Note: This post, being tardy, was intended to serve as advance notice for this year’s Kensington Day of the Book. However, I have just learned that there will be no event this year. I proceed to report on 2025’s festival with a heavy heart, and hope to see it return in 2027.
Happier Days in Kensington
The 2025 Kensington Day of the Book (DotB) was a literary, musical and culinary celebration. Held at the end of April, just as the last frost date rolled around, it was one of the signs of spring in these parts (may it be again)! Last year, it featured a Catalan cuisine workshop and several chef demos, one of which featured Amy Riolo, a proponent of healthy and delicious food.
Amy has a line of products which she used to produce some delicious samples, an engaging presence, and appropriate apron. She is a proponent of the Mediterranean diet to promote both health and pleasure. She authors cookbooks and leads tours.
The next activity in the food program was part of the Sant Jordi Festival of Books and Roses, hosted by the DotB’s co-sponsor, the government of Catalonia. They were featuring Pa amb Tomaquet, Catalan tomato bread, and lessons in drinking from a porro, a glass jug meant to facilitate the sharing of wine. The bread was consumed with cheese, ham, and cold cuts, and the porro-drinking attempts provided much amusement.
Wandering up the street, past the author’s booths inviting you to chat about their works, the music and performance stages, the community booths eager to inform you of their services, food trucks offering an array of ethnic cuisines, and FREE BOOKS available from the Bookcrossing folks, one arrived at the booth of the Big Head Brigade.
This artists’ collective based in Virginia makes heads out of papier-mache, in the old European tradition, and then parades them down the street. And so they did at the DotB.
Other highlights included chocolate from my favorite local makers, Open Book (“Telling Stories through Chocolate”). Their specialty bars are replete with literary allusions. I tried one of their new ones, Frankenstein (Raspberries and Icelandic Lava Salt in Dark Chocolate with Milk). It’s monstrously good.
Also, among the food trucks, Kuk’s Tribute Cuisine was selling their own bottled Pineapple Ginger Drink. Made in Clarksburg Maryland, its ingredients are listed as pineapple juice, ginger, orange juice, lemon, and cloves. It’s pungent and powerful stuff.
