Skip to content

The Official Guide to Portland

  • Attractions
    • View All Attractions
    • Attractions Open Now
    • Museums & History
    • Parks & Gardens
    • Family Friendly
    • Shopping
    • On a Budget
    • EVEN MORE THINGS TO DO
  • Culture
    • View All Culture
    • Arts
    • Beer
    • Biking
    • Cannabis
    • Cultural Communities
    • Craft Spirits
    • Food
    • Makers
    • Music
    • Nightlife
    • Outdoors
    • Sports
    • Weird
    • Wine
    • MORE CULTURE
  • Neighborhoods
    • View All Neighborhoods
    • Alberta Arts District
    • Belmont
    • Central Eastside
    • Division/Clinton
    • Downtown
    • Hawthorne
    • Lloyd
    • Mississippi
    • Northwest / Nob Hill
    • Old Town Chinatown
    • Pearl District
    • St. Johns
    • Sellwood-Moreland
    • Williams
    • ALL NEIGHBORHOODS
  • Region
    • View All Region
    • Near the City
    • Columbia River Gorge
    • Mount Hood
    • Oregon Coast
    • Willamette Valley
    • ALL REGIONS
  • Plan
    • View All Plan
    • Maps
    • Where to Stay
    • Tours & Itineraries
    • Transportation
    • When to Visit
    • International Resources
    • Portland Weather
    • COVID-19 FAQ
    • Plan a Meeting
  • Events
  • Search
Primary Menu 31 Events Near Me Search
  • Attractions
    • View All Attractions
    • Attractions Open Now
    • Museums & History
    • Parks & Gardens
    • Family Friendly
    • Shopping
    • On a Budget
    • EVEN MORE THINGS TO DO
  • Culture
    • View All Culture
    • Arts
    • Beer
    • Biking
    • Cannabis
    • Cultural Communities
    • Craft Spirits
    • Food
    • Makers
    • Music
    • Nightlife
    • Outdoors
    • Sports
    • Weird
    • Wine
    • MORE CULTURE
  • Neighborhoods
    • View All Neighborhoods
    • Alberta Arts District
    • Belmont
    • Central Eastside
    • Division/Clinton
    • Downtown
    • Hawthorne
    • Lloyd
    • Mississippi
    • Northwest / Nob Hill
    • Old Town Chinatown
    • Pearl District
    • St. Johns
    • Sellwood-Moreland
    • Williams
    • ALL NEIGHBORHOODS
  • Region
    • View All Region
    • Near the City
    • Columbia River Gorge
    • Mount Hood
    • Oregon Coast
    • Willamette Valley
    • ALL REGIONS
  • Plan
    • View All Plan
    • Maps
    • Where to Stay
    • Tours & Itineraries
    • Transportation
    • When to Visit
    • International Resources
    • Portland Weather
    • COVID-19 FAQ
    • Plan a Meeting
  • Events
  • Search
Emilly Prado

Emilly Prado

Emilly Prado is a writer, award-winning journalist and consultant living in Portland. Read More

Get tickets
Visit website
Chef Tenzin “Kyikyi” Yeshi-Men hands out homemade Himalayan dumplings at a Tender Table event. Chef Tenzin “Kyikyi” Yeshi-Men hands out homemade Himalayan dumplings at a Tender Table event.
i
Chef Tenzin “Kyikyi” Yeshi-Men hands out homemade Himalayan dumplings at a Tender Table event.
Credit: Ashley Anderson
Culture / Film

Tender Table

This Portland pop-up series shares stories about family and food

Editor's Pick
Updated Nov. 17, 2020 5 min read
Emilly Prado

Emilly Prado

Emilly Prado is a writer, award-winning journalist and consultant living in Portland. Read More

Editor's Pick
Southeast Portland
This event has passed. Sorry you missed it!
When
Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020
7:00pm–9:00pm
Cost: $10
Where
Clinton Street Theater
2522 SE Clinton St
Portland, OR 97202

Know Before You Go

COVID-19 UPDATE: The Tender Table event schedule has been interrupted by efforts to help slow the spread of COVID-19. For the latest details on current and future programing, please visit the Tender Table website.

