Dear Local Gourmands,
The week is almost over and I have just made it back to my dining room table/desk from Slow Food Nation and the wonders of the golden Left Coast. I was blogging about the festivities for Saveur, posts which headed more in the direction of tasty finds than in the social movement vain…the later was ever-present throughout the weekend, though, with activists like Vandana Shiva (Navdanya), Andrew Kimbrell (Center for Food Safety), and Van Jones (Green for All) delivering impassioned messages about how we must change the way this country produces and consumes food. After a panel on Edible Education I found a man in an Uncle Sam hat handing out copies of the Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture with an accompanying dotted line to sign on board. The Eat Well Guide handed out 20,000 copies of their new book, Cultivating the Web: high tech tools for the sustainable food movement. There were lectures and concerts, and many biodegradable forks. I ran into plenty of New Yorkers in the halls between film screenings, or at the Eat-in, a table set for 250 in Dolores Park for a Labor Day picnic. If you didn’t get a chance to go, check out some more press below.
All best,
Jeanne
SFN press:
Lancing a Slow Boil
Slow Food Nation: Taking America out to the Foodshed
Slow Food Festival Reaches out to the Uncommitted
Thursday, September 4, 5-8pm
The 2008 Classic Martini Challenge
The Gallery at the Astor Center
$25.00
Astor Center is proud to host the ultimate gin taste-off! You’ll be the judge as nearly twenty gins go head to head in this three hour, walk-around tasting event. Each gin will submit its best Martini (modern interpretations are heartily encouraged), prepared for you by some of the city’s top mixologists. You’ll also have the opportunity to blind taste each of the gins straight in our premium tasting facility (and we’ll give you a brief run-down on proper spirits tasting technique beforehand).
Saturday, September 6, 9am-3pm
Volunteer Day
Added-Value Farm
September is here, and on the Red Hook Community Farm we’re harvesting mountains of tomatoes, eggplants, basil, and greens. This Saturday, September 6th, we’re looking for your help! We need 30 volunteers to help us build roll-up sides on our greenhouse, finish our new canopy/outdoor classroom, pull weeds, and help get the Farm ready for fall. Bring a friend, bring your family, and come lend a hand! Everyone is welcome to drop in, but if you have questions or want to give a heads-up that you’re planning to come, you can reply to cloomis@added-value.org. It’s also a FIRST SATURDAY at our Farmers’ Market– so come by and purchase delicious Brooklyn-grown veggies, and NY State fruits, dairy, and meats. We’ll have live music performed by local folk musician Jean Rohe, cooking lessons from Conscious Cravers, and a wind-power info booth.
Saturday, September 6, 12-9:30pm
Hollenback Garden Sidewalk Sale, Community BBQ and Movie Night
Washington Ave btw Greene and Gates, Clinton Hill, Brooklyn (<a href=”http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=Hollenback%20Community%20Garden%2C%20Washington%20Ave%20btw%20Greene%20and%20Gates%2C%20Clinton%20Hill%2C%20Brooklyn”>map)
Join us in keeping the summer going beyond the limits of Labor Day at the fourth annual Triple Threat at Hollenback! A fundraising sidewalk sale and bake sale will begin around noon. Our free community BBQ will begin around 4pm. Our movie night will begin around sunset. Come check out our community composting system, our rainwater harvester and our solar powered composting toilet. Meet your neighbors, and our wonderful garden community. Bring your friends and family, and see (and eat) food growing in Brooklyn! (Please note there will be plenty for the herbivores, and plenty for the carnivores) Directions: We are 1 1/2 blocks north of the Clinton-Washington stop on the “C” train and 1 1/2 blocks south of the Clinton-Washington stop on the “G” train. For both trains, make sure to take Washington Ave exit. *** Raindate: Sunday September 7th
Saturday, September 6, 4:30-7pm
Green Edge Collaborative Eco-Tour Scavenger Hunt…Brooklyn
Eco-Tour Scavenger Hunt…Brooklyn!
