Posts by Edible East Bay

  What are the possibilities when building with edible ingredients? The question prompted San Francisco’s Mason Kirby architects to put out a challenge. Who among the Bay Area’s many food and design enthusiasts might be game to step up and enter their First Annual Edible Architecture Competition? Maybe you? Entries will be on display on…

  Up for a road trip? Head down to Kingsburg Historical Park near Fresno on Saturday, June 24, 4–8pm to join the Ecological Farming Association at the 15th Annual Organic Stone Fruit Jubilee. Taste and purchase fresh produce from small farms that specialize in growing delicious varieties of nectarines, peaches, plums, pluots, and apriums plus…

  Get on down to the Grand Lake Oakland Farmers’ Market on Saturday, May 20 at 10am for this fantastic event. You’ll get to meet geologist/geoscience writer Andrew Alden whose new book, Deep Oakland: How Geology Shaped a City, is just out from Berkeley’s Heyday Books. Buy a copy and get it signed or buy…

  Here at Edible East Bay, we eagerly await each year’s Good Food Award winners, those products recognized by the Good Food Foundation for superior taste as well as for the businesses’ social and environmental responsibility practices. This year, we’re thrilled to see so many local businesses honored, including both repeat winners and first timers.…

  Learn how to grow food in your own garden with gardening, composting, and landscaping educator Lori Caldwell. At this Berkeley Central Library event, Lori will cover topics including crop rotation, seeds vs. starts, soil fertility, plant succession, transplanting seedlings, watering /irrigation, and the best crops for your garden. Emphasis on reuse materials will also…

  The Oakland Public Library is hosting a grand array of garden workshops throughout the month of May. You can learn about pollinators, native plants, and growing an herbal garden from a variety of garden experts. Program locations are wheelchair accessible. To request disability-related accommodations or to request American Sign Language (ASL), or other forms…

  At its second BBQ Without Borders, held this year on May 13, 5–9pm at the Oakland Museum of California, the nonprofit No Immigrants No Spice (NINS) invites you to celebrate the importance of immigration to our culinary experience. The dinner features regional barbecue prepared by chefs from Cuba, Japan, and India. Join Chef Lilly…

  The Bay Area Book Festival returns with nearly 300 prominent authors for adults and youth, appearing on indoor stages on Saturday and Sunday, May 6–7. Exclusively on Sunday, May 7, the festival includes a large outdoor stage, literary exhibitors, gourmet food vendors, a lively family area, and a youth expo in Berkeley’s Civic Center…

  Discover the sweet world of beekeeping and local honey production at the Hayward Farmers Market on Saturday, April 15, 11am, with an exciting event that features a live observation hive, honey extraction and bottling, honey tasting, and free arts and crafts for kids. You’ll also be treated to presentations and a chance to talk to two…

  Did you know that over 90% of the bugs you see in your garden are good bugs? And did you know that encouraging those beneficial insects is one of the best ways to effectively reduce the number of pests in your garden? At this free webinar on Thursday, April 13, 5-6pm, you’ll learn how…

  Since 2017, Public Market Emeryville’s La Cocina pop-up kiosk has been a magic launchpad for notable new eateries like Nyum Bai, Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement, Mama Lamees, and A Girl Named Pinky. Now it’s time to welcome Carmen Figueroa, chef/owner of El Mesón de Violeta. Stop by the kiosk any Tuesday through Sunday, 11am to…

  Come to the Decolonized Kitchen, a gathering for learning about Indigenous foodways, ethnobotany, and cooking with environmental educator Maribel Garcia. In this hour of connection and reclamation, you’ll learn about our native plant relatives as you enjoy a discussion, presentation, and cook-along, where everyone can share their insights, stories, and wisdom with others. Maribel…

  TCHO Chocolate of Berkeley opens its doors to the public on Thursday, March 23, 5:30–8:30pm to celebrate Women’s History Month with an event that features factory tours and chocolate tastings of some never-before-seen chocolate products. It’s also a chance to meet nearly a dozen women who own and/or lead East Bay–based food and beverage businesses,…

  Everyone certainly knows that Chef Martin Yan can cook, but on Sunday, April 2, 2–4pm, when we sit down with the star chef at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, we’ll learn about an excitingly wide world of Chinese food in Chef Yan’s conversation with Cheuk Kwan, author of Have You Eaten Yet? Stories from Chinese…

