Calendar of Events

“The eclectic community gathered ’round the big table on the lake enthusiastically proclaimed Dan and Molly’s ‘shakedown cruise’ an unqualified success and bid them good luck and godspeed on their journey as they create One Big Table from sea to shining sea.” —Carol Puckett, author of the blog Carol’s Viking Life

 

MOLLY DOES SEATTLE . YUM YUM YUM

   I’ll be in my almost favorite city — Seattle — this week doing a few events. I HOPE YOU CAN COME TO THE POTLUCK — OR EITHER OF THE OTHERS…

COOKING DEMO WITH FOUR SISTERS VIETNAMESE  HOT SAUCE — and talk about One Big Table: A portrait of American Cooks — at Book Larder Friday February 3. 6:30 – 8 pm. here is what the marvelous women of Book Larder have to say:

ONE BIG TABLE POTLUCK  7PM, Saturday , February 4 at home of Rebecca Staffel, 7553 14th Ave NW Seattle, WA 98117   

Theme of evening is My Best Pacific Northwest — bring the recipe that SHOULD have appeared in One Big Table.  PLS RSVP mollyoneill@yahoo.com.

I am HOPING to have some Oregon truffles and put together some of the dishes we swooned for last weekend at the Oregon White Truffle Festival. What are you bringing?

The Pantry @ Delancey   FOOD WRITING SEMINAR AND DINNER .  should be great fun. a face-to-face seminar based on our on-line classes at cooknscribble.com.  The event is sold out, but you can sign up for their waiting list — and another series we will do in spring —  www.thepantryatDelancey.com

 

Many of the 20,000 recipes that were collected for the One Big Table project were gathered from potlucks and community dinners that raised funds to fight hunger across the nation. As part of this ongoing effort to tell the story of America through its cooking, the publication of One Big Table is being celebrated with a series of feasts at small-town farmer’s markets and national parks. The series kicked off at Ellis Island on November 4, 2010, and will end at Alcatraz Island in the summer of 2011. The events are being produced in collaboration with The New York Times and the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy.

Schedule of 2011 Events

January 6–9, Key West, Florida: Key West Literary Seminar The topic of the 29th annual Key West Literary Seminar is food—”The Hungry Muse: An Exploration of Food in Literature”—and features a who’s who of poets, novelists, nonfiction writers, and journalists who write about food. On January 7, Molly joins Jason Epstein, Darra Goldstein, and Calvin Trillin, and on Saturday she joins Judith Jones in a panoply of discussions about the craft of writing about food. For additional information, visit www.kwls.org.

January 13–16, Key West, Florida: Key West Literary Seminar (see above) In the second session of the seminar, Molly joins Kate Christensen, Adam Gopnik, Bich Minh Nguyen, and Michael Ruhlman to discuss “Obsessions and Food Writing.” She also joins John T. Edge, David Mas Masumoto, and Michael Ruhlman to discuss American Food Culture, and Madhur Jaffrey and Nicole Mones to discuss Food and Cultural Identity.

January 29–30, Santa Barbara, California: Edible Institute Molly joins some of the food movement’s most influential thinkers—Joan Gussow, Russ Parsons, Barry Estabrook, Lisa Ekus, Virginia Willis, Gary Nabhan, and Tracey Ryder—for two days of talks, presentations, and workshops about the local-food movement. These promise to be as tasty as they are mind-bending. For additional information, click here.

February 8–March 20, lecture tour of bookstores, universities, museums,and farm markets Check back for locations and schedule.

March is Women’s History Month Molly is lecturing about the Gender Bent Kitchen at colleges across the country. Check back for locations and schedule.

March 24–26, Chapel Hill, North Carolina: A Celebration of the Cooking, Art, Music, and Culture of the North Carolina Piedmont region During this three-day celebration, Molly is the keynote speaker at a symposium focused on local food culture at the University of North Carolina, host of One Big Table Farmer’s Market feasts in Chapel Hill and Durham, and host of the One Big Table Gala and food-art auction at Fearrington House, part of the Relais & Châteaux network. Big fun! Save the date! Check back for a detailed schedule.

August and September

Harvest time is One Big Table at Farm Market time—this year featuring local gardeners and ethnic barbecue. Check back in April for our final schedule.

