TIDBITS

Cookbook authors Vishwesh Bhatt and Lauren Thomas will be featured during a day of cooking events at next month’s Six Bridges Book Festival in Little Rock. Bhatt and Thomas will be part of a joint author session and lead individual cooking demonstrations at the Roosevelt Thompson Library, 38 Rahling Circle, on Oct. 29.

Bhatt is the author of the recently published “I Am From Here: Stories and Recipes from a Southern Chef,” a blend of memoir and 130 recipes (organized by ingredient)

that recount his literal and emotional journey from Gujarat, India to Oxford, Miss., where he’s now executive chef at Snackbar. He won the 2019 James Beard Award for Best Chef in the South, and while his menu at Snackbar reflects a lot of international influence, Bhatt identifies as “Southern.”

“This is the place that influences what I do. This is the place where people come and eat what I cooked, and it is the South and so therefore, I’m a Southern chef,” Bhatt told Mississippi Today’s Kayleigh Skinner.

Thomas is a Jupiter, Fla.based lifestyle blogger who gained prominence as “The Modern Hippie,” whose cookbook “The Modern Hippie Table: Recipes and Menus for Eating Simply and Living Beautifully,” will be published on Oct. 25. According to Thomas’ publisher, The Collective Book Studio, the book combines decorating ideas and “more than 70 elevated yet simple recipes” to “[encourage] everyone to find joy and ease in the art of cooking and entertaining for gatherings big and small.”

Thomas will demonstrate how to build themed charcuterie arrangements directly on your table at 10 a.m. and Bhatt will cook something “unpretentious, inventive, and incredibly delicious” for attendees to sample at 4 p.m.

They will both participate in a joint author session at 1 p.m.

Tickets are $15 for each cooking session; due to the nature of these events, a limited number of tickets is available for each. The joint author session is free but requires registration at sixbridgesbookfestival.org.