Culinary Events

Our culinary events magically weave together food, a beautiful dining experience, art, and a chance to connect and grow with Ox-Bow through learning. Our kitchen is at the heart of our campus and these events are the perfect way to immerse your palette in the creations of our Culinary Artists-in-Residence and in-house culinary team, while creating community around the dining table. There are several different paths to explore and we invite you to join us around the table.

Our yearlong Culinary Artists-in-Residence program intends to bridge artists, food, and community both on Ox-Bow’s campus and beyond through a unique annual residency program for artists working at the intersection of food and art. This year’s artists are Edward Cabral, Sara Clugage, Daniel Pravit Fethke, Hyun Jung Jun, and MAGNET. 

The program begins with individual one-week residencies during the summer and fall of 2024 that each culminate in a meal-based public event. The group will reassemble in the winter of 2025 for a 10-day residency and will conclude their tenure with a one- or two-day Art on the Meadow workshop, available for public enrollment in the summer of 2025.

Our 2024 Dinners are listed below. Check back often for more details

Upcoming dinners

Meet the Culinary Artists-in-Residence

Edward Cabral (b. 1987, Lafayette IN) is a multimedia sculptor, chef, and lecturer who lives and works in New York, NY. He received a BA in Visual Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011. His work has recently shown at Williams College of Art (MA), Alexander Gray Associates (NY), and The Drawing Center (NY). He has also been featured on the History Channel, Food Network, and Disney+. His work focuses on the foodways and history of America cuisine. 

Sara Clugage’s art practice focuses on economic and political issues in craft and food. She is Editor-in-Chief of Dilettante Army, an online magazine for visual culture and critical theory. She has most recently been core faculty for the MA in Critical Craft Studies program at Warren Wilson College and her most recent publication is the 2021 monograph from the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, titled New Recipes: Cooking, Craft, and Performance. Sara is currently at work on a book project about Jell-O, animacy, and abstraction.

Daniel Pravit Fethke is an interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and educator from New York's Hudson Valley. Teaching is a central part of his practice, and he regularly facilitates workshops, cooking classes, and creative gatherings that center food and recipes as ways to explore identity, narrative, and culture. Daniel co-founded the mutual aid Thai+Chinese food pop-up Angry Papaya, and has hosted arts workshops at Dia:Beacon, Socrates Sculpture Park, and Ox-Bow School of Art & Artists’ Residency. He recently published an autobiographical Thai-American cookbook through Pratt Institute, where he also received his MFA in Fine Arts in 2023. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn.

Hyun Jung Jun, born in South Korea and based in Chicago, is an artist whose installations are measures and meditations which take up more time than they do space. Working with commonplace commodities such as candles, bread, wooden structures, Jun’s work borrows from familiar, domestic language to describe and search the ornate identities of our individuality and culture. In recent years, Jun has expanded her work to include edible forms in a cake project titled Dream Cake Test Kitchen. Jun received her BFA at SAIC and an MFA in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University. Her recent exhibitions include Goldfinch, LVL3, the Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelly Foundation with Chicago Artists Coalition, No Place Gallery, Hans Gallery, The Drawing Room at Arts Club of Chicago and EXPO Chicago. Jun is one of Newcity’s breakout artists for 2021.

MAGNET (b. 1993) is an undisciplined artist, pastry chef, and disrupter working at the intersection of food and art anarchiving Black servitude and hospitality in the U.S. and the Caribbean. MAGNET creates works that embrace embodiment, play, and community collaborations. MAGNET's intention is to expand upon understandings of domesticity and carework using cake installations and food pop-ups, rugmaking, print, and painting. They have shared work and spoken on panels at the Museum of Contemporary Art: Chicago, Williams College Museum of Art, Women Made Gallery, Recess Art, Happy Gallery Chicago, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, Chicago Read/Write Library, and the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel. MAGNET is also the founder of THEIRS!, a variety performance night that highlighted queer and trans artists of color who are often overlooked and underrepresented.

Past events

Ready to fall in love with the flavors of campus? At our Taste of Ox-Bow dinner series, Culinary Artists-in-Residence will prepare unique menus that partner with studios on campus. These themed events invite you into the spaces artists call home, all while immersing your palette with punchy, complex flavors! Stay for Friday Night Open Studios after dinner. 

Taste of Ox-Bow 2024

CANCELED Friday, June 21, 5:00–8:00 p.m. with Hyun Jung Jun

Friday, July 26, 5:00–8:00 p.m. with Daniel Pravit Fethke

SOLD OUT - Friday, August 23, 5:00–8:00 p.m. with Sara Clugage

Guest Chef for Scary Supper - Edward Cabral:
Edward Cabral (b. 1987, Lafayette IN) is a multimedia sculptor, chef, and lecturer who lives and works in New York, NY. He received a BA in Visual Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011. His work has recently shown at Williams College of Art (MA), Alexander Gray Associates (NY), and The Drawing Center (NY). He has also been featured on the History Channel, Food Network, and Disney+. His work focuses on the foodways and history of America cuisine. Friday, October 27, 6–8 p.m. - Scary Supper, includes wine pairings from Modales Wines

Bloody Brunch 

Ox-Tober festivities continue with our Bloody Brunch on Sunday, October 22. Begin with brunch prepared by guest chef Stella Brown, and conclude with an hour-long exclusive tour of Ox-Bow’s hallowed (and perhaps haunted) grounds. Spots are limited and early registration is encouraged. Ghost encounters are possible, though not guaranteed!

