CHEF CRYSTAL WAHPEPAH & DR. ERICA TOM

SANTA ROSA --

Copperfield’s Books welcomes celebrated Oakland chef and Native American Almanac inductee Crystal Wahpepah to Santa Rosa in celebration of her gorgeous new cookbook - !

She will be joined in conversation by Dr. Erica Tom, local artist and Ethnic Literature specialist at Santa Rosa Junior College.

Join us for a reading and warm discussion followed by an audience Q&A and book signing.

This is a free event, registration required due to limited seating.

From an acclaimed Indigenous chef comes an extraordinary cookbook that weaves powerful storytelling with 125 intertribal recipes to heal our bodies and restore our foodways—featuring a foreword by bestselling novelist and fellow Oaklandian Tommy Orange.

Chef Crystal Wahpepah has used her growing platform to tell the little-known history of Oakland's tight-knit Native American communities, which were relocated from reservations across the country to the San Francisco Bay area in the 1950s. Crystal's powerful message to reconnect to our foodways and transform generational trauma into strength as well as her healing dishes have been seen on Food Network’s Chopped and Beating Bobby Flay.

The rise of corporate agriculture around the world relies on singular and often genetically modified monocultures plus lots of chemicals and soil additives to produce massive crop yields. And while this approach may economically make sense on paper to feed multitudes at the lowest price point possible, it has harmed our physical health, emotional well-being, and the very creation that supports life. This truth applies not just to Indigenous people, who have been harmed by the federal commodified foods program, but to all of us who have come to rely on cheap and easy processed foods to feed our families. We no longer get the nutrients we need from our food and spend lots of money on supplementing our diets. We develop chronic diseases that can be avoided and even cured through eating habits.

Eat with the seasons, cure your disconnection with the land, and cook colorful, delicious food rooted in the oldest traditions including:

• Three Sisters Veggie Bowls
• Sweet Blue Cornbread with Huckleberry Compote
• Indigenous Popcorn Balls with Edible Flowers
• Strawberry-Sumac Salad with Maple-Sage Vinaigrette
• Bison Roast with Chokeberry Rub
• Smoked Salmon Dip with Red Chilies and Chips
• Acorn Muffins, and much more

A Feather and a Fork includes 125 recipes developed in collaboration with ethnobotanist and food sovereignty advocate Linda Black Elk to explore the environmental, spiritual, physical, and social benefits of each dish as well as raise awareness of and support for indigenous food producers who are preserving heirloom foods and traditions.

Author: Crystal Wahpepah is a registered member of the Kickapoo Nation of Oklahoma. She is the creative tour de force behind the inventive, healthy, and delicious dishes served at her restaurant, Wahpepah’s Kitchen, in Oakland, CA. She is an inductee into the Native American Almanac, was a finalist for the James Beard Emerging Chef Award, and has appeared on National Geographic's Queens, CBS’s The Dish, Food Network’s Chopped and Beating Bobby Flay. She serves as a U.S. State Department culinary ambassador and has catered for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and for the American Indian Film Festival.

Erica Tom (she/they) is descended from immigrants, colonizers, and refugees from Asia and Europe, living in Southern Pomo territory. They are an Ethnic Literature specialist in the English Department at Santa Rosa Junior College, affiliated faculty with the Cultural Resource Management Masters Program at Sonoma State University, founder of Equi-Sense, a therapeutic horsemanship nonprofit, and a student of fire and Chairman Ron W. Goode of the North Folk Mono Tribe. Tom’s queerness, mixedness, heritage and response-ability, informs their work as an artist, educator, firelighter, and therapeutic horsemanship facilitator, and their desire to be a good relative to our beyond human kin.

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