eating identity: come out for tuesday's feast of words

Order Tickets & View Maps to Blurred Identity: A Literary Potluck

Read the Feast of Words Blog & Learn About the Chef!
Culinary guest Peter Jackson is the executive chef of Canvas Underground, a supperclub that aims to bring people together for great food and cool art in ever-chaning venues. The collective is a port of the Ghetto Gourmet dining party network, which is continuing the Bay Area's guerilla cooking tradition. Past Canvas Underground dinner parties have inculded a "Depression Dinner" and a four course meal in a foreslosed West Oakland Victorian. canvasunderground.wordpress.com

My Life in Sugar: The Bûche de Noël of Peace

	Buche de Noel 2010 A set by meetingfaith » You can also view all 15 items as a slideshow How your Bûche de Noël can help achieve world peace: First assemble all your friends (Bailey's Irish Cream Liqueur, heavy cream, bittersweet Scharfenburger chocolate, Dutch cocoa) to make a giant Ho-Ho. Decorate said Ho-Ho with marzipan mushrooms (dotted with cocoa "dirt"), coconut "snow", fresh currants, and boughs of snowy (i.e., sugared) rosemary. Fun! En route to Christmas Eve dinner, have a meltdown at the prospect that folks might actually consume your masterpiece. After a few vodkas, walk into the kitchen to find the Arab, African-American, Nordic, Nigerian & Check-Other dinner guests bowing down before your creation in unified, cross-cultural genuflection. Flushed with the possibility of interfaith tolerance and understanding (or with vodka), consent to the knife. Be less ambitious at the Nigerian Christmas party the next day. Bake a mantelikakku (Finnish almond cake) and fill with lingonberry preserves. Place said kakku next to giant, African-village-sized vats of Jollof Rice & Fried Plantain, Egusi Soup & Pounded Yam, Turkey & Salad. Watch how they get along. Your entire cultural heritage on a table.

Food Bloggery: My Cunning (and completely unnecessary) Plan to Stalk Dianne Jacob

Tonight I finally made it to 18 Reasons (the amazingly active educational arm of Bi-Rite Creamery). As I've just started blogging, I figured I could use some help, and what better way to start than with a workshop on How to Write a Food Blog? Even more exciting, Dianne Jacob, whom I've been dying to meet, was teaching the workshop. 

I use her classic, Will Write for Food: The Complete Guide to Writing Cookbooks, Blogs, Reviews, Memoir, and More, for teaching both food writing and memoir (it's that good). Turns out it's just been seriously updated and expanded, with a huge section on the whole crazy Food Blogging Phenom. It also turns out that Dianne Jacob alone is completely worth the price of admission - opinionated, hilarious, friendly. 

Case in point: Just as I was taking my seat, I heard a woman marvel, "Half Nigerian and half Norwegian!" 


"Hey, that's me!" I blurted, hopping up (despite the fact I'm Finnish, not Norwegian). It was Dianne herself and we were soon making plans to meet. How lovely is that? (Clearly no need for bloggery plottery.)


Though apparently my interest in food blogging does not extend beyond photographing my meals with my BlackBerry and posting them on Facebook (along with the occasional photo of my cats eating popcorn), I did get tons of ideas and inspiration for how to design and focus a blog. Dianne: "Your blog has to say more than I LOVE FOOD!" (jazz hands)!

The only downside was that the man sitting next to me, a loud, fidgety, know-it-all, bellowed in my ear for two hours (where's a desperate housewife with a pocketful of Ritalin when you need it?). So after getting my book signed, I had to head straight to Bi-Rite Creamery for some seasonal ice cream therapy (eggnog with brandy). The peppy man in line behind me was moved to say that I was a beautiful curly-haired Nigerian-Finn and that I could (and should!) try every flavor, no matter how many folks were in line. 


Aww, how Santa is that (if Santa were a jolly South Asian man with a weakness for salted caramel ice cream, and why not)?