One of the coolest emails I got last year was an invitation to speak at the New York Public Library. I’m a book nerd, and so growing up the library was always held in reverence as The Temple of All Culture. It was The Good Place. The Tower of Knowledge (and new books to read). So getting invited to speak at a library gives me a deep, warm glow that nothing else can equal…except maybe really top quality cocaine.
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Libraries! The cocaine of reading!
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So, this is happening! On Monday, January 14th, starting at 6:30pm, Dirt Candy is going to be at the Mid-Manhattan Branch of the New York Public Library talking about food, vegetables, and comic books. And this time out you can see all three cookbook amigos: I’ll be talking about vegetables and restaurants, my husband will be talking about the history of vegetarian restaurants in New York, and Ryan Dunlavey will be talking about food comic books and graphic novels. It’s three doses of useless knowledge for the price of one. And that one is priced at Free!
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Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis, and there will probably be some scary people in the bathrooms doing things we don’t even want to know about, but it’s at the library and how cool is that?!?
About two weeks ago, I polished off my last out-of-town cookbook event of the year in Medford, MA. This was one I really wasn’t sure about, and it wound up being one of the most successful. My sister-in-law lives in Medford and she was the driving force in getting this together and she’s one of those organized people who start something rolling and then you just get out of the way or you get crushed. So when she told me that she wanted the Friends of the Medford Public Library to sponsor a Dirt Candy event I agreed because, well, I like libraries, I like my sister-in-law, and seeing my nephews isn’t half-bad. Little did I know…
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By the time this event was finished, cars would be destroyed, food would be donated and eaten in astounding quantities, massive numbers of cookbooks would be sold, and I would learn the meaning of Moxie.
Two of my favorite people are Karen Page and Andrew Dornenberg, authors of The Flavor Bible which is a book I was basically married to when I was thinking about opening Dirt Candy. They’ve become big boosters of the restaurant, and regular customers, and so I was over the moon when they invited me to join them at a book signing they’re doing at the Union Square Greenmarket this coming Saturday, December 15 starting at noon and ending at 2pm.
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They’ll be signing and selling copies of The Flavor Bible and their wine books, and I’ll be signing and selling copies of the Dirt Candy cookbook and it’s going to be a lot of fun. Because when’s the last time you could get a copy of the cookbook personally inscribed for the holidays and pick up a bunch of gorgeous vegetables to keep you company while you read it?
When I catered the Racked Awards I had to come up with a bunch of food that would work at an event like this. They asked me to make upscale comfort food, and so I turned out things like a new PB&J sandwich (edamame butter and ginger jelly in a steamed bun), Shepherd’s Pie Puffs, and a simple, straightforward cucumber roll. I figured this was going to get lost in the shuffle, only popular with starving models who wouldn’t eat carbs. I was floored when it turned out to be the most popular dish at the event. Even at the Food Film Festival I had more than one person come up and ask if I was going to serve them again. Sometimes a simple cucumber can surprise you!
Medford is Boston, right? I mean, it’s a suburb and you can take the T from Boston to Medford, so it’s basically the same city. I think? Geographical quibbling aside, I’m going to be in Medford this coming weekend, Saturday December 1st, from 3 – 5pm. Sponsored by the Friends of the Medford Public Library and the Tufts Culinary Society, I’m going to be talking about how to cook vegetables, signing cookbooks, and there’s going to be a ton of food. I’m bringing Portobello Mousse with Truffle Toast, and a bunch of local restaurants are donating dishes. This is an event to benefit the FOTMPL and TCS and while the event itself is free there will be all kinds of ways to give them your money while you’re there.
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See, Medford’s pretty!
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So come on up, hear me talk about how to keep your vegetables from turning into sad, gray piles of failure when you cook them at home, buy a cookbook, get it signed, and eat some food. There are far, far worse ways to spend your Saturday afternoon, and it’s for a great cause (said cause being libraries). The Boston Globe even picked this as one of the five things you should do in Boston this week. See! I told you this was in Boston!
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“Vegetables! I am coming for you!”
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The event is being called “Vegetables: Friend or Foe?” and it will take place at Tufts’s Sophia Gordon Hall (15 Talbot Avenue) and you can find all the details here.
