and Andrew opened the night’s slate of featured performers with an original song he composed for Annie, who is in library school, called “I Want You to Check Me Out”:

Highly referential and a very difficult act to follow, warm vegan banana bread was a good, gooey thing after the birthday Piano Man,

and folding an origami fox another great talent drawn randomly out of the bowl,

Cardmaker Caroline, who has just started nursing school, demonstrated her new skills taking Andrew’s blood pressure,

I donned a hat and shoes for Tap Like a Pirate Day (it’s really Talk Like a Pirate Day that is widely celebrated, but I subbed tap shoes for dramatic effect);

all the African countries were named,

some joint flexibility displayed,

a couple, newly married, impressed with athletic synchronicity,

a buried flask was opened (freshly filled with whiskey),

and used as a prop in a Eugene Debs reading (many of the guests work at a progressive think tank in the area, so more than a few of the acts alluded to the room’s high collective political and geographic knowledge).

A gentleman in an unusual tie did acrobatics (furniture was relocated),

and “Gin and Juice” was reinterpreted for the guitar,

(here’s the chorus)

and Annie closed with a German song and a truly incredible cake with diverse layers and a splendid sour cream icing,

The next morning, I was recovering from potent tumblers of homemade limoncello mixed with hibiscus tea (Annie and Andrew seemed fine), and my friend Cameron met the three of us at the Dupont Circle Farmers’ Market with a ready explanation of how to pronounce “praline” (he poses the quandary in his calm, forthright way):

We four ambled around the market, spotting the praline muffins Cameron had referred to,

and beautiful fresh ginger, a nice reminder of the freshness ginger can bring to cooking and baking.

In Adams Morgan, Annie ordered homemade yogurt,

Andrew a crêpe with roasted peppers and goat cheese,

and my friend Nina arrived on her trusty bike Rusty.

Closing the loop on a weekend of celebratory sugar, we walked with Nina to Biagio, one of my favorite places, where she explained how the white chocolate we were about to taste surrounded a kulfi-like nougat (heavy on the traditional cardamom), that takes her back to the sweets at the end of Ramadan she waited for as a child.

I think D.C. is quite lucky to have all of these talented friends of mine that I hope to have occasion to see again soon; happy, happy birthday again, Andrew–

More images of talented people in the Flickr set.

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Late yesterday afternoon, I met with Justin, Jon, and Brad of the Aten Design Group (they are building the next phase of Knight Pulse) over paninis at Busboys and Poets (Brad Jon, a fellow foodie, also chose a peanut butter + banana panini).

Later, I convinced Drupalers (it’s DrupalCon this week) to meet at Biagio for a Madecasse tasting. The fabulous Liza shares her opinion:

Ian countered with this comparison:

Then, I was enchanted by Annie’s art in Andrew and Annie’s beautiful kitchen:

We drank home brew (always a good idea) from a friend of theirs,

and cooked dinner talking about Andrew and Annie’s upcoming travels, the importance of taking vacation, Annie’s stellar site launch checklists, Andrew’s vision of progress through science (read the blog), and the delightful eccentricities of family gatherings.

And then Ian and Liza convinced me to head back over (ancho caramels are quite motivational) to a rooftop in Adams Morgan, and there was blueberry beer on the table, 12seconds uploading happening, and all sorts of code-related antics were being planned at neighboring tables, small droplets loosely joined in this place newly filled with hope…

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A DJ and owner of the alternative record label Hoss, Nina has been a purveyor of knowledge for me since I worked with her at PBS. I miss being down the hall from her and sitting next to Cameron there, where he continues to lead the PBS video efforts—these two are reasons enough to live in D.C.

We ate stunning pumpkin curry along with drunken noodles, spring rolls, and salmon.

When someone cooks for you who truly loves cooking as Taw does, you taste the respect for the ingredients. Complicated Thai spice combinations from the kitchen continued as the fish tank burbled behind me, Cameron–in his usual Zen-like way–resisted batting the hanging plant tendrils out of his hair, and toward the dessert, the bird woke up in the cage next to me.

