It’s a novel idea, and it’s back in a new edition. The Literary Feast returns Oct. 28.
It’s a chance to feast on delicious food and beverages while you mingle with new and old friends. And it’s all for a great cause—funding the Capitol Hill Community Foundation (CHCF) grants to neighborhood schools.
In 2019 –the last year this community-wide dinner party took place– the CHCF Literary Feast dinner raised more than $35,000, every dollar of which went to local schools.
The Literary Feast was suspended during the height of the pandemic. But now you have the chance to join as the tradition begins this new chapter.
How to Feast
How does it work? Hosts at 40 Hill homes each volunteer to throw a dinner party. Every meal is designed around the theme of a different book.
Feast attendees buy up to four tickets together online. Choose your donation! Tickets start at $100. As you purchase, you rank your top 6 feasts (one choice is “surprise me!”) and you give any dietary restrictions.
By Oct. 22, six days before dinner, you’ll learn which delicious tale will be yours to consume.
But you don’t have to read the books. This is a dinner, not a book club! You show up for dinner and drinks. The literature provides the theme; the host provides the nourishment –you provide character and dialogue.
After dinner, all 40 dinner parties are invited to converge at the Feast’s after party. 400+ guests of the feasts will enjoy wine and dessert from Radici to the sounds of a live jazz band from 8:45 to 11 p.m.
Delicious Tales on the Menu
The 2023 menu offers the longest list of literary-themed meals in Literary Feast history. Did you read the Red Sparrow books, with the tempting recipes at the end of every chapter of the spy novel set in Putin’s Russia? You don’t have to – you can taste the meals consumed by the American and Russian spies at feast #8.
You can see the list of book-themed feasts online now, and it’s a tantalizing one. There’s a build your own ramen bar designed for Bullet Train, by Kōtarō Isaka (translated by Sam Malissa); Tantalizing home made indian fare to go with Abraham Verghese’s new novel, The Covenant of Water. Enjoy nostalgic rich fare to celebrate the kids of Patti Smith’s Just Kids, the youth who went on to be the avant-garde of New York City’s art scene. There’s a meal to assuage the dashed expectations in E.M. Forester’s Room With A View or to transport you to the mythical town that provides the setting for Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Funds for Schools
All funds raised by this community-wide dinner party, The Literary Feast and Literary Pumpkin Walk go to the CHCF fund for District schools.
The Literary Pumpkin walk is a companion event to the Feast. A self-guided tour of homes decorated to match book themes, the walk was originally designed as a COVID-19 replacement for the feast. Winners designate a $1,000 donation to a Hill school of their choice.
Now, we’re back together at the table, but the well-loved book-themed decorations are so popular that the Literary Pumpkin Walk lives on, taking place this year from Oct. 25-31.
The Foundation is a 100% volunteer-driven community organization that supports activities, projects, and groups that enrich the history, diversity and beauty of the Capitol Hill community. Learn more at capitolhillcommunityfoundation.org.
