Mustard, Molasses and Coconut: Quintessential Flavors of the Bangladeshi Kitchen -- a conversation with Dina Begum and Mayukh Sen
Taking you through the six Bangladeshi seasons – summer, monsoon, autumn, late autumn, winter and spring – with warming flavors and memories, Dina Begum's Made in Bangladesh teaches modern classics and age-old recipes to home cooks across the world. From Narkel diye murghi (steamed chicken in a spiced coconut paste) to Tehari (aromatic beef and rice cooked with mustard oil & chillies) and Dhood puli pitha (coconut-stuffed rice flour dumplings in molasses milk), Begum crafts a story of quintessential flavors of the Bangladeshi kitchen.
Historically, Bangladeshi immigrants were the majority owners and operators of the curry houses across the United Kingdom starting in the 1960s through the 1990s. And though Bangladesh only gained its independence in 1971, the region’s ancient cuisine is overdue for some long-deserved culinary praise ana attention.
MOFAD is excited to welcome Dina Begum in celebration of her latest book, Made in Bangladesh: Recipes and Stories from a Home Kitchen. She will be joined by Mayukh Sen, James Beard Award-winning author of Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America, for a conversation on mustard, molasses, and coconut and other quintessential flavors of the Bangladeshi kitchen.
Doors will open at 6:00 PM to allow ticket holders to tour our current exhibition, Flavor: The World to Your Brain. The program will start promptly at 7:00 PM.
Tickets also include the option to purchase Made in Bangladesh by Dina Begum from our bookseller partner Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York City.
Food Gifts & Flavor with Elle Simone Scott and Klancy Miller
Food Gifts is rooted in the belief that food fosters connection and there is no more meaningful way to connect with others than to give a personalized food gift that you’ve prepared and packaged yourself.
In this unique new cookbook, Elle Scott Simone, the first African American woman to appear as a regular host on PBS’s America’s Test Kitchen and is now a main cast member on ATK and judge on America's Test Kitchen: The Next Generation, expands the boundaries and flavors of gift giving with the first all-occasion guide to homemade food gifts with over 150 irresistible recipes, hundreds of creative packing and gift basket ideas, insider tips and more.
MOFAD is excited to welcome Elle Simone Scott in celebration of her new cookbook, Food Gifts. She will be joined by Klancy Miller, food writer and author of Cooking Solo: The Fun of Cooking For Yourself and For the Culture: A Magazine Celebrating Black Women and Femmes in Food and Wine, for a conversation about the flavorful ways of gifting food,
Doors will open at 6:00 PM to allow ticket holders to tour our current exhibition, Flavor: The World to Your Brain. The program will start promptly at 7:00 PM.
Tickets also include the option to purchase Food Gifts: 150+ Irresistible Recipes for Crafting Personalized Presents by Elle Simone Scott from our bookseller partner Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York City.
SALVISOUL Flavors and the Women Who Preserve Them with Karla Tatiana Vasquez and Jessica Hoppe
THE SALVISOUL COOKBOOK is a long-awaited homecoming for the entire Salvadoran diaspora – including here in New York City. Chef and author Karla Tatiana Vasquez’s work is an affirmation of a people’s place in the rich tapestry of the foodways and culture of the United States and bridges the gap between ‘here’ and ‘there’ that many Salvadorans in diaspora have felt for the last several generations.
The being ‘between here and there’ continues to persist: From news of the most recent presidential elections in El Salvador to immigration to the southern border as a central issue in the US presidential elections this year, THE SALVISOUL COOKBOOK presents a diverse mosaic of both the harrow and beauty of the Salvadoran immigrant experience and a human portrait of what it means to be Salvadoran in the United States today. The book contains 30 first person accounts of Salvadoran women facing the impossible, contending with the American dream, and learning to be here in the US and there in El Salvador all at once, as they fight to preserve both their foodways and the future of their families.
In this collection of eighty recipes, Karla shares her conversations with moms, aunts, grandmothers, and friends to preserve their histories so that they do not go unheard. Here are recipes for Rellenos de Papa from Patricia, who remembers the Los Angeles earthquakes of the 1980s for more reasons than just fear; Flor de Izote con Huevos Revueltos, a favorite of Karla's father; as well as variations on the beloved Salvadoran Pupusa, a thick masa tortilla stuffed with different combinations of pork, cheese, and beans. Though their stories vary, the women have a shared experience of what it was like in El Salvador before the war, and what life was like as Salvadoran women surviving in their new home in the United States.
