Contributors

Avi Byer lives in Oakland with a houseful of women, weed, and pit bulls. He works in the cannabis industry, but always says yes! to new opportunities, which led him to these photographic and storytelling adventures. He is working on a book that tells the story of his childhood and his survival growing up on the streets.

Abigail is a writer, recipe developer, and cooking teacher with 15 years of experience in the food industry. She was a founding editor at Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food, and contributed to two of the company’s cookbooks. Her work has also appeared in Vegetarian Times, Whole Living, Everyday with Rachel Ray, Real Simple, Edible Portland, and MIX Magazine. She teaches cooking classes out of her home in Portland, Oregon.

Ever since Adrian was a child, she’s been fascinated by the table as an everyday forum. She used to curl up under the dining room table to listen to the adults’ conversation. She noticed early on that they’d linger there long after dinner was over to talk about politics, or give one another unsolicited advice, or tell jokes that would erupt in laughter. Sometimes they’d even share stories that would lead to tears. Now that she’s an adult, Adrian has become especially interested in the stories we tell about our food—as well as the stories that food tells about us.

Professionally, she’s worked in restaurants, catered weddings and banquets, critiqued restaurants for The Orlando Weekly, and developed food stories for publications such as Saveur, Culture, Mix, and others. But she is happiest passing from kitchen to table and learning our unique relationship to these places in our lives. She started Communal Table for anyone who sees the table as an anchor to daily life—A place to air intimacies and connect with the bigger world.

Aisha Lumumba was born in a rural suburb of Atlanta, known as McDonough, Georgia in the mid 1950’s. She started her first quilt at a young age. Now, she has more than 35 years of sewing and quilting experience, not only for practical uses, but as a form of artistic expression.

In her words:

“Most of all I want my work to reflect my great African heritage as well as the ups and downs of our American experience. “And The Angels Cried” was a direct response to the shooting of the nine people at Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina. As I tried to wrap my mind around this tragic event, I didn’t know how to put all the different emotions I was feeling into words. I was so numb that the thought popped into my head that even the angels must be crying over this event. At that point I knew what I wanted to say in the picture.”

Amy Halloran lives in upstate New York with her family. She runs a soup kitchen and food pantry, teaches writing and cooking, and loves pancakes so much she wrote a book about their main ingredient, THE NEW BREAD BASKET. Find her on instagram @amyhalloran or @flourambassador. Her website is AmyHalloran.net

Andrea has been an artist since she could first pick up a crayon. Her hope is to create images that catch your eye, and maybe hold some inexplicable charm over you for years to come. Her illustrations have been shown throughout the United States and featured on apparel, in articles, movies, and homes. As long as she can hold a crayon she will keep creating.

Angela Holm writes stories with photographs; scribing them with light, caught and focused by her camera’s lens.  Working in a variety of situations from behind the scenes to city streets, Angela captures the tales found in everyday moments of life within the world.  In her pursuit of these images, Angela uses a range of cameras from film to digital and back again.  She currently lives and works in Northwest Portland where she is an active member of the Professional Photographer Association, relishes doing Documentary Photography, has a burgeoning social media presence and tries to photograph at least three impossible things every day.  To see more of her work, or to follow along on the adventures, please visit her website for links to her other channels.

Avi Byer lives in Oakland with a houseful of women, weed, and pit bulls. He works in the cannabis industry, but always says yes! to new opportunities, which led him to these photographic and storytelling adventures. He is working on a book that tells the story of his childhood and his survival growing up on the streets.

Creativity requires sensation. I have always seen my creative work as an attempt to translate sensations into visual encounters. As I believe sensations to be abstract in nature, I create in conceptual and abstract forms. I strive to find the exact line, movement or color that can communicate what the mind thinks and the body feels.
Whether the sensations come from a more societal mind and body or personal experiences my process is the same. Once struck with the inspiration a series of deconstruction processes begins. As the initial sensation is pulled apart, it’s particulates become attached to visual dialogue. The sensations become stories, the stories cycle us back to the smallest denomination of our culture, families and selves. My desire is to find the truest aspect of these inspirational sensations and cultivate an external connection.
I work in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional mediums, as all mediums are important tools in the translation: asking the viewer to both step back and look closer.

Celeste Noche is a Bay Area native whose life dream is to travel the world and share her stories through photographs. Based in Portland, OR and San Francisco, CA, she enjoys photographing everything from food and travel to people and weddings with real moments being the common thread throughout. She began her blog, Wanderlogue, five years ago and still dedicates the space to sharing her adventure

Cheryl Juetten is a photographer living in Portland, OR with her husband, Caleb, and their daughter, Sylvia. Starting with weddings in the days of film, she loves getting involved in her community shooting for small businesses, families, non-profits and craftspeople. Born and raised in Upper Michigan, she has traded the snow for the rain, and misses lakes and pasties. As a child, inspired by her Grandmother and a love of sweets, she baked every weekend (and for holidays and all of the family birthdays-sometimes including her own!), and is so happy to continue her love of food in Portland.

