The second week of the book tour for Secret Dishes From Around the World 3 has been the busiest yet! We have been warmly received in every place we have visited and want to thank everyone for being so welcoming.
Our Monday morning started with a stop in Bradford and looked around Hive’s exciting workshop, including their fantastic woodwork studio. We met the artists from the fantastic charity Roshni Ghar, which provides culturally appropriate, responsive services for South Asian women experiencing mental ill health. They did the artwork for the Bangladesh section of the book!
Next up was Inspire Arts in Wakefield, who were commissioned to work on the book by The Art House. They collaborated on the artwork for the USA recipe section of the book.
Tuesday brought us to Leeds and to the home of the new Real Junk Food cafe in Leeds. Currently working alongside the charity LS-Ten, they provide a welcoming, pay-as-you-feel cafe which uses surplus food to create delicious meals.
We then finally got to meet the Leeds art organisation Pyramid of Arts and their artists. We ordered some well-deserved coffees from another partner charity Cafe Leep, and met their friendly team- if you’re in the area, be sure to check it out!
Driving East on Wednesday, we met the artists and the team from Accessible Arts & Media in York for a cooking demonstration; we made Guasaca, a Venezualan dish, and held a book signing with the artists.
Then we dashed over to Hull to set up at Absolutely Cultured’s Humber Street Gallery and to see their great exhibition. There, we interviewed the contributing photographer Sean McAllister for the next season of our podcast. It was great to chat to the team there!
Heading up to Newcastle on Thursday, half of our team got to visit The Biscuit Factory and met the artist Breezy Willows and the Factory Foundation team. Breezy created some ingenious digital art for the Indonesia section of Secret Dishes From Around the World 3.
Simultaneously, across in Sunderland, the other half of the Bounceback team held a signing event with Sunderland Family Arts Network and met children supported by More than Grandparents. They helped design the artwork which was then assembled by the artist Hannah Rich.
Just in time for the weekend, on Friday we crossed the border into Scotland. Our Edinburgh book signing event was held with the team from Able Arts CIC. We met for lunch at the fantastic social enterprise Social Bite and it was such a pleasure to meet everyone who contributed to the book.
Finally, on Sunday, we held a book signing event in Glasgow at the Summerlee Museum of Scottish Industrial Life and met the Bazooka Arts team and participating artists. Bazooka Arts were even kind enough to organise for us to have a go at lino printing, the technique that they used to create the artwork in the Ukrainian section of the book!
Thank you so much to everyone who came along and met us! It’s been a fantastic experience to finally meet our collaborators face to face.
Keep your eyes peeled for updates on the blog about the third week of the tour!
