The San Francisco Chronicle has a fascinating feature about the work of Michael Rakowitz, an artist-in-residence at the Montalvo Arts Center Villa near Saratoga who aims to "open new channels of ideas and feelings about the Iraq war and its underlying issues" through food.

Rakowitz recently invited a group of high school students to the center to prepare and eat a meal together, using his Iraqi-Jewish mother's recipes, during which he asked questions about the kids knowledge, experience and understanding of Iraq as well as offering up his own.

From Steven Winn's story:

"Rakowitz spent 45 minutes each with two groups of about a dozen students, all of whom are enrolled in one of Judith Sutton's poetry writing classes. He asked questions, gently steered discussion and volunteered experiences of his own. He talked about his Iraqi grandparents' emigration in 1946 and told the students about the lines outside the door at Khyber Pass, an Afghan restaurant in New York, a few nights after Sept. 11, 2001. "People were there as a gesture of peace, as we were getting ready to attack Afghanistan," he said. "I thought that was really beautiful."

Rakowitz asked the students if they knew of any Iraqi restaurants in the Bay Area. When they couldn't name one, he asked if they knew any Vietnamese restaurants. They all nodded. Pointing out that we were once at war with Vietnam, he offered this wishful thought: "The thing I hope is that it will be very normal one day for people here to be eating Iraqi food."

The project is called "Enemy Kitchen." Read Winn's entire piece here.