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Food Weekend: Adopt A Fruit Tree, LitFest, The Food of Morocco, Armenian Food, Vegan Beer

By Rick Paulas
May 11, 2012
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Usually, we try to create a listing of weekend events that take place across a few days, sometimes even pushing a bit into Monday. But this weekend, well, your Saturday has officially become double- or triple-booked. Sorry about that.

On Saturday morning, pack up the shovels and clear out the trunk before heading over to the Home Depot in Hollywood for the Million Trees LA Adopt A Fruit Tree Day. MTLA is an initiative put together by the city of Los Angeles with the goal of planting and maintaining one million trees throughout the L.A. area, and they'll certainly get to that number if everyone helps them out a little. Trees will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis, and there is a limit of one tree per resident. Make sure to bring ID for proof of residence, too.

Also Saturday morning, if you're in for a trek across town, Pasadena will be holding its first-ever community-wide book festival. LitFest Pasadena will provide a day's worth of readings, panel discussions, interviews, and an entire roster of children's activities. Highlighted during the festivities will be some of L.A.'s best food writers, including Jonathan Gold and LA Weekly's Amy Scattergood. Gourmet food trucks curated by Chefs Center will also be available for festival-goers.

If neither of this Saturday morning events are striking your fancy -- what? you have a problem with trees and being outdoors at an all-day literary event? -- then perhaps a new lecture put on by the Culinary Historians of Southern California at the downtown L.A. Central Library will strike your fancy. This lecture features James Beard Award-winning author Paula Wolfert discussing her favorite Mediterranean cuisine with a talk based on her new book, "The Food of Morocco." Wolfert will take audience members on a journey "from the color-saturated textiles of the Tangier markets to the scents of cumin, anise, and freshly baked bread." Which, you know, sounds awesome.

And if ALL of those Saturday events don't cut the mustard for you -- or whatever the appropriate turn-of-phrase is -- then maybe head on down to Montebello for the Armenian Food Fair & Festival. This celebration of Armenian culture and cuisine includes a heaping helping of Piroshki and kebabs, and a wide array of cooking demonstrations for festival-goers to take part in. In addition, live musical performances, a backgammon tournament, tours of the cathedral, folk dancing, and children's events will be occurring all day.

What? None of those suffice? Man, are you difficult to please. Fine, then. Just head over to The Roxy on the Sunset Strip for the third annual L.A. Vegan Beer Fest already and let's all just call it a day.

For more food events visit kcet.org/events/food.

[Photo by trees ready to be planted by Flickr user BitBoy.]

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