Start point is Grand Army Plaza entrance to Prospect Park. We’ll meet near the gazebo on the right hand side of the street leading into the park. $7 pre-payment, or $10 cash/check the day of. The Eco-Tour Scavenger Hunt goes to Brooklyn! Grab a friend or meet a new one, get your clue sheet and…GO! You have two hours to find all of the clues for the greenest restaurants, businesses, buildings, parks, etc. in Brooklyn right now. Gift bags are provided for the most eco-savvy team. Bring your bike if you wish! The end point for this game will be the final showing of the Solar Powered Film Festival at Solar 1 in Manhattan. Please bring the following: A digital camera, Reusable bag to gather some goodies, Comfortable shoes, Water, Pen or pencil
Saturday, September 6, 8pm
Solar Powered Film Series at Solar 1
The Future of Food
The Solar-Powered Film Series is the first in New York City to use the power of the sun to construct an outdoor “eco-theater” like no other. Solar One’s independent film venue integrates natural and human-made components of our urban environment creating the city’s “greenest” motion picture showcase. About The Future of Food: There is a revolution happening in the farm fields and on the dinner tables of America — a revolution that is transforming the very nature of the food we eat. The Future of Food offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade. For more information, please visit the Solar-Powered Film Series site.
Sunday, September 7, 3-7pm
Tomato Festival
Food Systems Network Fundraiser
Tickets: $30 each; 2 for $50. Visit Brown Paper Tickets
Hilary Baum’s Garden
Directions provided upon ticket purchase
NYC members and friends are invited to Hilary’s Riverdale garden to support the Network by celebrating the season’s most sumptuous fruit: Tomatoes! Festivities will include a tomato tasting guided by grower Michael Grady Robertson of The Queens County Farm Museum, a spread of tomato dishes and beverages prepared by FSNYC members, and an heirloom tomato auction! Signed copies of the just-published “Heirloom Tomatoes: Garden to Table”, by Amy Goldman, will be available for purchase. Everyone is asked to bring along ready to serve tomato antidotes: bread, cheese, fruit or tums!
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Of note a few weeks down the road…
Tuesday, September 9 6:30pm
Food Writing: Gastronomica
New School
Wollman Hall, Eugene Lang Building, 65 West 11th Street, 5th floor (enter at 66 West 12th Street)
$5; free to all students and New School faculty, staff, and alumni with ID
The Writing Program and the Food Studies Department at New School are pleased to host a reading and discussion on the leading publication Gastronomica, the Journal of Food and Culture, which seeks to encourage thoughtful reflection on the history, literature, and cultural impact of food. Featuring Darra Goldstein, founding editor of Gastronomica, cookbook author, and the Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor of Russian at Williams College; with magazing contributors Sarah A. Odisheo, writer and professor of English at Columbia College in Chicago, and Arlo Crawford, whose work has appeared in the New York Times magazine and is currently working on a project about his family’s farm in Pennsylvania.
Tuesday, September 9, 12:30-2pm
Open Networking Meeting hosted by CENYC
YouthMarkets
brown bag lunch at noon
Cornell Cooperative Extension
16 E 34th Street, 8th floor
Join us Tues, September 9th for an Open Networking Meeting hosted by Council on the Environment of NYC dedicated to discussing the development of YouthMarkets as an opportunity for skill development, environmental education, and community building. David Saphire with Greenmarket’s “Grow It, Learn It, Eat It” campaign will join us to discuss the innovations, successes, and challenges Greenmarket has faced with expanding the educational scope of their YouthMarket program, now wrapping up its third season. David will also share with us a short CBS feature on the program and accept questions. For more information on Greenmarket’s YouthMarket program, click here.
Tuesday, September 9
Let Us Eat Local
Just Food
NYC Water Taxi Beach, Long Island City
www.justfood.org
Join us for an unforgettable evening of savoring a diverse sampling of all that is local, picked at the peak of harvest, and skillfully prepared by our region’s most sought-after chefs. This year Just Food inaugurates Let Us Eat Local, a tasting event and awards ceremony dedicated to the pursuit of our delicious mission: supporting local family farmers and ensuring that all city residents can find and afford to eat sustainable, seasonal food.
September 10, 6-10pm
Sixth Annual Taste of the Village
Benefit for Washington Square Park
General Admission $40
Three and four star restaurants from the neighborhood join the Village Alliance for a tasting event to raise funds for the completion of the park. Sample fare from the likes of Blue Hill, Café Spice, Elletaria, and many others.
Week of September 12-21
NY Craft Beer Week
September 12-21 is your chance to experience a wide range of breweries, beers and activities during NY Craft Beer Week! Opening and closing Craft Beer Week are the 3rd Annual NY Brewfest and the 2nd Annual Manhattan Cask Ale Festival featuring a selection of beers that is rarely equaled in a similar context anywhere else in the country.
Sunday, September 14, 11:30-6pm
8th Annual New York City International Pickle Day
Orchard Street (btwn. Grand and Broome)
New York Food Museum
Get in on the goodness: “pickles from around the world and around the corner– music, exhibitions, demonstrations and FUN!”