Silently, we unwrapped the banana leaf to find glistening sticky rice (look closely for the little fruit jewels mixed in) and mango. I think I convinced Nina to visit me in Miami when the mangoes begin to fall from the tree outside the Magic Cottage.

After Cameron narrated an incredible iPhone slideshow from his recent travels, we three talked about our work in what feels like a public living room of sorts. And we were reluctant to leave this place of good smells and wonderful food, finally walking out into the quiet street full of the knowledge and responsibility that the future of public media is what we make of it, beginning now…

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Walking the Chicago Green City Market on Saturday, I saw chestnuts,

striped turkish eggplants,

and the elusive famed yellow beets.

Passing up crêpes (skillyfully made below),

I opted for plummy bread pudding and butternut squash pie (both good Thanksgiving dessert ideas).

The fractal cauliflower seemed to be growing in all directions as you watched,

and there was a tomato that resembled a duck,

and knobbly ends of carrots to wonder at.

The Hillions String Band started up,

and the families gathered around to hear their lively strings.

—–

Flying with cupcakes from Chicago into the District, I drove to Charlottesville and giggled at Helen’s unabashed delight at Molly’s chocolate/chocolate and chocolate/peanut butter (in my opinion, Molly’s is easily the superlative shop in America); Ben, Dana, Will, Jeremy, and Jordan also rode a cupcake high over to the Local for burgers and beers.

Sunday alternated between rain and full sunshine, but nothing dampened the unflagging energy of breakdancing competitors at Crafty Bastards, the local craft extravaganza in Adams Morgan:

A potter spun his wheel,

a onesie had rhythm,

squishy sushi sparred,

and there was a strong tofu contingent for Obama.

I considered monster magnets for all of you lovely kthread readers (which one would you have picked?),

and laughed at the scrawled Pharmacy Bar exhortation as Laura and I walked to the Mt. Pleasant Day neighborhood celebration.

We passed women in striking costumes,

and met the gracious Cameron and Morgan duo in their second pass through the festivities that day.

I always gravitate toward a drumming circle, and Sunday was no different.

Even the members of Batala (the all-women drumming group here) paused to listen as the semicircle kept the beat of this vibrant neighborhood going…

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It was too difficult to choose between the tomatoes

that stretched out in breathtaking rows at Waterpenny Farms and Radical Roots.

I reluctantly left this place of thoughtful people and food, and drove to the District, where I came upon a group of women drumming.

Very inspired by these drummers, I thought about my friend Amanda’s recent post pondering the possibilities for the future of art communities in this area.

For a late lunch, I think there’s quite a bit of artistry in the food here, beginning with a perfectly spiced chili that tops “half-smokes” and hot dogs at Ben’s Chili Bowl on U street.

An unexpected hit of spice and the very finely diced onions recommend a vanilla milkshake,

which paled in comparison, though, to a later concoction with a tender crumb emerging from my friend Laura’s kitchen–a cake glazed with white chocolate that she decorated artfully:

The cake joined an incredible variety of dishes brought by the eleven dinner party guests who arrived at our friend Kevin’s house, including insalata caprese, homemade spring rolls, and fig bruschetta.

Remember when Rachel explained on July 4th how the fig trees behind her house wouldn’t ripen? Now they have (and make lovely bruschetta toppings):

Then, the eternal question: cake or pie?

Fueled by both, Laura and I made our way (via a bar that played exclusively Madonna tracks while we were there) to an art gallery in a hidden alley with skate ramps inside and outside, to see our friend Chris Bishop‘s new art and celebrate his birthday.

My friends Cameron, Morgan, and Nina were worth a rather interesting exploration of the area to find the gallery space itself,

and the dashing Cameron took this picture of Laura, Morgan, Nina (with a rad unicorn necklace), and me as we sat and caught up as the skaters whizzed by behind us.

