Midwest Writers event featuring food writers

November: The Perfect Month for Food (Writing):

Our November meeting will be open to all. So please join us November 13 at Hackney's, 1514 East Lake Avenue in Glenview.

Dress code is business casual. Networking and check-in 6-6:30, dinner 6:30-7:30, program 7:30-8:30. $20 for members, $25 for non-members. Dress code is business casual. Reservations are required. Please RSVP to Mira Temkin ( miratemkin@gmail.com ) or to Sue Baugh ( lsb@core.com ). This is an open meeting so please feel free to bring guests so they can see what MWA is all about.

The panel will consist of three award-winning food writers who cover pretty much all aspects of food writing -- magazines, online, radio, and TV, and the discussion will cover such topics as what they do, how to get into food writing, and how food writing is changing:

David Hammond

David Hammond, a food/travel journalist living in Oak Park, Illinois, is a founder and moderator of LTHForum.com, the approximately 12K member Chicago-based culinary chat site. A returning guest on WLS and WGN AM radio, David has produced segments for WBEZ (91.5FM), including two seasons of the “Soundbites” series on the James Beard-nominated Eight Forty-Eight. David was featured on "Good Morning, America," "Chicago, Tonight," and Nippon TV when he developed recipes for preparing seasonal cicadas. He is the food blogger for Oakpark.com and provides a weekly food column in The Wednesday Journal. For almost three years, David contributed his “Food Detective” column to the Chicago Sun-Times, examining the ingredients, preparations, culture and history of what we eat; he continues this approach in his weekly “What to do with” column. He has written over 100 restaurant reviews for Chicago Reader and Time Out Chicago and four chapters (Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong) in this year’s “Street Food around the World: an Encyclopedia of Food and Culture.” Currently, he writes and produces a series of videos entitled “You Really Should Eat This,” which focus on outstanding dishes at local restaurants; two of these videos will be screened at the upcoming Food Film Festival.

Louisa Chu

Louisa Chu is co-host of Chewing the Fat at WBEZ Chicago Public Media. Louisa has appeared on Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, Iron Chef America, and Gourmet’s Diary of a Foodie. She was born in Hong Kong, raised in Chicago, attended culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, and apprenticed at El Bulli and Alinea. A cook, writer, and adventurer, Louisa can be usually be found walking the woods worldwide with her dog Kiba, a 100 pound Malamute mix adopted in Alaska.

Mike Sula

Mike Sula is the Chicago Reader's lead restaurant critic and has been a contributor there since 1995. He's also written about politics, crime, film, health care, and paleontology, and profiled a rainbow of urban eccentrics. His work has been published in Harper's, the Chicago Tribune, and the New York Post, and his story about outlaw charcuterie appeared in the collection Best Food Writing 2010. His story "Chicken of the Trees," about eating city squirrels was Sula’s third nomination in the James Beard Foundation Awards for food journalism, and won its M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award. It appeared in Best Food Writing 2013.

Cynthia wrote:We're still taking reservations for this event. If you have any interest in food writing, you might find this worthwhile.

nr706 wrote:I understand about all the meeting rooms at Lake Street ... makes complete sense to hold it there. I was just saying that I personally like the older-timey nature of the Harms interior, and of course the outdoor patio is a real asset that's completely irrelevant in November.