Starving artists: Feed your own for the holidays

There’s no shortage of worthy ways to be charitable this time of year, but you’d be hard-pressed to find another that says “Made for BK” quite like this. Open Source, a Park Slope gallery/creative space, is looking for a few good cooks to staff its Open Source Food Kitchen every night in December. For a fourth year, the gallery’s running its month-long free kitchen where a volunteer comes in each night, whips up a meal, and 15-20 starving artists dig in. The site says fellow artists usually don the chef hat, but really, anybody’s welcome to come in and cook.

Requirements for the one-night gig are pretty few: Meals are served between 7 and 9pm and you should plan on something easy to serve, like a “one-pot meal — either a soup or stew which can be served in bowls with bread on the side.” Open Source provides the cookware and utensils and will help with logistics. All you do, they say, is “supply the love” (and, um, the food, lest you want an overly expressive uprising on your hands).

If you’re at all culinarily-inclined, this seems like a cool way to give a little back this holiday season. Also, there seems occasionally to be wine and beer-laden late-night convos. Now, if you’re one of those who’s reading this salivating, rather than planning your menu, the meal is open anyone, but seating is limited to first-come, first-served.

Sign up soon, charitable chefs, because shifts are disappearing fast (the actual holidays at the end of the month are still free, though). And while you’re checking it out, you might as well look at all that art stuff Open Source does the rest of the year.

Open Source Gallery, 306 17th St. between Fifth and Sixth Aves., Park Slope.