  Looking to get into canning? Join farm director Debbie Harris at Urban Adamah in Berkeley on Saturday March 25, 10-11:30am, for a free demo and hands-on workshop covering the basics for home fruit and vegetable preservation using a water bath. Walk away with the skills to make your own preserves, jams, and more! All…

  Welcome to the future in food, where visionary startups are producing alternatives to conventional meat and dairy products using pioneering technologies in fermentation and cultivation. With missions to be kinder to animals, the planet and human health, The Better Meat Co., Perfect Day and UPSIDE Foods are three California companies at the forefront of…

  Spring is around the corner, so it’s time to tune in for this free organic gardening webinar with the Alameda County Clean Water Program. On Thursday, March 16, 5–6pm, you’ll hear about the benefits of building a healthy garden from the ground up and you learn how to grow healthy plants with a water-wise approach and…

  For more than 30 years, Bioneers has served as a fertile hub where social and scientific innovators can share practical and visionary solutions for the world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges. This year, for the first time, the nonprofit is bringing its annual conference to Berkeley, and the April 6–8 event kicks off with two…

  “Life is Great. Cheese Makes it Better,” wrote Avery Aames, author of the bestselling Cheese Shop Mystery Series, and we agree.  That’s why we’re looking forward to three full days of cheese bliss, coming up soon at the 17th Annual California Artisan Cheese Festival. This festival is a true celebration of craft, and since the…

      Hoppers: The Cookbook: Recipes, Memories and Inspiration from Sri Lankan Homes, Streets and Beyond is the debut cookbook of Karan Gokani, chef and co-owner of London’s extremely popular Sri Lankan restaurant, Hoppers. This new book showcases signature Sri Lankan recipes from the restaurant along with Gokani’s personal story and the stories of…

Grief and Donuts Writer Nora Becker interviews culinary artist Carolyn Tillie about her show “Mixed Emotions,” opening March 2, 2023 at ACCI in Berkeley   Carolyn Tillie collects culinary treasures. The treasures find their way into her artwork, into her food history research, and into her conversation with me, which took place via video, due…

  Plants, like people, thrive in community. At a free presentation in Benicia on Saturday, February 25, 10am–noon, Joshua Burman Thayer, an ecological designer who works with permaculture strategies, discusses how nature evolves its plant communities so each member benefits from its associations with the others. That’s valuable knowledge to bring into the garden. “When…

  Celebrate SF Beer Week and Valentine’s Day with two East Bay tasting events. First, Fieldwork hosts a Barrel-Aged Beer & TCHO Chocolate pairing on Valentine’s Day at its Berkeley brewery. Then, on Saturday, February 18, Fieldwork and SoDo Donuts serve up delicious duos at the new Fieldwork Beer Garden and Taproom in San Leandro.…

  To celebrate friendship one recent afternoon, we broke out the Champagne, truffled potato chips, crème fraîche, endive, and some little boiled potatoes to try with a selection of local caviar from Tsar Nicoulai. What…? Is that a Russian company, you ask? This Eater article from last May explains that it is not, so there’s…

The Leungs, a family who turned their love of Chinese cooking and celebration of their heritage into a hugely popular blog, The Woks of Life, have a new cookbook and they’ll be at the Berkeley Central Library on Saturday, February 11 to discuss their family cooking and sign books.   The Joys of Cooking as a Family…

  Ever wonder how professional chefs come up with their menus? For many, cooking is an opportunity to look to their roots and consider the flavors that they find most comforting, personally meaningful, and culturally significant. Food is also an important tool for bridging divides and bringing people from different backgrounds together to enjoy a…

  Korean-American Michelle Zauner, author of memoir Crying in H Mart and lead singer of the Grammy-nominated band Japanese Breakfast, makes a Bay Area Book Festival appearance at Oakland’s California Ballroom on Saturday, April 1 at 7pm. Her memoir is woven with food as much as it is with memory, and Zauner artfully traces those connections between…

  Public agency StopWaste is offering grants for innovative projects that prevent waste in Alameda County. A total of $1.1 million in funding is available for businesses, nonprofits, and institutions for projects in these six categories: Food Waste Prevention and Recovery: to prevent food waste through product or process redesign or recovery and redistribution of…

