The Arden Dimick Library open book club has announced a fall theme for foodies – reading about eating, cooking and sharing food. Recent slow food events in Sacramento have illustrated the region’s deep interest in sustainable food issues. Michael Pollan’s California Lectures event sold out. The Crest Theater continues to be pestered by callers looking for opening night of sustainable food documentary Food Inc. Local foodie websites like Vanilla Garlic and Poor Girl Eats Well garner huge audiences and serious praise. With that in mind, this summer may be the perfect time to read about food, preparing you to take part in the book club discussions this fall.

• September 20, the club will discuss Julie Powell’s Julie & Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen. Powell wrote a wildly popular, comic memoir blog (The Julie/Julia Project) detailing the daily difficulty of trying to recreate 524 recipes from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year, while working at New York’s ground zero by day. The blog begat the book and the book begat the movie (Julie & Julia), which debuts August 7, starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Amy Adams as Julie Powell.
• October 25, the group will discuss Berkeley professor Pollan’s In Defense of Food, An Eater’s Manifesto, whose world-famous mantra -- “eat food, not too much, mostly plants” has captured the attention of readers, eaters, chefs and policy-makers everywhere. Pollan spoke to a standing room crowd at Westminster Presbyterian in June. Now he will appear in the documentary Food Inc, opening with a panel discussion at the Crest Theater Friday, July 3. In Defense of Food is Pollan’s newest and most straightforward read, about the simple premises he thinks can improve the quality, health and pleasure of our eating lives.
• November 15, just in time for Thanksgiving, the club will read New York Times food critic Ruth Reichl’s humorous and poignant memoir of her lifetime love of food, Tender at the Bone: Growing up at the Table. Reichl’s food skills grew in part out of her very real need to survive with a mother who was not only taste-blind but disparaging of the dangers of rot. 

All the book club talks will be held on Sundays, from 2:00-3:30, at Arden Dimick Library, 891 Watt Avenue, Sacramento. Email with any questions.