What's Happening This Week--Learn To Cure Your Own Meat & Take the Downtown Chocolate Tour

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Tom Standage, business editor at The Economist and author of An Edible History of Humanity invites you to expand your mind and your belly at Food for Thought this Thursday, an evening of food, wine, and conversation at Bouley. Over a seasonal three-course meal, he and Chef David Bouley will discuss the roles food has played throughout history, from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the rise of Asia.
[Food for Thought]

Before opening the Iowa-based prosciuttificio La Quercia with his wife, Kathy, Herb Eckhouse spent five years experimenting with making his own prosciutto at home. Now, you too can learn how to cure your own meat at Murray's Cheese's first ever hands-on make-your-own-cured-meat class, hosted by Eckhouse himself next Monday. He'll be taking participants through the steps to cure a piece of pork belly (which they can, of course, take home after class), while explaining the principles of meat preservation.
[Murray's Cheese]

The next edition of The Alliance for Downtown New York's "Downtown Eats" series of food tours is this Sunday. Food historian Alexandra Leaf will lead A Chocolate Discovery Walk, a cocoa-themed tour of Lower Manhattan restaurants and food purveyors. Participants will get to sample artisanal chocolate and pastry, enjoy wine-and-chocolate pairings at several wine shops, and learn about the role chocolate has played in the neighborhood's history.
[The Alliance for Downtown New York]