DIY Heaven: Dive Into the EatReal Festival This Weekend

Hey locavores, urban homesteaders, and food adventurers– 

You shouldn’t miss the EatReal festival this weekend in Oakland’s Jack London Square. Starting Friday, some of the best street food in all Northern California will be yours for the noshing. What makes this event so cool, from our One-Block perspective, is its full-throttle celebration of handmade and hand-raised food: backyard chicken-keeping, goat-milking, cheesemaking, winemaking, and home beer-brewing are all on display as part of the fest’s daily “Urban Homesteading Demonstration Zone.” If you like, you can absorb words of wisdom about seed saving, permaculture, roasting your own coffee, and curing your own bacon. Or take a hands-on workshop and learn to make tamales, sourdough, sausages, or kombucha. You can even sign up to watch backyard chicken culling (it’s free if you watch; if you bring a chicken for culling, it’s $50.) And on the EatReal LitFest stage, you can listen to writers (me included) tell our best stories about food we’ve made, grown, and foraged.

Thrilled? Breathless? Curious? Hungry? This is just a fraction of all that’s about to unfold at this DIY expo. Check it out and plan to stay a while.