MOFAD is excited to welcome Karla Tatiana Vasquez in celebration of her new cookbook, THE SALVISOUL COOKBOOK. She will be joined by Jessica Hoppe, Honduran Ecuadorian writer and creator of @NuevaYorka, for a conversation about the flavors of the Salvadoran diaspora and the women who preserve them.
Doors will open at 6:00 PM to allow ticket holders to tour our current exhibition, Flavor: The World to Your Brain. The program will start promptly at 7:00 PM.
Tickets also include the option to purchase THE SALVISOUL COOKBOOK by Karla Tatiana Vasquez from our bookseller partner Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York City.
Good Eats and Eating Ethically
VIRTUAL EVENT
***7:00 PM EST***
In an age of mass factory farming, processed and pre-packaged meals, and unprecedented food waste, how does one eat ethically?
MOFAD is excited to host a virtual panel on “Good Eats and Eating Ethically” featuring co-editors Jennifer Cognard-Black and Melissa A. Goldthwaite, nutrition and food studies pioneer Marion Nestle, and author and founding co-ED and Farm Director of Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, New York, Leah Penniman. This panel celebrates the publication of Good Eats: 32 Writers on Eating Ethically (published by NYU Press) which features the stories of real people—real bellies, real bodies—including the writers themselves, who seek to understand the experiences, cultures, histories, and systems that have shaped their eating and their ethics.
Good Eats is co-edited by Jennifer Cognard-Black, Professor of English St. Mary’s College of Maryland and author of several books, and Melissa A. Goldthwaite, Professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University and the author, editor, or co-editor of many books, who previously collaborated on Books That Cook: The Making of a Literary Meal (NYU Press). For their latest text, they bring together a highly diverse ensemble of award-winning writers, chefs, farmers, activists, and educators invites viewers to think about what it means to eat according to individual and collective values.
A wide array of themes, topics, and perspectives inform the selections within Good Eats, contributing to an enhanced understanding of how we eat as individuals and in groups. From factory farming and the exploitative labor practices surrounding chocolate production, to Indigenous foodways and home and community gardens, the topics featured in this collection describe the wider context of sustenance and ethical choices.
Copies of Good Eats: 32 Writers on Eating Ethically by Jennifer Cognard-Black and Melissa A. Goldthwaite are available for purchase from NYU Press. Use the code NYUP30 for 30% off the listed price. Tickets to the virtual panel are sold separately through MOFAD.
The Core of an Onion with Mark Kurlansky
As Julia Child once said, “It is hard to imagine a civilization without onions.”
Historically, she's been right-and not just in the kitchen. Flourishing in just about every climate and culture around the world, onions have provided the essential basis not only for sautés, stews, and sauces, but for medicines, metaphors, and folklore. Now they're New York Times bestselling and James Beard Award-winning author Mark Kurlansky's most flavorful infatuation yet as he sets out to explore how and why the crop reigns from Italy to India and everywhere in between.
MOFAD is excited to welcome Mark Kurlansky in celebration of his latest book, The Core of an Onion: Peeling the Rarest Common Food, which features historical images, his own pen-and-ink drawings, and recipes for more than one hundred dishes from around the world. He will be joined by Melissa Clark, best-selling cookbook author and food columnist for the New York Times, for a conversation on why the onion has captivated society for decades, and why it remains one of the world’s most beloved culinary staples. Join us for an evening of peeling (and drawing!) the world’s rarest common food!
Admission includes onion-y snacks from local Chelsea Market vendors.
Tickets also include the option to purchase The Core of an Onion: Peeling the Rarest Common Food by Mark Kurlansky from our bookseller partner Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York City.
The Museum of Scent: Exploring the Curious and Wondrous World of Fragrance
VIRTUAL EVENT
***6:30 PM EST***
In 2017, award-winning natural perfumer and author Mandy Aftel opened a one-room museum―the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents―in her backyard in Berkeley, California, to help a modern audience rediscover the enchantment of this lost world. Her museum has attracted thousands of enthusiastic visitors and has been featured in the New York Times, Vogue, Goop, O: The Oprah Magazine, and numerous other media outlets.