Perhaps, like the figs Rachel resourcefully ripened, it is only a matter of time until the many pockets of underground art buzzing around the District come to fruition…

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About a week ago, I was sitting in a large room in Budapest’s Novotel Centrum, stunned.

Like the fireworks I watched Friday night from a rooftop at George Washington University in D.C. with my good friend and fabulous cook Laura Hertzfeld (display below; thanks, as always, L),

my understanding of global blogging conversations was being exploded as I listened to fiery bursts from the mouths of impassioned activists and advocates from around the world.

I was attending the 2008 Global Voices Summit, a project that my current employer, the Knight Foundation, funds through a contest called the News Challenge for new ideas in local news delivery.

Global Voices cofounder Ethan Zuckerman (find his thoughtful blog posts here) confirmed my sense that was a conference to be experienced in person (though you can watch the conference video archive and read the liveblogs), echoing what my friend David Sasaki, who leads a project called Rising Voices within Global Voices, had told me about the importance of showing up for this community gathering (click the image from David’s Flickr stream below for more of his wonderful photography).

A matrix of interlocking projects, Global Voices and its associated efforts aggregate blog entries, often with images and video, from networks of authors, some of whom are expatriate bloggers, many of whom are exclusive to Global Voices.

With my academic literary background, I used to associate ‘expatriate authors’ with moveable European feasts and endless mountains and rivers of the twentieth century. I now think of individuals like the Global Voices Summit speakers who chronicle events in areas other than where they reside—in some cases because they were imprisoned or their safety endangered in those regions.

What was once a label for American authors registering moral protests, usually of preference rather than imperative, ‘expatriate’ bloggers take on a very real cosmopolitan ownership of their grassroots reports that, as Ethan suggested at the summit referencing the Reverend Wright incident in the Obama campaign, target specific groups and spread beyond intended geographic and temporal audiences into texts referenced by transnational communities of practice.

To draw this down to a personal level, I’m thinking about the spidering effects of online interactions right now in my dissertation research on local networks of food, currency, and shelter.

Two months ago I moved to Miami, and I now happily build online community during the day for Knight Foundation and reside in a magic cottage.

What I didn’t realize when accepting the job was that my new locale is a ‘food desert’ as far as local produce.

Grown to be exported, sitting on docks and hangars beside imported organic vegetables from Mexico and South America (that the Whole Foods franchise near me stickers ‘local’), it seems sustenance of the vegetal varieties easily crosses borders and food miles pile up in a nonsensical mad tea party ride of whirling exchange (a model that needs to be discarded like the statues deposited in Budapest’s social Disneyland, Szoborpark, that I visited recently with author and blogger Antony Loewenstein):

Intended consumption for these foodstuffs remains far from production areas, and the creators, disenfranchised expatriate farmers, we might say, have little ties with the communities where their greens go.

With my beloved local food culture gone missing, a deep sense of longing has emerged for the farmers’ markets that brightened my weekend mornings for the past five or so years.

This past Saturday, I felt buoyant as I returned to the Charlottesville, Virginia farmers’ market, to sellers I know and farms I continue to support.

Freshly dug potatoes and berries I’d never seen before, wine berries, from Planet Diversified;

the first tomatoes from Radical Roots;

peaches and blackberries that wouldn’t last the day

(we shared them at an afternoon picnic)

all reminded me of the ephemeral nature of consumption, be it literal and from the soil or juicy words from those who work around tenuous low-bandwidth connections.

Like the charcoal grill Laura and I veered in and out of alleys in Mt. Pleasant to pick up from grillmaster Cameron this weekend,

we are all, perhaps, chasing down/modifying online tools upon which to set our prose, flip our marinated arguments beside other composed lines of thought.

As we walked back toward Laura’s apartment at the end of a long day of celebrating, I stopped to watch teenagers setting off sparklers between cars.

Far from the bombastic anthems and expensive fireworks we had gaped at earlier, this DIY model is the one I intend to explore—come back for more kthread on how community cred is quietly replacing trumpeted transactions and svelte intervention models are illuminating packets of change…

Leave a comment after the jump–

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