A forum on food access issues in Allegheny County's communities will be held at 2 p.m. Friday, June 7, Downtown.

Hosted by Just Harvest, the forum will discuss the findings of a report also to be released at that time, "A Menu for Food Justice: Strategies for Improving Access to Health Foods in Allegheny County." The report features detailed assessments of the county's most vulnerable communities, according to the nonprofit.

The report "arms communities and policymakers with knowledge about how factors such as food access, food availability and transportation have an impact on area residents" and "draws on local and national programs to lay a framework of policy recommendations for city and county officials, businesses, foundations, nonprofits and community leaders to pursue."

The report was prepared by Zachary Murray, during his term as an Emerson Fellow of the Congressional Hunger Center.

The forum will be held at the Allegheny County Department of Human Services Building at One Smithfield Street, Downtown in the Liberty Conference Room. It goes until 4 p.m. RSVP to info@justharvest.org.

The guys behind South Side's Peddlin Pierogies are hosting a tasting party later this month. Check it out to sample their take on a Pittsburgh classic and meet the farmers behind the products they use.

There's a sliding admission: For $5, you get a craft beverage sample and 3 gourmet pierogies; $7 gets beverage samples and 5 tasty pierogies; $10 gets beverages from Red Star and Timber Ridge, 8 hand-made 'rogies and a gift. Check it out from 6-8 p.m., Fri. Jan. 25, at the Inn-Termission Lounge in the South Side. Looking for more info? Check them out on Facebook.

Slow Food Pittsburgh has two events on tap this weekend. Both will be held at Marty's Market, 2301 Smallman St., Strip District.

A coffee tasting and brewing demo will be held from 2-3 p.m. on Sat., Jan. 12. The $10 fee gets participants a chance to do a sensory evaluation of aroma, body and taste of two seasonal, single-origin coffees from Coava. Participants will also receive a bag of Coava beans. You can register here.

The second event it is a whole hog butchery demo and dinner, from 3:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., Sun., Jan. 13. Butcher Steve Beachy will demonstrate breaking down a hog from Clarion River Organics. A five course tasting-menu will then be prepared by Chef Matt Huggins. BYOB (no corkage fee). You can register for this event here.

Nomadic chef Brandon Baltzley is hosting his final series of collaborations with Pittsburgh chefs at his pop-up restaurant, Crux.

The next meal will be an 11-course modern Italian menu Jan. 14 at Stagioni on the South Side, working with chef Stephen Felder. The dinner ($65 for food / $35 beverage) starts at 7 p.m. and reservations can be made by calling 412-586-4738.

Another dinner is planned for Jan. 20 at Bar Marco, followed by one to be held at Root 174 in collaboration with Keith Fuller on Jan. 28. More details and menus for each will be released the day after the pop-up dinner held before it. Follow Baltzley on Twitter or @getCruxed to stay in the loop.

Conflict in the kitchen is probably on everyone’s minds this week. And that might make you wonder: Where is Conflict Kitchen now?

Pittsburgh’s nationally-regarded part-art project-part-take-out serves only food from countries the United States is in conflict with. At least it did until August, when its East Liberty doors closed for a larger location Downtown thanks to a $25,000 Sprout Fund Root Award.

In the meantime, Conflict Kitchen re-opened on Nov. 10, kind of, as a “Cuban paladar”.

A paladar is a Cuban restaurant operated out of someone’s house as an alternative to the state-run restaurants in the country. The chefs of Conflict Kitchen use a private family home in Point Breeze as a glossy homage to the makeshift eateries, with seatings available by reservation only.

For a $40 suggested donation, guests can enjoy five courses of traditional Cuban food, cocktails and hopefully some discussion of Cuba. I received all three in ample proportions when I attended on Saturday.

Between describing dishes that included a date-night decimating garlic soup and a “heavy on the garlic” chicken fricassee, chef Robert Sayre told a communal-table anecdote about being turfed from unofficial Havana hotels when he visited earlier in the year. Similar experiences were recounted by the paladar’s adventurous patrons, including a 50ish German couple with PhDs, and a pair of food bloggers.

Diners so far, admitted Conflict Kitchen co-founder Jon Rubin, have been the sort of people already eager to talk Cuba. I sat between him and Jesús Leal, a masters student in public policy at Carnegie Mellon, and the pair analyzed Che Guevera’s shoddy guerilla tactics. “He was a doctor, not a military strategist.” Leal said and ordered another mojito.

Artist and CMU professor Rubin hopes less-informed people will take an interest when Conflict Kitchen re-opens Downtown next year in its fifth iteration, as a North Korean take-out. While research hasn’t stretched to visiting the country, Rubin and Sayre did stop by the North Korean embassy in Cuba, or at least rung the doorbell and chatted for 45 minutes with an employee returning from a morning run.

• Tres Leches Cake

Longer exchanges took place tonight. It was well after the final course, a sublime tres leches cake, that the 11 guests left, trading business cards. In my case, it was with a newly invigorated interest in Cuba. Hours later I was still browsing the blog of Cuban activist Yoani Sánchez. Conflict Kitchen may rub against smaller crowds in this iteration, but it leaves them with much more to digest.

December dates for Conflict Kitchen’s Cuban Paladar will be announced here.

Collard greens are a great, inexpensive source of nutrients, but we've all suffered through that sad bowl of green mush. But prepared with care, collard greens are delicious!

Find out for yourself this Sunday, Nov. 4, at the Second Annual Collard Greens Cook-Off, in Braddock. The event is sponsored by the Braddock Youth Project, and will be held at the Nyia Page Community Center, at 416 Library St., from 2-5 p.m.

Think your greens might be the best? For $5, enter the competition. Call 412-670-8722 or email bypstaff@gmail.com for info about submitting an entry. First prize is $250, with $125 and $75, for second and third place, respectively.

For spectators and those looking to get their fiber and Vitamin A on, $5 gets you your fill of greens, and you can help determine a winner. There will also be a 50/50, a raffle, a family portrait studio and more.

Pittsburgh's growing food truck scene, whose struggles and perseverance we reported on earlier this summer, has lost one of its newest members.

Originally set to open Aug. 15, James Rich, owner of the PGH Taco Truck, announced on his Facebook and Twitter accounts early this morning that his truck is for sale. Rich has chronicled throughout the summer his journey acquiring the truck and testing his taco recipes, gathering a devoted following.

"There's a ton of support for it," he says, adding that it wasn't the market or burdensome city regulations that stopped him. The decision is personal, he says.

"It's more than I can handle and manage in my life," he says. "I'm holding back tears about this. It was really the toughest decision I made in my life."