February 7, 2005
'A Memoir Evening' Our guests will be acclaimed Bay Area writers Jeanette Ferrary and Margo Perin.

Ferrary, well-known for her book "MFK Fischer and Me" amongst others, will read from her recently-published book, "Out Of The Kitchen: Adventures of a Food Writer." Jeannette Ferrary is the author of eight books, including "M. F. K. Fisher and Me: A Memoir of Food and Friendship." "Sweet Onions and Sour Cherries," co-authored with Louise Fiszer, was nominated for the Julia Child Cookbook Award by the International Association of Culinary Professionals. Her columns, articles, and restaurant reviews have appeared in The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, many magazines and newspapers and many culinary publications. She teaches food-writing at Stanford University and UC Berkeley Extension in San Francisco. On Saturday February 26, she will teach a full day course on food writing in San Francisco at the UC Berkeley campus on Market Street. Her 5-session Stanford course, Food Writing from Soup to Nuts, begins on March 29.
In her current book, "Out Of The Kitchen: Adventures of a Food Writer." Ms. Ferrary tells the story of her life as it relates to food, from a girl's ambivalence about food to a career immersed in cuisine. It begins in earliest childhood with incidents that reveal the power of food in its many guises: in the inner sanctum of her grandmother's kitchen, at the automat, in the middle of the street with the ice cream man.
Throughout the various changes of her life, food played an important part as heritage and legacy, as symbol, nourishment, and pleasure. Filled with humor and enthusiasm about life in the food world, the book also contains many recipes as well as portraits of many of America's most famous chefs. Please welcome Jeanette Ferrary.
Margo Perin, whose essays include "The Body Geographic," will read from the book she edited, "How I Learned to Cook and Other Writings on Complex Mother-Daughter Relationships." Margo Perin is a writer of memoir, novels, short stories, personal essays and performance works. Her anthology, HOW I LEARNED TO COOK AND OTHER WRITINGS ON COMPLEX MOTHER-DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIPS (Tarcher/Penguin), has recently been published to much critical acclaim. Her memoir, MOVING TARGET, is under consideration for publication. A nominee for the Pushcart Prize, she has won literary prizes for memoir, novel and short fiction. Published in the U.S. and Britain, including Treasure House, Painted Hills Review, you-talkin-ta-me?, Tenderloin Times, California Tomorrow, Issues, and World University News, her work has been theatrically produced in Chicago and California, filmed, and broadcasted. She is currently completing a collection of personal essays and a book on writing.
As a writing instructor, Margo Perin has been teaching at universities, colleges and schools for more than twenty-five years. She has taught at the University of San Francisco in M.F.A. Creative Writing, the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Cruz Extensions, and workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area, northern California, Spain, Italy and Mexico.
Margo also directs an international manuscript consultation and editing business in which she helps writers of novels, memoirs, short stories and personal essays develop, polish and submit their work for publication.

Monday February 21st
Julie Soo, lawyer and journalist for Asian Week, will speak.

Julie is 4th generation Chinese-American. " Wei Lin Discovers America" Currently she serves as Staff Counsel to the California Department of Insurance And contributes articles to Asian Week. In addition, she has been hailed for her work with the Dr. Wen Ho Lee Project on the Coalition Against Racial and Ethnic Scapegoating, as well as for her work for the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco Democratic Women's Forum.