This year’s Art/Act Local exhibit at Berkeley’s David Brower Center features perspectives from emerging artists on food, justice, action, and the environment. Co-authored by José Gonzalez, founder of Latino Outdoors, along with Brower Center staff, “All on the Table” will examine an array of topics including food as an expression of care as a community…

  “I often feel like I am alone in my thoughts, ideas, hopes, and wishes for a better world,” says beekeeper and activist Sarah Red-Laird. “My week at EcoFarm reminded me that I’m part of a movement containing some of the brightest people on the planet, and now they are only an email or phone…

  When the first rains tease up the porcini and chanterelles, Bay Area fungus lovers head to the Fungus Fair. This year’s fair is coming up on Sunday, January 29 at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill. Presentations and activities feature exciting speakers on topics that run from science and medicine to cooking, art, and…

  Are you thinking about starting a food business or opening a restaurant or café in Alameda County? The Food Entrepreneurship Training Academy‘s  10-part online workshop series, offered by the Alameda County Economic & Civic Development Department and the East Bay Small Business Development Center, starts on January 10. The free, online series takes place…

  Because we are always interested in small local cottage food artisans, and because Albany’s Flowerland is bringing a bunch of them together on Sunday, December 18 at their “first annual open-air market of culinary offerings,” we’re heading to 1330 Solano Avenue from 11am to 4pm to meet these creative makers and see what they’ll have for…

  One of our favorite events of the holiday season comes up this Sunday, December 11 from 10 am to 4 pm when Karen and Malcolm Bond open their Bondolio Olive Farm for their annual Holiday Open House. Join them in celebrating both the season and the treasure of this year’s olive harvest, the 2022 Olio…

  When Kenneth Tan started this oral history project for his Asian American Studies class at UC Berkeley, he had no idea he would ultimately create a memoir and art book with his grandmother, Crescenciana Tan. In Crescenciana, Kenneth weaves together their artwork, conversations, and memoirs to tell his grandmother’s life story. With heart and…

  In early November, Vicky Bennison, British author of the hit cookbook, Pasta Grannies, spent time in Oakland with a group of local chefs and food media around two large wooden tables, where 89-year-old pasta grannie Maria Dito, a native of Calabria, demonstrated how to make “knitting needle pasta,” literally rolling dough around a knitting…

Story and photos by Nora Becker Part II in a series of visits to East Bay Farmers’ Markets. Read Part I here.   The Old Oakland Farmers’ Market has the rhythm of a morning commute. The crowds seem calmly accustomed to the routine—the standing in lines with bags and carts, the steady movement from one…

  The Institute of Urban Homesteading (IUH) is holding its annual Winter Open House Social & Sale at a unique venue—Mariposa Grove Co-Housing Community in North Oakland—and the event includes a chance to tour the community and learn about the co-housing model. IUH founder K.Ruby Blume says, “There will be more beautiful and tasty goodies…

  Do you love stories that give hope for the future of our food system? Would you like to dine and dance the night away to live music in a legendary venue, in community with visionaries, farmers, local leaders, and friends? If so, mark Saturday, December 3, 2022 on your calendar and get your tickets for Gather…

  The season of the olive crush is always a special time at Séka Hills Olive Mill and Tasting Room in the heart of the Capay Valley. This year is also the mill’s tenth anniversary, so come out to celebrate! You’ll get to experience the transformation of olives into the seasonal treasure called olio nuovo.…

  Join Slow Food East Bay, Hammerling Wines, and Donkey & Goat Winery for an afternoon of good eats, good wine, and good fun, all centered on BEANS! The group will be shutting down Fifth Street between Camelia and Gilman for the afternoon of Sunday, November 13 so the bean curious can come to explore…

  After two years of pandemic delays the Dashe Cellars Paella Fiesta returns with Gerard Nebesky’s famous paella, Spanish guitar and fabulous live Flamenco dancers, and a chance to taste nearly every wine this Alameda Point winery creates. At this open house celebration on November 12, you’ll enjoy incredible food as you explore the Dashe Cellars wines,…

