The Eat Real Festival is just two months away (August 28 – 30: mark your calendar!), and months of hard work chasing down taco trucks and street food vendors, listening to bands, and tasting local ice creams is drawing to a close. As we get ready to put on the event, we’re looking for some real-world ways to eat great homemade “fast foods” everywhere. We want your very favorite homemade taco recipes to be able to share with participants in Eat Real who want to replicate the great fresh street foods they taste at our event at their own homes. Tell us how you mix your masa, spin stories about your spices, and if you have a radical reinterpretation you’d like to share, please do. We have an expert team of tasters and testers assembled, and the winner of the taco taste test (good stories help, too) will be featured in our Eat Real taco box, on our website, and in our newsletter.

Eat Real will be a great party for the Bay Area, and Oakland in particular, to celebrate good food. We’re corralling the wagons with 30+ taco trucks, hot dog stands, and people on wheels selling every imaginable food – all made with at least a few locally-sourced sustainable ingredients. Our fabulous beer guy, Dave Maclean, is busy selecting around 40 local brews to have on tap; our partners at Buy Fresh, Buy Local have helped chose around 40 local craft food producers; and friends at People’s Grocery and La Cocina are helping build programming and more for the event.

This is the first annual edition of Eat Real, and we’re expecting 25,000+ attendees at the event. We are raising funds for a group of non-profits working locally in food in the Bay Area, and our model hopefully will be replicable by other groups around the country who are looking to raise funds for grassroots work and awareness of food issues via accessible and affordable events. Eat Real is free of charge (only the beer is ticketed), and we’re featuring street foods from over 15 countries – all made by artisans and chefs from around the Bay Area. Your taco secrets will help us spread the word about how to eat better every day. You can send your recipe in any format to info@eatrealfest.com. If you have any questions just send them along – we look forward to hearing from you!