The SF Street Food Festival has become such a delight in the summertime. (This year's takes place on Saturday, August 18.) A chance to sample wonderful treats from the around the world (many developed in the test kitchens of entrepeneurial incubator La Cocina), transporting your taste buds to the far reaches of yumminess. The festival can get crazy crowded, so to help you out, here's a list of some fave vendors to make a beeline for:

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Visual alchemy, fabulous feminist story-telling, and something deemed “hyper-literate busking” abound at 2012’s Queer Rebels of the Harlem Renaissance fesitval, three nights of art and performance (Thu/28-Sat/30) by 21 LGBTQ African Americans.

Part of the 15th National Queer Arts Festival, Queer Rebels of the Harlem Renaissance continues the legacy of the droves of artists, performers, and activists who questioned stale societal standards in a myriad ways during the heyday of the New York City neighborhood's 1920s and 30s creative blossoming: from sensual lyrics of Bessie Smith to the pointed poetics of Langston Hughes, the artists of the Harlem Renaissance continue to testify to the assertion that social causes are rarely separate and constantly progressing.

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A better than ever year aboard the SF Belle at Whiskies of the World last month meant some fine, global pours of whisk(e)y from Scotland to Australia. Here were some highlights:

On the fun and interesting tip, Lark Distillery distills single malt whisky in Tasmania, an Australian island - and it's surprisingly solid. Distilled in copper pot stills, it's smooth with a modicum of peat, aged five years, yet with a bit of complexity. I appreciated returning to 10-year-old old Masterson's Straight Rye Whiskey. Aged in charred white oak barrels, this Canadian rye evokes whispers of pepper, vanilla, spice, and a soft sweetness.

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Come one, come all (unless you’re under 21) to Petaluma this Sat/20, and witness death-defying displays -- with a twist. A screw-top twist, that is (sorry). Attendees of the Lagunitas Beer Circus can “ooh” and “aah” at aerialist acts, laugh at outrageously face-painted clowns, watch a lithesome figure breathe fire or swallow swords, and gape at the magnificence of exotic burlesque dancers, all the while drinking the fine beers and sweet ales of Lagunitas. It'll be three rings of tastiness! And it's charitable.

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