What a week!

It's been a very busy week here at Rabelais. We started out with a lecture at Bates College on Tuesday, as part of a course being offered by our friend Myron Beasley. The lecture was titled "Food in Print: The Cookbook in History and as Physical Object." It hoped to offer a brief overview of the history of books about food (including but not exclusively, cookbooks), and a survey of the many physical forms cookbooks have had through the ages. Cookbooks have taken on so many forms, including scrolls, accordion books, the exquisite corpse, calendars, file-card boxes, manuscript books, shape books, and more. We showed off books bound in leather, copper, wood, and plastic, and others cut into the shapes of soup bowls and beer mugs. The students were great and we hope they got something out of it.

Wednesday was another meeting for the Slow Food Portland Book Group, and we tackled George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London. This one everyone liked a great deal, and it was a pleasure to read such fine writing. We all seemed struck by the immediacy of Orwell's depiction of hunger. Now we move on to MFK Fisher's How to Cook a Wolf, which also takes place during a time of less than plenty, and gives advice on how to survive a downturn. Timely.

Thursday Samantha stayed home to work on the finishing touches of a piece she's done for Gastronomica, deadline Friday, while I hung a show of original pages from Nicole Chaison's Hausfrau, the local homemaker's zine, with a book due later this month. Nicole was let loose by our neighbors, Dean's Sweets, on their front windows, and has decorated them in time for Mother's Day. In order to celebrate, we hung some work from Nicoles's upcoming book and joined Dean's Sweets for a First Friday reception. Unfortunately I couldn't attend as I was down with a cold (not swine flu). I also missed Leon Johnson's Blue Hammer, a performative meal at Whitney Art Works. Samantha did attend, and is still explaining the many, many pieces of this intricate dinner/art work.

I'm back in today, and we're getting ready for the next FoodFilms installment, which we do together with One Longfellow Square, The Maine Food Ambassadors program and Aurora Provisions. Tonight's film is Tampopo, and the food will be a three-course offering by Food Factory Miyake's Masa Miyake. Should be great.

I have to mention that Monday night the James Beard Awards will be held in NYC. Two of our favorite restaurants in town are up for significant awards: Sam Hayward and Dana Street of Fore Street are up for Outstanding Restaurant in the US, and Rob Evans is up for Best Chef North East for Hugo's. Best of luck to both of them! Our finger are crossed.