  Here’s a Market Hall Foods tradition that exuberantly pays homage to a favorite Italian cheese from the Trentino-Alto Adige region. Wearing traditional Italian garb, staff members roll a 400-pound wheel of Crucolo cheese down Shafter Avenue. The Crucolo Parade begins outside Market Hall Foods in Oakland, and the procession ends at a parklet, where…

    Author Vicky Bennison is a YouTube sensation and the author of Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking. Her second cookbook, it highlights traditional Italian dishes and the remarkable women who cook them. Based on her popular YouTube series of the same name, Vicky’s latest release features 60 recipes and the fascinating life stories of the Italian grandmothers…

  The good news about home or garden pests is that you can manage and prevent them without using toxic chemicals. Traditional fixes include toxins that can harm water, wildlife, and even children’s or pets’ health. Join this informative webinar to learn easy techniques and tools for prevention of pesky ants, rodents, and raccoons. Also,…

Once per season, the farm invites volunteers to come work and learn about organic farming and help with chores. Activities planned for this fall event include planting garlic, seeding cover crops, preparations for planting bare-root fruit trees, orchard fertilizing, weeding, and sheet mulching. Autumn Organic Farming Workshop Cloverfield Organic Farm 501 La Paloma Road, El…

Story and photos by Nora Becker On the first day of October, people flocked to the Saturday Berkeley Farmers’ Market. Despite the grey sky and the chilly autumn air, here they were: families with young children pushing carts, elderly folks in masks and light down jackets, groups of friends standing in circles huddled over warm…

  Come out to Riggers Loft in Point Richmond to enjoy the Cheesemaker Celebration. At this event, which is part of the San Francisco Cheese Fest, California’s artisan cheesemakers mingle with guests as they present their offerings made from cow, goat, sheep, or water buffalo milk. Sample the cheeses paired with locally made artisan pickles,…

    Spend an afternoon with the farms of the Capay Valley for the 21st annual Taste of Capay! Enjoy a multi-course dinner featuring produce, meats, and other products sourced from the region’s organic farms like Full Belly and River Dog. Chefs from Savory Cafe, Kitchen 428, Lucy’s Café, and Full Belly Farm will collaborate…

  Here’s a special chance to view the documentary honoring Black farmers by filmmaker Dr. Gail Myers, who was interviewed by Edible East Bay for our Summer 2022 issue. Click here to read that interview. Ear to the Ground is a virtual opportunity to see the documentary film Rhythms of the Land, by Dr. Gail…

  Find your thrills and chills at farmers’ markets and other scary spots around the East Bay with u-pick pumpkins, costume parades, pumpkin decorating, scavenger hunts, face painting, and contests to guess the weight of the giant pumpkin. Here’s a list of events by date. All events are free unless noted. Dig Deep Pumpkin Patch…

Meet Cookie Bible author Rose Levy Beranbaum, for a book signing event at Rockridge Market Hall On October 22.  Two recipes from the book, Chocolate Whoopie Pies and Lemon Lumpies, will be available for sampling and for sale. Beranbaum is a James Beard and IACP Award–winning cookbook author with expertise that extends from cookies and cakes…

Come out to honor and celebrate our local birdlife at the Berkeley Bird Festival, a free public event in venues throughout Berkeley. Take part in bird-themed activities including birding field trips, family-friendly art and craft activities, chalk art, and a lecture/performance series titled “Winged Wonderment.” The festival is organized by Golden Gate Audubon Society and California…

  Come enjoy an exhibition featuring the creativity of artists and craftspeople who live and work in Emeryville, California. At the 36th Annual Emeryville Art Exhibition—a juried show of over 150 artworks created by 96 Emeryville artists—works range from paintings, sculpture, photographs, and prints to ceramics, glass, textiles, and jewelry. Additional highlights include a site-specific…

  On the occasion of this market’s 25th anniversary, come see how this beautiful park-like setting adds to the market’s value as a community gathering place. Stroll through and meet its close-knit community of vendors who work to bring you hyper-fresh food. When farmers can sell directly to consumers, it helps strengthen our local food…

All Power Labs in West Berkeley likes to call their work, “carbon sequestration with benefits,” which is a short way of describing their longtime work on a means for converting biomass to power for public use with a byproduct (biochar) that’s useful in gardening. Come out on Friday, September 30, 5–7pm for a demo of…

