Not with a bang...

So my last day in the America I was in Seattle, and decided to go check out the FNB group I'd helped last time I was in town.

I'd even run into one of the people who'd been cooking last time at a vegan restaurant the day before. He wasn't going, as he had to work, but I still intended on it.

Except it wasn't happening. Or it was happening somewhere else that nobody knew where. There were a lot of people in the community centre where they cooked, and the kitchen was full of people. So if FNB was happening, it wasn't happening there.

I thought about going to the serving later, but I decided I didn't want to go across town to something that maybe wasn't happening. Oh well.

Next stop: Vancouver!

The San Francisco Third

So yet another FNB serving in SF.

On Monday I went back to where the group I'd help cook with had served on the previous Wednesday.

One guy showed up with a bike cart full of soup and some bread. He did FNB by himself! Incredible!
I helped him serve soup and we talked a bit about our experiences. Also I ate a lot of soup because I was hungry.

Also that day I started to stay at the place where I'd done FNB the week before. Everyone there was really nice. Thanks for letting me sleep on your couch : )

On the second day of San Franciso my FNB gave to me...

So day two of San Francicso (last Thursday) led to another food not bombs experience.

This time I headed to a place in the Mission district, and after pulling on a rope attached to an actual bell, headed up some stairs to a really neat community space.

It had a big kitchen, an oven you had to open with a crowbar (!!!), a huuuuge pot (bigger than the one in Vancouver! well, maybe not taller) and a room full of bicycles on the second floor.

A girl who was at the couchsurfing party the night before was there! Amazing! And lots of other people. It was pretty fun.

We made a big salad thing. A soup thing. And I made banana bread, which people said was very good. Oh, and limeade.

I used the recipe from the FNB cooking zine we made (!!!) though we struggled to find flour at first.

We served outside and it was cold. Afterwards there was an open mic poetry/etc. thing where we served. But I decided to sit inside and watch Mirrormask, because I was cold.

Oh! And there was a huge free box. I got pants, a hoodie, _and_ sneakers! Hurray! This isn't about FNB that much, but apparently I forgot everything that happened on that day.

On Friday I went to the critical mass bicycle ride, and met a guy who had been at FNB the day before. Some of his friends came up and started talking to him/me. We hung out all evening, and they invited me to play bicycle polo on Tuesday. Exciting!

San Francisco 1

So yeah, I just do FNB wherever I go now it seems.

Wednesday I got to San Francisco, and with nowhere to stay and no idea of what I should be doing I wandered around, ate some food, found an anarchist bookstore and saw a sign for FNB. "Hey! There's a serving today, I should check it out." So we called the number from the poster, but it didn't work.

So I went to a nearby library, got a different phone number, went back to the store, called it, and got an answer. I was soon on my way!

I showed up to an apartment building, and went up three flights to help cook in someone's apartment. We made a vegetable soup thing, an apple/fruit crisp, and apple/carrot juice! That was exciting that they had a juicer.
They also apparently had a deep fryer, which they used sometimes, which just sounds like chaos.

After cooking, most people didn't want to go to the serving, so it was lucky I was there! Two other people took the stuff to the United Nations Square (or something) by bike cart, and I went along to help serve.

The serving was where the police used to hassle FNB a lot, and there was a nearby fountain where I was told FNB would serve standing in (cold!) when the cops came. It had water in it again, but apparently for a while it was empty.

The serving itself was kind of intense, with some sort of crazy people coming by, and two guys getting into a physical confrontation. Thankfully nothing really bad happened, but it was kind of scary!

Later that night I went to a couchsurfing.org party and found somewhere to stay. Hurray! Then I threw up all night. Boo!

(Oh! One thing I should have mentioned about the last serving I went to in Portland was that there were people dressed up and playing croquet with bowling balls and sledge hammers! Awesome! I asked them about it, but they wouldn't give me a straight answer.)

Portland again

So I hit up some FNB servings while I was in Portland for the zine symposium last week. It doesn't seem possible to find out where they cook if you're only there for a brief period of time, as none of the websites/posters list cooking places, and the email bounces.

The Friday serving was kind of weird, in that they didn't provide any dishes. I felt that it kind of defeated the purpose of FNB (that anyone can come by and eat), if you have to bring your own dish/utensil. A girl I talked to who was serving felt the same way. Apparently people didn't want to wash all the dishes if everyone returned them. Blah.

Afterwards I went to the Red and Black cafe (a worker owned vegan cafe, with beer!)with some people, and we watched some people play music.

Saturday I tried going to an FNB, but it didn't happen. So I hung out with some other people that were waiting for it.