“Food is a way to explore identity and trace back lineage,” explains Portland poet and event curator Stacey Tran. Since February 2017, Tran has invited women-identified and gender-nonbinary people of color to share stories at the intersections of family, food and tradition with her event series, Tender Table.

Unlike The Moth-style storytelling events, oral histories at Tender Table events are delivered in an array of styles, and often with little practice. Best of all, attendees enjoy small samples of foods prepared by presenters to accompany their tales. An event might include bites of spicy Jamaican curry, fried Nigerian puff puff and Filipino ginataang bilo bilo (sticky rice balls).

With an ever-expanding list of past presenters and unorthodox venues (including People’s Food Co-Op and the Independent Publishing Resource Center), these pop-up events are always unique. Take, for instance, a fundraising dinner hosted by Tender Table for women of color-led UNA Gallery. At the event, multimedia artist Zeloszelos Marchandt dove into a vivid account of the hours of labor that preclude African coffee ceremonies like the one prepared that evening. As Marchandt shared childhood memories of preparing the coffee alongside family, guests timidly stirred spoonfuls of clarified butter and dashes of salt into cups of hot, dark coffee before consuming.

The Origin of Tender Table

Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest to Vietnamese refugee parents, Tran grew up eating Vietnamese cuisine prepared by her mother. Years after moving to Portland, Tran found herself increasingly connected with people of color who also enjoyed talking about the links between food and culture.

“I don’t remember the exact moment when Tender Table started,” she says, “But I had just started discovering what it means [for me] to identify as a person of color. It hadn’t really occurred to me what it meant to connect with my heritage and ancestors, or how to cook the food I grew up eating.” Through discussions with new friends, she saw a pattern of cooking as a method for cultural preservation.

Woman shops for produce at Asian grocery store Hong Phat.
Tran shops for produce at Asian grocery store Hong Phat.
Credit: Ashley Anderson

In Tender Table’s first year, nearly 50 presenters shared their stories. “At the first event, there were maybe 20 people. Now it’s grown,” Tran explains. With the added interest, she’s had to consider new aspects of event planning.

“Attendance has risen to about 60 people over the last few events, so I need to [think about] how I can help serve food in a way that’s environmentally friendly,” she says. “The idea was that we’d serve Costco-size samples, but Costco produces a ton of waste. That’s not sustainable.”

The Value of Tender Table

For Portland visitors and residents alike, Tender Table offers a rare, authentic glimpse into the direct impact of food on community. When Tran began the project, she wasn’t sure what to expect, but she felt a need to contribute to the mounting conversations about cultural sensitivity within the food scene by creating spaces for those dialogues to thrive.

“Hosting Tender Table has definitely taught me to have a sharper eye on [those issues],” she says. “Before, I didn’t have as much vocabulary to even start thinking about that. Now I’ve been able to open myself up to constructive criticism [and] positive feedback, and [have gotten] access to resources in order to have these conversations.”

Diversity on Stage

More arts & culture
Portland actor Vin Shambry performs at a Back Fence PDX event.

Live Storytelling Events in Portland

Hear true stories about love, sex, history, movies and even middle school at six regular live storytelling events in Portland.

Portland musician, artist, and author Amy Subach performs at Future Prairie.

Future Prairie: A Collective of Women and Queer Artists

Portland’s Future Prairie is a collective of women and queer artists that presents chautauqua-inspired live shows, as well as a podcast.

Portland\'s grand dame, Darcelle, entertains audiences nightly at her comedy revue.

LGBTQ+ Performing Arts & Drag

Portland's offerings range from traditional female impersonation to queer burlesque.