Danielle is a native Portlander, back in her hometown after school in Southern California and some European travel. Good food seems to make her decisions for her—from spending an extended season on an organic farm in Gales Meadow, Oregon to working now at grocery start-up Green Zebra. Responsibly sourced ingredients make her meals meaningful and spiritual, but she is not one to turn down a “Supermac” at an Irish train station, of which she just—utterly famished, slick with backpackers sweat—swooned over before writing this short bio about herself.

David Karich is a German web developer and musician. He is also the CEO of the German digital agency FlipZoom Media Inc.  As an expert in software development and high-load systems, he manages many high-profile projects in Germany. In his spare time, David Karich has a passion for photography and writing.

David Kilpatrick is a videographer / designer / artist  living in in Santa Barbara, California.  His recent video work attempts to engage viewers beyond the still image to show the intimate and tactile side of cooking, farming, travel and the arts.   These videos are a collaboration with his lovely and talented wife Leela Cyd, and may be seen at DavidLeeStudios.

Emily Liedel is a writer and translator based in Portland, Oregon. She is an editor at Worldcrunch, focusing on translating news articles from Russian for an English speaking audience. She also writes a weekly newsletter on the best ideas on urbanism from around the world.

Emily speaks Spanish, French, German, Russian and Mandarin Chinese, and she writes about language learning on her blog, The Babel Times. She is a regular contributor of long form articles related to language and culture for Schwa Fire.

Her articles have appeared on NYTimes.com, Civil Eats and Modern Farmer.

Emily enjoys learning about culture through food; one of her favorite experiences was taking a year long class in French cuisine while living in Paris.

Frank Omier is a Nicaraguan born artist who lives in Portland Oregon. He studied art at the Grand Central Atelier and The Art Students League of New York. He has also copied paintings at the Prado Museum in Madrid and spent a year studying drawings in the Louvre’s drawing and prints department.

His most recent work is focused on outdoor paintings. He spent five months painting in Beijing and he is currently working on a series of paintings from his most recent trip to Nicaragua.

When not painting, Frank Omier loves traveling, languages, and food.

George Marie is a photographer & writer living in Port Townsend, Washington with her family. When not philosophizing with her children, she’s likely to be found philosophizing around the dinner table.  Her poems, short fiction and photographs have appeared here and there online and in print. Her first published book Dismember was released by Bedouin Books in 2012.

Hanna is a Portland-based writer of personal essays and the author of Left Coast Roast, a guidebook to artisan and influential coffee roasters on the west coast. By day, she is the managing editor of Democracy & Education, a scholarly journal about two things she thinks are important. It is published by the Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling, where she is director of communications. Her daughter, Montreal, was born in May 2014.

Hannah Wallace is a Portland-based journalist who writes about food, agriculture, integrative medicine, and travel. She writes for Dwell, the New York Times, Portland Monthly, Vogue, and Travel + Leisure, and her articles and book reviews have appeared in Bon Appétit, Southwest, O: the Oprah Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Times. She is a contributing writer at CivilEats.com.

Heather Newell is a Denver-based writer, blogger, and travel enthusiast. Having completed the US Peace Corps in Rwanda from 2011-2013 she has written for their online blogging publications, contributed to Africa Agenda, a media company in Denver, and has showcased her cultural experiences on her personal blogging website. Heather works for The Women’s Bakery, an organization committed to training women in business and life skills in East Africa. She enjoys exploring anywhere outdoors, eating fabulous burritos, and spending time over coffee with friends and family. Her website can be found at www.ikundayou.wordpress.com.

Jenni has been a practicing artist since childhood. Whether staining her fingers with clay, paint, or beets, her hands have always been creating. Her love for art and food continue to inspire her life, as she has worked as a designer, food stylist, nutritional chef, and art teacher. She has lived in Maryland, NYC, San Francisco, and Florence, Italy. Jenni now resides in Portland, OR, where she enjoys all the Pacific NW has to offer.

John is a teacher of young children and is delighted to now have one that he calls a daughter.  He has taught and coached 3 year olds-13 year olds and loves the enthusiasm they bring to the world. He now teaches 2nd grade at an independent school in Portland Oregon.  When John is not in the classroom, he is most likely watching soccer, hiking in the woods, laughing with his daughter, or figuring out what he’s been thinking about through the act of writing.

