Meet Me at the Bamboo Table: Everyday Meals Everywhere

In our ever-more-globalized world, how better to connect than with food, and who better to connect us than a chowhound communications professor? A.V. Crofts has spent decades eating (and learning) her way around the world. She's studied in China, taught in Italy, and conducted humanitarian communications trainings in war-torn Sudan. Here, she traces a lifetime of meals across states and continents for the ways that food ties us together. With warm, thoughtful prose, Crofts invites us to the only coffee shop in Kunming; to a home-cooked feast at a civil rights pilgrimage in Alabama; to a surprise Thanksgiving in Germany; and to her annual Lunar New Year dumpling party in Seattle.

This full-color visual tour-de-force will delight foodies, armchair travelers, and anyone who's ever learned a little something from a special meal. Photos, "sketchnotes," and other ephemera from Crofts's globetrotting coalesce into a truly beautiful meditation on how food nourishes community.

A.V. Crofts works at the University of Washington as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communication and a Clinical Instructor in the Department of Global Health. Her work has been published in Gastronomica and Saveur and on her popular blog avcrofts.com.

A.V. Crofts has been published in Gastronomica, Saveur, Arcade, ColorsNW, and the four-volume set, Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia. She teaches at the University of Washington and is currently planning her next meal. She lives in Seattle and Maine.