Now Aftel has created The Museum of Scent, illustrated with treasures from her museum’s collection, so that readers at home can immerse themselves in the world of scent. She guides us through the different families of botanical fragrances (including flowers, woods, leaves and grasses, and resins), depicting each plant with a hand-colored antique woodcut and revealing its olfactory notes and lore. Special chapters are devoted to the most rare and precious fragrances―such as ambergris, formed of a rare secretion of the sperm whale―and to antique essential oil bottles, handwritten recipe books, and other evocative artifacts. The Museum of Scent, which includes a bookmark subtly scented with a natural essence, invites us on a sensuous, imaginative journey.
In celebration of Aftel’s new book, MOFAD is thrilled to welcome Mandy Aftel and culinary historian Dr. Jessica B. Harris for a virtual conversation about the natural and cultural history of scent and its important role in the world of food and drink.
Tickets include the option to purchase The Museum of Scent by Mandy Aftel *shipped to your door by Abbeville Press. *US only
Maman and Me: An Iranian American Family Cookbook Party
Join MOFAD as we welcome mother-daughter-duo Roya Shariat and Gita Sadeh along with guest speaker Abena Anim-Somuah, James-Beard award-winning entrepreneur, writer, and Cherrybombe podcast host, for a conversation about their debut cookbook, Maman and Me: Recipes from Our Iranian American Family, and a celebration of Iranian-American culinary traditions!
This event includes small bites of recipes from Maman and Me. Ticket also includes a drink from TimeOut Market.
Tickets include the option to purchase Maman and Me by Roya Shariat and Gita Sadeh from our bookseller partner Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York City.
Endangered Eating: The Vanishing Flavors of New York Apples
Apples, a common New England crop and the fruit that gave New York its iconic nick name, have been called the United States' "most endangered food."
In Endangered Eating: America's Vanishing Foods, culinary historian Sarah Lohman draws inspiration from the Ark of Taste, a list compiled by Slow Food International that catalogues important regional foods. Lohman travels the country learning about the distinct ingredients at risk of being lost, focusing on the apples of New England and New York state for this program with MOFAD. Lohman learns from those who love these rare ingredients: shepherds, fishers, and farmers; scientists, historians, and activists. And she tries her hand at raising these crops and preparing these dishes. Each chapter includes two recipes, so readers can be a part of saving these ingredients by purchasing and preparing them.
In celebration of Lohman’s new book, MOFAD is excited to welcome Sarah Lohman and a distinguished panel of apple and cider experts from across New York for a conversation on how to preserve and celebrate local culinary traditions and rare, cherished foods―before it’s too late.
This event includes a tasting of local New York regular and hard ciders. Ticket also includes a glass of wine from the collection of the TOM's Wine Cave.
Tickets include the option to purchase Endangered Eating by Sarah Lohman from our bookseller partner Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York City.
Sharing Yerba Mate: How South America's Most Popular Drink Defined a Region
Drinking yerba mate is a daily, communal ritual that has brought together South Americans for some five centuries. In lively prose and with vivid illustrations, Rebekah E. Pite explores how this Indigenous infusion, made from the naturally caffeinated leaves of a local holly tree, became one of the most distinctive and widely consumed beverages in the region. Ideas about who should harvest and serve yerba mate, along with visions of the archetypical mate drinker, persisted and were transformed alongside the shifting politics of class, race, and gender.
This global history takes us from the colonial Río de la Plata to the top yerba-consuming and producing nations of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, with excursions to Chile, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, where yerba mate is now sold as a "superfood."
In celebration of Pite’s new book, Sharing Yerba Mate: How South America's Most Popular Drink Defined a Region, MOFAD is excited to welcome Rebekah E. Pite for a conversation on the importance and impact of yerba mate as well as a yerba mate making demonstration.
Tickets include the option to purchase Sharing Yerba Mate by Rebekah E. Pite from our bookseller partner Kitchen Arts & Letters in New York City.
CUCINA POVERA: The Art of Making Do With What You’ve Got
ONLINE EVENT
Join MOFAD for a virtual lunch hour with Cucina Povera author Giulia Scarpaleggia and internationally acclaimed food writer Regula Ysewijn. They’ll be discussing the ingenious culinary traditions of Giulia’s culture and the resourcefulness of the strong Italian women who came before her.
