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Guests, Kids and Up, Are Invited to the Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta for a Creative, Culinary, and Cultural Experience on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2–4 p.m.

Atlanta, Ga., September 22, 2009 – Erstwhile bad-boy chef Paul Luna kicks off the official Atlanta release of his bilingual kids’ book, Luna Needs a Miracle! ¡Luna Necesíta un Milagro!, in a one-time-only collaboration with the Four Seasons Atlanta and its executive chef, Robert Gerstenecker.

On Saturday, October 3, from 2 – 4 p.m., kids and kids-at-heart are invited to the Four Seasons Atlanta (75 Fourteenth St.), to cook up something different with chefs Luna and Gerstenecker. The two will lend their culinary expertise, share their creative genius and unveil the secret recipes for eating well and living well!

• Chefs Luna and Gerstenecker will jointly lead a hands-on cooking demonstration safe enough for kids—but fun for parents, too.
• Chef Luna will make available his recently-published and released dual-language children’s book for review, purchase and signing.
• Chef Luna will also discuss his experiences cycling across the country back to Atlanta. (Visit www.CrossCountryChef.blogspot.com for updates of his progress.)

The event is chef Luna’s Atlanta debut after a decade-long absence from the Peach. The enfant terrible of culinary shifted his attentions from the kitchen to develop the story of a Spanish-speaking boy who worries about not speaking English on his first day in school. Chef Luna left his California residence by bicycle on September 10, to promote the book with a 2,500-mile cross-country bicycle quest for a miracle. His scheduled Atlanta arrival is Friday, Oct. 2.

Executive Chef Robert Gerstenecker, known for his flair in creating southern contemporary dishes, maintains a precise touch and uses the finest seasonal ingredients available. He has led the Park 75 kitchen at Four Seasons since 2004.

The Four Seasons Atlanta and chef Gerstenecker will be chef Luna’s first formal hosts to Georgia’s capital. For more information, or to confirm attendance, please call Park 75 at (404) 253-3840 or email park75host.atl@fourseasons.com.

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About Paul Luna
Paul Luna’s impressive 25-year career in culinary includes work with some of the world’s finest chefs in some of the world’s most reputed establishments, from Michele Attali at Petrossian in Paris, Terrance Brennan at New York City’s Picholine, to Gianni Scappin of Bice Ristorante, Milan. He has also opened and run a number of successful establishments in Washington, Atlanta, Italy and Canada, and, in the process, has had his creativity formally recognized in numerous media outlets.

Known for recreating himself, he has surprised his clients, friends and customers with his transition to author. Chef Luna wrote, published and released a bilingual children’s book, Luna Needs a Miracle! ¡Luna Necesíta un Milagro!, in August 2009. Currently, his efforts are focused on marketing and promoting his new endeavor while communicating a love for living in fearlessness and courage.

About Robert Gerstenecker
A 16-year veteran of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Gerstenecker joined Park 75 Restaurant as executive chef in September 2004, a promotion he considers a culinary dream come true. A former executive sous chef at Four Seasons Atlanta from 1998-2002, he helped open Park 75 and played an instrumental role in developing the restaurant’s menu.

Gerstenecker, who best describes his food as “a use of the best ingredients cooked to perfection,” also says that any great dish must include the three T’s—taste, texture and technique—and consist of flavors he describes as the three S’s—sweet, salty and sour. “My menu is always creative, vibrant and a reflection of the best and freshest ingredients cooked and prepared with passion.”

Park 75—one of only two Mobil Four-Star restaurants in Georgia for the eighth year in a row—is a 68-seat restaurant focused on southern food—redefined.

About Four Seasons Atlanta
Located in the heart of Midtown’s cultural district, Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta, a 244-room luxury hotel, is the city’s premier address for visitors. Where warmth and graciousness prevail, Four Seasons Hotel Atlanta offers hospitality, convenience, personalized service and elegance to each guest. It is the only Mobil Five-Star, AAA Five-Diamond hotel in Atlanta for eight years in a row and in was voted “Best Hotel in Atlanta” by Zagat Survey.

What is free?  What does it mean?  Free of ambition, greed, prejudice, pleasure, pain, sorrow.  You go to a restaurant and management buys you a glass of wine, complimentary, hence free. Is it free?  It may be free to you but not free to the restaurant.  Understanding what’s free is understanding what is to be prisoned.  Am I a prisoner of thinking, thought?  Is the mind limited?  Will I forever be a prisoner of what I think therefore live the past?  Think is thought.  That is a fact.  That is how we think.  You think present live the past.  Do you understand the problem?  We have been conditioned to think.  Why?  It is not difficult to understand the world’s problem is you and I.  You and I are the cause of the problem.  What is difficult to believe without belief is you do not know why. Ask yourself  the question: Am I born to be?

While at the restaurant today, I overheard a guest respond to the host that his party was “three, and a half,” indicating that he was accompanied by two adults and a child. I don’t think the child overheard this comment, but I did, and it made me think about the way adults oftentimes do not view the child in their presence as a complete being.

What does this announcement say to the child? And what does it say about the person who made the declaration that the third person in his party was a “half”? At what point is the child expected to be whole? And at what point will the adult in the child’s presence acknowledge that child as whole?

Because I come from a large family, I have been a witness to the rearing of children since becoming an uncle in my single digits and into my adult-age uncle-status. And I have heard how adults speak to children of varying ages. One phrase from my own childhood that I’ve heard repeated with many other children is: “You should know better; you are no longer a child.”

When I heard this customer refer to his “half-guest”, it dawned on me how it could be potentially confusing to a “whole person” (whether child or adult) regarding how she or he should … be. Would it not stem, therefore that the adult who believes in the “half-guest” struggles himself with his sense of identity or wholeness?

Does this comment indicate a “half adult” for not seeing the “wholeness” of the child in his presence? What do you think?