This weekend’s symposium, “Filipino Flavors: Tradition + Innovation” at The International Culinary School at The Art Institute of California-San Francisco is set to bust through, in a metaphorical sense, the picket fences of lumpia as a barricade between, on the one hand, the concept of pedestrian home cooking in your typical Daly City household and, on the other, the development of Filipino cuisine as ripe and intricate culinary subject matter.  The beautiful thing about ACF’s events are that they’re not all talk; there are some serious eating occurrences planned this weekend!  I suggest you cast your spoon and fork into the adobo deathmatch assortment and cast your vote for your favorite contender at Saturday night’s Adobo Throwdown:

Whose recipe reigns supreme? Considered by many to be the national dish of the Philippines, adobo is personalized by household with each version passionately championed. Enjoy a gustatory tour of long-held family recipes and innovative variations on the theme. Taste, drink, mingle, move and groove to live music, then cast a vote on your favorite entry. Competition is open to all community members and amateur cooks. (Competitors are set – see below!) Top prizes will be awarded by popular vote and by our panel of distinguished judges. Keith Kamisugi will serve as our gregarious master of ceremonies and Lumaya will provide music. $20 per person.

Ticket sales end May 12! [buy now]

THE COMPETITORS:
Fred Briones | NAME OF DISH: Not Your Mom’s Adobo
Aimee Crisostomo | NAME OF DISH: Adobo
Clemente P. Escopete | NAME OF DISH: Uncle Clem’s Abobo Bicolano
Lizelle Festejo | NAME OF DISH: Tuna Squidobo
Steffany Farros | NAME OF DISH: Howard Family’s Awesome Adobo!
Jennifer Kirk | NAME OF DISH: Captain Kirk’s Adobo
John Melana | NAME OF DISH: J’s Tomadobo Chix and Ribs Recipe
Pauline Rivera | NAME OF DISH: Jalapeno Pork Adobo
Chummy Sevilla | NAME OF DISH: Slow Braised Pork Adobo

THE JUDGES: Dawn Bohulano Mabalon, Assistant Professor, Department of History, San Francisco State University; Marie Romero, President & Publisher, Arkipelago Books; Vice Consul Leah Victoria Rodriguez, The Philippine Consulate General in San Francisco and, the toughest judge of all….YOU!

Then, on Sunday, we’ve placed a creative interlude amidst the furious cooking and exploratory academic and industry panels:

Literary Reading | EATING OUR WORDS: WRITINGS ABOUT FOOD & FAMILY
Sun May 16 | 1:00–2:30 pm, with light refreshments
Local writers share their poems, fiction and essays about two of the most important facets of life: our families and our food. Barbara Jane Reyes, Rashaan Alexis Meneses, Aileen Suzara, Aimee Suzara, Lizelle Festejo, Yael Villafranca and Lisa Suguitan Melnick read from their books and works-in-progress. Oscar Bermeo emcees.  $5 general admission, $3 students. Ticket sales end May 12! [buy now]

Designer Max Medina at The Mystery Parade created the superb symposium poster and collateral.  Thanks, Max!

Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc. Literary Reading with

Randall Mann, Kristin Naca, and Debbie Yee

Saturday July 11, 2009
2:00 -4:30 pm
Latino Hispanic Community Meeting Room B

Randall Mann is the author of two collections of poetry, BREAKFAST WITH THOM GUNN (University of Chicago 2009) and COMPLAINT IN THE GARDEN (Zoo/Orchises 2004), winner of the 2003 Kenyon Review Prize; and co-author of the textbook WRITING POEMS, Seventh Edition (Pearson Longman 2007). He works as an editor and lives in San Francisco.

Kristin Naca’s poems have been published in Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner and Octopus Magazine. She recently graduated with a PhD from University of Nebraska, and MFA from Pitt. Her book Bird Eating Bird was selected by Yusef Komunyakaa, for the mtvU National Poetry Series Prize. It will appear with Harper Perennial in September.

Debbie Yee is a trusts and estates attorney and Kundiman fellow. Debbie’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in 32 Poems, OCHO, Fence and The Best American Poetry 2009. Debbie blogs irregularly at www.debbieyee.com.

All programs at the library are free.

San Francisco Public Library
100 Larkin Street (@ Grove)
sfpl.org

In celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage month, the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation and the Angel Island State Park will hold a poetry reading at the historic U.S. Immigration Station, Angel Island on Sunday, May 17 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. The Immigration Station was the point of entry for over one million immigrants from over 80 nations between 1910 and 1940. This “Ellis Island of the West” is known for the Chinese poems and other inscriptions written and carved on the barracks walls. Immigrants spent weeks and months undergoing interrogations to verify their legal right to enter the United States.

Playwright/Poet Genny Lim, author of the award-winning play Paper Angels and several collections of poetry, Winter Place, Child of War, and ISLAND: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island 1910-1940, will recite a few of the poems written by immigrants at the Detention Barracks, known in Chinese as “the wooden house” as well as new poems from her book, Pilgrimage. In 2007, she performed in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina and in 2005 at the World Poetry Festival in Caracas, Venezuela.

