It’s 7:30 pm on a mild evening in San Francisco’s Mission District, and so far the soundtrack at Mission Bowling Club has been a steady stream of classic ’60s soul tunes. But all of a sudden the opening drumbeats to Pharrell’s “Happy” kick out over the speakers, and Amy Tan is feelin’ it.
In jeans and sneakers, flanked by her husband and a rowdy group of friends, the tiny author of The Joy Luck Club and a half-dozen other best-selling novels is seriously boogeying, shimmying her hips from side to side as she waits for her ball to return.
Her bowling style is decidedly different from that of famed Chez Panisse restaurateur and Slow Food thought leader Alice Waters, who, in the next lane down, radiates calm determination in a deep blue caftan as she focuses, pitches the ball forward, and knocks out a remaining pin for a spare. Victory. A fist in the air. A few yards behind Waters, beloved Tales from the City author Armistead Maupin (lavender button-up shirt, hearty laugh) eyes a fresh tray of crispy fried chicken.
Forget Dancing With the Stars: Bowling with San Francisco literary royalty is waaay better. Especially when it’s a fundraiser for public radio — NPR’s Kitchen Sisters, in which producer-hosts Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva explore the ways communities come together through food. Especially when the bowling alley has an open bar and one of the best burgers in the city. Even Michael Pollan (he of “eat food — not too much — mostly plants” fame) seemed to agree.
And especially when you get to watch the fundraiser’s celebrity guests (which also included author Ayelet Waldman and Pollan’s wife, the artist Judith Belzer; writer-director Roman Coppola was scheduled but couldn’t make it) get straight-up schooled on the lanes by a 91-year-old lady in pearl earrings.

That would be the amazing Grace Mulloy, the titular Grace of “Bowling with Grace,” as the Kitchen Sisters dubbed their fundraiser party Tuesday night.