Today was the Eat Real Festival, and I was invited to do a workshop on one of the stages. It was a fun event, and it re-sparked some enthusiasm for me in regards to Sour Flour.
I arrived at around 10:30AM, and was initially worried by the lack of people walking around. I had been to the Eat Real Fest last year, and remembered far more people. By 10:45AM, the area around the stage they had setup for me was completely empty. But as we got closer to starting, more and more people started filling in, until I had a fairly large gathering of people to talk to about bread and starters.
I had not really prepped for this event at all, which I suppose is typical for me. But once things started, it was nice talk be able to just talk about bread and have people listen. I went on for about 20 minutes, and easily could have done more, but I only had an hour total of time for the area. We opened it up for questions, and got some good participation from the audience. I realize that this is one of my favorite parts of the operation, and definitely want to do more general theory talks to large audiences; the other two modes of teaching, in small groups, or individually also have their benefits, but I suppose each way is just different. Things got a little hectic when we started the last part of the event, which was giving away starters. We had a large line of people, and were both giving people some starter, and helping them feed their starts with flour and water. Anh-Thu helped with the passing out of starters, and also to engage with some of the audience. Many people had questions, and although I was able to talk to quite a few people, I realize that the demand for my time far outstripped how much I was able to handle; a good thing I suppose.
After the workshop, I got invited for some photo shoot for an article for the New York Times Magazine. It was cool to do some photos with Eskender, of Radio Africa & Kitchen, and Iso of ForageSF and the Underground Markets; Eskender I had met at a dinner he did at La Victoria, and Iso I’ve worked with many times and am friends with. Not sure if the photos will actually run, but it was fun; we ended up leaving the square to find something to forage, and actually ended up finding wild tomatoes, which were tasty.
It was also nice to see a lot of other people I’ve met through the SF food scene. I got to say hi to Dante, of Good Foods Catering and Ed and Jason of Adobo Hobo. I got to sample a delicious sisig taco, and adobo sandwich from Will, of HapaSF. Roger, of Soul Cocina, gave me some very tasty bhel puri, and I got to use his pedal powered blender to help blend some chutney. I also ran into Debra, who runs 331 Cortland, and saw Josh, of Bernal Cutlery. I wish I had more time to wander around, but I had to leave to go work one of my last shifts at 331 Cortland.
It was interesting for me to think back to the Eat Real Fest from just a year earlier. At that event, I had come along with the Sexy Soup Cart, and was passing out tons of free bread, and getting people signed up for Bread Education. It was cool to see that a year later, I have immersed myself with a huge part of what embodies the festival. We got even more sign-ups than the year before, with very little effort. I also saw how drastically inefficient I continue to be. There were many opportunities to do so much more than we did, but I continue to take things slowly. We had been offered to do a Craft Collaboration, with June Taylor James, and Andate Dairy, but I ended up declining, being generally overwhelmed with where to take Sour Flour at this moment. We also could have sold bread, but considering the selling operation ended over a month ago, that revenue was left untapped.
It was nice to see so many people interested in bread, and in the event in general. This is coming at a fairly pivotal moment for myself, and for Sour Flour, as I try to keep the organization running. I think coming into the event, I had pictured that either the event would be demoralizing with a lack of interest, or my ability to generate that interest, or that I would be moved to push forward with Bread education. I’m happy to say that this pushed me further in the direction of really trying to make Sour Flour work.
Moving forward, our next step is to set up a workshop where people actually pay. I have been advised to do this for a long time, but have liked keeping things free, and so have heavily resisted it. But considering the need for cash at this point, and people’s desire to learn more about bread, I think I’m ready to set it up. The other possibility is general fund raising, or getting grants, but that is a whole other realm, which will have to wait for another time.