Vera Stewart to Cook Up Fun at the Vidalia Onion Festival

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This year, VeryVera show host Vera Stewart will return to the Vidalia Onion Festival for the first time in several years on Tuesday, April 22, as she demonstrates her techniques and expertise in cooking with recipes centered around the Vidalia Onion.

Vera Stewart is a nationally- recognized TV personality, two-time cookbook author, and entrepreneur whose career in the food and hospitality industries spans four decades. She is also an accomplished speaker and covers a wide variety of topics, all of which are motivational. Overall, Vera’s philosophy is based on a winning attitude and passion for perfection.

This year’s Vidalia’s Cooking Experience is a reset of what began in the early years of the festival. These culinary demonstrations were put on first by Piggly Wiggly, then carried on by Bi-Lo for a few years before being reorganized by the festival committee and renamed the Culinary Extravaganza.

Several guests have shared their knowledge and expertise at the past Culinary Exravanganzas, such as local dietician and caterer Pam McIntyre Thompson, Chef Jeffery Buben of the Vidalia Restaurant in Washington DC, Jamie and Bobbie Dean from Savannah, and Macon native Mark Ballard. The run on this event was completed in 2019 with 12-year-old Saylor Herrin of Mt. Vernon, Georgia, who had just competed on Food Network’s “Kids Baking Championship.”

The COVID-19 pandemic cancelled the Culinary Extravanganza in 2020, as the Vidalia Onion Festival was unable to occur. Since this cancellation, the Vidalia Onion Festival Committee has taken time to evaluate the event and explore some new opportunities for what could be added to the festival; however, Vidalia Convention & Visitors Bureau Director Alexa Britton was set on Vidalia’s Cooking Experience returning.

'I just wasn't willing to give up on having this event. The festival should have Vidalia Onion food events – that's what our visitors inquire about and our local community has always supported,” Britton emphasized. “Several chefs reached out to us and we reached out to several as well over the last few years. I had heard of Vera’s show and read an article about her; when I talked to Vera the first time, I knew she was the one to help us kick this event off again. She's a Georgia native, so she appreciates our famous onion and has worked with one of our farms to showcase them.”

Vidalia’s Cooking Experience will begin at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 22, at The Dahlia, located at 200 SW Main Street in Downtown Vidalia. Vera will meet and greet attendees before and after her demonstration and will be signing and selling her cookbooks. Guests will also have the opportunity to taste Stewart’s creations during the event.

Tickets are limited and can be purchased for the event online at the Vidalia Onion Festival website. For more information, call (912) 538-8687.