Julie Ray and I were talking about cookbooks. She is, among other things, a graphic designer and she talked about the beautiful pictures in her favorite cookbooks, the type of paper, the layout of the books.

I remember my father sitting in his wooden upright chair in front of the TV with the rest of the family, reading during the shows. He read the entire Fannie Farmer cookbook, cover to cover, through a few seasons of 1950′s television. And he never cooked.  He liked the way things were put together and mostly he liked the stories.

I am my father’s daughter, I love to hear about how a recipe came to be and who thought it up. I was fascinated by the beautiful line drawings in the original Moosewood Cookbook* by Mollie Katzen because she told about the kitchen where the food was constructed and gave hints of the people who may be there. I have a cookbook put together in the 1960′s by the Woodstock, N.Y. library as a fundraiser using the recipes and stories of many of the artists in town. Most people’s cookbook collection includes a “fundraising” book from their hometown, church or social club, that includes lots of jello and Cool Whip recipes and the local stories behind them.

There are books and  movies galore featuring kitchens, food lore and magical properties. One of my favorite is Bryce Courtenay’s The Family Frying Pan, beautifully illustrated by Ann Williams. It’s the fictitious story of Mrs Moses who is the only survivor of a Cossack raid on her village. She flees with The Family Frying Pan that is “blessed with a Russian soul” from which she feeds all the refuges that travel with her. At night each of the group members share their stories in exchange for the meal. The book even includes recipes.

And I must mention Hidden Kitchens by Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson the Kitchen Sisters on National Public Radio. In this 2005 book they chronicle their travels across the nation looking for stories of “food and culture in America.” Because I lived in Owensboro, Kentucky and frequented the Moonlight Bar-B-Que, I really enjoyed the story of burgoo, a culinary oddity that even has its own website.

Alice Waters wrote the forward to this book and she says:

Just as we can’t live without food, we can’t live without stories.  The curious and wonderful things about the stories in this book is how much they resemble good things to eat: They can be surprising and they can be reassuringly familiar; they can be comforting and they can be outrageous.  To me, stories are food . . .

Last night Julie, Sheila Wilensky and I had dinner at Jax Kitchen and the waiter enthralled us with stories of the garden where the food came from and elegantly and enthusiastically described the flavors of wine selections. The meal was so fabulous that Sheila blogged it and Julie took pictures of the  beautiful presentation. We all will go on to tell of eating the peanut butter chocolate chip and bacon cookies served with bourbon infused sweet milk. The food stories continue!

Odyssey Storytelling is wandering around Tucson looking for your stories.

Penelope Starr and Kirsten Larsen

A few months ago we (the board of StoryArts Group, which includes me) decided that 2nd Saturdays Downtown would be a great place to find storytellers. Our plan was mostly unformed but evolved with a little bit of luck and a bit of organizing.

First off was to ask Julie Ray if we could transform her Burrito Files Cart into the Story Cart. Julie had finished her project where she did a whimsical and interesting interview process with people in downtown Tucson. I knew the custom made cart was gathering dust in her yard so I asked if we could revive it and she was happy to see it get a new life.

Next up was paint and signage so no one would confuse us with an ice cream cart (but of course, some people still do). With a little help from the Tucson Pima Arts Council in the form of a GOS grant we were able to buy a portable PA system. We loaded it up, along with the digital camera, and we were good to go.

Penelope Starr and Adam Hostetter

In addition to 2nd Saturdays, we’ve taken the cart to Tucson Meet Yourself and here you can see Adam and me in front of the Tucson Children’s Museum. We hope to do more events in the future. Our objective is to find diverse tellers, young and old, to share their personal stories on a variety of themes.

People can be shy at first to talk in front of a camera and many people just walk on by but the ones that stop and talk with us are pretty amazing! We’ve heard about a New Year’s Eve escape on a boat from Cuba 20 years ago to a wife’s tragic death from cancer to college pranks.

Kids can be remarkable storytellers.  At the Children’s Museum for a celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we were amazed by the insight and knowledge of one 7 year old girl and delighted when a 5 year old sang We Shall Overcome for us while her very proud father looked on.

You can see a few videos on our website from the Story Cart and from our regular monthly shows at the Club Congress. And keep checking back as we add more videos.

Odyssey Storytelling is a program of StoryArts Group, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit volunteer run arts organization.  We can use some help getting more videos online so please contact me if you have some experience and would like to be involved in story capturing.

When I arrived at the Titanic Artifact Exhibition in the Rialto Building on Congress Street, I received my boarding pass, a replica tickets from White Star Line, that included the name of an actual passenger who made the voyage. My name was Mrs. Arthur (Emily) Ryerson and I was traveling back home to America with my husband, 3 children and maid to attend the funeral of one of my sons who had been killed in an automobile accident. The party was traveling 1st class in cabins on the “B” deck.

I found the Ryerson’s cabins on a large layout of the ship and saw pictures of where they would have their meals. And unlike what Mrs. Ryerson would have seen, I saw how the 2nd and 3rd class passengers would travel.

The exhibit is arranged so that you see photos and artifacts of all aspects of this amazing and tragic story from the engineering and planning of the great ship through the voyage and then the fatal meeting with the iceberg (which makes a startling appearance in the exhibit) until the end where you find out if the person you’ve been following survived the ship wreck.

But mostly it’s about stories. If you rent the device where you can hear recorded information, you will hear many factoids and voices recreating first hand accounts of their experiences. But better yet, find one of the very helpful and friendly docents to tell you the stories.

Alora Cohen was the whiz who amazed Julie Ray and me with her voluminous knowledge of all things Titanic. At every artifact or photo she could recite interesting anecdotes and behind-the-scenes kind of information. Turns out she’s not a professional touring with the show, she’s a local Tucson artist that was hired for the duration of the show and she did her homework. A lot of it. All of the people we met were locals and all of them were brimming with info and stories.

Paul told us that the Titanic had 4 funnels: 3 were operational, the 4th was fake.

We heard that people weren’t the only passengers on Titanic. Six dogs were housed in a kennel on F Deck.  It is rumored that American millionaire John Jacob Astor (who Alora called her “Titanic boyfriend” because she so admired him) released those dogs from the kennels.

We read that the last living survivor, Millvina Dean, recently passed away on May 31, 2009 as the oldest survivor of Titanic at age 97.

You can read more stories at the Titanic website and learn more at Encyclopedia Titanica.

I came out of the exhibit singing “It was sad, it was sad, it was sad when the great ship went down. Husbands and wives, little children lost their lives, it was sad when the great ship went down,” a song I remember from my childhood.  I bumped into Paco Velez in the gift shop at his day job and he said he had never heard the song. I guess it’s a generational thing.