Star chef Jody Adams, currently the owner of Porto, Saloniki and TRADE, will be at the South End library on Tuesday, December 5 at 6:30 PM, and give a demonstration on how to make pasta. Seating is limited. Additional tastings may become available. Final details are still being worked out. 

Italian food has been fundamental to Adams, who won the James Beard Foundation Award for the Perrier-Jouet Best Chef Award: Northeast in 1997. She traveled through the Mediterranean countries after graduating from Brown University with a degree in Anthropology, and began as a line cook at Seasons restaurant under chef Lydia Shire in 1983. Three years later, she helped open Hamersley’s Bistro as sous-chef of Gordon Hamersley's with whom she developed Hamersley's famous roasted chicken recipe. (By the time she left in 1990 she stayed away from eating chicken for two years, she says.) Adams also has a fantastically photographed and finely detailed food blog, The Garum Factory, with recipes ranging from Duck Ragu with Pancetta and Green Olives to Passion Fruit Sponge Custard, and everything in between. 

In 1990, Adams became executive chef at Michela’s in Cambridge where she combined New England ingredients with Italian culinary traditions. In September of 1994, Adams opened Rialto in Cambridge. In addition to running Rialto, Adams published a cookbook, In the Hands of a Chef: Cooking with Jody Adams of Rialto Restaurant. She co-wrote the book with her husband, Ken Rivard. Copies will be available for sale at the December 5 event.

The widely admired chef has a strong reputation of supporting local farms and purveyors. In 2008, she launched an internal educational program, Guerilla Grilling, designed to connect her staff to the farmers and artisan producers that supply the restaurant. Adams is actively involved in organizations that support child’s advocacy and hunger relief, including the Greater Boston Food Bank, Share Our Strength and Partners In Health. In October 2010  was presented with the Humanitarian of the Year award by Share Our Strength.