I’ve been wanting to visit the Seattle Edible Book Festival for a while now — any event that combines books and food sounds ideal to me. Kids and adults create “books” out of edible materials and enter to win prizes, while attendees vote on their favorites and get to eat the entries after the judging. Last weekend, I finally got a chance to see it at Third Place Books!

Seattle's Edible Book Festival

The unique literary festival is put on by the Shoreline – Lake Forest Park Arts Council, a community-based arts organization. But this free, all-ages event is strictly for fun (although donations go towards their mission of supporting arts education and local artists). If you haven’t been to Third Place Books, it’s a pretty amazing — and big — bookstore, with a cafe, a food court, and a community event space.

20,000 Leeks Under the Sea

I was expecting to see mostly cakes, for some reason, so I was surprised by the wide variety of edible displays, both savory and sweet. In fact, the only actual cake I saw was “A Sprinkle in Thyme ,” festively decorated with rainbow sprinkles and sprigs of thyme. But there were still plenty of clever and creative book-inspired themes, like “The Velveeta Rabbit” and “20,000 Leeks Under the Sea.” Meanwhile, “Are You There, Cod? It’s Me, Margarita” was very popular with the 21+ crowd. (Not sure how people consumed “50 Shades of Ghee,” but maybe they dunked the “C Biscuits”?)

Are You There, Cod? It's Me, Margarita

With categories like Most PUNderful, Best Visual Presentation, and Most Creative Use of Ingredients, plus a Special Judges Award and People’s Choice Award, just about everyone ended up getting a prize. And I think we can agree that all the contestants showed extremely good taste in books!

A Sprinkle in Thyme

Stephanie Perry
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