Meet Me at the Bamboo Table

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.