Chef, author, culinary educator, television personality and artist Jacques Pépin at M.F.K. Fisher's Last House on March 26, 2022.
October 1, 2023: There will be two screenings of Gregory Bezat's film, The Art of Eating: The Life of M.F.K. Fisher, at the Vogue Theatre in San Francisco on October 1. Each screening will be followed by a conversation and Q&A with Bezat and Fisher's daughter Kennedy Friede Golden, moderated by Celia Sack of Omnivore Books. A VIP reception will be held between screenings at Thos. Moser Furniture.
September 8, 2023: Les Dames d’Escoffier International (LDEI) is pleased to announce the winners of the 17th annual Les Dames d’Escoffier International M.F.K. Fisher Prize, which awards creative works by women, in any media format, that broaden understanding of the intersection of food and culture. This year’s award recipients are accomplished creators whose submissions were published in 2022.
Frog's Leap Winery
Rutherford, CA
September, 9, 2023
Presented in association with the Napa Valley Wine Library Association, join Frog's Leap Winery and local filmmaker Gregory Bezat for a presentation of the documentary The Art of Eating: The Life of M.F.K. Fisher. Bezat's film examines the dramatic life and lasting impact of the legendary California food writer.
Following the screening, exceptional wine writer and editor Bob Thompson will moderate a panel discussion with Kennedy Golden, Mary Frances’s daughter and estate trustee; Greg Bezat, filmmaker; Antoni Allegra, food and wine writer, editor, author and symposia founder; Jerry Anne DiVecchio, food writer and editor.
Wine and popcorn accompany the program; small bites are on sale throughout the evening.
The fourth annual Last House Writing Contest drew 84 entries from all over the world, including India and the United Kingdom. The contest celebrates author M.F.K. Fisher, who resided in her “Last House” at Bouverie Preserve in Sonoma Valley.
Readers and critics have often remarked that much of the writings of M.F.K. Fisher focus on hunger: for life, love, nature in all its forms, pleasure, companionship, and much, much more. This year’s contest invited emerging writers to explore hunger’s many forms and how we satisfy, ignore, or otherwise address this most basic and fundamental force of human existence.
Please join us in celebrating not only the winners of this year's writing contest, but all of those who entered and were inspired by M.F.K. Fisher's work and her lasting legacy of encouraging creativity in writers of all ages.
Winning essays may be read at the link below.
Support connecting nature, people, and science for a more resilient world
Audubon Canyon Ranch is thrilled to announce an exclusive fundraising event at M.F.K. Fisher’s Last House on Bouverie Preserve: An Afternoon with Alice on Saturday, July 29, 2023.
In celebration of food and community and to support its programs, Audubon Canyon Ranch has partnered with Alice Waters to create a delicious, seasonal, and locally sourced meal prepared by Chez Panisse staff.
During this intimate luncheon with Alice Waters and only thirty guests, you will enjoy the serene environs of Fisher’s Last House while taking in sweeping views of Bouverie Preserve and the Sonoma Valley. The program includes a conversation with Alice moderated by Clark Wolf, where she’ll discuss her friendship with acclaimed writer M.F.K. Fisher, her connection to the work at Bouverie Preserve, how Fisher inspired her own career and Fisher’s legacy.
An American chef, restaurateur, author, and pioneer for California cuisine, Alice is a leader in the farm-to-table movement and an advocate for sustainable and regenerative agricultural practices.
Join us for this special affair! Tickets are $2,000 per person ($1,800 tax deductible).
Through your generous ticket purchase, you will support the mission of Audubon Canyon Ranch: connecting nature, people, and science for a more resilient world.
Diaries of Note is a daily celebration of the diary—one of the most intimate, therapeutic, and revealing forms of writing imaginable—and a regular opportunity to see how people have attempted to memorialise and make sense of their lives throughout the ages.
M.F.K. Fisher's diary entry from May 28, 1940, "Why have children or plant trees?", originally published in From the Journals of M.F.K. Fisher (1999), is shared here.
The Napa County Historical Society's exhibit, Shouting Down the Wind: Napa’s Pioneering Women, is a look at two centuries of women who have changed Napa’s cultural landscape. Pioneering women are fierce and excel in every generation in the Valley. They have stepped up to protect their families and help communities thrive, taken on Hurculean tasks and in a number of cases changed history. There are no sectors of the community that women have not participated in and succeeded.
The exhibit will feature 60 women, including M.F.K. Fisher and will run from May 11 through the end of September, 2023.
The Fourth Annual Last House Writing Contest for Emerging Writers celebrates author M.F.K. Fisher, who resided in her 'Last House' on Audubon Canyon Ranch's Bouverie Preserve in Sonoma Valley.
Emerging writers of all ages are invited to submit original, unpublished essays or short stories that examine hunger — its many forms and how we satisfy, ignore, or otherwise address this most basic and fundamental force of human existence.
"People ask me: Why do you write about food, and eating and drinking? The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry. But there is more than that. It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the other. So, it happens, that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it…and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied….and it is all one." M.F.K. Fisher from The Gastronomical Me.
Grand prize of $500!
Deadline for entries: 5/17/2023
Forbes
January 6, 2023: M.F.K. Fisher, the maverick feminist who first made writing about food a full-sensory experience decades before the phrase food porn caught on, is subject of a new documentary from Bay Area-based filmmaker Gregory Bezat that’s featured at this year’s Palm Springs International Film Festival.
Never heard of her? Well, watching this compelling film should convince you to do a deep dive into her considerable body of work.
Winter 2023: In 1942, as World War II ravaged much of the globe and those on the home front endured widespread rationing of basic necessities, author M.F.K. Fisher published How to Cook a Wolf, which offered advice on how to eat well in spite of the challenges. Fisher’s book was so successful that in 1951, with the conflict long ended and the United States enjoying the fruits of postwar prosperity, she updated How to Cook a Wolf for another edition. It gave Fisher a chance to add a few thoughts about why, in the midst of hard times, it’s important to think about the finer points of the dinner table.
Originally published as “M.F.K. Fisher Taught Americans How to Nourish Bodies and Souls” in the Winter 2023 issue of Humanities magazine, a publication of the National Endowment for the Humanities.