This World Food Day, host a $5 Challenge Meal

October 16th is World Food Day. How about hosting a $5 challenge meal?

It sure is the harvest season!

You’ve heard of Food Day—to be held on October 24th.  But did you also know that on October 16th it’s WORLD food day? That’s one more chance to host a $5 challenge meal, this time as part of our partner Oxfam America’s Sunday Suppers/World Food Day campaign.

As Oxfam describes it:

This World Food Day, Oxfam America is teaming up with a host of allies across the US and around the globe. We have a simple yet compelling idea—to host a Sunday Dinner October 16th that fosters a conversation about where your food comes from, who cultivates it, and how we can make the food system more just and sustainable.

You can order materials to help you host your dinner and register your event by clicking here.

And of course you can read a ton of wonderful tips and tricks collected as part of our $5 Challenge initiative by going to our tumblr (click here).

Over 5,570 meals shared

Yesterday, as part of the $5 Challenge, over 5,570 meals took place all over the country. Hundreds of people submitted photos as well as sharing what parts of the challenge were difficult and what made it difficult.

Yesterday, as part of the $5 Challenge, over 5,570 meals took place!

Click here to see photos from Hawai’i to Illinois to New York to Texas….from potlucks to family dinners to community suppers to food truck rallies,

No matter where they were or how they came together, they were all trying to answer the question: is it possible to make a healthy, local, and delicious meal for under $5 per person?

People got creative and brought their own flair to it—like Bear Braumoeller of Slow Food Columbus, who decided to take the $5 Challenge one step further. He attempted (and, SPOILER ALERT, succeeded) to create a sustainable $5 meal in 15 minutes—to show that sustainable cooking can be quick as well as affordable. Also he live tweeted it.

Bear wasn’t the only one tweeting his progress. Joe Yonan, food editor of the Washington Post, asked his 6,000+ followers questions like “My #5challenge dilemma: Cut which of these to make budget: 3 of 8 apples 4 tart? Squash (ergo soup)? Sausage 4 stuffed peppers (more rice)?”

More after the jump

A market for non-GMO foods

Slow Food Upstate leader Janette Wesley tells us what makes Earth Markets different from other farmers markets, how the project got started, and what’s next for the market.

Our chapter ran into a large dilemma when we were developing plans for the market which became our primary reason to see the realization of the project. At first we had reservations about starting a market in Greenville because our region has many established markets.  As Earth Markets have a strict no-GMO policy, we began to discover, to our astonishment, there were no producers in the entire southeastern USA making a non-GMO animal feed. Therefore, many otherwise good producers of meat, cheese, poultry, and eggs were knocked out of the application process.

Although many farmers who raise animals or use animal products in their foods would be interested in being GMO-free, the closest source of non-GMO animal feed is in Ohio, rendering it too expensive and logistically complicated to be a viable feed option.  We also discovered that “Certified Organic” gives an option if non-gmo feed is not available or too cost prohibitive to allow for GMO animal feed to be included under the certification, and we felt the consumer had a right to this information.

However as a result of our conversations, and the discovery of how widespread the conundrum goes, we now have formed a small group of producers who are looking for ways to manage this problem, and have an apple grower in North Carolina who has grown this summer non-GMO corn for feed, and which is now ready to harvest and mill. 

More after the jump

It’s Easy! It’s Hard! Slow food for the price of fast food

“In one moment I am buying something and can’t believe how much I get for so little money; the next item I pick up gives me sticker shock. How can both of these things be true?” the author asks.

Earlier this summer, as I was hauling a bag of farmers market produce home 15 blocks and up four flights of stairs, sweating bullets, cursing my choice to buy a melon (they’re heavy!), I stopped mid-step.

“Does it really have to be this hard?” I asked myself.

My story is particular to me, of course, but all over the country there are people trying to put food on the table and asking themselves “does it really have to be this hard?”

I was living, at the time, in a neighborhood with few supermarkets. The ones within a long walking distance were either very expensive or lacking the seasonal produce I craved. So on weekends I would hike over to the big farmers market. But at the farmers market I always find myself of two minds. In one moment I am buying something and can’t believe how much I get for so little money; the next item I pick up gives me sticker shock. How can both of these things be true?

