A Culinary Odyssey

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Update #18: Rewards in the Mail!

Posted on April 28

Dear CO Backers,

Rewards are on the way!

By midnight Monday, April 30th, all rewards will have been sent out by priority mail or by email. There are a few of you who haven't given me your mailing address, please do so ASAP because I will be leaving the country in 2 weeks. I will be back in 2-3 months.

The only exceptions are those who requested iBook version of CO for their iPads. We have uploaded CO to Apple iStore. It takes them 2-4 weeks to approve the book for sale. The moment the book goes live on their store, we will be able to send you the download code.

In 6 months, I will write a PDF report of the whole experience and include some sale figures for the project. Those of you who pledged for the report will receive it then.

The launch party was a success. Unfortunately, we had difficulties with the webcast and Skype-vid. Montalvo's internet went down and the tech guys couldn't bring it back up. We did have around 30 minutes before it crashed.

About 40 CO backers and supporters did make it to the party. On Sunday, as promised, I led a group of 6 adventurous CO backers (7 in total, the Magnificient Seven) on an 8-mile hike up Mission Peak (2,500ft, I will post pics on my website in a few days). Afterward, we had a black-moon, city-light picnic at a site 1,600 ft above the South Bay with panoramic view from SF to Gilroy. It was a fantastic night.

Here is a brief report of the launch party. It's a short email I sent to Villa Montalvo's directors and artists.

Thanks again for all your support. We've done some really good things together. Please do post reviews of the book on Amazon, iTunes, and elsewhere. Thank you!

Cheers,

Andrew X. Pham

******************

Dear Angela, Kelly, Julie, Montalvo Staff, Volunteers & Fellow Artists,

I would like to say “Thank you!” for myself and on the behalf of my Culinary Odyssey backers. Thank you for letting us be a part of Art Splash. You've been very kind and helpful. You've made my friends and family who volunteered for the event feel very welcomed at Montalvo.

As promised, here is a brief report of what we accomplished with Montalvo's help.

We fed over 600 people (this is the number of paper plates we bought), including 40 of my backers/friends/family, resident artists, Montalvo staff, Art Splash volunteers, and the public. This was achieved by the generous donation of time and hard work by Thanh Tran, Miryang Kim, Hung & Hang Le (my uncle and aunt), Camelia Ho (my aunt), Marie Umali, and Daniel Do (my friend and photographer). They put in 2 days of work to prepare food for the event.

We grossed about $1,000 from the sale of books and merchandise. Food and beverage costs totaled $500. Cost of books and merchandise sold were roughly $250, which left us with about $250 of profit. I have decided to donate all of it plus change to 88bikes.org.

We have donated $264, which buys 3 bicycles for young girls in India who have been victims of abuse. 88bikes will send us photos of the recipients of our donations, which I will post on my website (andrewxpham.com). The books were made possible by the hard work of our graphic designer Jeff Guerrero, publisher of Urban Velo, so the donation was also made on his behalf. Also, Jason Marchalonis (owner of Stromnex.com) assisted in the presentation and designed our iBook and app.

Previously, we have donated $1,000 to Dragonfly-HAVEN, a restaurant project in Cambodia which trains and assists orphans in finding professional work. The donation came directly from the funds I raised on Kickstarter for A Culinary Odyssey.

These excellent charities are mentioned in A Culinary Odyssey. I hope it will give them more exposure and attract more donations to their good causes. A Culinary Odyssey will be translated in to French, German, Korean, Thai, and Spanish. It will be sold over the internet worldwide.

I have also acknowledged and thanked Montalvo in the book. I will leave a copy of A Culinary Odyssey in the Lucas Residence Library.

Again, thank you for letting us be a part of Montalvo! I love this place!

Cheers,

Andrew X. Pham

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Update #17: Live Webcast of Party!

Posted on April 21

Hi Everyone,

Villa Montalvo will be hosting our webcast on their website:

https://plus.google.com/116117024349724385971/

You'll need a google mail account and also sign up to Google plus for it.

The other option is if you have a Skype account, look me up. My handle is pxandrew. I will be online 11AM-1PM.

Send me a Skype link request and come say "hi" online :)

Hope to see you. Thanks!

Cheers,

Andrew

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Update #16: Rewards!

Posted on April 18

Dear CO Backers,

The book is finally ready in both printed and e-book forms.

The printed book is 160 pages (40 more than initially projected) has a limited run of only 300 copies. These are only available to Kickstarter backers. The rest will be sold at our Book Launch Party this Saturday at Villa Montalvo (April 21, 11:30AM-2PM, 15400 Montalvo Road, Saratoga, CA)

We've worked very hard to make the e-book available in 4 formats: Adobe Digital Edition PDF, Kindle, Nook, and iPad. On Adobe Digital Edition PDF or the iPad, the e-book will look exactly like the printed book, page for page.

