Feb. 5 Cheesesteak Talk at Temple Center City

Learn about the cheesesteak's creation and how the sandwich’s flashy inventor Pat Olivieri helped it gain national renown; get in-depth information on the cheesesteak's meat, bread and cheese ingredients (and the answer to the eternal riddle: What is wit the Whiz?); and be introduced to some of the premiere practitioners of the cheesesteak-making art and their stories (which encompass life-threatening illness, family loyalty and betrayal, Mob hits, bitter business rivalries, racial slurs and the aversion of a potentially disastrous bridge collapse) in this 50-minute Powerpoint presentation at Temple Center City, 1515 Market St., Room 222 at 10:30 a.m. Fri., Feb. 5. This talk is part of Temple’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute’s Friday Forum series, and is free and open to the public, reservations not required. Book-signing to follow. Call 215-204-1505 or visit the OLLI web site for more information.

Sept. 26 "Something's Cooking" BookFest in Tom's River, N.J.

Miss my slide talk at the Free Library in July? Catch it at 1 p.m. in Manchini Hall of the Ocean County library, 101 Washington St., Tom's River, during this free festival held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. I'll be among more than a dozen food or cook book authors at the event, including my food writing heros, Jane and Michael Stern. Get more information here.

Collingswood Book Festival Oct. 3

This free book signing/reading festival takes up six blocks of Haddon Avenue in Collingswood, N.J., just outside Philly and involves dozens of mainly local authors. I'll be there from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Check out all the details at CollingswoodBookFestival.com.