Cookbook Club: A House With A Date Palm Will Never Starve

We are excited to host a very special final Cookbook Club of 2024 centered around A HOUSE WITH A DATE PALM WILL NEVER STARVE: Cooking with Date Syrup: Forty-One Chefs and an Artist Create New and Classic Dishes with a Traditional Middle Eastern Ingredient.
This event is presented in conjunction with the exhibition "Around the Table: Shared Experiences / Open Conversations / Coming Together" at Georgetown University Art Galleries, which features Michael Rakowitz's art. We encourage you to visit the exhibition before or after this event.
A couple of days after you sign up for this event, you’ll have access to a spreadsheet where attendees list their chosen dishes.

Then we’ll gather in the shop and share a feast! We’ll talk through the process of procuring ingredients, challenges and unexpected pleasures of the cooking process and many other things related to A HOUSE WITH A DATE PALM WILL NEVER STARVE.

If you purchase a copy of the book from us with your ticket, you can pick it up in our store, or have it shipped for an additional cost.
ABOUT THE COOKBOOK
Date syrup has been central to Iraqi cooking and home life for centuries. In this unique book, a fusion of contemporary art and food, Chicago-based Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz (born 1973) and 41 celebrated chefs present delicious dishes using this staple of Middle Eastern cuisine.

In early 2018, Rakowitz unveiled a winged bull sculpture on the Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square, a life-size replica of a Mesopotamian lammasu made from thousands of date syrup cans. The artist’s choice of material was laden with historical significance: for decades, until the industry was decimated by war and disease, dates had been Iraq’s second biggest export after oil.

As his winged bull sat upon the Fourth Plinth, Rakowitz invited chefs from around the world to create new and classic recipes using date syrup. Chefs and food writers including Yotam Ottolenghi, Alice Waters, Claudia Roden, Reem Kassis, Prue Leith, Jason Hammel, Nuno Mendes, Thomasina Miers, Giorgio Locatelli and Marcus Samuelsson answered Rakowitz’s call, creating dozens of sweet and savory dishes with date syrup, now collected in this cookbook.

In A HOUSE WITH A DATE PALM WILL NEVER STARVE, easy step-by-step instructions and gorgeous photographs enable the reader to make these recipes at home. Ranging from the traditional to the innovative, with everything from simple brunch dishes, salads and sides to mouthwatering mains, cakes, desserts, drinks and condiments represented, the recipes in this volume showcase the richness of a humble ingredient. This special book will appeal to anyone who loves the cuisine of the Middle East and is interested in the politics of food in that troubled region.Chefs include: Sara Ahmad, Sam and Sam Clark (Moro, Morito), Jason Hammel (Lula Café, Marisol), Stephen Harris (The Sportsman), Anissa Helou, Reem Kassis, Asma Khan (Darjeeling Express), Florence Knight, Jeremy Lee (Quo Vadis), Prue Leith, Claudia Roden, and many more.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR/ARTIST

Michael Rakowitz is an Iraqi-American artist working at the intersection of problem-solving and troublemaking. His work has appeared in venues worldwide including dOCUMENTA (13), P.S.1, MoMA, MassMOCA, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Palais de Tokyo, the 16th Biennale of Sydney, the 10th and 14th Istanbul Biennials, Sharjah Biennial 8, Tirana Biennale, National Design Triennial at the Cooper-Hewitt, Transmediale 05, FRONT Triennial in Cleveland, and CURRENT:LA Public Art Triennial.
He has had solo projects and exhibitions with Creative Time, Tate Modern in London, The Wellin Museum of Art, MCA Chicago, Lombard Freid Gallery and Jane Lombard Gallery in New York, SITE Santa Fe, Galerie Barbara Wien in Berlin, Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago, Malmö Konsthall, Tensta Konsthall, and Kunstraum Innsbruck, and Waterfronts - England’s Creative Coast. He is the recipient of the 2020 Nasher Prize; the 2018 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts; a 2012 Tiffany Foundation Award; a 2008 Creative Capital Grant; a Sharjah Biennial Jury Award; a 2006 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Grant in Architecture and Environmental Structures; the 2003 Dena Foundation Award, and the 2002 Design 21 Grand Prix from UNESCO.
He was awarded the 2018-2020 Fourth Plinth commission in London’s Trafalgar Square. From 2019-2020, a survey of Rakowitz’s work traveled from Whitechapel Gallery in London, to Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Torino, to the Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai. Rakowitz is represented by Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago; Jane Lombard Gallery, New York; and Barbara Wien Galerie, Berlin; Pi Artworks, Istanbul; and Green Art Gallery, Dubai. He lives and works in Chicago.

ABOUT THE EXHIBIT (SEPT 27-DEC 8)
The Georgetown University Art Galleries are pleased to present Around the Table: Shared Experiences / Open Conversations / Coming Together curated by Dr. Vesela Sretenović in the Maria and Alberto de la Cruz Art Gallery.

Around the Table is a group exhibition that engages the theme of food, not as a material or medium, but as a means of social interactions and communal round ups over meals. It features contemporary national and international artists whose works reference food as a metaphor of shared experiences, open conversations, and coming together. Conceived as a series of separate yet interrelated installations and interventions, the aspirations of Around the Table are manifold: to explore the sensorial, social, and political significance of food; to spark earnest discussions across divisions; and to strengthen commonalities rather than differences among people.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Bold Fork Books, 3064 Mount Pleasant Street Northwest, Washington, United States