Sunday I went and found the FNB serving that I'd eaten with last time I was in town, and I ate some food and talked to them a little, but then I went back to hang out with the zine symposium people. Me and this other guy cycled along beside the river and hung out on an old, crumbling, concrete dock thing. Exciting!

Asstacular Adventures

I totally forgot one incredibly dramatic thing that happened at FNB in Seattle.

After we got back from serving and were hanging out, I sat on the arm of a couch, then slid backwards onto the seat part. I heard a ripping and realized that my pants had ripped.

In fact, basically the entire ass of my shorts was ripped, it was beyond fixing (short of large scale patching), so the next day I hit up a thrift store and just bought new ones. The old ones were kind of gross anyway.

Seattle!

What happened at the Vancouver FNB serving last week? I have no idea, as I was in Seattle. However I did help out with a FNB serving there.

I checked their website, and saw that they had a serving on Sunday. So on Sunday I called them up to make sure the information was right.

It was, but in a hilarious coincidence nobody had the key to open the place. They promised to call me back when they did have a key.

So I hung out with the guy I was couchsurfing with, and a girl from Argentina who was also couchsurfing at his place. Before too long I got a call back, and me and the other couchsurfer walked down and found the place where they cooked.

We met one of the people involved outside and helped him bring in some stuff to cook. Including vegan donuts! Well, those weren't to cook, they were to eat.

There were quite a few people there to cook, but it was a new cooking space for them, and there wasn't that much room. Plus there were lots of comfy couches just outside.

I busied myself helping to make the best fruit salad I've ever had at a FNB serving (peaches and nectarines and grapes and pineapples and apples and pears!), but there was also soup, a big stirfry, and we made limeade. Yum.

Once we finished cooking, we loaded everything into a truck, and a bunch of people piled into that and a car and drive to the cooking location. Some people also stayed behind to help clean up.

We drove to the serving place, which was actually kind of far away, spilling a bunch of the limeade on the way. Once there the serving was pretty laid back (at least compared to Vancouver), though it happened in what was called "crack park" by some of the FNB people. Apparently sometimes it can get intense. I think one good thing was that since it was in a park (or a paved pedestrian area or whatever), is that people could sit and eat right there, come back for seconds if they wanted more, and give back dishes if they wanted to. Solid.

Of course we didn't have any forks to give to people at first. Someone went to a Subway to try and get some, but they only gave us six. So I donated a few dollars and he went off to a store and bought some. Hurray!

At the end, we gave away all the food, except a little bit of fruit salad that I then ate, and boxes and boxes of donuts.

We dropped off some produce at a shelter place. Then we headed back to do cleanup. Except there were too many people there, so a bunch of us just hung out and drank. Apparently sometimes they drink while cooking. Oh I wish we could have done that...

A bunch of people were going to a punk show afterward, but it seemed far away, so I took off. Still! If you are ever in Seattle on a Sunday you should check out FNB there as they are totally nice.

Portland!

I came to Portland for the anarchist bookfair armed with the FNB cooking zine.

Or almost, I hadn't finished putting it together (not even close to be honest), and it still needed covers. And space filling drawings.

I drew some stick men and stuff on the train down, and drew the covers to both sides (or "drew" as it is just sorta fancy lettering).

On the second day here, my friend and I went off to find a photocopying place. While he photocopied his anti-olympics stuff, I drew the last cover, and tried to put things in order.

Oh wait, I forgot the part where I crashed my bicycle after slipping on wet tram tracks and cut my thumb and my knee. Rargh.

I spent a couple of hours there getting everything done, but I think in the end they came out pretty well.

I traded some to some people, and gave some others away. Hopefully people like them.

In regards to FNB down here, I tried and failed to find out when/where a group cooked. Considering they seem to serve six times a week this was impressive!

I did manage to find the very end of a serving in a park on Sunday and talked to a couple of the people who had cooked the food. It seems that there's actually a bunch of different FNB groups in town, and they serve in different areas and sometimes don't know each other at all! I thought that was kind of cool. They had lots of bread, and I ate some lentils, and talked to a homeless guy who had given out fake/informative "you can not sleep outside" tickets to people who had camped out waiting for a parade. (Sleeping outside in Portland is illegal, except for people waiting for this parade. Strange.)

Today I tried to find another serving (after getting the info from a flyer), and I went to the right place at the right time, but it didn't seem to be happening. I asked a woman in the park, and she said I was the second person to ask her about it.

I went back to the place I was staying and discovered that it didn't happen on Mondays any more (out of date flyer!). Boourns.

How was Vancouver?