Food for Thought
Editors Mixing Bowl
It’s been five long months since we last met on this page. During the early weeks of the pandemic shutdowns, it was hard to see how to continue making a magazine. Would our stories be relevant? Would our advertisers—who provide 99% of our operating funds—remain in business? How would readers find their free copies?…
Read MoreBerkeley’s Perfume Museum
A Visit to the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents Mandy Aftel wants you to get to know your nose. Smells—both pleasant and unpleasant—are all around us, but we often take them for granted. Opening our senses to the world of scents can heighten our awareness and bring daily pleasure. This was Mandy Aftel’s midlife…
Read MoreEditor’s Mixing Bowl Spring 2020
Whether we realize it or not, we live in a designed world. The question is: Will this be a design for destruction or for a sustainable new world that we can safely hand down to our children and our children’s children? —from brucemaudesign.com/work/massive-change The times may feel particularly dark and challenging right…
Read MoreLast Bite
Fellow Artists Honor Margo Rivera-Weiss in Words and Imagery Margo was a friend and supporter of my work, both as a teaching artist and illustrator. Last year I did a project with my first graders based on Margo’s food illustrations in Edible East Bay. They will be sorely and deeply missed. —Dawline-Jane Oni-Eseleh…
Read MoreOn Margo Rivera-Weiss
During one of the last weeks of staff artist Margo Rivera-Weiss’s life, we were comforted to be able to offer some bit of joy by roughing out an idea for what would become the cover of this issue. Margo (who uses nongendered pronouns) made the cover’s illustrations of a set of kitchen tools several…
Read MoreLess Meat is More at Anaviv’s Table
The chefs at Anaviv’s Table have added a new intention for their Richmond restaurant’s unique one-seating, set-menu dining experience. Thursday night dinners now give vegetables and grains center stage and include less meat while still providing a fully satisfying meal. The idea came about after the restaurant’s chefs, Arnon Oren and Kadie Vita, collaborated with…
Read MoreEditor’s Mixing Bowl
Never before has Edible East Bay come up with such a basketful of sweets, and since an indulgence is good for the soul on occasion, go ahead and take some slow, sweet time with this magazine. We hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as we did while putting it together. More than…
Read MoreGary Handman’s Culinary Notebooks
My Journal Culinaire By Gary Handman A major part of what I know about cooking and about bringing friends and loved ones together to celebrate around the table I learned from my redoubtable mother-in-law, Shirley. An intuitive and largely self-taught cook (with the aid of a constantly expanding cookbook library), Shirley rocked her Lilliputian…
Read MorePollinate Farm & Garden teams up with Frailty Myths
Frailty Myths workshop participants collaborate to construct a three-part compost bin. The Power in Our Own Hands Building self-reliance with Pollinate Farm & Garden and Frailty Myths By Rachel Trachten | Photos by Cynthia Matzger Hammers are pounding, saws are buzzing, and sawdust is flying. Suddenly someone yells out, “I f***ed up!” The reaction all…
Read MoreBiochar in Berkeley?
Yes, and we can thank Burning Man . . . . . . well, not the man that gets burned each year at the festival, but rather a group of artists and fabricators who in 2001 set up some shipping containers on a lot near Urban Ore in Berkeley to serve as workspaces for building…
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