‘Dinner and Bikes’ Travels to Watkins on April 29

Free road show spotlights vegan food and bicycle culture

“Dinner and Bikes,” a road show of vegan food and bicycle inspiration, comes to Watkins College of Art, Design & Film on Sunday, April 29, from 7 to 9 p.m.  Presented by the Watkins Library, the free event offers a buffet and media presentation by Joshua Ploeg, Elly Blue and Joe Biel, currently on a Dinner and Bikes tour of the southeastern United States.

Ploeg is a Los-Angeles-based personal chef, author of five vegan cookbooks, and publisher of the controversial raw food zine, So Raw It’s Downright Filthy.  Portland, Oregon-based Blue is an author and blogger who writes about bicycle transportation and grassroots culture, and is the co-founder of PDX by Bike, a business that helps people find their way around Portland by bicycle. Biel, also from Portland, publishes nonfiction books, zines and movies through Microcosm Publishing and Cantankerous Titles, and recently produced “Cycling Shorts,” a collection of short movies about bicycle culture.

The April 29 tour stop at Watkins features an extensive vegan buffet with food preparation tips, videos from “Cycling Shorts,” a slideshow about activism and the economy, discussion of local issues, and a traveling bookstore.

There is no charge for the meal or the presentation, but reservations are strongly recommended. Contact the Watkins Library at 615-277-7440 or [email protected] for reservations and information.

Dinner & Bikes (DinnerandBikes.com) is sponsored in part by the Turnip Truck and presented in association with the library’s second annual Handmade & Bound Nashville book arts festival (handmadeboundnashville.com), set for October 5-6 at Watkins.

Pictured:  Joe Biel, Elly Blue and Joshua Ploeg

Joshua Ploeg ( http://joshuaploeg.blogspot.com/ ) “The Touring Vegan Chef”

I used to/ still sing in punk bands (Mukilteo Fairies, Lords of Lightspeed, Behead the Prophet N.L.S.L., Warm Streams), now I cook vegan food and tour around in a fashion similar to the band tours of yore, mostly doing dinner parties and soirees in people’s apartments and art spaces. I tour on public transportation for weeks on end, sometimes bringing my knives along and cook in a wild variety of kitchens (been doing it this way since 2003). I’ve also done several vegan cookbooks: “In Search of the Lost Taste”, “A Typografic Meal to Celebrate the 75th Anniversary of Libelle” (Netherlands), “Dutch Much”, “Twelve Knights In My Kingdom” and “Something Delicious This Way Comes: Spellbinding Vegan Cookery”. Hot Stuff! Currently I live “wherever”!

Elly Biel ( http://takingthelane.com ) author, blogger, activist

Hi, I’m Elly Blue. I live in Portland, Oregon and write about bicycle transportation. My work has appeared in Grist, Bitch, BikePortland, Momentum, Reclaim, and elsewhere. I also co-run PDX by Bike, a business that helps people find their way around Portland by bicycle, and a nonprofit business alliance called the Portland Society. I am currently working on two books, which you’ll be hearing quite a bit about here soon.

Joe Biel ( http://cantankeroustitles.com/dvds/cycling-shorts ) publisher, filmmaker

“Cycling Shorts” is a collection of short movies about bicycle culture. What is bicycle culture? It’s what you make of it. Anything can happen: Activists educate the policymakers. Bureaucrats create whimsical public art. Strangers help each other move house by bike. Corporations turn their drive-thrus into bike thrus. Joe Biel’s short movies explore all these phenomena and more as he follows the emergence of modern bike culture over the last ten years of riding the streets of US cities and meeting the characters who are making the magic happen. Includes over a dozen short documentaries including Martinis in the Bike Lane, Burgerville’s Bike-Thru, Hunter-Gatherers Never Looked This Good, Last Train Out of North America, and many more.