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.”

We are all farmworkers

President Josh Viertel joined over 900 people for a march to demand that Stop & Shop and its parent company Ahold do their part improve wages and working conditions for farm workers in the tomato fields of Immokalee, Florida.

by Slow Food USA President Josh Viertel

Yesterday I joined over 900 friends for a two-mile march in the snow through Boston. We were there to demand that Stop & Shop and its parent company Ahold do their part improve wages and working conditions for farm workers in the tomato fields of Immokalee, Florida. The march was organized by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers with support from allies, including the Student/Farm Workers Alliance.

The CIW and its allies are asking major supermarkets to sign on to the same agreement that fast food companies and college food service companies have signed through their Campaign for Fair Food. The CIW has posted a photojournal from the march here and a video here.

Below is a copy of the remarks I made at the opening rally:

I am here today because the food movement cannot be separate from the farm workers movement. We are one.

Gerardo Reyes was born in Zacatecas, Mexico. [Gerardo is a farm worker, an organizer with the CIW, and a friend.] I grew up in Tarrytown, NY. We are the same age.

This post originally appeared on The Atlantic Food Channel. To read the rest of it, please click here.

International Terra Madre Day celebrated

Today marks the second annual International Terra Madre Day—a day for celebrating eating locally, and honoring our local food communities. 

Today marks the second annual International Terra Madre Day—a day for celebrating eating locally, and honoring our local food communities.  In particular it can be a time for delegates to Slow Food’s Terra Madre conference in Torino to share with their experience from the conference with their communities.

This year there will be more than 1,000 events in over 120 countries, with over 50 of those events happening here in the U.S. Some communities got started early:  over fifty Slow Food Seattle members and community supporters came together on November 28th for a day-long fish canning workshop called – “Time to Tin a Tuna!” - taught by Jeremy Brown, a Bellingham-based commercial fisherman and longtime proponent of Slow Food (as well as a Terra Madre delegate!). Wild Pacific Albacore has been in the news for all the right reasons - topping the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Super Green List and on National Public Radio in a feature on the growth of micro-canneries in the Pacific Northwest. Though you can find canned albacore tuna at your local food co-ops or fish markets in many communities, this was an opportunity to learn firsthand with someone well-versed in the process and safety considerations of using pressure cookers. At the end of the day, attendees left with both with the pride of supporting a local fisherman and a good stock of Wild Pacific Albacore to last through the long northwest winter.

To read more about the event, click here.

Thanks to Jennifer Johnson for photos and Slow Food Seattle blog post! Photos feature Slow Food Seattle members, Philip and June Lee & their family learning how to can tuna as well as Tuna-canner extraordinaire Jeremy Brown, a Bellingham-based commercial fisherman

Speak up about corporate control of the food supply

On December 8th, in Washington DC, the Dept of Justice and the USDA will be holding a workshop (kind of like a town hall) to hear from farmers and consumers. Join us!

On December 8th, in Washington DC, the Dept of Justice and the USDA will be holding a workshop (kind of like a town hall) to hear from farmers and consumers. Would you like to go and share your experience of how, as a consumer and/or food producer you are affected by the consolidation of our food system?

Maybe you’ve noticed prices rising at the supermarket even while most big food companies made record profits this year.

Maybe you know consumers having trouble finding good food at affordable prices, as well as farmers having trouble getting good food into mainstream markets.

To join Slow Food members and staff in Washington DC next week, please email Angelines at angelines[at]slowfoodusa.org

To read more about the anti-trust workshops, click here.

DIG IN - Share your story!

On September 25, thousands of people participated in “Dig In,” a national day of action to connect to our food and farmers. Where did you dig in?

Today, thousands of people across the country broke ground together at local gardens, farms and community events, and then broke bread together to celebrate. It was all part of “Dig In,” a national day of action to connect to our food and farmers. Check out the photos here.

Where did you “Dig In” on September 25?

This blog post is open thread – share comments and stories from your event below.

Are you ready to Dig In?

Tomorrow, thousands of Slow Food members across the country are digging into gardens, farms, and community events – and then breaking bread to celebrate!

Tomorrow’s the big day.

Tomorrow in Columbia, Missouri, the local Slow Food chapter is building a greenhouse for an elementary school to kick off their “Harvest-of-the-Month” program. Tomorrow in Salt Lake City, Slow Food members are teaching cooking classes and stirring up support for healthier school lunches. And in New York City tomorrow (which is where I’ll be), we’re painting murals and building compost bins for an “Urban-Style Barn Raising.”

All over the country, Slow Food members are gathering for “Dig In,” a national day of action to connect people to where their food comes from (and have a great time while doing it). There’s probably something happening near you – click here to find out.