When people ask me: “Doesn’t the food you eat (some mix of local, sustainable, organic, etc.) cost so much more than “regular” food?” I protest and agree at the same time. When they say “Doesn’t cooking from scratch take a lot of time?” I remember the awesome pasta I cooked the other night that took 7.5 minutes. But also the weekend of foraging I did going from one store to the next.

I live in New York City; I make a living wage; I am not trying to feed a family; I work on these issues for a living. If I find it hard/tiring/expensive sometimes, what must other people feel?

In the spirit of this conundrum, Slow Food USA launched the $5 Challenge last week.

More after the jump

Today we launch our campaign to take back the value meal

Today, Slow Food USA launches the $5 Challenge, our campaign to take back the value meal.

Today, Slow Food USA launches the $5 Challenge. See the official release below or download it here...

More after the jump

What does “here” taste like?

Slow Food NYC members recently took an urban foraging tour with locavore botanist Leda Meredith. Here’s what leader Jena Eiden saw, smelled, tasted, and thought.

—by Jena Eiden

  To hear Leda Meredith recall past foraging expeditions, you might think she was roaming the aisles of the famed Park Slope Food Co-op or a local farmers market. Hen-in-the-woods mushrooms, mulberries, wild black cherries, garlic mustard… wait, didn’t I just see that back on aisle three? If you are lucky enough to attend one of Leda’s foraging tours, you might just find a few similarities between your neighborhood market and Prospect Park.

Last Saturday our group of 11 foraging neophytes met at Grand Army Plaza to join local botanist, ballerina, locavore, and author Leda Meredith (author of The Locavore’s Handbook and the memoir Botany, Ballet & Dinner from Scratch) on a 2-hour foraging tour through Brooklyn’s largest green space, Prospect Park, followed by a trip to nearby Beer Table to sample Leda’s foraged snacks alongside a craft brew.

So what made this Saturday different than any other Saturday spent strolling through the park and grabbing a drink from a local watering hole? It was relaxing, educational, inspiring, but most of all—fun!

More after the jump

Table Talk: recipe contest highlights food stories

Share your experience of cooking with good, clean, and fair food, and you could win prizes from Slow Food USA and Anolon Cookware!

UPDATE: Thanks for the 62 submissions!  The submission period is now closed. Winners will be announced on our blog by the end of July.

Whether you turn to your food roots for inspiration or continually experiment with new flavors to share with family and friends, your plate has a lot to say. As summer harvests begin to hit full swing, what memories and experiences come to life as you shop, cook, and eat? 


From now until June 17, 2011 June 21 at 11:59pm *Deadline Extended!*, we’re accepting submissions to Table Talk: a recipe contest that celebrates good, clean, and fair food and the stories that bring it to life. We will announce the winners in a blog post in mid-July.


SUBMIT YOUR RECIPE HERE using our online submission form. Please read the contest guidelines, downloadable here and copied at the bottom of the submission form) before submitting your recipe.


Prizes
Share your favorite original recipe and the story behind it, and you could be one of the first people to own a piece of Nouvelle Copper Stainless Steel: a brand-new cookware line from Anolon!


Four 1st place winners will each receive

   
• Anolon Nouvelle Copper Stainless Steel 10 PC set
        Total Value: $300

Four 2nd place winners will each receive

   
• Anolon Chef Clad 10” Skillet
   
• Anolon Chef Clad 5.5 Qt Covered Casserole
        Total Value: $200

Four 3rd place winners will each receive

   
• Anolon Nouvelle Copper Stainless Steel 3 Qt Covered Saute Pan
        Total Value: $100

All twelve winners will have their original recipes published right here on our blog and on Anolon’s website.  Winners will also receive a one-year membership to Slow Food USA which includes regular updates on the latest food news, exclusive discount offers, plus tips on cooking, gardening, and ways to “go slow.”

More after the jump

What film’s getting all the buzz? Vanishing of the Bees.

In recent months over 50 chapters have organized screenings of the documentary Vanishing of the Bees.  We asked Slow Food DC member Kate Hill to reflect on the experience of hosting a screening.

by Slow Food DC member Kate Hill

Watching Vanishing of the Bees reminds me how much of our existence we take for granted. Like walking through life with blinders on, so caught up in the here and now of self that we pay little attention to the beauty and the mystery that make the journey possible.

