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A season shaped by land, memory, and the stories we carry through food.
Dear Friends,
Ten years in, this season traces the stories, systems, and communities that shape how we eat. We invite you into a series of intimate, limited-capacity gatherings:
April 10 | Screening + Live Mooncake Demo
We open at NYU with a screening of the Vibrant Hong Kong Table, directed by Liza de Guia, following James Beard–nominated chef and cookbook author Christine Wong as she reimagines Hong Kong cuisine through a plant-based lens. Presented in collaboration with NYU Steinhardt’s Department of Nutrition and Food Studies and the NYU SPS Tisch Center of Hospitality, the afternoon brings together film, scholarship, and hands-on culinary practice. Wong joins for a conversation with Jenny Berg, Chair of Nutrition and Food Studies at NYU Steinhardt, followed by a live mooncake demo and tasting. Free, open to all.
🍻 April 11 | Industry Happy Hour
An informal industry afternoon gathering at Beer Street South, a spacious, light-filled bar known for its rotating selection of small-batch and hard-to-find beers. Filmmakers, producers, and food people in conversation in the same room. Co-hosted with our friends at Slow Food NYC.
April 12 | Food, Closeup at MoMI + Reception
At the Museum of the Moving Image, MoMI, Food, Closeup unfolds as part of the museum’s Open Worlds program.
Four short documentaries explore how we grow, harvest, and sustain what we eat, from urban wheat to Indigenous foodways, caribou herds, and small-scale fishing.
Stay for a conversation moderated by Qiana Mickie, Executive Director of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Urban Agriculture, with Michael Robinov, Co-Founder and CEO of Farm to People.
Reception to follow with focaccia from Brooklyn Granary & Mill (working exclusively with regional grains to revive local milling traditions), alongside a spread from Farm to People featuring seasonal crudités, hummus, and bread from She Wolf and Knead Love. MoMI’s cafe will be open for a casual happy hour.
April 13 | MOFAD: Food, Film, & Migration + Tastings
We return to the Museum of Food and Drink, MOFAD, where guests will also have the chance to explore the museum’s current exhibition on New York City’s food vendors and street food culture, alongside tasty bites and drinks throughout the evening.
The evening centers on food as movement, migration, and memory. Featuring Arepas en Bici — one of our favorite films! — and Birria Landia, profiling the Queens-based food truck by brothers José and Jesús Moreno that became a defining force in New York’s taco scene.
Followed by a conversation with Krishnendu Ray, a leading food studies scholar and author of The Ethnic Restaurateur; Sarah K. Khan, an interdisciplinary artist and researcher working at the intersection of migration, identity, and food systems; and chef Esneider Arevalo (Culinary Backstreets), who leads food tours through Jackson Heights and Corona, sharing the immigrant food cultures of Queens.
April 14 | UnionDocs: Films, Community, & Conversation
In Ridgewood, we partner with UnionDocs and Push Projects for an evening of films and conversation exploring how food operates as culture, infrastructure, and memory.
The program includes Zen Brownie, narrated by Jeff Bridges, telling the story of Greyston Bakery, whose brownies are famously used in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, and its pioneering open hiring model; Seaweed Stories, narrated by Forest Whitaker, on seaweed’s role in climate and sovereignty; Barriga Llena, Corazón Contento, rooted in a Ridgewood food pantry shaped by migration and care; alongside Ice Cream Window, capturing neighborhood ritual, and Guguta, a meditation on memory and inheritance.
The evening concludes with a conversation featuring Jordana Rubenstein-Edberg and Natalia Fuentes of Barriga Llena, Corazón Contento, moderated by Molly Surno, founder of Push Projects.
A tasting from Acid Spirits, known for vacuum-distilled botanical spirits made from upcycled ingredients, rounds out the night.
April 15 | Wild Things: Foraging, Fungi, & Tastings
At NYU Steinhardt, Wild Things closes the season with an evening devoted to foraging, fungi, and the people who spend their lives listening to the land at the NYU Food Lab.
The program features Found: The King of Matsutake Ridge, with chef and forager Philip Manganaro, alongside Dune Forest and Rice and Grits by filmmaker and NYU Food Studies alum Hieu Huynh, whose work explores culinary identity and inheritance. A conversation follows with Philip Manganaro and mushroom expert and food systems advocate Leigh Ollman.
The evening features tasty bites inspired by the evening’s films prepared by the lovely chef Abe Konick, MasterChef: Legends finalist, alongside beverages from Dona Chai, a New York–based, small-batch chai company known for direct sourcing and traditional brewing methods, and tastings by Joe McDowell of Acid Spirits.
Highlights include:
A Venezuelan chef cycling across San Francisco with arepas and a dream. Two brothers from Puebla who turned a Queens food truck into a New York institution. (Arepas en Bici, Birria Landia)
Sheffield residents asking the most radical question imaginable: what if a city grew its own wheat? (Grain City)
The Tłı̨chǫ people, the Bathurst caribou herd, down from half a million to fewer than ten thousand, and what disappears with them. (K’ÒK’ÈTÌ: Walking with Caribou)
Jeff Bridges narrates the story of a Yonkers bakery run by Buddhist monks on a simple principle: hire anyone who shows up. (Zen Brownie)
Chef and forager Philip Manganaro, hunting matsutake mushrooms in secret. (Found: The King of Matsutake Ridge)
Warmly,
Maayan and the Ceres Team
