Ruth Ann Murray, an assistant dean at Boston University’s Metropolitan College, examines the primacy of food in the establishment and growth of American Shakerism, in a Pepin Lecture Series event at 808 Commonwealth Avenue on Thursday, February 28 at 6 pm. She will highlight some of her findings, specifically the critical role that Shaker food and hospitality played in endearing this once-vilified sect to their fellow Americans. Free, but registration required at www.bu.edu/foodandwine.
Boston University sponsors the Pepin Lecture Series in Food Studies and Gastronomy and on Tuesday, February 12 at 6 pm at 808 Commonwealth Avenue you will hear Merry White, professor of anthropology at Boston University, discuss cooking and the extravagant banquets at the height of the Roman Empire. The reception will feature a sample of historically appropriate recipes, and the event is free. Sign up at www.bu.edu/foodandwine.
Join members of the Victorian Society of America/New England Chapter on Tuesday, November 27, at the Gibson House, 137 Beacon Street, for a lecture by Melanie Hall, Associate Professor of Art History at Boston University. Melanie Hall teaches courses in American and English architecture and preservation, decorative arts, and Museum Studies. She is currently the Director of the Museum Studies Program at Boston University. Ms. Hall will speak on her new book about international preservation, Towards World Heritage. A reception will begin at 5:30, with testimonials on behalf of the Victorian Society London and Newport at 6:30, and the lecture at 6:45. RSVP: 617.267.6338 or email: lauragresh@thegibsonhouse.org.
Boston University Professor Dr. Merry White (below) traces Japan’s vibrant cafe society over one hundred and thirty years, from Japan’s coffee craze at the turn of the twentieth century, when Japan helped to launch the Brazilian coffee industry, to the present day. Her talk takes up themes as diverse as gender, privacy, perfectionism and urbanism. Merry’s book, Coffee Life in Japan, will be available for purchase from and signing by the author. Coffee will be served, naturally. Co-sponsored by the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and Friends of Wellesley Botanic Gardens. Members $10, non-members $15. Register by calling 781-283-3094, or visit www.wellesley.edu/wcbgfriends.
At the opening of the 20th century, pioneering photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864 – 1952) was front and center in the movement to beautify America. Gilded age industrialism had brought a new prosperity to life in the United States, but at the price of once pristine forests, rivers, and clear air. In response, the Garden Beautiful movement began. Johnston, a progressive and perhaps one of America’s first “house and garden†photojournalists, was enlisted to photograph gardens from coast to coast. Historian Sam Watters will reveal a sampling of Johnston’s images for lectures delivered across America to advance the Garden Beautiful movement. He will speak about her as an artist and the relevance of her work as a cultural history collection. Over the course of 5 years, historian Sam Watters scanned through millions of books and magazines to match Johnston’s unlabeled hand painted glass garden slides (now in the collection of the Library of Congress) to the sites they depicted, bringing them to light again after more than 70 years, and showing them as a collection of significance in his new book Gardens for a Beautiful America.
The morning lecture will take place at the new Weld Hill Research Building, 1300 Centre Street in Roslindale, and optional tours of the building will be available at 9:30 am for those registered for the morning lecture. For those unable to attend in the morning, an evening session will be held in the Hunnewell Building, 125 Arborway in Jamaica Plain. Due to space considerations, limited spaces are available for both lectures, and early registration will be encouraged. Co-sponsored by The Garden Club of the Back Bay with Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Friends of Wellesley College Botanic Gardens, Photographic Resource Center at Boston University, and The Garden Conservancy. Garden Club of the Back Bay members will receive written notification in the mail. All others may register at www.arboretum.harvard.edu. Fee to the public is $20 through October 15, and $25 thereafter.
The Asian Longhorned Beetle has often been the source behind many tree-related woes. During the spring of 2011, The Friends of the Public Garden conducted a search with the Boston University Global Day of Service FOPG team to look for the beetle throughout parts of Boston, specifically the Common and the Public Garden.
On August 7, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation’s lead ALB Forester Julie Coop will be hosting a free workshop on the beetle at the Franklin Park Golf Course Clubhouse in Dorchester. It will run from 6:30-8:00 P.M. and will teach people how to identify the Asian Longhorned Beetle and prevent it from spreading in Boston.
