Chef to demonstrate candy-making in Rodman event

Looking for a way to liven up your holiday table this year?

Rodman Public Library and Sara Bir can help.

Bir, a chef, writer and editor with the recipe website Simply Recipes, will visit the Main Library Auditorium at 2 p.m. Nov.13 to demonstrate how to make some easy candies just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Bir, author of cookbooks “Tasting Ohio”; “The Fruit Forager's Companion”; and “The Pocket Pawpaw Cookbook,” will provide recipes and show how to make peanut butter buckeyes, Christmas cracker candy and caramel corn.

November’s program will mark the second time that Bir has spoken at Rodman Public Library. In 2019, she gave a behind-the-scenes look at putting together “Tasting Ohio,” a cookbook that reveals scrumptious culinary secrets in 100 recipes from the Buckeye State's best chefs, from summer succotash, savory goetta, and cracker-crusted walleye to butternut squash bisque, hazelnut brownies, and buckeye martinis.

Bir, who lives in Marietta, is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and has worked as a chocolate factory tour guide, a sausage cart lackey, a food editor, a recipe tester, a restaurant critic, a librarian, and an arts and entertainment reporter. Her writing has been featured in Saveur, Edible Ohio Valley, Best Food Writing 2014, two Full Grown People anthologies, and on the websites Serious Eats, Lucky Peach, and Paste magazine.

Registration is required for Bir’s holiday candy making program by calling 330-821-2665, Ext. 107, or at rodmanlibrary.evanced.info/signup.