New York City

Forget the Tea Party, Here's the real party! Eating Liberally invites you to join us tomorrow night, Saturday, May 1st, in downtown Manhattan at DCTV for Living Liberally's 4th Annual Spring Celebration & Fundraiser, where we'll be honoring our marvelous mentor Dr. Marion Nestle for her fearless championing of the grassroots good food movement.

In these hot-headed times, Living Liberally offers a cool antidote to the Tea Party. As my Liberally colleague Baratunde Thurston, the self-proclaimed 'vigilante pundit' and tweet-happy stand-up who's also Web & Politics editor at The Onion, wrote:

Around the country, people need this type of liberal network more than ever. As we hear about the Tea Baggers in the news, many of us ask, "Where is OUR Tea Party?"

Well, the fact is there are liberals in over 300 cities that are drinking something stiffer than weak tea...In some cities, it's the only event that welcomes "liberals," providing a necessary destination for those who want to create a more progressive future for our country.

As Baratunde notes:

The Living Liberally team is only able to create this network with your support. Each year, the Annual Celebration gathers allies, honors partners and pulls in the necessary resources for the work ahead.

In keeping with Eating Liberally tradition, the menu will pay tribute to our honorees. Here's a partial list:

César Chávez Salad
Working Class Heroes
Un-Feta'd Capital-lini
Won't Take No More Shitake-Bean Salad
Faux Populist Popovers (full of hot air)
Bananny State Cupcakes
Hands Off My Entitle-Mint Pie (small slices only! there might not be enough!!!)

Laura Flanders of GritTV is our special guest host, and you can bet that a fine time will be had by all. If you're leery, or weary, of the Tea Party and its enraged citizens, come join Living Liberally and raise a toast to the engaged citizens!

If you're unable to make it, please consider participating or contributing in any way you can.

Thanks!

Eating Liberally and the Food Systems Network NYC invite you to join us on May 3rd at 6:30 pm for a screening of Pressure Cooker, an uplifting documentary about a hilariously tough (but loving) high school teacher in Philly named Wilma Stephenson who puts her underprivileged urban students through a kind of culinary boot camp to help them win scholarships to the country's best culinary schools (think Rocky meets To Sir, With Love, with a dash of Gordon Ramsey).

Rachael Ray is so impressed by Wilma's extraordinary success at goading her students into achieving their full potential that she surprised the feared-but-adored teacher last month by gifting her with a state-of-the-art makeover of her kitchen and classroom--to be unveiled, coincidentally, on Rachael's May 3rd show.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with Pressure Cooker director Jennifer Grausman and Lynn Fredericks, the Family Cook Productions founder whose Teen Iron Chef program is empowering youths all over the country by teaching them how to prepare fresh, wholesome foods and work as a team.

Grausman and Fredericks will be joined by several youths whose lives have been transformed by such cooking programs, including Fatoumata Dembele, one of the stars of Pressure Cooker, and Dexter Ambrose, a student at Brooklyn Automotive High who has embraced heathy cooking and food gardening with the encouragement of teacher Jenny Kessler, whose course entitled "Food, Land, and You" was recently written up by the New York Times.

Light refreshments will be served.

Where: The Tank, 354 W. 45th Street between 8th and 9th Aves.

When: 6:30 doors open, 6:45 screening, 8:15 panel

Tickets can be purchased here. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Food Systems Network NYC. To learn more or become a member, visit www.foodsystemsnyc.org.