The Asian Longhorned Beetle is a terribly invasive insect that destroys trees. The beetle has been found throughout Massachusetts and could threaten trees within the city if it is not identified properly and quickly. We hope you will be able to participate in this informative workshop with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation so we can protect our trees!
After an exhaustive nine-month nationwide search, the Board of Trustees has selected Selvin Chambers as The Food Project’s new executive director.
Selvin is a visionary leader who brings to The Food Project deep experience in civic engagement, youth development, and family services, and has received numerous commendations for his community involvement. During his recent four-year tenure as executive director of the Elizabeth Peabody House in Somerville, Mass., Selvin worked with his Board of Directors to establish a management and organizational structure with a clear governance protocol, steward important fundraising relationships, build strong corporate and community partnerships, create a much-needed food pantry, strengthen programs, and balance community need with strategic growth and resources.
A native of Cambridge, Mass., Selvin’s career has spanned the nonprofit and government sectors. He has served in various capacities at City Year programs around the country, as well as headed up youth and family services departments for the cities of Boston and Cambridge. He holds a degree in sociology from Fitchburg State University, is a graduate of the Initiative on Diversity in Civic Leadership program of Suffolk University, and holds a certificate in nonprofit management from Boston University’s Institute for Nonprofit Management and Leadership.
Selvin is honored to have been selected and is eager to get started at The Food Project, learning about our various programs and community initiatives and meeting the many people who help make The Food Project, which has received grants from The Garden Club of the Back Bay in the past, such a success. For more information on The Food Project, visit www.thefoodproject.org
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Boston University Professor of Anthropology Merry White explores the fascinating role that coffee and cafe society have played in Japanese culture in a lecture on Wednesday, May 9, from 6 – 8 at 808 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. White’s book, Coffee Life in Japan – part ethnography, part memoir – traces the cafe craze from 1888, when Japan helped to launch the Brazilian coffee industry, up to the present. Her work examines themes as diverse as gender, privacy, perfectionism, and urbanism. Learn how coffee and coffee spaces have played essential roles in the formation of Japanese beliefs about public space, social change, modernity, and pleasure. Hear how the cafe has been a place to encounter new ideas and experiments in thought, behavior, sexuality, dress and taste. Each person attending this event will receive a copy of White’s book. Refreshments will be served. $25. Register online at www.bu.edu/foodandwine.
Boston University history professor Louis Ferleger will speak on Wednesday, April 4, beginning at 10 am, on Agribusiness and the Politics of Cheap Food. Mr. Ferleger has served as executive director of the Historical Society at Boston University, and is coauthor of A New Mandate: Democratic Choices for a Prosperous Economy, and No Gain, No Pain: Taxes, Productivity and Economic Growth. He has served as editor of Agriculture and National Development: Views on the Nineteenth Century, and has co-edited Slavery, Secession, and Southern History (2000) and, with Walter Dean Burnham and Thomas Ferguson, Voting in American Elections: The Shape of the American Political Universe Since 1788 (Academica Press, 2009.) You may register online at www.bu.edu/foodandwine/register, or call 617-353-9852. $30. You will receive location information upon receipt of payment.
Have you ever wondered about safe ways to hunt for wild and exotic mushrooms, or wanted to spice up supermarket varieties like crimini or portabello? If so, join president of the Boston Mycological Club, Susan Goldhor, and renowned Boston-area chef Chris Douglass, on Monday, March 5, from 6 – 8 at the Boston University Demonstration Room, 808 Commonwealth Avenue, to explore fascinating fungi. Goldhor has been collecting and eating wild mushrooms—without a single stomach ache—for more than 25 years, and she writes a regular column for the magazine Mushroom, the Journal of Wild Mushrooming. Chef Douglass is chef-owner of Dorchester’s beloved Tavolo and Ashmont Grill, as well as leading member of Chefs Collaborative and an active proponent and patron of local food producers. Together, Goldhor and Douglass will expand your knowledge of mushrooms and please your palate with mushroom dishes paired with wine. Cost $60.00. Register online at www.bu.edu/foodandwine, or telephone 617-353-9852.