Native Floridian, 41, married, 3 kids.  Love surfing, fishing, yoga and getting lost outside.   I’m an active-lifestyle photographer and been at it for 15 years.  I’ve circled the earth a few times on a plane and seen some incredible places.  Stay passionate and slightly uncomfortable.

Kelsey sees life in pictures… she is a photographer, an artist, a moth chasing the light. She finds the extraordinary in the ordinary, and frames simple scenes of life as art. She is an observer of life and connections. She loves color, composition, layers and texture and looks for the moments we tend to take for granted.

Leela Cyd is a photographer based in Santa Barbara, CA with an emphasis on food, travel, interiors, and portraits for an assortment of editorial and commercial clients. She makes photographs as a means to see, experience, learn from and interact with the diverse cultures of the world.  Raised around a table full of artists and writers a block from the Pacific ocean, she’s forever been sharing stories and influenced by creative lives. She authors an award winning travel/food blog  TEA CUP TEA

Lela Preston is an Italian-American Florida native who teaches Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Central Florida. She earned her Master’s degree in Literature and her PhD in Texts in Technology. She is an academic with an artist’s heart and, above all, an activist and idealist. She founded and runs Animal Safehouse Program, which fosters pets for women in domestic violence shelters. Her toddler Phoenix is an excellent, if somewhat overwhelming, hostess to any and all animals in need. Preston’s research and publication interests include gendered bodies in virtual communities, body technologies, embodied resistance, and whatever else captivates her.

Linda grew up in Montana. She now lives in Portland, Oregon, where she can easily indulge her cinematic obsessions without restraint. She’s a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her work has recently guested in Minetta Review, Aberration Labyrinth, Clementine Poetry Journal, Ink In Thirds, Unbroken, The Slag Review, and Visitant, among others.

Lisa C. Knisely is a former academic who lives in Portland, Oregon where she sometimes writes and sometimes teaches.

Lola Milholland is a noodle entrepreneur in Portland, Oregon.

Margarett Waterbury is a writer who lives in Portland, Oregon, and is a lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest. She is interested in all aspects of food, from cooking and eating to the systems and industries that produce it. Her work has been published by Portland Monthly, Edible Portland, Culinate, Civil Eats, and The Inquisitive Eater.

Nathan is a sixth generation Floridian from Orlando who works as a rescue swimmer and operations officer for the US merchant marine. After a decade in the US Navy, he studied creative writing at the University of Central Florida, and later returned to the sea over diving into a writing career because he has kids to feed. He’s currently writing a novel about life at sea and lives in Hawaii on a ship. He hopes to someday encounter Cthulhu on the high seas and have coffee with author Michel Houellebecq. He posts prose and poetry on his wordpress where he is desperately trying to achieve brevity.

Peggy Acott is a fifth-generation Oregonian, and has been writing for nearly her whole life. Before she could write stories she would dictate them to a willing parent, adding illustrations and stapling it together in an early effort at self-publishing. Her work has appeared in print at Portland Outsider Magazine, Edible Portland, Alltopia and Savor: an Anthology, and online at Cooking Up A Story, Cactus Heart Press and Portland Made Collective. She lives in Portland with her partner, two dogs and a big garden, and can be found at www.peggyacott.wordpress.com

When Sarah Minnick is not snapping moments of farm and food life on Instagram, you’ll find her stretching out-of-this-world, naturally-leavened pizza dough at Lovely’s Fifty Fifty in Portland, Oregon. She is the chef at the helm of this PDX gem, and locals thank her for her dedication to sourcing only the best and turning it generously over to the care of the public.

Sasha Davies owns and operates Clay Pigeon Winery and wine bar Cyril’s with her husband in Portland, OR. She has spent the past decade plus working with cheese as a wholesaler, retailer, educator and author of two books–The Guide to West Coast Cheese and The Cheesemaker’s Apprentice. Sasha has also contributed to a variety of publications including Culture, Mix, and Diner Journal.

Shawn photographs and films small farms and farmers mostly around the Portland, Oregon area. With a journalist’s sense of narrative and an artist’s eye, she strives to create intimate, authentic images that celebrate the lives of our environmental stewards who are helping to better our access to local, healthy food.

Susan Troccolo is the author of the 2015 essay collection The Beet Goes On: Essays on Friendship and Breaking New Ground. Susan’s essays have appeared in Culinate, Spooning, and VoiceCatcher. Her essay, Homage, about studying Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy while living in Rome, won honorable mention in Oregon Writers Colony 2003 national essay contest. Susan chronicles the humor and poignancy of aging on her blog Life-Change-Compost.

Susan lives with her husband and their Border Collie, Fly, in Portland, OR. Fly still misses Rufus.