Luncheon Lectures

Robert Schultz & James Shell; We Were Pirates: A Torpedoman's Pacific War
Wednesday, March 3, 2009 at 12:00 P.M.
$5.00 for members/$7.00 for non-members
Huntington Room - Brown Bag Lunch Lecture

Torpedoman Robert Hunt served on the USS Tambor from 1940-1944. He managed to survive an incredible 12 consecutive war patrols in the Pacific, covering just about every major event in the war against Japan. Robert Schultz and James Shell, authors of We Were Pirates: A Torpedoman's Pacific War, will discuss Hunt's extraordinary experiences as he makes his way from Pearl Harbor to the Battle of Midway, to Wake Island, and through a near-fatal 17-hour depth-charge attack. Drawing from Hunt's wartime diary, they will also examine how sailors dealt with the stress of war.

Robert Schultz
Robert Schultz is the Fishwick Professor of English at Roanoke College in Virginia. His books include a novel, The Madhouse Nudes, and two collections of poetry. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Award in Fiction, Cornell University's Corson Bishop Poetry Prize, and, from The Virginia Quarterly Review, the Emily Clark Balch Prize for Poetry.

James Shell
James Shell, has had fiction, nonfiction, and poetry published in several magazines and journals. A resident of Salem, VA, this is his first published full-length work.

Michael Krondl; A Taste of Conquest: The Rise and Fall of the Three Great Cities of Spice
Saturday, April 10, 2009 at 1:00 P.M.
Free for members and with paid Museum admission.
Huntington Room - Brown Bag Lunch Lecture

Lecture Title: Pepper and Spice: How Portuguese Mariners Changed the Way the World Eats

The perfect lecture for those who love history, food, or the history of food. Join author Michael Krondl as he transports you back to the world of early Portuguese explorers, their ships, and discover why spices captivated a continent and commenced the Age of Exploration. Fueled by the sensuous aromas and tastes of cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, and cloves, Europeans, led by the Portuguese, ventured out to discover new lands and new tastes. One result was a global food exchange that accompanied the Cape Horn route to India and changed the way the world ate.

Michael Krondl is a chef, food writer, and author of Around the American Table: Treasured Recipes and Food Traditions from the American Cookery Collections of New York Public Library. He has published articles in major magazines and contributed entries to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. He lives in New York City.