By Quest Lakes Kim Foster, a James Beard Foundation award-winning author, is coming to Northern Nevada this week! Nevada Humanities has partnered with the nonprofit Healthy Communities Coalition of Lyon and Storey Counties to bring both morning and evening events with Kim Foster to Lyon County. SILVER CITY BREAKFAST MEETING: Foster will be the featured guest speaker at HCC’s October gathering of local, state, federal and tribal groups. This is a special breakfast meeting featuring a conversation and breakfast with Foster regarding her book The Meth Lunches: Food and Longing in An American City. Her book delves into some of the complex social issues, such as substance use, lack of affordable housing, childhood trauma, family separation, low wages, incarceration,and mental illness that intersect with food insecurity. The book is the perfect example of the old adage "no data without stories and no stories without data." In addition to being an author, Kim Foster is an outstanding home cook. One of her insights is that “food is one of the best ways to invite people in.” With that in mind, she’ll share her homemade ratatouille during this event. The breakfast meeting takes place Thursday, October 10 at 9am on the Comstock at the Silver City School House (community center) at 385 High Street, Silver City, NV 89428 (three miles south of Virginia City). The Silver City event is co-hosted by HCC, the Silver City Volunteer Library, and the Silver City Preservation Society, and made possible with the support of Nevada Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies. This event is free and public. DAYTON DINNER EVENT: Foster’s visit to Dayton on Friday, October 11 at 5:30pm will be different. Her focus will be on dinner conversation with people who have been involved with food banks/pantires in any capacity. She’d like to have a dialogue with people who have managed, volunteered with, or been guests/clients of food banks/pantries. What Foster learns from rural Nevadans about what they think works best, and what they hope for, will help inform her upcoming talks at universities and food security organizations around the U.S. The dinner event will include Foster’s home-cooked pozole. The dinner event takes place at the Dayton Community Center at 170 Pike Street in Dayton, NV 89403 on Friday, October 11 at 5:30pm. The evening event is co-hosted by HCC and made possible with the support of Nevada Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies. This event is free and public. ABOUT KIM FOSTER: Kim Foster is a James Beard Award-winning writer and author of The Meth Lunches: Food and Longing in an American City. She writes about people enmeshed in mental illness, family separation, poverty, addiction, trauma, and incarceration. Foster has written for or been written about in publications like The Washington Post, Slate, The Guardian, and others. She has volunteered as a CASA (Court-Appointed Special Advocate) for children, and she and her husband have been foster parents. During the pandemic, she started and managed a food closet in her neighborhood. Foster lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with her husband, David, their four kids, and many animals. ABOUT HCC FOOD PANTRIES: For more information about Healthy Communities Coalition’s three volunteer-powered food pantries in Lyon County, go to https://healthycomm.org/help/food/