On the menu at Kerrytown BookFest: food, mystery and fun

If there’s a more delightful way to pass the time than plunking into a soft chair with a good book, I’m hard pressed to come up with it — unless maybe there’s a fabulous snack involved.

The Kerrytown BookFest is catering to that magical moment and even throwing in a little local flavor with this year’s theme of “Culinary Michigan,” to be feted from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 13 at the Farmers Market with cooks, books, bloggers, cakes, mysteries, histories and celebrities.

This seems like such an ingenious idea that I immediately want to have just such a festival every year, and every week would be better. How ever did the organizers select this delicious plan?

“The same way we choose everything: we bat around ideas and see what sticks,” laughed Robin Agnew of Aunt Agatha’s Mystery Bookshop, who’s in charge of programming. “There's so much interest in cooking, so it just mushroomed” — not a hint of irony in her voice — “and took over half of the festival.”

Jane and Michael Stern, the gastronomic travelers whose adventures in “Roadfood” regularly grace Gourmet magazine and National Public Radio’s “The Splendid Table,” will be stopping into town with a choice morsel of an assignment: judging the Edible Book Contest. This is actually even better than it sounds, as the rules specify turning “your favorite book, character, title, book art, etc. into a delicious cake” (cake!) that will compete for such honors as Most Book-Like, Pun Intended, Best in Show and People’s Choice.

Cake was never meant to be merely a spectator sport, so a good old-fashioned cake walk will let us in on the fun, too…and since half of the proceeds go to Food Gatherers while the other half supports the BookFest, it’s practically our community duty to throw in for the chance of a delicious confection, right? There will be cupcakes to decorate in the children’s tent, and Hollander’s is showing off its new cooking facilities with demonstrations featuring Max and Eli Sussman, authors of “Freshman in the Kitchen.”

The Stearns will lend their charm and expertise to a panel on “Local Foods in the World and Global Foods in Michigan,” joined by Zingerman’s co-owner Ari Weinzweig (“Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon”) and moderated by University of Michigan Clements Library culinary historian Jan Longone (also the winner of this year’s Community Book Award). Another panel will discuss what it means to be a “Michivore” with the guy who coined the term, writer Tom Bloomer, along with T.R. Durham (“The Smoked Seafood Cookbook”), Patti LaNoue Stearns (“A Cherry Home Companion: A Cherry Cookbook”) and Cynthia Furlong-Reynolds (“Jiffy: A Family Tradition”). Local food bloggers from the Gastronomical 3, The Farmers Marketer and the Kitchen Chick will get together to dish about food 2.0 in a panel called “Eating Online,” and writers Julie Hyzy, JoAnna Carl, Miranda Bliss and Melinda Wells talk about their books’ culinary settings in “Mysteries to Cook By.”

But don’t think it’s time to head home once you’ve had your fill of the food scene — after all, it only took over half of the festival. Co-headlining the gala is Jeffery Deaver, an interesting character himself whose career as a bestselling mystery writer was preceded by stints as a journalist, folksinger and attorney and whose best-known protagonist is a quadriplegic detective. The movie rights to three of his 25 novels have been sold; if you saw 1999’s “The Bone Collector” with Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie, you’ve seen his work.

Prefer your mysteries to be nonfiction — and maybe a little local? Drop in on the “True Crime” panel with Mardi Link (“When Evil Came to Good Hart” and “Isadore’s Secret”), Patrick Brode (“The Odyssey of John Anderson” and “Death in the Queen City: Clara Ford on Trial, 1895”), Andrea Billups and Steve Miller (coauthors of “A Slaying in the Suburbs: The Tara Grant Murder”). Laura James moderates. (James and Link are contributing to the University of Michigan Press' reprint of "The Michigan Murders" planned for next year.)

And if thrillers aren’t your thing at all, never fear. You can ponder “The Future of Print Journalism” with representatives from the Ann Arbor Observer, The Ann Arbor Chronicle, Annarbor.com, The Detroit News and USA Today; wax nostalgic about Thomas Merton, Bob Seger, The Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival and the Michigan/Ohio State rivalry in “Counterculture and Music of the ’60s.”; Michigan Notable Book winner Mary Ellen Geist will give a presentation about Alzheimer’s disease as she discusses her “Measure of the Heart,” written about her father; and two local husband-and-wife writing teams talk about life in a dual-author household.

The BookFest always makes sure to entertain the kiddies, so book, printing and paper crafts return to the children’s tent this year. (Adults, aren’t left out of the crafty fun, either — check out Hollander’s workshops on recipe books, coupon holders, food collages and papyrus.) In addition to the hands-on projects and a visit from Mother Goose, Agnew notes that this year’s tent activities include author readings for the first time: local adventure tour company owner Heather O’Neal shares “The Adventures of A Nepali Dog” and John Perry masterfully turns the culinary theme on its head with "The Book That Eats People."

If all this is so exciting that you just cannot wait for a taste, stop by the Ann Arbor District Library at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 9 for a reception honoring their new exhibit, "Culinary Michigan: Cookbooks." It will be introduced by Raquel "Ricky" Agranoff, former co-owner of The Moveable Feast, and Kerrytown Concert House presents accompaniment by master guitarist Matthew Ardizzone. Of course, there will be refreshments.

Yum!

Leah DuMouchel is a free-lance writer who covers books for AnnArbor.com.

The BookFest runs 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sept. 13 at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market, 315 Detroit St. Admission is free. A full schedule of events for the Kerrytown BookFest is available here.