Come join us as Didem recounts growing up in Turkey where her family had olive trees in their backyard and she had olives, or olive paste every morning along with the traditional Turkish breakfast of tomatoes, cucumbers, feta, toast, and tea. She will talk about Turkish culture, the myriad health benefits of olive oil and will finish converting us with a taste of Turkey and its seductive "fruit juice."

Chef Girard gained his historical knowledge during his long association with the Grammy-winning guitarist Buddy Guy. It was Guy who years ago tapped Girard to help him revamp Buddy Guy's Legend, his namesake South Loop blues club.

While studying the food of the South, Girard became a student of blues music and culture. He determined that a Highway 61 menu would be the best fit for the world-famous nightclub. Highway 61 (a.k.a. "The Blues Highway"), which stretches more than 1400 miles along the banks of the Mississippi River, connects New Orleans to Baton Rouge, the Mississippi Delta, Memphis, St. Louis and points north. It was an important route on the journey to Chicago and was traveled by thousands of African-Americans, including some of the world's most influential musicians, during the Great Migration.

During Girard's nine-year tenure, the food at Legends was featured by dozens of international media outlets (including CBS, CNN, BET, New Yorker magazine, Gourmet magazine and the TV Food Network). Buddy Guy's Legends gained a reputation, not only as one of the world's most popular live music venues, but one of the best Cajun, Creole and soul food restaurants in the country.

Copies of Chef Girard's book will be available for purchase and signing, along with a tasting of his delectable pulled pork and cole slaw.

Besides serving in an executive capacity at the Foundation, Mr. Davis is also an adjunct professor and Ph.D. candidate in New York University's food studies program. He is the author of "The Mensch Chef" and "Cook Something", the co-writer of "Foie Gras" and a contributor to magazines such as GQ and Food & Wine.

Food samples from "Kitchen Sense" will be served, and copies will be available for purchase and signing, with all profits going to fund the Culinary Historians of Chicago.

British born Anne Willan earned a master's degree in economics from Cambridge University before following her love of cooking to study at Cordon Bleu in London and ultimately open La Varenne cooking school in Paris in 1975. The school is now located in her 17th-century Chateau du Fey in Burgundy. Ms. Willan has written more than a dozen cookbooks which have been translated into more than 20 languages. She hosted a 26-part PBS cooking series in the 1990s, and in 2000, Bon Appetit named her cooking teacher of the year. She has written for Gourmet, The Washington Post, and Travel and Leisure. She is a past president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals and is a founder and trustee of COPIA (The American Center for Wine, Food and The Arts). An avid culinary historian, Ms. Willan and her husband, economist Mark Cherniavsky, have amassed a distinguished collection of antiquarian cookbooks.

Biographical notes: Patricia Wells is the restaurant critic for the International Herald Tribune in Paris, and the author of several best-selling cookbooks, including The Paris Cookbook, The Food Lover's Guide to Paris, The Food Lover's Guide to France, Bistro Cooking and Patricia Wells at Home in Provence. She also conducts cooking programs in France. A native of Wisconsin, Patricia was a food writer and editor for The New York Times. Patricia and her husband, Walter, make their home in France.

In 1952, about 22 miles northwest of Chicago, an avid griller name George Stephen revolutionized grilling by adding one simple improvement to existing designs: a lid. Stephen cut a metal buoy in half to create the dome-shaped cooker and the Weber kettle grill was born.

Grilling and barbecuing are two distinct cooking methods. Yet, historically, Americans have lumped the two together and boondoggled the nature of live-fire cooking. Authors David Joachim and Andrew Schloss untangle the confusion as they approach the history of outdoor cooking from the perspective of science and believe in the power of asking "why?" Why do you brine a certain cut of meat but marinate another? Why do meats develop a better crust when grilled over charcoal than when grilled over gas? Why should meat be allowed to rest after grilling? Copies of their new book, "Mastering the Grill" will be available for purchase and signing, with all profits going to fund the Culinary Historians of Chicago.

Biographical notes: A frequent guest on radio and TV, David Joachim has authored, edited or collaborated on more than 30 cookbooks, including the award-winning The Food Substitutions Bible and The New York Times bestseller, A Man A Can A Grill. His "A Man, A Can..." series of books has sold more than 1 million copies. His website is www.davejoachim.com Andrew Schloss has also appeared frequently on radio and TV. A past president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, he has authored a dozen cookbooks, including Fifty Ways to Cook Most Everything One-Pot Cakes, Cooking with Three Ingredients, and Almost From Scratch. A former chef, his articles have appeared in Bon Appetit, and Family Circle, Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Join us as Chicago Tribune food writer, and Michigan native, Robin Mather Jenkins provides a portrait of her beloved Della Lutes and her legacy in culinary history.

Before joining the Tribune three years ago, Ms. Jenkins served as food editor at the Detroit News, senior writer at Cooking Light magazine and, for a short time, ran a goat cheese dairy that she started in Batesville, Mississippi. In 1995, she also wrote the first book on genetically modified crops and livestock and sustainable agriculture aimed at the mass market reader; A Garden of Unearthly Delights: Bioengineering and the Future of Food.

Ms. Jenkins is currently working on a book about Della Lutes.

Proud of her Greek heritage, she has served on the parish council of the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral, as President of the Professionals of the Annunciation Cathedral, as a board member and historian of the Hellenic Professional Society of Illinois, as a member of the Hellenic American Women's Council, as a member of the Greek Women's University Club, and program and event committee member of the Hellenic Museum and Cultural Center.

The Culinary Historians of Chicago
and

Present
Tales of the Berghoff
Presented by
Jan and Carlyn Berghoff, with Nancy Ross Ryan
October 27, 2007

Nancie McDermott's books include several best sellers on Thai cooking, including "Real Thai" and "The Curry Book." Her feature stories and recipes have appeared in Bon Appetit, Cooks' Illustrated, Food and Wine, and the Chicago Tribune. Nancie lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with her husband, her two daughters and her cake pans.

Photo by Antoinette Fields-Simpson