Taste of support

Tuesday’s annual Taste of Coastal Carolina is a culinary event as well as one designed to create awareness for the Neuse Riverkeeper Foundation’s efforts against pollution.

In addition to the fundraisers’ tasting and chef’s contest, author David Kirby will be on hand for a book-signing of his latest environmental expose, “Animal Factory.”

In the book, Kirby looks at the environmental, social and economic issues of how chicken, pork and beef are raised and marketed.

He traces the system from the start on the large industrial farms to the average dinner table.

According to his Web site, Kirby “exposes the powerful business and political interests behind large-scale factory farms, and tracks the far-reaching fallout that can contaminate our air, land, and water supply.”

Kirby has been a regular contributor to the Huffington Post since it began in 2005, and he has been a professional journalist for more than 15 years. Kirby has also written for many national magazines. Kirby was a foreign correspondent in Mexico and Central America from 1986 to 1990, covering the wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua. He has also covered politics, corruption and natural disasters in Mexico.

Kirby, who lives in Brooklyn, has also worked in politics, medical research and public relations.

Prior to the Riverkeeper event, Kirby will be on hand at Books-A-Million for a 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. book-signing.

More than 28 restaurants in the region will be represented at the Tuesday event at the New Bern Riverfront Convention Center.

The evening includes food sampling of the restaurants’ signature dishes, a Culinary Combat contest with chefs from the region, a silent auction and a raffle for a ticket holder to be a guest judge.

The foundation’s “Culinary Combat” will challenge five regional chefs to use their creativity to produce a winning dish on site. It is similar to the Food Network’s show “Chopped.” The chefs will be given a market basket of ingredients and have 30 minutes to create a dish to present to a panel of judges.

The chefs include Andy Hopper of Chefs’ 105 in Morehead City; Chris Maravelas; Caroline Rooks of The Hurricane at Fairfield Harbour; Daniel Dunn of The Flame; Gabriel Maldonado of New Bern Golf and Country Club; and Tom Pristash from Christoph’s on the Water at the New Bern Hilton.

The judges are a diverse group, including state Rep. Alice Graham Underhill; Elizabeth Norfleet, a publisher who conducts cooking classes, maintains her own Web site, and develops and designs catalogs and food-related media; Gloria Russakov, a writer and food critic; Jeffrey Yourdon, head of the Culinary Technology Program at Lenoir Community College; and Judy Castranova, recipe contest winner, a writer for the Greenbrier Gazette, and author of two food blogs.

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Taste of Coastal Carolina

♦ When: Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the New Bern Riverfront Convention Center

♦ Sponsor: Neuse Riverkeeper Foundation.

♦ What: Food tastings, chef’s competition and silent auction.

♦ Who: More than 28 restaurants participating

♦ Featured: Book-signing by David Kirby, author of ‘Animal Factory’

♦ If you go: Tickets are $30 in advance, $35 at the door, and $25 for foundation members who buy in advance. The ticket does not include beverages. A cash bar will be available. Tickets are online at the foundation Web site, neuseriver.org; by telephone at 252-637-7972 and e-mail at info@neuseriver.org; or at the foundation office on Country Club Road or Mitchell Hardware or Harris Teeter.