At last week's Maker Faire I ran into a few of my favorite food artisans. In place of single-estate chocolate or the minute's freshest fruit, though, their ingredients were felt and yarn, circuit boards and LEDs.

What happens when you fold together San Francisco's cult of craft with its love of all things sweet or savory? And what if you spice it up with a dash of Silicon Valley's geeky, cheeky inventiveness and a generous dose of Burning Man bravado? You get a robot who mixes cocktails and you get the Dorkbake Challenge, where inventors present their original designs for working ovens heated with a 100-watt lightbulb.

It was a fun, unexpected reminder of how much our taste buds spark our creative cortex. Here are just a few highlights...

Cupcake Cars

Zipping around the San Mateo Fairgrounds were big, bright cupcakes. A double-take confirmed that they were, indeed, giant sweet confections rolling on wheels with one, sometimes two, human occupants. They were capable of turning on a dime and generating smiles wherever they appeared. Surely the best use of old, motorized wheelchairs and fuzzy fabric ever.

How to travel in sweet style.

There were a couple of muffin mobiles thrown in for good measure, but even the antioxidant-rich blueberries couldn't compete with chocolate or pink frosting.

Don't forget the extra frosting and sprinkles for protecting your noggin!

If you've been to Black Rock City in recent years, then you already know about Cupcake Corners. Solar-powered cupcake cars are certainly my own preferred mode of transport across desert (dessert?) flats.

SweetMeats SuperSavor

I've had my eye on this special meat purveyor for a long time, so I was glad to see their unique pillow cuts on display. Who knew meat could be so squeezable?

A big, plushy ham, bone still in and rind neatly scored.

Introduced in person to their new protein, I fell hard for a block of sesame-sprinkled tofu. Bean curd appears in my own fridge much more often than a full ham, so I was glad to see the veggie offering.

I was also lucky enough to snag the last shrinky-dink charm bracelet, complete with steak, ham AND pork chop.

Moveable Feast

At the Maker Workbench, the Exploratorium and London-based Cabaret Mechanical Theatre joined forces to give kids and kids-at-heart a chance to build edible automata. Learning how gears, levers and pulleys work becomes a lot easier when food is involved. (If only my high school physics teacher had appealed as successfully to my stomach as well as my brain!)

Cookies, pasta, pretzels, Twizzlers and, of course, a bagel become a starchy display of erupting lava.

NifNaks

Nifer Fahrion has gathered an entire family of cute, quirky "Shroommates." Each little character, culled from real-world fungi, has a distinct personality that she's conveyed impressively well with bits of felt, from the easily startled Morley Morel to red-topped Mr. Muscaria, who "likes to hang out with all the fairies that crowd in Dolores Park." There are little 'shrooms for ear lobes or cell phones, bigger ones for sprouting on desktops or bookcases. Cherries, bees, acorn, and happy vanilla ice cream cones are also well represented.

Impish and mischievous, Shorty Shiitake hides out in the grass.

As Shuna announced at the beginning of April, this is poetry month. Initially, that thought made me whince, but I enjoyed her poem and thought... hmm... perhaps I should contribute something. Ten days later, Amy mentioned a tofu haiku contest, which I entered (and will most likely receive an angry letter from the Soy Board). Now it's my turn.

I admit to having written poetry in college. Precious little, which is most likely a good thing. Somewhere in the universe, there are notebooks dotted with odd and pained verses brought on by reading too much Plath and listening to too much Bauhaus. I cringe at the thought of their discovery.

Last year, my friend Doralice handed me a copy of a poem I wrote in culinary school. I thought it was all but lost. You may wish it was, too, after reading it.

It was performed in front of our Safety and Sanitation class at the California Culinary Academy in early 1996. I was asked to give a presentation on, and here's what the 3 x 5 card said, "Interesting facts about fungi". It was read in a Dr. Seuss-like manner because, well, it has a Seuss-like rhyme scheme. I was surprised at the poem's reception-- no one threw anything at me or threatened to beat me up after class. Enjoy it or, at least, give me a fake smile and a polite golf clap. Letting the world read your poetry is no easy thing.

Fungus

With fungus, there's mushrooms,
There's molds and there's yeasts.
We've so much to learn
From these wee tiny beasts.

They aid in our whiskies
And hot steaming toddies.
They hide in our bathrooms
And inside our bodies.

There's fungus on puppies
And bunnies and cheeses.
There's fungus involved
In sexually transmitted diseases.

It lives where it wishes.
It grows where it pleases.
On the best petrie dishes
We find many diseases.

There's Cryptococcosis
And Histoplasmosis
There's ringworm and thrush
And Blastomycosis.

There's rusts and there's smuts
That grow in our grains.
There's even a fungus
That alters our brains.

Which fungus, you ask?
Please let me elucidate.
It's called Psilocybin.
It makes you hallucinate.

It's taken orally
Or it is injected.
(The legality of said fungus, however
The U.S. has rejected.)

I learned from the most
Reliable of references
That fungi abound
In all sexual preferences.

There's heterothallics
And homothallics.
(The latter you'll note
That I wrote in italics.)

When treading with naked feet
In gym showers,
Beware, for it's there
Tinea pedis flowers.

To cure it, make haste.
Use something fast actin'.
Most sufferers choose
To use Tinactin.

Mycotoxin (a fungus-tainted food derivative)
Perennailly bad-ish
Was considered by villians
A weapon quite faddish.

Biological warfare
Was used by Hussien
Who upon Kurds and Persians
Poured toxins like rain.

In the 1970's
Mycotoxins were got
By a genocidal despot
By name of Pol Pot.

In his part of Asia
He caused great commotions
B y using them on
Cambodians and Laotians.

Rhizopus nigricans,
Or bread mold, will thank
Any fool who puts bread
In a place dark and dank.

The truffle, one teaches,
Prefers it much damper--
Round oaks and some beeches
Where the truffle pigs scamper.

To many a man
There is no sight more dear
Than a woman in hot pants
Bringing him beer.

If said woman ne'er washes
Nor changes, at least,
Could be more than the beer's
Been affected by yeast.

In France and elsewhere
Sweet wines are got
By a wond'rous mold
That is called noble rot.

Botrytis cinerea--
Its true appelation
Dehydrates grape juice
Into high concentration.

Without such a beast
How then could we try
a glass of d'Yquem
or my favorite, Tokaj?

The gods are with you, fungus,
And so I am told
That when they made you,
They broke the mold.