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By Meredith Goad Wednesday, March 28, 2007

If you've ever had to eat your words, there's a little event in Portland next week that you won't want to miss.

They'll be taking that phrase literally at the International Edible Book Festival at the Portland Public Library on April 4. A California book artist launched the festival in 1999 with a group of her friends, and today artists, bakers and lovers of puns flock to local versions that are held around the world during the first week in April. This is the third year that Portland has participated, with proceeds going toward the library's annual fundraising campaign.

The festival is just what it sounds like -- make a book out of food, or food with a literary theme, then eat it. Although registration is suggested, anyone can just show up with an entry on the day of the festival and participate. There's no entry fee, and no charge just to stop by and look. But if you pay $5, you can vote for your favorites and then eat them.

"Everybody's welcome, and it is like being involved with a barrel of monkeys. Really, all you do is laugh like that for two hours," said Rebecca Goodale, a Portland artist who is one of the organizers of the event.

Past entries have included "The Dablini Code," and a sweet potato soup called "Silence of the Yams." There's been a Holy Bible made from Swiss cheese. "Catcher in the Rye" was a carved-out rye bread filled with onion dip and topped off with a photo of a Red Sox catcher.

A marzipan book made with tiny macaroni letters was titled "Book of Psalmonds." One woman who creates books out of crepes every year has come up with the entries called "Crepe Expectations," "Tarzan of the Crepes" and "Crepes of Wrath."

"Last year there was this wonderful entry called 'Little Women,' and it was just this huge pile of ginger cookies made with a female cookie cutter, so they were all these 'little women,'Ý" Goodale said.

That same year, another entry was an open book made from ice cream. The spine and two covers were made out of chocolate, and the vanilla pages were carved to make it look as if the book was open. The creator of the book drew the famous portrait of James Joyce in fine chocolate sauce. On the opposite page, also in chocolate sauce, were the first few words of "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man."

The title of this creation? "A Parfait of the Artist as a Young Man."

Goodale, who teaches book arts at the University of Maine and the Maine College of Art, tends to bring scrolls. One year she made a scroll that featured "Temperance," the bronze statue of a barefoot girl installed just outside the library. The scroll was made of flatbread rolled with smoked turkey, cheese, arugula, spicy mustard and mayonaise. Across the open scroll, she recreated the sculpture in tapenade on a field of cream cheese that had been colored with food coloring. The girl stood on a pedestal made of roasted red peppers. The birch tree at the entrance to the library was made of parsley and capers.

Last year, she made a scroll with the big pin oak in Deering Oaks Park that is decorated for the holidays every year by local artist Pandora LaCasse. The night sky was a blueberry salsa background, and the lights were made of pine nuts. The long, red droopy light sculptures that hang from the tree were made from roasted red peppers.

For this year's contest, Goodale is considering a rendition of the Portland Observatory.

If you're interested in participating, drop off your entry at the library's Rines Auditorium, 5 Monument Square, between 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. The exhibit and judging will run from 11:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. The prizes will be awarded from 12:30 p.m. until 1 p.m., then the next hour will be devoted to eating the entries.

Judges for the event this year include Lin Lisberger, who teaches sculpture at the University of Southern Maine, and Moira Steven from the Maine College of Art, among others. The public will also vote on their three favorites. Prizes are donated by local restaurants and book stores.

"It's not really about the prizes," Goodale said. "It's just about laughing for roughly two hours, which I don't think enough of us do these days."

COME WITH ME TO THE BIG ISLAND

In the "Please Don't Hate Me" department, I just returned last night from a Hawaiian cruise. With wonderful exceptions, the ship's restaurants and buffets were nothing to write home about. But that's just my opinion. My companion, being of the male persuasion and a long-distance hiker with the metabolism of a hummingbird, disdained the often long waits to be seated but loved the food because, hey, it was unlimited chow.

Some random thoughts on the food in Hawaii, for those of you who like to live vicariously: