Friday Arts March 2018

In March, Friday Arts is celebrating Women’s History Month with three stories showcasing the many achievements of local women in the culinary field.

The show starts with a segment from 2011 featuring Les Dames d’Escoffier, an international philanthropic society of professional women in the fields of food, sustainable farming, fine beverage, and hospitality. We meet and hear stories of how some of these very accomplished women got their start. Find out why these women have made a commitment to provide opportunities and mentoring to promising women who too want a career in the food industry.

Then we remember the story of Ellen M. Emlen, featured in 2012. Tara O’Brien, Director of Conservation and Preservation at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, talks about the process of restoring a one of a kind cookbook found in the archives of HSP. She reveals the history hidden behind some of its historical recipes and even cooks some desserts that were trendy in the 19th Century.

Philabundance was featured on Friday Arts in 2014 when it celebrated 30 years of service as a hunger relief organization in the Delaware Valley serving up to 75,000 people a week. It all started with a single woman, Pamela Rainey Lawler, realizing the need for connecting people in need with food. She first would use her small station wagon but now Philabundance is run by ten trucks daily, 100 staff, thousands of volunteers and has 400 member agencies.

We get an update on each of the organizations, learn what their new programs are, and what has changed since their stories were first featured on Friday Arts.