  On Saturday, October 1, 1–4pm, Alameda Point’s City Hall West Parade Lawn becomes the site of the island’s annual food and drink festival featuring local wineries, breweries, restaurants, and spirits. This epicurean event and outdoor regional festival showcases the wider Northern California food and drink culture. All proceeds support the Alameda Boys & Girls…

The Table Catering offers delicious meals with a focus on sustainability By Rachel Trachten   “How do we offer high-quality, farm-to-table meals that are accessible to a broad audience while honoring our farmers, our team members, and our own expertise?” Nicole Callis and her chef husband, Peter Callis, try to answer that question each day…

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer     Your summer crops are winding down and the first autumn rains have come to the Bay Area. That means it’s time to reload the gaps and edges of your patch with cool-season veggies. These three are easy to grow from seed. Radishes are easy to sprout and quick…

  Join Elizabeth Vecchiarelli, the owner of Preserved in Oakland, as she demonstrates how to make the most of your veggie garden by fermenting nutrient-dense probiotic pickles. Enjoy the magic as Elizabeth makes sauerkraut and New York deli-style dill pickles. Come learn about the history, nutritive value, and basic techniques of fermented pickling. This event is…

  The Decolonized Kitchen is a gathering focused on Indigenous foodways, ethnobotany, and cooking. Maribel Garcia leads a morning of connection and reclamation while teaching about our native plant relatives. This two-hour session includes a discussion, presentation, and tepary bean salad cook-along. Maribel is a descendent of the Purépecha people from the state of Michoacán,…

  Looking for a satisfying weekend getaway with a regional food and wine feast? On September 24, 2022, Farm Discovery at Live Earth hosts “Mesa,” the annual benefit dinner at Live Earth Farm supporting Farm Discovery’s empowering programs for kids and families’ health in the Monterey Bay area foodshed. This magical evening includes craft cocktails,…

  Come out to Squabisch Bakery on a Tuesday evening to learn how to make authentic German soft pretzels. You’ll glean a bit of German culinary culture as you learn how to form, dip, and bake pretzels at one of these twice-monthly, hour-and-a-half-long hands-on classes. You also get to eat your creations with the group…

  Oakland-based cultural anthropologist Dr. Gail Myers made her documentary, Rhythms of the Land, as a valentine to generations of Black farmers in the United States, from the enslavement period to the present. The film shows how an intense love of the land and dedication to community enabled these farmers to survive against overwhelming odds.…

  Join a group of entrepreneurs, investors, and food activists on August 28 for an outdoor event on a working farm in Petaluma. Slow Money’s Farm Fest at Tara Firma Farms offers a chance to network and learn about the impact of investing on sustainable food and ag businesses. The festival includes farm tours, a…

Roll up your sleeves for in-person and virtual classes with Chef Maria Capdevielle. Adults and teens (15–17) can join in for one or all of these tasty opportunities.     Fried Pastries Workshop—Doughnuts & Churros—with Chef Maria Capdevielle: August 20 It’s hard to beat a good donut! This virtual hands-on class covers the tips and…

    Come to Berkeley Horticultural Nursery on August 27 for a tomato tasting event part of the 100th Anniversary festivities. “We had to put this off for the past two years for obvious reasons,” says a spokesperson for Berkeley Hort. “Our goal is to have at least 10 different varieties—from heirlooms to hybrids—to sample…

  The theme for this year’s Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival in Berkeley’s North Shattuck District is “Chalking Beautiful Music.” Families or groups may work together, artists may work alone, but everyone comes away with a sense of pride in creating ephemeral work for everyone to enjoy. Not an artist? Just come to shop and have fun at this…

  Edible East Bay will be well represented on Saturday, August 6, 11am–3pm, at Art in the Nursery, one of Berkeley Horticultural Nursery’s many 100th Anniversary Celebration events. Spend a lovely afternoon with the art, the artists, and the nursery’s beautiful greenery as you enjoy live music by Montalvo Strings. Art in the Nursery August…

  The Grand Opening Celebration for the new 90-acre Dig Deep Farms Regenerative Farming Project at Ardenwood Historic Farm is coming up on Wednesday, August 17, noon to 3pm, at 34600 Ardenwood Boulevard in Fremont. Come to learn how this new project supports local BIPOC farmers, creates living wage farming jobs, boosts regenerative food production,…

