackwelder, (919) 962-2595 or june_blackwelder@unc.edu