Poets from Kearny Street Workshop’s P-Cubed, The Postcard Poetry Project: A Literary and Visual Exchange between Kearny Street Workshop and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop will also read original works. Debbie Yee leads KSW’s Postcard Poetry workshop. She is an attorney, poet and arts and crafts enthusiast. A Kundiman fellow, Debbie’s poems have appeared in 32 Poems and Barn Owl Review, among others. Her work will be featured in Best American Poetry 2009.

The KSW poets include Thy Tran, who writes literary nonfiction about food, the rituals of the kitchen, and how eating and cooking both connect and separate communities around the world; Cathlin Goulding, a fourth generation Japanese American, whose essays and short stories recently appeared in I Saw My Ex at a Party (Kearny Street Press); Lisa Leong, a graduate of UCLA in art history and Asian American studies and writer for Asia Pacific Arts; Khoi Nguyen, the editor and founder of Gender on Our Minds; and Truc Nguyen, a 1.5 generation Vietnamese American queer activist and social justice organizer.

Several Bay Area leaders and scholars will read Angel Island poems. Assemblymember Paul Fong (D- Cupertino) was elected in 2008 and serves as Chair of the Elections and Redistricting Committee. Assemblymember Fong was a political science professor at Evergreen Valley College and a longtime activist and leader in the South Bay Asian Pacific American community. He is an Angel Island descendant. Supervisor David Chiu was elected in November 2008 to represent San Francisco’s District 3, which includes North Beach, Chinatown, Russian Hill, Union Square, Polk Street, and the Financial District. He is also the President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Supervisor Carmen Chu was appointed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2007 and elected to represent District Four (Sunset and Parkside) in 2008. Prior to joining the Board of Supervisors, she directed the Mayor’s Office of Public Policy and Finance. Supervisor Eric Mar was elected in November 2008 to represent District One, which includes the Richmond District of San Francisco. Eric taught Asian American studies at San Francisco State University from 1992 to 2008.

Marin Community Foundation President Dr. Tom Peters, California State Parks Marin District Superintendent Danita Rodriguez, scholar Maria Sakovich and others will read poems written by Angel Island immigrants.

The program is free. Please bring lawn chairs or blankets for festival seating at the Immigration Station. Refreshments are available at the Angel Island Café.

Free, self-guided tours of the Detention Barracks and the new interpretive panels on Immigration Station grounds are available before and after the poetry reading program. Visitors are encouraged to read aloud the hundreds of poems carved onto the walls. English translations will be available.

Ferry service to Angel Island is available from San Francisco on the Blue and Gold Fleet, which departs from Pier 41 at 9:45 a.m., 11:45 a.m. and 1:50 p.m. Round-trip tickets are $15.00/adult and $8.50/children. Return service to San Francisco is at 2:55 p.m. and 4:15 pm.

To reach Angel Island from Tiburon, take the Tiburon ferry at 10 a.m., 11 a.m. 12 p.m., and 1 p.m. The roundtrip fee is $13.50/adult and $ 11.50/children. Return service to Tiburon is at 3:20 p.m., 4:20 p.m. and 5:20 p.m.

For more information about the program, call 415 262-4429. For more information about the U.S. Immigration Station at Angel Island State Park, call 415 435-5537.

Litquake and the San Francisco Public Library are joining forces in 2008 to host a bi-monthly series of events in branches throughout the city as a lead up to the big temblor, scheduled this year for October 3-11, 2008. Both Litquake and the Library are committed to fostering interest in literature and bringing feisty and creative events to the local literary community.

Please join us for our first event “Noe—and Nearby—Poets” at the recently renovated Noe Valley branch, featuring poets who live in Noe Valley and nearby neighborhoods.

Noe—and Nearby—Poets
Tuesday, May 20, 7-8:30pm
Noe Valley branch
451 Jersey Street (near Castro), SF
355.5707

Debbie Yee, Keith Ekiss, Pireeni Sundaralingam & Colm Ó Riain, Kirsten Lee Andersen and Zack Rogow will join the audience for a reception afterwards.

About the poets:

• Debbie Yee is a trusts and estates attorney. A Kundiman Fellow, Debbie’s poems have appeared in Cheers to Muses: Contemporary Works by Asian American Women, Barn Owl Review, OCHO, and MiPOesias.
• Keith Ekiss is the Jones Lecturer in Poetry at Stanford, and a recipient of scholarships and residencies from the Bread Loaf and Squaw Valley Writers’ Conferences, Santa Fe Art Institute, Millay Colony for the Arts, and Petrified Forest National Park.
• Pireeni Sundaralingam was named one of America’s “Emerging Writers” by Ploughshares. She is editor of Writing the Lines of Our Hands, the first anthology of American South Asian poetry. Colm Ó Riain is a founding member of the Spoken Word theater group Dhaia Tribe, and violinist with avant-garde animation orchestra The Sprocket Ensemble. Together they perform as “Word and Violin.”
• Zack Rogow has published thirteen books, including five collections of poetry. His sixth book of poems, The Number before Infinity, will be published in September. He teaches in the low-residency MFA in Writing at the University of Alaska, Anchorage.
• Kirsten Andersen received her MFA from NYU. Her poetry appears in Barrow Street, Swink Magazine, Notre Dame Review, and other journals. Currently a Stegner Fellow at Stanford, Kirsten has received fellowships from the Edward Albee Foundation, Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.

Space is limited; please call 355-3707 to reserve your spot.

Keep an eye out for upcoming Litquake + the Library events at Mission Bay Branch in July and at Sunset in September!