  Do you have too much zucchini? Does someone at your house have too much time on their hands? The Zucchini Car Race at Diablo Valley Farmers’ Market on Saturday, July 30, 2022, should take care of both problems. Race details are being posted on the Diablo Valley Farmers’ Market website, so be sure to…

While you can’t actually hug a hügel, you can learn about this bio-intensive garden-building technique while helping to build a hügel at Cloverfield Organic Farm in El Sobrante on Thursday, July 21 during the farm’s Summer Volunteer Workshop. Susan Truscott, who founded this small u-pick farm in 2011, explains that building a hügel is a…

    Chef Nite Yun’s award-winning Cambodian restaurant, Nyum Bai, closed earlier this year, but here’s an opportunity to hear the chef talk about her journey, food, and culture while watching a demo of climate-friendly, plant-based cooking. Acterra’s new video will premiere here on July 21 at 10am. Nyum Bai was listed in MICHELIN Guide San…

Gardener’s Notebook by Joshua Burman Thayer When midsummer brings loads of tomatoes and zucchini into your weekly harvest bowl, it’s time to start planting for fall. Back in the day, I used to sprout seeds in black garden soil, but I would often lose up to half my sprouts to dampening off (a horticultural condition caused…

  Are you watching good fruit go to waste that could be turned into some mighty good jam? Do you want to learn how to make the perfect pickle or discover the magic of sourdough? Preserved in Oakland has resumed in-person classes. (Note that proof of a negative covid test is required of all participants.)…

Come enjoy an outdoor screening of the PBS documentary My Garden of a Thousand Bees, a 55-minute film that follows one person’s journey to discover the dynamic life of bees in his backyard. This Urban Adamah screening includes a chance to build seed bombs so you can go out and spread the pollinator magic in…

  In this virtual program by the Sierra Club SF Chapter, Angel Garcia, Organizing Director with Californians for Pesticide Reform, speaks on the need to reduce pesticide use as a critical environmental health and environmental justice issue. Californians for Pesticide Reform Virtual Program Friday, July 8, 7:30pm Register here for link to attend  

  An international effort, Plastic-Free July began in Western Australia in 2011 to raise awareness and seek lasting solutions to the crisis of plastic pollution. In 2017, the City of Berkeley joined the effort when it declared July a “Plastic-Free Month.” Each year since 2017, Berkeley’s Ecology Center has welcomed the public with Plastic-Free July events…

  We recently heard from Kerstin Firmin, a gardener and cook who lives near Oakland’s Lake Merritt and wanted to see who else in the neighborhood might like to swap. “I’m curious to meet others in the area who grow their own food and herbs, make jams and pickles, food starters, and more, who would…

  Explore your local community through the lens of food and agriculture and take a deep dive into the social issues surrounding agriculture, such as food sovereignty, accessibility, and justice at this Merritt College course, which runs August 22 through December 17, 2022 at the campus in Oakland. Learn more about cultural and traditional foods…

By Joshua Burman Thayer Your tomatoes are in, your beans are climbing tall, your squash is creeping wider by the day. Time to sit back? Well, maybe it’s a good time to assess spots in your garden where you can plant more food. Check around the edges and margins and you may find good places…

  The Bankhead Gallery is seeking artwork that captures the central place that all things fermented and distilled play in our lives, including the beauty of the growing areas, the excitement of the fermentation process, and the pleasures at the table. Called FERMENT, this spirited exhibition, produced by Livermore Valley Arts, will be on display at…

  “Do you like your food super fresh and your outdoor experiences rugged with plenty of nature connection, exercise, cool science, and brisk open air? Then you might enjoy a weekend of seaweed foraging with community herbalist, nutrition consultant, gardener, permaculturalist, ethnobotanist, licensed commercial kelp harvester, and longtime Berkeleyite, Tanya Stiller,” wrote Edible East Bay…

  In addition to bees and butterflies, the insects, birds, and mammals that pollinate plants are vital to sustaining our food supply and ecosystems. Come learn who these garden visitors are, how to create environments to attract and protect them, and see the wide variety of nectar and pollen-rich flowers you can plant in your…