What’s Cooking at Berkeley’s Kitchen?

The Cal Cooking Club at UC Berkeley has spawned more than one non-profit culinary entity with international reach.

Earlier this month I wrote about Sprouts Cooking Club, which offers classes to budding young chefs. Sprouts is the brainchild of Berkeley graduate Karen Rogers.

Newcomer Berkeley’s Kitchen, founded by another UC-Berkeley alum Cristina Lau, aims to offer adults an edible education at affordable prices with an emphasis on showcasing the rich diversity of ethnic cuisine in the local community.

Lau, 23, grew up in Tijuana and San Diego, and recalls peeling shrimp and washing dishes at the Chinese restaurants her parents owned. She speaks three languages, considers herself mostly Mexican with Chinese roots, and enjoys cooking Mexican-Chinese fusion food. (Think stir fry with chillies.)

To learn more about Berkeley’s Kitchen, its classes, and charitable work, read my post on the program over at Berkeleyside.

A Taste of Justice

Think of agents for change in American eating habits, and Berkeley’s Alice Waters and Michael Pollan come immediately to mind.

Indeed, eat-more-greens advocates can appear as white as Wonder Bread.

On the menu at the local La Pena Cultural Center last night: some much-needed color in the conversation about good food matters.

Read my entire post on the foodcentric performance piece Visceral Feast over at Berkeleyside.

I first learned about the evening from accomplished choreographer Amara Tabor-Smith. (Full disclosure: I’ve taken Amara’s Rhythm & Motion dance class for almost two decades. The girl knows how to inspire joy and shake her booty like nobody’s business. Believe me when I say she raises the roof. There’s a reason I think of dance class as my church.)

Well, turns out, Amara, artistic director of  the Oakland-based Deep Waters Dance Theater, has been investigating edible issues, such as where food comes from and its impact on the community and the environment, in performance pieces that address the soul and spiritual connections to eating and cooking.

Last year she showcased a work in progress, “Our Daily Bread,” as part of an artist in residency at CounterPULSE, a non-profit theater in San Francisco.

Amara describes herself as “mostly vegan” not initially for political reasons but because she doesn’t care for the taste of meat. But she cooks meat for others and acknowledges her roots as a child growing up eating her mother’s gumbo.

She’s planning several food parties as part of her exploration of eating this year. One she’s dubbing Raw Meat, where she hopes raw food folk will dialogue with confirmed carnivores.

Find Amara’s Recession Root Stew recipe, inspired by the times and in the spirit of African American food traditions, right here.

It’s vegan, can feed lots of folks, and includes dinosaur kale, cilantro, and coconut milk. Sounds just the dish for a cold winter’s night.

At last night’s performance the audience was asked to share a favorite food memory.

I listed my sister’s pavlova and family barbecues with the proverbial “shrimp on the barbie” (Aussies call them prawns). And Vegemite on white toast, comfort food when you’re sick. All of these foods remind me of home.

The man seated next to me wrote simply, “I miss my mom’s chai.”

Now it’s your turn.

Photo credit: Alan Kimara Dixon

Michael Pollan Talks Food Rules in San Francisco

Find out what the affable, ethical epicurean had to say today in my post on Michael Pollan for Berkeleyside.

And check back here next week for this month’s book giveaway, a signed copy of Pollan’s Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.