Forgive me for mashing together an author appearance that’s already happened with an upcoming event. I think I’ve got to do it, though, because seeing Steven Rinella discuss his “American Buffalo” book at a recent Kim Ricketts event is part of why I’m so excited to hear that Nina Planck is coming to town. 

“Neo-Luddite” Planck, the former Greenmarket director who favored a return to unprocessed foods back when it was considered provocative rather than practical,  is here for her own new book, “Real Food For Mother And Baby.” (On her website, Planck mentions feeding raw cream to her infant, so I’d expect the new book to be no less controversial than her last.) She’ll speak with Warren Etheredge at 6:30 p.m. April 22 at the Palace Ballroom as part of the Kim Ricketts “Good Life” series. Cost: $25, including a copy of the $17 book, appetizers, and a bit of chocolate. Tickets available here. 

Planck will also do a “parent and kid night” with Caffe Vita, One Pot, Ricketts, and the Experience Food Project at 6 p.m. April 23 at the Capitol Hill Vita, in what organizer Michael Hebb expects to be an explosive conversation about how and what we feed our children. I’m pretty sure there was no pun intended there, and I’ll print part of Hebb’s invite in italics, because you won’t hear these lovely words often: “This is an evening primarily for adults and their kids - but we welcome everyone. nursing moms, kids who don’t want to hang with their parents, single folks, etc.” Cost: $60, including food and a copy of Planck’s book, with proceeds going to the Experience Food Project. Tom French from the project will be at the event to talk about school food policy, and EFP chef Andrew Radziolowski will be cooking with Hebb in the kitchen. Tickets available here.

And what does all that have to do with Steven Rinella’s appearance for “American Buffalo” a few weeks ago? Just that attending the Words & Wine talk,  and seeing Etheredge’s lively, informed interview with Rinella, reminded me how much I used to love pulling out new listings of upcoming readings, and heading out to bookstores to become drawn in by new authors and entranced by new books and enlightened by new ideas. Except that this relaxed night was even better, because it included the interview and q&a, and wine (I was already drunk on the Beards and didn’t indulge) and Theo chocolate, plus a friendly, social crowd. I left and drilled right into American Buffalo, a book I might not have otherwise read, which is what great book events do for you. (Rinella’s first book is another treat.) Here are a few of the notes I took on the conversation, which was about, more or less, Rinella’s 2005 Alaskan hunt for a wild buffalo:

Rinella on buffalos, which he described as incredibly strong yet equally vulnerable. “They just have this knack for dying en masse,” he said. And the crimes that humans have committed against the animal are so numerous that to hunt one is unusually ethically complex.  ”To kill a white-tailed deer, to me, is like picking a cob of corn,” but buffalos stand for something as individuals. He wanted the hunt to be as “clean” as possible.
On veganism: Rinella doesn’t get it. “Civilization is a great mechanism that lets us choose what we want to do and not do,” whether to kill and eat animals or eat them without personally carrying out the killing, or whether to not eat animals at all. But veganism doesn’t fit into the same web of decisions. “Does a bee care what happens to honey?” 
On catch-and-release fishing: “We only started to fish because we wanted to eat. To remove the eating removes the end. I don’t go into a bar and order a drink to leave it on the counter.”
On his early literary erotica, included in a collection of World’s Best Sex Writing: “I feel like, why lay all that out? I wish I would have never written it.”
On the best game animals for eating: There’s a lot of variability in caribou, but a great piece of caribou backstrap is better than anything in the world. The backstrap off animals is good, period.
On his reaction to his wife buying turkey sausage at the farmers market: “Livid. ‘You brought another man’s meat into my house?’”
Etheredge’s preview of the evening gives you some sense of the night, where he calls Rinella a “the kind of guy Jack London revered: a true-blue-bow-and-arrow-totin’-big-game-smotin’-bathe-in-your-prey’s-blood-drink-your-own-pee-hunky-he-man who’d sooner skin his own meal than skim a few benjamins off his bankroll for some petite sirloin slider and truffle-oiled tater tots at some chi-chi eatery where the waiters are all named Percival or Highsberry and wear mauve waistcoats.”
Want to see for yourself? The tape is now online here.
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