Photo: comedy nose/Flickr

Susan McCrory

OK, sorry in advance for the pun. But I couldn’t resist after reading about the One Night Culinary Event (O.N.C.E.) beginning tonight in Harvard Square and continuing through Thursday with Dante’s Inferno as the literary and culinary theme of the evening. It’s called O.N.C.E. in Hell: Dante’s Inferno in 10 Courses. Come again? Yep, the proverbial heat in the kitchen will get real and be brought to your theatre seat at this culinary and theatrical interpretation of Dante’s masterpiece being put on at the Oberon on Arrow Street. The three authors/chefs from Cuisine En Locale (one of them personal chef and local foodie JJ Gonson) conceived the menu and script as one and they are promising no one–not even vegetarians–will go hungry at this non-vegetarian event. It sounds mightily creative to me. Thank you, Swaroop, of AuntieChef for sending us word.

If  you are feeling the holiday heat in other ways and STILL fretting over gift ideas (I am), the gals of North Shore Dish have a fantastic, simple idea–well, a series of ideas, actually–that any one of us can apply to whomever we love, whatever our personal food interests may be and wherever we live. They are advocating the gift of local food, in the form of gift certificates to your favorite neighborhood joint, any favorite local foods you’d like to share (minus the stress of fancy wrapping), and for nearby cooking classes or brewery tours. They have easily, eloquently described their thinking on the matter, complete with ‘how about this’ examples, so I’ll sign off and leave it to their “Look Local” post.