In 2011–12, One Big Table’s large events are focused on parsing, understanding, and celebrating the immigrant influence on America cuisine. Events include:

• Ethnic Bread in America, a hands-on bread-baking extravaganza and juried art-photography show at the Mill City Market in Minneapolis, Missouri
• A celebration of migrant farm workers’ gifts to American cuisine at Frog Hollow Farm in Brentwood, California
• A toast to the Irish-American experience in Boston, Massachusetts—a celebration of fish and fusion
• In Seattle, Washington, a salute to the first fusion cuisine: the Mexicans of the Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio
• The Tossed-Salad Suburbs—the New Midwest: Columbus, Ohio; Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Chicago. Plus celebrations of urban fusion in New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles

Please check back for the latest information and updates.

Dates to Be Announced

• Detroit, Michigan (at the Detroit Eastern Market)
• Granville, Ohio
• Livingston, Montana
• New Haven, Connecticut (benefits CitySeed)
• New Orleans, Louisiana (at the Vietnamese Market)
• North Berkeley, California (at the North Berkeley Farmers Market)
• OakBrook, Illinois
• Portland, Oregon
• Seattle, Washington

Past Events

Ellis Island Kick-Off Event

November 4th How has immigration shaped the American menu? Why do some immigrants’ dishes become part of the all-American repertoire? How is immigration changing the flavors in the Melting Pot today? Are tacos the next pizza? Is Vietnamese bánh mì the next hamburger? At the first One Big Table Across America event on November 4, food lovers flocked to Ellis Island to hear a panel of distinguished writers, chefs, and scholars (including One Big Table author Molly O’Neill) address these and other questions and to enjoy an eclectic menu including tamales, tiny Maine lobster rolls, and pulled pork and red slaw sliders.

 

• October 25, Pass Christian, Mississippi: A Locavore Feast to Benefit Teaching Kitchen The mansions and fish shanties of this 19th-century, belle-of-the-ball resort town were all but razed five years ago by Hurricane Katrina. One Big Table Pass Christian is a feast that celebrates all that has endured—the shrimp and oysters, red snapper, redfish, speckled trout, flounder, and soft-shell crabs, the extraordinary garden produce, as well as the unique Gulf Coast cooking that developed over generations of Spanish, Bourbon French, American Indian, Yankee, Confederate and African American influence. Through the meal and sales of the One Big Table cookbook, the community is hoping to raise enough funds to finish the Viking Kitchen being constructed to teach local teens and prepare them for restaurant work. The kitchen will also be used to teach Gulf Coast cooking and cooking from the rich local markets. Tickets: $100.
• For additional information, a menu and program, and tickets, check out One Big Table Gulf Coast on Facebook.

• November 4, New York City: One Big Table—a Celebration of American Cooking at Ellis Island From 1892 to 1924, 12 million immigrants landed on Ellis Island and, from there, moved out to settle throughout the United States. From Eastern Europe, Ireland, Italy, and other nations, each group added their own cooking to America’s melting pot. On November 4, the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy, in partnership with The New York Times and Pace University, is toasting the nation’s multicultural table with a panel discussion on immigration and the American menu, a street-style feast of recipes from One Big Table: A Portrait of American Cooking, and dramatic readings of excerpts from the personal food stories that author Molly O’Neill has been gathering across the country for the past decade.Tickets: $130.
• For more information about the Ellis Island event, click here. To purchase tickets, visit the Harbor Conservancy website.

• November 5 & 6, Washington, D.C. “Food for Tomorrow,” a panel discussion at the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. For tickets and additional information, visit the Lemelson Center’s website.

• November 12, Blythewood, South Carolina Book signing and four-course wine dinner at Smoke Restaurant with Dan Huntley and other assorted banjo pickers, moonshiners, hog lovers, and potlikkers. For additional information and tickets, visit the Smoke website.

• November 13, Mount Holly, North Carolina A local-harvest feast under the oaks to benefit the Mount Holly Farmers Market. Local hard cider. Moonshine. Ticket information coming soon.

• November 14, York, South Carolina Book signing and light Sunday supper appetizers at the Coal Yard Restaurant with co-owner Jess Dunlap, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. First come, first fed.

• December 4th, Millerton, New York Book signing and Christmas Cookie Exchange at Oblong Books at 26 Main Street, from 4pm to 6pm.  To celebrate the holiday spirit of sharing, Oblong Books is hosting a community cookie swap with Molly O’Neill, author of the delectable new cookbook, One Big Table.  Share an heirloom holiday cookie recipe or invent a new one and enter it on onebigtable.com.  Bake up a batch and bring your cookies–with a copy of the recipe–to the book signing and holiday cookie swap.  Nibble, sip, chat, and meet the author.  Best recipes will appear on the website and become part of the One Big Table Archive, a treasure trove of American cooking.  If you plan to attend this event, please RSVP to info@oblongbooks.com.