The project has come a long way. We've donated $1,000 to Project Dragonfly. We will be donating 50% of proceeds from books and merchandise sold at our book launch party to Dragonfly and 88bikes.org. Both of these organizations are listed in the book with web links, which hopefully will bring them more exposure and donations. They have one dedicated page in the book.

This has been an amazing experience for me. I've met so many wonderful people. The book was three times the work and twice as expensive as I had expected. I'm already deep in the red for this project, but it is worth all the efforts and risks. I will post detailed accounting in the PDF report. Please help spread the word for the book so I'll break even in the near future. Thank you for your support!

CO has been completed in in an unbelievably short amount of time with hardly any budget. I did not have the time or the funds for a copy editor (I did hire one at a discount, but she quit under time constraints and I couldn't afford her short-turn-around fees :) There are the inevitable minor typos and grammatical stuff. But, don't worry, this is a self-published book, predominantly in e-format, so we can make changes, corrections, and improvements as we go along.

Why the rush? I'm a writer. Writing is my day job. I can only commit so much time to a project before going bankrupt :)

I will be emailing each pledge level individually about your rewards. If I forget anything or anyone, don't hesitate to remind me.

Again, it has been my privilege and honor to have your backing!

Cheers,

Andrew

ps. I will post the webcast link for the party by Friday. The Montalvo tech guy will be doing the web-hosting. He hasn't given me a link yet.

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Update #15: Party on Saturday 21st April 2012 (11AM-2PM)

Posted on April 12

Sorry, forgot to include the date in the last update.

Villa Montalvo is at 15400 Montalvo Road, Saratoga, CA.

Best parking is at West Valley College is at 14000 Fruitvale Ave., Saratoga, CA.

Our party starts at 11:30AM (the villa's party runs till 4pm).

Cheers,

Andrew

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Update #14: PARTY!

Posted on April 12

Dear CO Backers,

The printed books are on their way and should arrive in time for the PARTY!

The ebooks, hopefully, will be available before the party. We have the Kindle and Nook version ready. We might have one additional format soon.

Those of you coming to the party can pick up your books/rewards at the party. I'll mail out all the others the following week.

The rest of this update is just information about the party :)

As you can see from the schedule below, Montalvo has the day filled with events.

Ours starts at 11:30AM. It will be in the Lucas Artist Residence Villa (also known as LAP Commons). It's the first building (and parking lot) you'll see after you come through the gates.

At 11:30AM prompt, I'll give a very brief reading from OUR book and make little speech, and we'll start the festivities early so you can wander the grounds and participate in all the other activities. We'll serve food until we run out.

Our party is free, but as it is open to the public (estimated 1,500+ attendees) we'll be accepting small donations from the public to help defray the cost of food&beverages. CO backers are VIPs :) and will get name tags which will get you larger servings and access to the booze.

Books and a few other things will be sold. Half of all proceeds will be donated to 88Bikes.org and Dragonfly-HAVEN on behalf of you guys, CO backers!

We'll have a live webcast of the event for all who can't attend. Feel free to drop in via the web and say hello.

We have the entire Lucas Artist Villa for the party. There are plenty of spaces, indoor, outdoor, patios, and verandas. Feel free to hang out or wander up to the main villa where most of the events will be happening (and where 10 gourmet food trucks will be serving).

I'll be in the Lucas Artist Villa until 2pm and then I'll be wandering around enjoying the other events too.

Parking at Villa Montalvo is very limited and is available for $10/vehicle (lots fill up very quickly). Most people will be parking at West Valley College. There will be shuttles running all day between Villa Montalvo and West Valley College.

Things to bring: walking shoes (the villa has lots of steep hills, expect to hike), camera, sunscreen, hats, picnic blankets (for eating, sitting, and napping on the lawn). There is free wifi here. Lots of things to do for the children too.

Villa Montalvo is at 15400 Montalvo Road, Saratoga, CA.

West Valley College is at 14000 Fruitvale Ave., Saratoga, CA.

Looking forward to seeing you all in person or via the web!

Cheers,

Andrew

Here is the schedule for the 3RD ANNUAL ARTS SPLASH!

Celebrating 100 Years of the Arts!

Open House / Open Studios & Student Arts Festival

Montalvo throws open its doors far and wide to the entire community for the official Centennial kick-off celebration event! Join us for an afternoon of the arts, including student works and performances, music, arts activities throughout the grounds, open residency studios, plus a gathering of some of the Bay Area's best gourmet food trucks. It's a day you and your family won't want to miss!

Schedule of the Day (subject to change):

11am: Arts Splash! begins

11:30am-3:30pm: Art Workshops throughout the grounds; Art-making tables on the Veranda & Great Lawn

Noon-1pm: Welcome from Executive Director Angela McConnell on the Front Veranda, with student performances

1:45-4pm: Student performances in the Lilian Fontaine Garden Theatre (See list below)

2pm: Park Ranger-led trail hike

3pm: Senator Phelan Birthday Celebration in the Villa with cake from Whole Foods Market, Los Gatos

Time TBD: Instrument demonstration by Early Music Rediscovered in the Phelan Library

All Day: Open Studios at the Lucas Artists Residency Program (See schedule below)

All Day: 10 gourmet Food Trucks on the Great Lawn and west of the Villa; Beer & Wine available at various locations

All Day: Face painting ($1) and African Printmaking ($3) on the Great Lawn; printmaking is FREE with Arts Splash t-shirt purchase!