Monday, September 22, 6pm
M.F.K. Fisher: Poet of the Appetites
New School
Wollman Hall, Eugene Lang Building, 65 West 11th Street, 5th floor (enter at 66 West 12th Street)
$8; free to all students and New School faculty, staff, and alumni with ID In the year of the centennial of her birth, a panel of distinguished guests celebrate the life of Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher, master food writer, and discusses her relationships with other American food celebrities, including Julia Child, James Beard, and Alice Waters. Panelists include Amanda Hesser, editor, New York Times and author of the foreword to M. F. K. Fisher Among the Pots and Pans: Celebrating Her Kitchens; Judith Jones, author of The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food; Joan Reardon, author of M. F. K. Fisher, Julia Child, and Alice Waters: Celebrating the Pleasures of the Table; Poet of the Appetites: The Lives and Loves of M. F. K. Fisher, and M. F. K. Fisher Among the Pots and Pans: Celebrating Her Kitchens; and Kennedy Golden, Associate Dean, Mills College, and the daughter of M.F.K. Fisher. Andrew F. Smith, editor of the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink, moderates. This event is offered in conjunction with a short course, MFK Fisher: Poet of the Appetites, beginning September 15; please visit the food studies for more information. Sponsored by The New School Food Studies Program.
Saturday, September 27, 12-6pm
Chile Pepper Fiesta
Brooklyn Botanic Gardens
Be a part of music history with a rare public performance by Pete Seeger, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, Guy Davis together in a Special Family Concert. Brooklyn’s young steel drum champs, the Sesame Flyers Steel Pan Orchestra, get the party sizzling amid a whirl of feathered dancers and fast and furious Caribbean rhythms. The Sauce Boss brings it to a boil with his famous gumbo spiced with foot-stomping Florida swamp blues and blistering slide guitar. Bombay songstress Falu blends her own “indie Hindi” sounds into a spicy masala of classical Indian music and alt rock. Throughout the afternoon, MCs Robbins & Ringold fire up audiences with flame eating, fire juggling, and other daring deeds. Plus, enjoy Indian chutney making, piquant pickle classes, and other spicy cooking demonstrations and tastings, chile pepper tattoos, red hot kids’ activities, and a visit with renowned garden expert the Chile Goddess. You can also pick up organically grown plants and chile-inspired gifts and tingle your taste buds with spicy food and cold beer.
Tickets are for sale on-line
Harvest Fest 2008!
Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture
Saturday 10/4/2008
9:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Rain or Shine
Our 5th annual Harvest Fest will feature music & entertainment by Jay & Molly & Friends, a large farmer’s market full of goodies to satisfy every appetite, hay rides, workshops & farm demonstrations for children & adults & much, much more! Tickets: Stone Barns Center members have access to pre-sale tickets beginning on August 18. As always, members receive a 10% discount. General ticket sales begin on September 2. Tickets may be purchased online only. Stone Barns Center members will receive an email with ticketing information on August 18. On September 2, ticketing information will also be posted on the Stone Barns Center website. Tickets purchased by September 24 will be mailed; tickets purchased after September 24 will be held at will-call.
Adults $30 ($27 members)
Youth ages 6-14 $20 ($18 members)
Children ages 2-5 $10 ($9 members)
Children under 2 FREE
Saturday, October 18
Added-Value Harvest Festival
Annual festival featuring foods from local restaurants, live music and performances, kids’ activities, pumpkin patch, raffle & contests, Farmers’ Market, Farm tours.
Wednesday, October 29, 6-10pm
Taste of Greenmarket
Enjoy Greenmarket-inspired fare presented by NYC’s finest chefs, celebrate the leaders who are making farm fresh, locally grown food available to all New Yorkers, and bid on fabulous silent auction prizes. All proceeds from ticket sales and auction items will benefit CENYC’s Greenmarket program in its efforts to preserve family farms, bring fresh produce to all five boroughs and educate children about our food systems. Chefs presenting tastings of signature dishes from their favorite Greenmarket ingredients include: Dan Barber of Blue Hill, Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern, Marco Canora of Hearth and Insieme, Peter Hoffman of Savoy, Bill Telepan of Telepan, Mary Cleaver of The Green Table, Aaron Sanchez of Centrico and Paladar, Alex Guarnaschelli of Butter, and many more. All contributions are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. Tickets available at Brown Paper Tickets.
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