Crank Up the Culinary Calendar, From Soup Sunday to CSA Fair and More

After the craziness of the holidays and the snow day malaise of January, folks are itching to get out of the house. I’ve spoken to several restaurant and bar owners who say last month was reeaallly slow, but February feels posed for a strong rebound. Fortunately, there's a boatload of cool events and opportunities to get out and enjoy some fun culinary events. So many, in fact, that I’ve decided to compile them into this mega-post to catch you up. Pour yourself a tall one and get ready to carve out some eatin’ time:

• The event that is closest on the calendar is the Chinese New Year celebration and Night Market at Tànsuǒ this Friday, Feb. 16. The contemporary Chinese restaurant will feature dinner specials that evening plus Lion Dancers and a night-market-inspired party with complimentary entertainment, dim sum and drinks.

Here are the rest of the details:

For good luck and fortune in the new year, Chinese Lion Dancers from Nashville’s Chinese Arts Alliance will perform a traditional dance throughout the restaurant at 7:30 p.m. The celebration will continue after dinner with the Night Market party at 10 p.m. Evoking the atmosphere of a lively Chinese night market, guests can expect music from DJ Treekeeper, silk dancers from local group Suspended Gravity, and complimentary dim sum and drinks.

Chinese New Year dinner specials will be served a la carte, including traditional Yu Sheng (Prosperity Toss Salad) made with ingredients to signify different wishes for the new year, such as peppers for money, peanut crumbs for eternal youth and noodles for long life. Other specials include Shanghainese Salted Pork Soup with shiitake, bamboo shoots, tofu, crispy shallots; Cantonese Sweet and Sour Ribs, and Hunan-Style Blood Orange Chicken served with Shaoxing sweet potatoes and preserved Yu Choy (Chinese greens). Dinner guests will also receive a traditional gift of good luck in a red envelope, known as a Lai See, which will include special offers for the restaurant.

Dinner reservations can be made through OpenTable.

• Pableaux Johnson is again bringing his popular Red Beans Road Show back to town Tuesday, Feb. 20, at Biscuit Love in the Gulch. This is his third pass through Karl and Sarah Worley’s biscuitorium, and the festivities will kick off with drinks and snacks at 6:30 p.m. followed by an extremely sociable dinner of red beans and rice where attendees will be encouraged, nay required, to make some new friends. Buy your $50 ticket at the event website. Both meaty and vegetarian/vegan options are available.

• Here's an important and informative one: Saturday, Feb. 24, is the date for this year’s CSA Fair sponsored by the Nashville Farmers' Market and Local Table Magazine. The free event at the downtown market will run from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Attendees will get a chance to meet farmers, discuss their individual growing methods, harvest schedules and pickup locations. There will also be a workshop on what a CSA is and how it works, as well as printed materials to peruse explaining the community-sponsored agriculture process.

The public will then be given a chance to meet one on one with many of the local CSA farmers servicing the Metro Nashville area to find out more about their operations. It's definitely not too early to consider signing up for a spring CSA.

Here’s the list of participating CSAs:

Myers Farm Beef

Ladies of the Lamb

Bells Bend Farm

Green Door Gourmet

White's Family Farm

No. 9 Farms

KLD Farms LLC

Walnut Hill Farms

Virgin Bay Seafood

TN Grassfed

Old School Farm

Hill & Hollow Farm

The Farm & Fiddle

Bloomsbury Farms

Athena's Harvest Farm

Barefoot Farmer

Farmhouse Nashville

Stomping Ground Herb

Wedge Oak Farm

Sweeter Days Farm

• The Southern Foodways Alliance is holding its annual Winter Symposium just a few hours down the road in Birmingham, Ala., on Saturday, Feb. 24. This educational event usually focuses on a specific theme within the world of Southern food, and is always a fascinating opportunity to bring the SFA hive mind together in person. Here’s how they describe the day’s plan:

Appealing to curious eaters, food professionals, content creators, editors, and others, attendees of the Winter Symposium will hear stories about the dynamic American South, the latest cultural trends, new perspectives, and more. Tickets are $150 per person, inclusive of food and drink (available here) — an SFA membership is not required to purchase. A few of the event’s speakers and participants are listed below, and you can see the full lineup here.

CNN’s Moni Basu speaking about how narratives effect change

Clay Risen and Fawn Weaver discuss whiskey and credit

David Hagedorn considers paradigms

Tom Ward and Ralph Eubanks discuss Al Clayton’s Still Hungry in America

Rosalind Bentley talks radical hospitality

• The 25th annual

is will take place on Sunday (duh!), Feb. 25. Our Kids will host at least 1,500 patrons and 50 restaurants at Nissan Stadium to decide who makes Nashville’s best soup. Proceeds benefit

, a Nashville nonprofit helping those affected by child sexual abuse. You can find out the participating restaurants

along with a list of the celebrity judges that include several local favorite chefs and even PGA golfer Brandt Snedeker. (Go Sneds!) Tickets are selling out quickly, so you might want to visit that link to pick up yours ASAP.

• Finally, it’s not too soon to start planning for the big Bloody Mary Festival coming up on Sunday, March 11, at Track One, 1211 Fourth Ave. S.  If you like your tomato soup served cold and with vodka, this is the day for you as the largest bloody mary festival in the country makes its first visit to Nashville in the fifth year of the fest’s existence.

The organizers have curated a selection of some of the best bloodys made by local bars or with artisan mixes. Attendees will be able to taste them all as part of their ticket, $45 (general admission); $65 (VIP), and then select the “People’s Choice Award.” A panel of industry judges will also select the “Best Bloody Mary in Nashville.”

Tickets to the festival include unlimited tastes of all participating Bloody Marys, plus local food and beverage samples. There will also be live musical entertainment to keep the party pumping. The event will benefit Fannie Battle, a local nonprofit that provides high-quality child care to low-income households.