A while back, Dirt Candy was invited to be part of The Food Film Festival and so my husband and his editor, Matt London, set out to make a short film for Dirt Candy called “Vegetables: Friend or Foe?” We’re going to be in Chicago for the installment of the Food Film Festival this weekend (we’re up Saturday night) but after that I’m going to put it up online for everyone to watch. I also agreed to be the vegetarian option at the NY Food Film Fest parties following three of the screenings. It was actually a lot of fun and I was really happy when Gael Greene tweeted that her favorite film at the fest was “Vegetables: Friend or Foe?” and her favorite dish was my Tomato Cakes. Hopefully it’ll be as much fun in Chicago!
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The party space in the lobby of the Loew’s on Third Avenue and 11th Street.
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We got to set up at the candy counter!
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Looking out over the floor at Saxon & Parole on the last night.
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Lots and lots and lots of Tomato Cakes.
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This is what these events look like from my POV: an eternal hand eternally taking food off my table.
I totally got overwhelmed and forgot to post photos from the dinner I did down in Charleston, SC about a month ago. To make it up to the universe, here’s some produce porn, because one of the highlights? Working with local farmers to cook their amazing vegetables.
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Random produce.
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Oyster mushrooms from the Trappist monks at Mepkin Abbey.
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More Mepkin mushrooms.
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Sweetbay Produce sent us some of their “extra” basil. That is A LOT of basil.
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Fresh eggs from a guy on down the road on James Island
who just happened to have some chickens.
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I’ve never seen mega-lemongrass this massive. It’s from the folks at Compost in My Shoe.
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Nice kohlrabi, lady.
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Fridge full o’basil.
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This arugula from Sweetbay Produce was some of the most peppery, intense arugula I’ve ever had in my life. He says he’s going to ship me a box of it soon. Yes!
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45 people in a round house about to have dinner.
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Starting to plate cauliflower and waffles.
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Getting ready.
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Helen, who kicked butt. This whole dinner would have flopped if she hadn’t been down in Charleston organizing it and then she spent all night with me cooking. She’s truly a superhero.
A few people asked me why I presented Stephen Chow’s GOD OF COOKERY at the sold out Alamo Drafthouse event in Austin last week. Why a Chinese movie paired with vegetarian food? The reason is simple: Stephen Chow changed my life.
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Yes, this guy. I made life decisions based on him.
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“Because I am so cool.”
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Back when I was at NYU, my husband and I started going to the Music Palace, which was a rundown Chinese movie theater on the Bowery. Tickets were $6 for a double feature and they showed the latest movies from Hong Kong. We didn’t know from Hong Kong, but it was cheap and fun and so we started going. The first two movies we saw were okay (I don’t remember them) and we went back a few weeks later and saw a double feature of the weird comedy, ALWAYS BE THE WINNER, which was fun but then we saw Stephen Chow’s LOVE ON DELIVERY and we never went back. This was a movie so bizarre, so strange, so ridiculous that it was like visiting another dimension.
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GOD OF COOKERY is one of the best food movies ever made, by the way. Kicks BABETTE’S FEAST right in the butt.
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We went back to the Music Palace religiously after that and, after graduating, we moved to Hong Kong because we loved the movies so much. We were there for a year and a bit and that was when I realized how amazing vegetarian food could be. Hong Kong is crammed with vegetarian restaurants, most of them doing Chinese Temple Cooking, and I realized how much more you could do with vegetables than I’d ever imagined. I ate better in Hong Kong than I have anywhere else on earth, and after I came back to the US I couldn’t get it out of my head. About two years later I was enrolled in cooking school and now I somehow own a restaurant.
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“That’s right, little girl. I want you to become a chef.”
Dirt Candy is on the road again! I’m heading to Chicago this coming weekend as part of the The Food Film Festival’s Chicago leg (running Nov. 15 – 18). I’ll be serving up Portobello Mousse and screening Dirt Candy’s short movie, Vegetables: Friend or Foe? on Saturday night as part of the closing night single malt whiskey screening and awards ceremony. It’s basically a big giant party where you can watch movies and get drunk. Also: eat food.
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Vegetables: Friend or Foe? is the short movie made by my husband and Matt London, and Gael Greene called it her favorite film of the Food Film Fest, NYC edition. Even better, if you’re buying a ticket and you’re a Dirt Candy Buddy (and of course you are if you’re reading this post) use the code CFFF12FILMS and get 33% off your tickets until Friday at 7pm.
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So come on out, eat some food, get in out of the cold, guzzle some booze, and watch movies (about food).