More after the jump

Sonoma County Gleaners in action!

by intern Minal Gill

Aletha Soule of Slow Food Sonoma County has taken supporting good, clean and fair practices one step further by making fresh produce available to those in need. Her network Slow Harvest took up the sizable task of gleaning local produce and transporting it to local food banks. “Gleaning” refers to gathering leftover crops after they’ve been commercially harvested. It’s done in order to recover food that would otherwise go to waste due to over-abundance, surface blemishes or time constraints.
Slow Harvest first began the project at Nathan Boone’s First Light Farms with a team of volunteer gleaners. The effort involved collecting surplus food from the farm, weighing, packaging and bringing it to Food for Thought Foodbank, Forestville.

And these gleaners don’t just hand over the raw product – they’re preserving food as well! Their first community canning session involved an abundance of Gravenstein apples, a Slow Food Presidia product. Similarly, Relish Culinary Adventures, Healdsburg, CA hosted another session in their kitchen to can surplus tomatoes. Each volunteer contributed two cases of canning jars, which was their price of admission. They spent the day turning in jars of tomato sauce for the Healdsburg Food Pantry, CA.

Click here for the complete video on Slow Food Sonoma County’s gleaning initiatives and scroll down to “Gleaning, Slowharvest Style”

Slow Food St. Louis’ Awesome Airtime

by Julia Landau

Slow Food Saint Louis has been making news! In the past few months, this chapter was invited to appear on a local lifestyles morning show three times, getting the word out about seasonal produce and fresh and healthy cooking.

The chapter advised on topics ranging from kitchen to field on Great Day St. Louis.  Kelly Childs, SF St. Louis leader, spoke about the benefits of buying seasonal, perks of eating local, tips for picking out choice produce: Kelly shared it all.

Soon, SF St. Louis was back on camera, this time with a mini-tutorial on cooking with herbs – and growing them, too. 

The appearance was a seriously exciting opportunity to get the chapter’s name, website, and most importantly great work and knowledge out to a wide and interested audience - Congrats, St. Louis!

First Lady launches Chefs Move to Schools program

by intern Christine Binder

Last Friday, nearly 500 chefs from 37 states, all dressed in their whites, convened on the White House lawn for the launch of the “Chefs Move to Schools” program. The new program is part of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign to solve the childhood obesity epidemic within a generation. Here is the video and transcript of the First Lady’s remarks and coverage of the event in the Washington Post.

Mrs. Obama is calling on chefs to get involved in the effort by adopting a local school where they will work with parents, teachers, school nutrition professionals, and administrators to educate kids about food and nutrition and improve school meals. Nearly 1000 chefs and 500 schools have already signed up for Chefs Move to Schools. You can see a map of participating chefs and schools here or sign up to participate on the USDA website.

Earlier in the day, the chefs heard experts speak about school food policy and the upcoming Child Nutrition Reauthorization at a breakfast hosted by Share our Strength. They also toured the White House kitchen garden.  Many celebrity chefs and American culinary luminaries were in attendance, bringing their star power to the First Lady’s initiative. By creating healthy dishes that taste good, chefs have a unique ability to show children that cooking and eating healthy foods are both cool and fun.

Some kids have already been inspired by the Let’s Move campaign. Georgia and Michael are nine-year-old twins who love to cook and are collecting 1000 healthy recipes from kids all over the country to send to Mrs. Obama. They want to show kids that they can learn to cook and make healthy choices for themselves. Here’s their YouTube video and their website where you can learn more about their project, Kids Cook USA.

Eat Gulf seafood

by Poppy Tooker, former chapter leader of Slow Food New Orleans and emeritus member of the Biodiversity Committee

The oil situation in the Gulf of Mexico is threatening an entire culture on Louisiana’s coastline.  Along every step of the food chain—from fisherman to chef to impassioned eaters like me—there is fear of the unknown.  Until the oil gusher is stopped, none of us can tell what the future holds. 
 
Shortly after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Slow Food Ark of Taste committee made an emergency boarding of Gulf seafood that seemed the most threatened at that time.  Louisiana oysters and wild-caught Gulf shrimp were welcomed onto the Ark of Taste along with the New Orleans poor boy bread that they are so often served on. 
 
Today, countless varieties of Gulf fin fish are hugely threatened, including lynchpins of our local menus like speckled trout and redfish.  Our gumbo crab, the Louisiana blue crab, which is found both in the Gulf and in our brackish waterbodies like Lake Pontchartrain, could be wiped out by the intrusion of oil into our estuary marshes.
 
Since the oil disaster began, I have heard from Slow Food friends across the United States who ask, “How can we help?”  The single best way to assist your food friends of the Gulf is to EAT GULF SEAFOOD. 
 

More after the jump