Seattle Local Food

I’ve wanted to do this for two years. It finally happened.

In January, I hosted my first Edible Literature Potluck. The idea is simple: Bring a dish, ingredient or drink mentioned in any work of literature. It can be high-brow, low-brow, children’s lit, poetry, drama, fiction, etc. Bring the passage in which the food is found. Eat, drink, read passages aloud and have a good time.

There were about thirty people, and enormous amounts of food from clever and beloved sources. I’ll do this event again. It was a reminder that combining creativity, whimsy and good company can produce delicious results.

If I organize a large one in the future and you’d like to come, drop me a message at debs at seattlelocalfood (dot) com.

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Dishes included: (pictures follow)

Turkish delight from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

A surfeit of raspberry tarts from the wonderful picture book Many Moons by James Thurber

Lentils with fried onions from Jhumpa Lahiri’s story “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine” in the collection The Interpreter of Maladies

Madeleines from Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust

A chickpea salad from the poem “The Chickpea Leaps” by Rumi, found in the book The Soul Is Here For Its Own Joy

Stew from The Lord of the Rings

Mjeddrah, a Persian lentil/rice/onion dish from Crescent by Diana Abu-Jabe

Oranges from Much Ado About Nothing

Pie from “Pie Problem” by Shel Silverstein

Frankfurters, sauerkraut and strawberry jam (not mixed) from The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. Appropriately in both food form and letter-form, since the passage is about eating words literally.

Black beans and biscuits from Lonesome Dove