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You don’t live in New York? No problem! This Fall, Dirt Candy is coming to YOU!

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Saturday, October 13 @ 6pm
Dinner in Charleston, SC
Dirt Candy is heading down South to do a five-course dinner with LIME, a local gang that does pop-up dinners. I’m the first out-of-town chef they’ve worked with and I’m working with local suppliers, like Sweetbay Produce, to deliver a pretty awesome, booze-soaked, produce-saturated, superhero dinner in a secret location that won’t be announced until two days before it happens. Tickets are still available!

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Saturday, October 20 @ 12:30pm
Food Film Festival, NYC
Remember that book trailer we did for the cookbook? The folks behind that (my husband, Ryan Dunlavey, and Matt London their editor/whipping boy) have made a short film about Dirt Candy called “Vegetables: Friend or Foe?” that features carnivorous tomatoes and herds of portobello mushrooms grazing peacefully in the wild. It’ll be playing at the Food Film Festival in NYC on Saturday, October 20 in a show stuffed with short films by and about a ton of other restaurants and after the screening there’s a party where everyone’s going to be dishing up the food featured in the films to the audience. Not only that, but at their giant meat and butchering screening party and at their Food Porn party, Dirt Candy will be on hand to provide a vegetarian option for folks who want to take a break from all that meat. Our customers get a special discount on tickets so make sure you check the newsletter going out this Thursday to get the coupon code. Read all the details, and tickets are still available!

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Sunday, November 4 @ 5:30pm
Dirt Candy vs. Hong Kong Ultimate Crash Attack Dinner & a Movie, Austin, TX
The Alamo Drafthouse is probably the most awesome movie theater in America. Not only do they go out of their way to annihilate ticket-holders who insist on texting during movies, but they serve a full menu and a bar full o’booze during their screenings. What could be more civilized than being able to drink and dine while soaking up some cinematic entertainment? On Sunday, November 4 at 5:30pm Dirt Candy will be taking over the Alamo Drafthouse. We’ll be doing a short presentation about Dirt Candy and then serving dinner from the restaurant during the screening. What screening? Only one of the most awesome Hong Kong food movies ever made! We’re keeping the title top secret but this is the kind of movie that might just change your life. Cookbooks will be on sale and I’ll be signing up a storm. Tickets aren’t available yet, but I’ll be making a big announcement the second they are.

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Saturday, December 1
Dirt Candy Fundraiser, Medford, MA
My sister-in-law is heavily involved with the Friends of the Medford Public Library so when they asked me to come up and do a benefit for them, I couldn’t say no. It free and open to the public and it’ll also be sponsored by the Tufts Culinary Society. We’ll be doing a presentation about Dirt Candy, cooking vegetables, failure, gateway produce, and more! Books will be on sale, I’ll be signing like a maniac, and all proceeds go to benefit the Friends of the Medford Public Library. If you’re in the Boston area you should come or else everyone’s going to think that you hate books.

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And I’m not slowing down in 2013. More information is to come, but on January 14 I’ll be speaking at the New York Public Library as part of their Lunch Hour NYC exhibition, I’ll be teaching a class at the Institute of Culinary Education on January 24, and in March I’ll be down at Johnson & Wales in Charlotte, NC doing some lectures and warping young minds who just wanted to go to culinary school but then wound up getting yelled at by me! I’ll keep you guys posted on all the details as I get them, but come on out and get the touring Dirt Candy experience because otherwise it’ll just be me in an empty room all alone crying like a baby.

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So this is all news to me, but have any of you guys heard of this company called Google? They have some kind of social networking thing which is a way of having friends without having to do any of the hard work called Google+? Also, there’s this hobby people are into called yoga, which seems to involve a rolled-up blue mat that you carry around on your back. So, apparently, yoga is super popular and millions of people do it which makes me want to get into the blue mat business. Anyways, where is all this going? Glad you asked!

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On September 18 at 10am I am going to be doing a “hang out” at Yoga Journal’s Google + page and you’re all invited. I’ll be in my apartment, on my webcam, and this is not at all like sexting. The point seems to be that you ask me questions and tell me that my walls need to be repainted while I try to drink enough coffee to be semi-coherent. It’s going to be fun!

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“Sigh…is anyone going to show up for my Google Chat Party?”

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So head on over to the Yoga Journal page and let them know you’re showing up!

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Look at Dirt Candy! We’re in the future! Being futuristic!

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“Ha, ha, ha! I can totally see your apartment and it is ugly and stupid!”

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So I had this cookbook launch party at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe on Monday night. I hadn’t done anything like this before, so I was mostly just terrified that no one would show up and it would be me, Ryan, and my husband standing onstage with five people in the audience who thought they were there for a Malcolm Gladwell reading. My parents, mother-in-law, and great-aunt Lee came into town for it, boosting our potential numbers to nine people, at least four of whom would know why they were there, but it also boosted the potential for embarrassing disaster that would destroy my self-confidence for all eternity to much higher levels, too. Click on through for the photo tour of destruction!

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I get a lot of press people calling and asking me to tell them my most used kitchen tool because they’re writing an exciting article about the tools chefs use in their kitchens. Also, they desperately need to fill up the endless pages in their papers and on their websites. I always disappoint them by telling them that my most useful tool…

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Welcome to the Manliest Virtual Crossover Event Ever. Food writer, Charlotte Druckman, is getting ready to publish her book, Skirt Steak, which is all about women in professional kitchens, based on extensive interviews she did with folks like Gabrielle Hamilton, Anita Lo, me, and a whole lot of other people (out in October). She and I were recently baffled by Men’s Health’s inane competition where they ask readers to vote for the “Manliest Restaurant in America.” I didn’t know restaurants came with secondary sexual characteristics, but apparently I’m wrong. Charlotte has written a take-down of the competition itself, but I instantly panicked. Being competitive, I vowed that if someone, somewhere, was having a competition for “Manliest Restaurant” then Dirt Candy would win. So I’ve made a few changes to the place.

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Welcome to Man Candy, a restaurant for men. Reservations are made fast and our manner is brusque. A guy with no neck named Vito will show up 24 hours in advance of your table and punch you in the face to confirm your reservation. When you arrive at Man Candy there is always a wait. The maître d’ will tell you it’s a half-hour, but 20 minutes later he’ll apologize and tell you it’s another half hour. This will continue until you slip a folded $20 into his pocket, at which point his expression will light up, he’ll welcome you back, and lead you to “your usual table.” This will not fail to impress your dining companions.

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Making a rezzy at Man Candy…for men!

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