All Day: Spring Plant Sale in the Solarium

All Day: Self-guided tours of the historic Villa (Docents will be posted in the Villa to answer questions)

All Day: Photo Contest (See instructions below)

4:30pm: Last shuttle to West Valley!

Open Studios & Lucas Artists Residency Events:

11am-4pm: Literary fellow Andrew Pham in the LAP Commons kitchen serving up samples of Southeast Asian food and talking about the book he is working on.

11:30am, 12:30pm, 1:30pm, 2:30pm, 3:30pm: "Slug in Progress" reading in the Residency Garden. Culinary Fellow Niki Ford will bring characters to life from an in-progress children's book about the soil nutrient cycle.

11am-4pm: Geo Homsy will activate Organograph in the Grove of Generosity, located across from the Residency. Organograph was the winner of theSan Jose Climate Clock Initiative. Read a great article from Metro about Organograph here, and visit organograph-sj.org for more details and interactive online features of the project.

1pm: Sound artist Kianga Ford will discuss her work, which will be featured in our 2012 Sculpture on the Grounds.

2pm: Haleh Abghari, Laurie San Martin, Dana Harel, Iris Charabi-Berggren, and Merry Conway present an overview of their project and short performance of Conference of the Birds Unfeathered.

3pm: Visual Fellows Robin Lasser and Adrienne Pao present The Edible Dress Tent, which will be featured in our 2012 Sculpture on the Grounds.

All day: Residency studios will be open for visitors to come in, meet the artists, and discuss their work.

Food Trucks & Carts:

Sam's ChowderMobile (seafood/fish & chips) @chowdermobile

Little Green Cyclo (organic Vietnamese) @lilgreencyclo

Tikka Bytes (Indian) @tikkabytestruck

MoGo BBQ (Korean-Mexican) @MogoBBQ

No Way Jose (Mexican) @nowayjosesj

Louisiana Territory (Cajun) @latcajuncookin

Whisk on Wheels (burgers, empanadas, sandwiches, fries) @sfwhisk

Scoops (ice cream) @ScoopsSJ

Puff Truck (cream puffs) @PacificPuffs

Quick Dog (hot dogs)

Performers:

Student groups from the Community School of Music and Arts

Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company (Oakland, CA)

San Jose High School Mariachi Ensemble

Students from Schools of Arts & Culture and the Mexican Heritage Plaza

Student groups organized by Janetta Coleman

DJ Jeff (throughout the day on the Front Veranda)

Photo Contest:

Send us your best photos from the day, and you could receive free tickets to either Starry, Starry Night on Friday, August 10, or to any of the Shakespeare Santa Cruz performances of Twelfth Night at Montalvo September 7-16. To submit, post your pictures to our Facebook or Google+ pages, tweet them to us @montalvoarts using #ArtsSplash, or send them by email to nzanon@montalvoarts.org. We'll select some of our favorite snapshots and share them with our followers! Click here for Contest Terms & Conditions.

Be sure to follow @montalvoarts on Twitter and stay involved throughout the day by using #ArtsSplash!

Arts Splash! T-shirts: $7 pre-order; $15 at the event.

RSVP on our Facebook Event Page!

THIS IS A FREE EVENT!

Limited On-Site Parking: $10

Free shuttle service available from West Valley College.

1. Julie Vo on April 12
  
  Hi Andrew! This sounds like an AMAZING party! I'm bummed that I will likely be unable to make it as I'm in SoCal that weekend. That being said, might I be able to give my VIP pass to a friend who lives in the area so he might attend?
2. Andrew Pham on April 12
  
  So not to see ya. Sure, have him come in your place. Have him mention that he's your rep :)
  
  Party is on Saturday April 21st
  
  Cheers,
  
  Andrew

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Funding Successful

This project successfully raised its funding goal on December 21.

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*A heartfelt "Thank You" card in a PDF file that includes recipes for the menu of the meal Uncle Tu shared with me at his farm hut (in "Catfish and Mandala", chapter 33): claypot catfish, steamed string beans, pickled aubergines with shrimp paste sauce, steamed rice, and a bonus recipe of cabbage-egg stir fry. The file has the pertinent excerpt from the book and color photo of the meal. A simple meal, easily prepared in less than an hour.

Estimated Delivery: Dec 2011

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65 Backers

*A heartfelt "Thank You" PDF card w/recipes. *And a digital version of "A Culinary Odyssey", which will be available to the public in digital form through Amazon, iBookstore, and Barnes & Noble.