My family has been lucky over the years to have hands-on experience with honeybees.  A good friend has kept several hives and has enlisted my sons to help him extract the honey every year since they were old enough to understand the process. Even still, I think we all fail to acknowledge what an intrinsic part of the food chain, what an immeasurable service to our own life the bee is. Painfully revealed in the film is our own complicity in allowing the toxic process that is endangering not only the bees but the planet and our own health.

Why aren’t we angrier? At stake is life itself.  Society seems willing to go along and not question (with apologies to Al Gore) the “inconvenient truth” of agribusiness,  choosing not to see the reality of the cost of “progress.” Towards the end of the film Bill Maher makes a brief quip on honeybee die-offs serving as “Mother Nature’s wake up call” and it struck a chord—but do we really take the warnings to heart?  With colony collapse disorder the bees are forcing us to take a hard look again at how we do things. We need to be the change we wish to see to save not only the bees but ourselves.

More after the jump

A thank you note from Slow Food on Campus leader, Erin

Slow Food on Campus leader Erin Swenson-Klatt reports back on her trip to Washington DC.

Thank you so much for the generous donation that helped send me to Washington D.C. to advocate for sustainable agriculture programs with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. I know that you too believe in the need for a Good, Clean and Fair food system – the kind of food system that will ensure that our children, land and communities are healthy ones – and I appreciate your help in passing that message on directly to our congressional leaders.

At a time when we are all feeling the effects of a tough economy, some seem to think that programs supporting sustainable farming practices, young and minority farmers, conservation in our rural communities and forward-thinking agriculture research are luxuries we can’t afford as a nation. To the contrary, it is the loss of such programs that we can’t afford!

This week I visited four congressional offices in D.C. with two farmers from the Toledo area, Kurt and Marty, to remind our elected representatives that real people will be affected by cuts to sustainable agriculture programs. We knew that these programs are efficient and effective both at offering greater resources to innovative farmers and at revitalizing rural communities, which is something we should all be able to get behind.

While the current economic crisis demands sacrifices, it should also necessitate compromises among everyone who draws on agriculture funding. This was a critical week for us to make this message heard in Washington D.C., and Kurt and I were proud to be there among more than 30 other farmers and farm advocates from around the country to represent Slow Food USA.

More after the jump

Slow Food University of Wisconsin & Family Dinner Night

Every Sunday night at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one might find students gathered for a shared meal of any type of theme or global cuisine.

by Claire Brandow

Every Sunday night at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one might find students gathered for a shared meal of any type of theme or global cuisine.  Dinner could be Vietnamese banh mi, a feast of Indian aloo mater and kheer, or an impressive spread of ramp pesto and sorrel soup for a local foods dinner.  Though the food and atmosphere change weekly, the objective stays the same:  with each of these Family Dinner Nights, the members of Slow Food University of Wisconsin put the philosophy of Slow Food into action.  Every meal is a chance to educate and promote the value of good, clean, and fair food in a convivial atmosphere.

Slow Food University of Wisconsin-Madison is particularly active in two venues: improving the campus food system and campaigning to raise awareness about food and agriculture issues.  The Family Dinner Nights are at the core of SFUW’s work.  Each night includes a cooking lesson followed by a communal dinner.  SFUW recently received a gift of pots, pans, and kitchen gadgets from Anolon Cookware as part of the company’s “Creating a Delicious Future” initiative.  Everything from the cooking to cleaning is communal: not only is the food prepared and enjoyed together, five people each week sign up to help with cleaning in exchange for a free meal.

The two-year tradition of Family Dinner Night now attracts as many as 100 students each week.  SFUW uses each night to educate on a different topic, whether it is a cultural lesson on the country of that meal’s origins or a lecture on the food movement and food sovereignty.  Dinners also often serve to benefit local family farms and promote local producers and vendors.

SFUW co-leader Danny Spitzberg insists newcomers should always feel welcome.  “We don’t bite until dinner is ready!  We’re an evolving community.  We always welcome anyone interested in eating good food, meeting new people, and having good old fashioned fun.”