Food + Stories = Eat My Heart Out

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Dodai Stewart tells a story at Eat My Heart Out

“I didn’t want to put rabbit on the plate, because no one would want to eat that right now,” says culinary director Luke Davin. “So I went with carrots, since that’s what made Snowball fat in the first place.”

Davin has just served a carrot and escarole salad to accompany Andy Christie’s tragicomic tale of a pet rabbit that ended up as dinner food. Personally, this only made me especially hungry for a serving of bunny confit, but I know not everyone is as food-mad as I am, so I guess I understand the chef’s choice. Plus, his veggies were tasty.

We’re at the second edition of Eat My Heart Out Supper Club, a Brooklyn-born event that combines two of the borough’s favored pastimes: fancy food and live storytelling. Launced in March by Davin and producer Eugene Ashton-Gonazlez, EMHO had its second, Kickstarter-fueled evening last Wednesday. The concept is a Moth-esque evening of storytelling, accompanied by five courses and five cocktails, each one corresponding to a story told by one of the orators.

“Luke and I discovered we both share a belief that when you sit down to eat, food summons up a form of self-expression,” says Gonzalez, which makes it a perfect pairing with live storytelling. In addition to Christie, last week’s event featured tales from Moth GrandSlam champion Adam Wade, Jezebel’s Dodai Stewart, Ophira Eisenberg of NPR, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon writer Emmy Blotnick.

“We left the door open to storytellers to basically pitch anything,” says Gonzalez. “Then Luke checked the story out and took it as a challenge to express the dominant themes of the story on the plate.”

Stewart’s tale of a New York native’s childhood forays into the Georgia wilderness was served with a Deep South-inspired catfish dish (Brooklyned up by turning it into a light and airy mousseline), while Eisenberg’s slapstick saga of an immigration-from-Canada experience gone horribly wrong was matched with a savory sweet potato poutine. It’s a fun concept, and one that will be returning soon (but maybe not soon enough), with another EMHO Brooklyn show in the works for Valentine’s Day. Stay tuned for more info on their facebook page.

4 Responses

  1. Anonymous -

    Fuck me, she’s obese. And Luke Davin probably beat her up, because, you know, that’s the kind of shit he does when he gets drunk.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous -

    That’s what made Snowball fat? How do you explain Luke Davin, who beats up women?

    Reply

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