As a (grave)marker of your time with us, you’ll be able to take home your glass. Each one is a unique hand blown piece crafted on our campus by the Ox-Bow glass team. 

Sunday, October 22 from 10:30 a.m.–2:00 p.m.
First seating takes place at 10:30 a.m., second seating at 12:00 p.m. EST.

$75 – Includes brunch, open bloody bar, campus tour, and a take-home glass!

Guest Chef – Stella Brown:
Stella Brown is a native Chicagoan, artist, and curator. In 2009 she received her BA from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized and an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Art & Art History in 2019. She was the Founding Director of the Buddy store at the Chicago Cultural Center. She has been involved with the ACRE (Artist Cooperative Residency & Exhibitions) Kitchen Program since 2015. In her artwork, areas of  examination include the Anthropocene era of man-made geology, contemporary ecological restoration practices in the Chicago region, the history of museum display and natural history practices, and display and consumerism in store displays and souvenir shops. In the last five years she has presented her own artwork and curated a number of public exhibitions and programming events at venues including Gallery 400, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Goldfinch Gallery, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, ACRE, and Shoot the Lobster.

Best in the West 2023
Saturday, June 10, 6–8 p.m. - Tacos y Mas

Taste of Ox-Bow
Ready to encounter all the flavors of Ox-Bow? Let your tastebuds guide you through campus as you learn about the core values that carry Ox-Bow: Education, Historic Preservation, Environment, and Community. These themed events will invite you to encounter one or more of these values, while immersing your palette in small plates through punchy, complex flavors. Each meal will be rooted in a commitment to locality. Witness studios in action, explore historic cabins, roam the trails, and gather around the fire!

Friday, May 12, 6–8 p.m. Focus on Historic Preservation with Keith Goad
Friday, June 23, 6–8 p.m. Focus on Community
Friday, August 11, 6–8 p.m. Focus on Education

The Best in West 2022 Dinner Series

with Ox-Bow Hospitality Team
Every Saturday from September 17 through October 16, 2022, 7 - 9:00 p.m.

Enhance your Saturday evening with a unique dining experience created by our hospitality team. Your meal will serve the best version of the things you love in West Michigan for one night only each Saturday from September 17 through October 16. Not just a night of dining and imbibing, but a creatively, immersive night as you gather around the table with fellow guests.

Vegetarian, Pescatarian, and Gluten Free options available. Participants will receive a limited edition Ox-Bow Hospitality Zine with original recipes, stories, and illustrations.

Refreshments will be provided.

THE LINEUP: The Best in the West MI Pizza, Chicago Classics, Steak , Seafood, and Ramen

Decolonizing Dinner at Ox-Bow School of Art 
With Myriah Williams, Youth Specialist at Gun Lake Tribe
Saturday, April 16, 6-9PM

Cost: $135 per person or $250 per couple - Includes welcome cocktail, drink pairing, meal and 1 copy of the The Decolonizing Diet Project Cookbook

Join us at Ox-Bow for an exciting dinner experience to welcome spring with a meal that revels in ingredients that are native to our region! The Decolonizing Diet Project encourages use of ingredients that either exist in the Great Lakes Region naturally, or were brought by Indigenous peoples to the Region prior to 1600. Myriah Williams, proponent of the DDP and Youth Specialist at Gun Lake Tribe, will join Ox-Bow’s Culinary Director Nicholas Jirasek to craft a multi-course, family-style feast that highlights indigenous local ingredients like fresh harvested maple syrup, Manoomin (wild rice), and preserved duck. The event will begin with a cocktail hour and presentation from Myriah on the Decolonizing Diet Project, followed by a festive meal. Your ticket purchase will include a copy of The Decolonizing Diet Project Cookbook, produced by the Center for Native American Studies at Northern Michigan University in 2015 (and other goodies!), so you can incorporate indigenous ingredients into your own home cooking.

Myriah Williams is the Youth Specialist for Gun Lake Tribe, a graduate student at Northern Michigan University working toward a masters in Indigenous Education and a member of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. She and her husband run Nadowen Farm and Gardens together.

During her time as a student at Northern Michigan University she took the Decolonized Diet Program (DDP) special topics class. Where she learned how traditional foods and agriculture sustain health and preserve the culture. She now incorporates the DDP into her everyday life.