"my new orleans" news and stories

Celebrated New Orleans chef John Besh has not one, but two upcoming TV shows. The first, Inedible to Incredible, will be on TLC starting in mid June. Besh smartly describes it as the What Not to Wear of the food world.

"It's people who mean well about food but eat terribly and no one has the heart to tell them," explains Besh to Slashfood. "I go in and help them. One reason I really wanted to do the show is because I can attract a huge audience and teach people about food. Unfortunately today there are a lot of people who rely too much on overly processed food. Hopefully I can introduce them to farmers' markets, alternatives in the supermarkets and offer them some cooking tips.

The second show will be on PBS and is based on -- and shares the title of -- his 2009 cookbook, My New Orleans. The series will be a celebration of the wonderfully rich New Orleans culinary heritage. Besh is following in the footsteps of another local chef made good -- Paul Prudhomme -- and even checked with the big man to make sure he was OK with him doing the show before he took up the mantle.

Photo: Andrews McMeel

'My New Orleans - The Cookbook: 200 of My Favorite Recipes from My Hometown'
By John Besh
Photographs by Ditte Isager
Andrews McMeel -- 2009
Buy it on Amazon

Chef John Besh's magnum opus on the food of his hometown could easily be mistaken for a coffee table-style photography book edited by someone with one heck of a food fetish. That'd be only partially correct.

Besh celebrates and contextualizes New Orleans cuisine within a reverent, passionate travelogue and memoir based around the ingredients and food rituals of a full year in the Big Easy. In this 374-page volume, the chef, restaurateur (including August, Lüke, Besh Steak, Domenica, La Provence and the upcoming the American Sector at the National WWII Museum), "Next Iron Chef" contender, former Marine and father of four weaves an intimate, illustrated narrative of a life lived deliciously in one of the world's most important food cities.

Through touching vignettes from his childhood, emergence into chefhood and post-Katrina rebuilding efforts, as well as informative sidebars about key Creole and Cajun ingredients and paens to his favorite food haunts, Besh stokes and slakes a multitude of hungers for lovers of this city on the mend.

It's also one hell of a cookbook.

See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.