Man, you guys keep me busy with all the foodie happenings in this area! It's impossible to keep up! Perhaps between us all, we can make a dent in the fabulous events headed our way. Here's a list of those events for this week and next week.
Tonight, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, Sara Foster, owner and chef of the local Foster's Market chain, is doing a cookbook signing at the Regulator in Durham on 4/7 at 7 pm. Her new cookbook is called Sara Foster's Southern Kitchen: Soulful, Traditional, Seasonal. She'll be reading from it, signing books, and holding a tasting. The press release describes the book thusly: Foster's definitive southern cookbook serves up dozens of contemporary interpretations of classic dishes. She also shares tips to ensure that dishes will turn out perfect every time---from the secret to fluffy buttermilk biscuits to ideas for swapping out ingredients to accommodate any season, from hints on how to fry up chicken like a true southerner to barbeque fundamentals that can put any home cook on par with a southern pitmaster.
Also tonight, the Cookery, a unique, Durham-based business, is having an open house from 7-9 pm at their facilities at 1101 West Chapel Hill Street. They will be showing off their commercial kitchen space that will be available for renting 24 hours a day for any number of reasons, from providing a prep space for people looking to start a small food business to regular rentals for food trucks and other operations. They are calling themselves a culinary incubator and hope to help many people launch smaller scale food businesses. There will be several food trucks in attendance this evening, including Pie Pushers, Blue Sky Dining, and Slippin' Sliders. I'll be there, too!
Yet another event for tonight is Yelp Drinks Week. This is a weeklong event in Raleigh, where several bars are featuring specials or standard libations at half off. It started on Sunday and is running through this Saturday, 4/9. For the full list of participating bars and restaurants, check here. I'm planning on checking out Market's drinks on Friday, 4/8, at 8 pm if anyone's interested in joining me!
This Sunday, 4/10, from 2 to 6 pm, head out to the SEED garden's annual pie social. Carpe Durham has the details.
Now next weekend, 4/15-4/17, has a plethora of foodie happenings--it's impossible to make all of these events! Here they are by the day:
4/15, 7:20 pm, Durham Convention Center, Cinema 4: Showing of A Matter of Taste: Serving Up Paul Liebrandt, as part of the Full Frame Festival. This film chronicles the career of an innovative chef from his early success achieving 3 stars from the New York Times to his later struggles in the business and present challenge to reclaim his third star. Passes are sold out for the festival, but you can show up and hope for seating in the Last Minute lines at $10 a ticket. I will not be here, because I'll be over at Quail Ridge Books for a non-food-related evening of speculative fiction reading and discussion as part of the Bull Spec Issue #5 launch, featuring my story Bother among many other awesome reads.
4/16, 1 pm-5 pm, Piedmont Farm Tours: Join the nation's largest sustainable farm tour and pick from 40 different local farms and dairies to spend the afternoon with. Costs are $25 per car with advance tickets or $10–$30 admission per farm on the day of the event. There's a tech-focused tour for new farmers this year, and plenty of animal petting and learning about farming for everyone else.
4/16 8:30 pm, Durham Central Park: Also part of Full Frame, the film Who Took the Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour, will be shown for free in the great outdoors. There will be . . . let that suspense build . . . a food truck round-up before the show! The round-up starts at 6:30, plenty of time to feast to your delight before settling in for the show.
4/17, 1 pm-5 pm, Piedmont Farm Tours: Join the nation's largest sustainable farm tour and pick from 40 different local farms and dairies to spend the afternoon with. Costs are $25 per car with advance tickets or $10–$30 admission per farm on the day of the event. There's a tech-focused tour for new farmers this year, and plenty of animal petting and learning about farming for everyone else.
4/17, 1:30 pm, Brunch at Dos Perros, 200 N. Magnum, Durham: The Social Media Supper Club, of which I am an organizer, is hosting a brunch meeting this time around. We are dining on the fabulous Mexican offerings at Dos Perros, and I, for one, cannot wait to try their brunch cocktails--they sound amazing! We have 11 seats left, so RSVP here soon if you want to join! It's a totally relaxed group, just eating and chatting the meal away together.
4/17, 5:40 pm, Durham Convention Center, Cinema 3: Showing of El Bulli: Cooking in Progress, a documentary showing the painstaking process the chefs of El Bulli follow in their quest to deliver to us that once-in-a-lifetime meal. Going there is so on my bucket list. Again, passes are sold out for the festival, but you can show up and hope for seating in the Last Minute lines at $10 a ticket.
Coming up soon, a blogger bake sale and a movement for Meatless Mondays in Durham dining. I'll be blogging on those next week!