Urban Ecosystems: Living Among the Plants, Animals, and Fungi of NYC
IN-PERSON EVENT at Museum of the City of New York
Join our panel of urban foragers, farmers, community gardeners, seed savers, and ecologists as we explore the forgotten stories and unseen worlds within the wilds and gardens of the Big Apple.
Buzzworthy: A Spirited Conversation About Female Writers
ONLINE EVENT
Join Jennifer Croll, author of Buzzworthy: Cocktails Inspired by Female Literary Greats Jennifer Croll for a spirited virtual conversation with writer and bartender Sammi Katz. They’ll be discussing the book, taking questions, and making cocktails just in case the conversation alone is not enough to quench your literary thirst.
Between Past and Future: Fermentation as a Living Tradition
ONLINE EVENT
In celebration of her new book OUR FERMENTED LIVES, MOFAD is thrilled to welcome Dr. Julia Skinner and world-renowned fermentation revitalist Sandor Katz for a virtual conversation about fermentations influence on our past, present, and future.
MOFAD x Ace Hotel Brooklyn present Recipes for the (R)Evolution: Food as Ritual, Culture and Performance
IN-PERSON EVENT
With the community cookbook and art project Recipes for the (R)Evolution, theater makers from Radical Evolution’s community consider cooking as an everyday creative act, alongside other artistic recipes we incorporate into our domestic lives. At this event, theater makers and food justice practitioners will consider the relationship to food as ritual, culture, and popular art-making.
Masa, Mole, and Mezcal: Balancing Mexican Culinary Traditions with Innovation
SOLD OUT
In-Person event at Makers’ Studio at Chelsea Market
Matt Diaz, owner of For All Things Good and Zack Wangeman, chef and owner of Sobre Masa, are on the forefront of masa innovation. Both are at the helm of restaurants in Brooklyn, NY, that are part of the Third Wave in Masa, but considering their obsession with heirloom corn and reverence for indigenous culinary and historical traditions, what does that really mean?
Skin the Color of Soil: Black Earth Wisdom with Leah Penniman
In-Person Event at Farm to People
In celebration of her new book, BLACK EARTH WISDOM MOFAD is thrilled to welcome author and food justice activist Leah Penniman for a talk and signing at Farm to People in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
The Woks of Life: Chinese Foodways and Authenticity with The Leung Family and Grace Young
In-person tickets are sold-out
Virtual tickets are available
In celebration of their new New York Times bestselling cookbook, The Woks of Life: Recipes to Know and Love from a Chinese American Family, The Leungs will be in conversation with award-winning cookbook author, Chinese culinary historian, and activist Grace Young.
Honoring Iranian Yogurt Traditions with Homa Dashtaki and Nilou Motamed
In-Person Event at Essex Market
Join White Moustache founder Homa Dashtaki for an evening with with Iranian-born food magazine editor and TV personality Nilou Motamed as they reflect on the Iranian and Zoroastrian traditions embedded in the pages of Dashtaki’s new book, YOGURT & WHEY.
Autophagies (Self-Eaters)by Eva Doumbia: A Performance and Tasting
IN-PERSON event at Invisible Dog Art Center
Eva Doumbia’s Autophagies (Self-Eaters) combines theater and aromas, music and flavors into a hybrid experience centered around cooking. It is also a reminder of the colonial histories still at play in today’s kitchens. Doumbia encourages us to think about the political dimension of food, reflecting with humor and tenderness on its origins, modes of culture and foodstuffs.
An Ocean in a Cup: A Story of Self-Discovery, Calamity, and Hope, Fueled by Coffee
In-Person event at Makers’ Studio at Chelsea Market
Join us for an intimate evening with Mokhtar Alkhanshali, founder of Port of Mokha, the world's highest rated coffee from Yemen. He'll be joined by author and BasBass Foods founder Hawa Hassan to discuss coffee’s history, messy politics, and the revolutionary movement of third culture storytellers reclaiming their heritage through food.
Food Culture through the Lens of Fashion
SOLD OUT
IN-PERSON EVENT at Demo Kitchen at Ace Hotel Brooklyn
Join The Museum at FIT’s curator of education and research, Melissa Marra-Alvarez, and associate curator of costume, Elizabeth Way, who will speak in conversation with food studies scholar Fabio Parasecoli about their most recent book, Food & Fashion, which examines the ways that food culture has expressed itself in fashion over the last 250 years.
