Food For Haiti

Westporter Ramin Ganeshram, a veteran journalist and chef, is hosting a food festival Saturday to help Haiti and contribute to the U.N. World Food Programme.

The U.N. organization is working to bring much-needed relief to more than 3 million Haitians devastated by the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Port-au-Prince last week.

The event, organized in part by the Saugatuck Nursery School, is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Jan. 30 at Saugatuck Congregational Church. For $7, participants can sample food from a variety of vendors, purchase baked goods and participate in an auction of cookbooks signed by celebrity chefs and children's books signed by the authors.

A dinner for four with Food Network Chef Daisy Martinez at the New Rochelle's Don Coqui restaurant in New York will also be auctioned off at the event, as will signed copies of her new cookbook, "Daisy Cooks," which is scheduled for release in March. Martinez will also be the event's emcee.

The auction will also include a copy of "Julia & Julia" signed by Julie Powell, three signed copies of Bravo TV's Top Chef Masters contestant Rick Moonen's cookbook, "Fish Without a Doubt," signed copies of New York Times food writer Molly O'Neill's "New York Cookbook," and a signed copy of "The Legal Sea Foods Cookbook," which New Yorker Illustrator Ed Koren illustrated.

While Ganeshram's professional connections have allowed her to host this event with celebrity chefs and food writers, it was a personal connection that inspired her to do something large-scale to help the people of Haiti.

"I'm half-Trinidadian," she said of her Caribbean heritage. "That's why I'm doing this, because Haiti is our neighbor. I was visiting Trinidad during the Summit of the Americas when President Obama was there and one of the action items was that a fund for the help of Haiti had to be set up and this was before (the earthquake) happened. 

"So, this is something as a West Indian person in the Caribbean, it's very much on our collective mind that Haiti is desperate," she continued. "So, that is why I'm doing this."

Ganeshram wrote for the New York Times for eight years and has written as a food columnist for New York Newsday. She is a contributing food travel editor to Islands magazine and is the author of "Sweet Hands: Island Cooking from Trinidad & Tobago."

A second edition of her cookbook  is set to release in April and a portion of the proceeds from her book sales will also go toward the U.N. World Food Programme.

Anyone who is interested in being a food vendor at the event or would like to donate can call Ganeshram at 203-349-8647 or e-mail foodforhaiti@gmail.com.

Ticket pre-sales are also available on the food4haiti.org Web site.