When considering the significance of Tender Table from a traveler’s perspective, Tran looks to her own neighborhood: “Whenever I travel to another city, I’m not aware of how the establishment I’ve chosen to patronize has affected the community that it’s in (or has pushed out),” she says. “I live on Williams [Street in North Portland] and I see a lot of restaurants that people enjoy. Some of them are [people of color]-owned, but they’re all mostly new. Businesses on this street are able to operate by way of gentrification, one way or another. That induces a lot of pain for people who are directly affected by this street changing so quickly. I think about that when I go to different cities.”

person speaking into a microphone in front of seated audience and shelves of books
Stacey Tran hosts a 2018 Tender Table event at In Other Words.
Credit: Ashley Anderson

Expanding the Tender Table Community

As it grows in popularity, Tender Table remains grassroots and community-oriented both in ethos and practice. Tran offers presenters a small stipend to help cover their time, labor and the cost of supplies. Attendees are asked to purchase tickets on a sliding scale basis (typically $5–20). In late 2017, Tran was awarded a project grant from Portland’s Regional Arts and Culture Council. The financial support has allowed Tran to expand the project’s reach to new cities.

“A few months ago, I brought Tender Table to Seattle and that went really well,” she says. “I’m in the process of planning Tender Table in New York City too, so I’m hoping that I can bring it to many more places over time … It’s been a very healing, creative and regenerative space.”

Tran hopes that the vital conversations Tender Table inspires do not remain insular and, instead, carry beyond the spaces that host them. While she’s excited to continue hosting Tender Table events, she’s especially looking forward to creating and fostering more connections within Portland’s food scene.

To learn about upcoming Tender Table events or about past presenters, visit www.tendertable.com or follow them on Facebook.

Cultural Communities, Food

Multicultural Dining

More cultural communities
Portlander Loretta Guzman opened the city’s only Native-owned coffee shop in 2014.

Portland’s Bison Coffeehouse Celebrates Indigenous Culture

Meet Loretta Guzman, owner of Bison Coffeehouse in Northeast Portland, the city’s only Native-owned coffee shop.

Chef Salimatu Ababebe frequently hosts pop-ups in Southeast Portland.

Chef Salimatu Amabebe Showcases Nigerian Recipes and Black Artists

A Portland chef hosts scrumptious pop-up dinners, brunches and Black Feast events.

Founder Alicia Cruz serves up tasty Mexican fare at food truck Los Gorditos.

7 Great Latinx-Owned Eateries in Portland

Portland is home to plenty of authentic eateries from every corner of Latin America. Read on for some of the best Latinx-owned restaurants and food carts in Portland.

Support Black-Owned Restaurants in Portland

Portland's African-American-owned restaurants are featured during August's Support Black-Owned Restaurant Week, but they shine all year long.

Sisters Hilda Dibe (left) and Chef Mirna Attar (right) share Lebanese dishes.

Family is at the Heart of Lebanese Food in Portland

Meet the family behind beloved eateries Nicholas, Ya Hala and World Foods Market, and discover how they helped build Portland's Lebanese food scene.

Dig into a plate of authentic vegetarian pad Thai at KaTi Portland.

Thai Food in Portland

Thai food in Portland is some of the city's best cuisine with options that are cheap or pricey, sweet or savory, authentic or Americanized, vegan or meaty.

A delicious spread of Chinese dumplings at XLB in North Portland.

Portland’s Best Dumplings

Every February, Portland celebrates its love for dough-wrapped delights with Dumpling Week. Best of all? Delicious dumplings are available year-round.

Popular offerings on the menu at Takahashi include the \"Cholesteroll,\" Jo Roll and vegetarian sushi.

Eight Great Sushi Spots Around Portland

Portland is only an hour away from the Pacific Ocean, so it should come as no surprise that the city’s sushi options are both delicious and expansive.

Was this page helpful?

Visitor’s Guide

cover of Travel Portland's visitor guide, 2019-'20, featuring a woman walking through Portland Japanese Garden

Get the Guide

 

Newsletter Signup

Get your monthly guide to Portland's events, attractions and news.

Follow Us

  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

Information For

Local Businesses
Media
Meeting Planners
Travel Industry Professionals
Event Organizers

Brought to you by

Travel Portland Logo

We are a promoter and steward of this evolving city and its progressive values, which have the power to transform the travelers who visit us.

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Jobs
  • Español
  • Français
  • Deutsch
  • 日本語
  • 汉语
  • 漢語
  • 한국어
Copyright © 2021 Travel Portland
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookies Policy
  • Copyright Policy
Visit The USA Logo