Rice Stories
IN-PERSON EVENT at Museum of the City of New York
In Harlem, a neighborhood filled with myriad immigrant communities, rice can be thought of as a representation of the area’s diverse culture. No one knows this better than James Beard Award-winning Chef Chef JJ Johnson, whose restaurant FIELDTRIP celebrates culture through the shared experience of rice.
Living Wine: A Film Screening, Virtual Conversation, & Wine Tasting
Online event
MOFAD is proud to present a virtual screening of LIVING WINE, a new documentary that follows the journeys of natural winemakers in Northern California, during the largest wildfire season on record.
Ingredients for Revolution: A History of Feminist Restaurants and Queer Spaces
ONLINE EVENT
Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses is the first history of the more than 230 feminist and lesbian-feminist restaurants, cafes, and coffeehouses that existed in the United States from 1972 to the present. As key sites of cultural and political significance, this volume shows the essential role these institutions served for multiple social justice movements including women’s liberation, LGBTQ equality, and food justice, as well as for training women workers and entrepreneurs.
Fruiting Bodies: Colonization and First Foods
Online event
In the third and final part of a three-part virtual series curated by journalist Simran Sethi, Indigenous food activist and chef Karlos Baca will highlight the connection of mushrooms to indigenous cultures and the impacts of colonization on these “first foods.”
MOFAD x Ace Hotel Brooklyn present Bringing Mexican Traditions to Brooklyn with Aldama
SOLD OUT
IN-PERSON
Join us for an evening of food, drink, and conversation with about Mexico’s culinary traditions with Aldama’s Chef Gerardo Alcaraz and Christopher Reyes, moderated by journalist and Mexico-city based culinary expert Pedro Reyes.
Fruiting Bodies: Reclaiming the Asian History and Culture of Mushrooms
Online event
In part two of this three-part virtual series curated by journalist Simran Sethi, lead mycologist and production manager of Forij Mushrooms Jennifer Dou, will look at the Asian history and culture of mushrooms and how contemporary use in the Global North often erases Global South connections.
MOTHERLAND: Jamaican Diaspora Foodways in the US and Britain with Melissa Thompson and Jessica Harris
In-Person Event at Essex Market
Join MOFAD at Essex Market for an evening with acclaimed food writer and chef Melissa Thompson and legendary culinary historian, Dr. Jessica Harris, as they take us on a journey to Jamaica with a conversation celebrating Thompson’s new cookbook, Motherland.
Using Fungi to Re-Design the Urban Food Chain with William Padilla-Brown
In-Person event at Makers’ Studio at Chelsea Market
Fungi and their mushrooms are the best teachers in showing us how we can turn waste into abundance. From foraging to composting, let’s learn how we can redefine our urban food-chain in a presentation led by multidisciplinary citizen scientist and founder of MycoSymbiotics, William Padilla-Brown, AKA Permaculture Papi.
Vino Talk: Our Favorite Italian Wines From Native Grapes with Joe Campanale and Joshua David Stein
IN-PERSON EVENT at The Garden at Ace Hotel Brooklyn
SOLD-OUT
Joe Campanale and Joshua David Stein will discuss their new book, Vino: The Essential Guide to Real Italian Wine, and reveal their favorite Italian wines from native grapes and lead a tasting of natural wines.
Wildcrafted Vinegars with Pascal Baudar and Soirée-Leone
ONLINE EVENT
On December 1st, join us virtually for a conversation and demo with Pascal Baudar and Soirée-Leone, a teacher and writer focused on food preservation. They’ll discuss how to source ingredients from your own environments to make vinegar, as well as how to use your homemade vinegars to make a wide range of delicious foods such quick pickles, soups, sauces, salad dressings, beverages, desserts, jams, and other preserves.
Halal and the City
IN-PERSON EVENT at Museum of the City of New York
Where does halal food fit into the context of New York City dining? And how do issues of religion, class, and bureaucracy impact the halal food that’s available and who is able to sell it?
Fruiting Bodies: The Interconnectedness of Fungi
Online event
Part one of a three-part virtual series curated by journalist Simran Sethi, activist, and founder of Fungi Foundation Giuliana Furci will explore the magic of mushrooms as instigators of restoration and connection, and the importance of extending the focus on conservation beyond fauna and flora to include fungi.