Zoe Nathan, Roy Choi, and Ludo Headline This Weekend's Festival of Books

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books returns this weekend and, as LA Weekly critic Besha Rodell noted in an op-ed yesterday, it joins a growing number of regional festivals putting an emphasis on food. Of course, for years the Festival of Books has welcomed cookbook authors and local food writers to do symposiums and sign a few pages, but this year’s two-day party on the USC campus is going above and beyond.

For this 20th anniversary of the Festival of Books, the schedule is chock-full of local big shots and notable restaurant names. On Saturday alone, there will be cooking demonstrations from Huckleberry’s Zoe Nathan and Ludo Lefebvre, both of whom have cookbooks out at the moment (Ludo’s Crave is a re-issue). Roy Choi will be discussing L.A. food in a panel at noon, and Jonathan Gold will be moderating a discussion on the L.A. Food Movement.

Come Sunday, Hans Röckenwagner and raw food aficionado Matthew Kenney will be working some demonstrations, while The Times’ Amy Scattergood moderates a conversation about Food & Identity, which has Simon Majumdar as a guest panelist.

Tickets and a full schedule for Saturday and Sunday's LA Time Festival of Books can be found here.