Calendar

How can pickles be made at home simply with maximum flavor impact?
This lecture, demonstration, and tasting session will outline the
processes and techniques of vinegar-brined pickles (both canned and
quick), and fermented pickles, and offer useful tips for the home DIY
enthusiast. And as time permits, we'll also discuss some of the more
peculiar pickling possibilities from the fringes of preserved fruits
and vegetables - soy sauce pickling, nuka (rice bran) pickling beds,
salt-cured pickles, and Electric Kool-Aid pickles. Bring your
questions and your pickling passion!

Karen Solomon  is the author of Jam It, Pickle it, Cure It; Can It, Bottle It, Smoke It; and the Asian Pickles e-cookbook and print cookbook series. In addition, Karen has written about pickling and food preservation for a host of publications, including Saveur.com, The Blender (the blog of Williams Sonoma), Fine Cooking, Prevention, Yoga Journal, Vegetarian Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. When no one is looking, she drinks pickle brine by the shot.

Join San Francisco writer Evette Davis for a reading from her debut novel Woman King, as well as a discussion about the lessons she's learned preparing to become a self-published author.   She will tell you about the importance of using professional editors and designers, as well as how to build a marketing plan.  Woman King is the first installment of a paranormal trilogy featuring intrepid political consultant Olivia Shepherd and her adventures with the Council, a secret supernatural political organization, as well as her romance with William Ferrell, a mysterious musician with his own complicated personal history. Davis takes some of San Francisco’s most recognizable landmarks, and transforms them into magical places where people are never quite sure if what they're seeing is real. She maintains a website at www.evettedavis.com, or you can follow her on Twitter at @SFEvette.

Chinese Poetry reading and  new book talk.

Author and photographer, James Martin, presents a slide show of over 220 photographs from his coffee table-sized book. The Islands of San Francisco Bay chronicles the Bay’s 48 islands, and aims to capture the wildness of these Island habitats. Learn more about Island ecology, the birds, animals, plants and Island topography.

The San Francisco Alumni Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated and the Bayview Branch of the San Francisco Public Library presents a discussion and readings by three authors:

• Mykah Montgomery: The Girl Who Wanted a Tail (children’s book)
• Patricia Saunders: Through the Fire (poetry)
• Lisa White: Pink Milk (children’s book)

Moderated by Karen Johnson of Marcus Bookstore

Join renowned architect and Chinese American studies historian Philip P. Choy for an insider’s guide to the history and architecture of San Francisco’s Chinatown in his book San Francisco Chinatown: A Guide to Its History and Architecture.  In this lecture and slide presentation, witness the triumphs and tragedies of the Chinese American experience in the United States from the city's earliest days to its post-quake transformation into an "oriental" tourist attraction as a pragmatic means of survival.

Mr. Choy co-taught the nation's first college level course in Chinese American history at San Francisco State University.  He has served on numerous boards including the California State Historic Resource Commission, the San Francisco Landmark Advisory Board, and the Chinese Historical Society of America.  He is the recipient of the prestigious San Francisco State University President's Medal.

This program will be conducted in English.

Join us for a reading and booksigning with Alysia Abbott, author of Fairyland,  a  vibrant memoir about growing up motherless in 1970s and ’80s San Francisco with an openly gay father.

After his wife dies in a car accident, bisexual writer and activist Steve Abbott moves with his two-year-old daughter to San Francisco. There they discover a city in the midst of revolution, bustling with gay men in search of liberation—few of whom are raising a child.

In Alysia’s teens, Steve’s friends—several of whom she has befriended—fall ill as AIDS starts its rampage through their community. While Alysia is studying in New York and then in France, her father tells her it’s time to come home; he’s sick with AIDS. Alysia must choose whether to take on the responsibility of caring for her father or continue the independent life she has worked so hard to create.

Reconstructing their life together from a remarkable cache of her father’s journals, letters, and writings, Alysia Abbott gives us an unforgettable portrait of a tumultuous, historic time in San Francisco as well as an exquisitely moving account of a father’s legacy and a daughter’s love.

This event is co-sponsored by the Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center and the San Francisco History Center.

During the 1960s and 1970s San Francisco photographer Phiz Mezey photographed some of the significant events in the City's history.  This exhibit takes the viewer on a tour of San Francisco during this time. Highlights include the redevelopment of Western Addition, the San Francisco State Strike, personalities such as Martin Luther King Jr., Jimi Hendrix, James Baldwin and others.

Related programs:
Sunday March 3: Meet the artist Phiz Mezey, Main Library, Latino Hispanic Community Room, 1:00;
Thursday April 11 The Fillmore, Film and Discussion, Main Library, Koret, 5:30.

Born in Berkeley, California, artist and photographer Ronald Hirano, a Deaf Nisei, was "adopted" by Miss Delight Rice, who founded the Philippine School for the Deaf in 1907, when his entire family was interned to relocation camps with 120,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II.

This exhibition of his works includes photography, linoleum-engraved and designed covers of the California News (the newspaper from the California School for the Deaf), linoleum-engraved cards and pen and ink cards.