Seattle's Edible Book Festival

"Eat a Book Today" is the motto of The Edible Book Festival "celebrating books and food and the people who love them." It is organized by the Seattle Center for Book Arts. This year was the seventh annual event on March 31.

If you make and take an entry to the event, entrance is free, but prior registration is required. If you're only going to watch (and eat!), then there's a fee of $10 per person.

Every year, the emcee of the event is someone hamming up as a literary figure in costume. Last year, it was Julia Child; this year, it was Ben Franklin.

Schedule of Events:
• 11:00 to 12:00 Entries accepted, installed, photographed
• 12:00 to 1:30 Public viewing and voting for Best in Show
• 1:30 Celebrity Judges award prizes
• 2:00 Edible Books eaten with tea, coffee, milk

Categories:
• Most Pun-derful
• Most Drop-dead Gorgeous
• Most Delectably Appetizing
• Best Young Edible Artist (K-12)
• Best in Show

Instructions:
"Create and bring a piece of edible art related to books: it can pun on a title, refer to a scene or character, look like a book (or a paper, a scroll, etc.), or just have something to do with books. Whatever the inspiration—it must be edible. Think of brainy, beautiful, silly, clever, and tasty transubstantiations of books we love into treats we eat! Every type of book—children's classics, detective novels, biographies, fiction and non, poetry, short stories—should be sculpted from a smörgåsbord of foodstuffs. Supply a placard with the title of your piece and your name." Also include the book you're riffing of.

The following images are all photographs taken by me. Commentary follows each picture. Click on the image to get a bigger, better view.

Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Le Petit-Four Prince from Le Petit Prince or The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Oh, those poor bleeding arms in Farewell to Arms by Hemmingway

Delicious panna cotta in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brainna Cotta from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards

Harry Potter and the Deadly Challah-ohs

Call of the Wild Rice from Call of the Wild by Jack London

The magnificient breaded dragon is holding sway over cheese in The Girl with the Dragon Fondue

Check out the hellfire in Satanic Purses from Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

Grilled with a Dragon Tattoo

The pièce de resistance of the show: Quoth the Raisin "Petit Four" from The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.'
[.....]
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'