America’s Next (Slow) Food Network Star

by Slow Food USA staffer Patrick Keeler

“Pssst…you wanna be a (Slow) Food Network Star?”

Despite all previous declarations that only megalomaniacs, bad karaoke junkies, select residents of Orange County, bored housewives and perennial bachelors were allowed – or wanted – to be reality TV stars, I made the bold and hypocritical move to audition for a reality television series. Not just any reali-tv show, but one with “flavor”: America’s Next Food Network Star, but only after some coaxing from the rest of the SFUSA staff around the lunch table.

More after the jump

Slow Food Nation re-cap

Thanks to all 60,000 of you who came to Slow Food Nation and listened, ate, discussed, networked, bought, and cheered.  To the rest of you: we missed you!  We had beautiful sunshine, terrific crowds, and many opportunities to meet each other and expand our growing circle of people supporting a good, clean and fair food system.

As we’ve mentioned before there’s been great day-by-day, minute-by-minute coverage on the Slow Food Nation blog--so do check that out.

Highlights:

• Pictures:  Check out the Slow Food Nation flickr page for hundreds and hundreds of photos taken by people who were there.  Add your photographic gems to the page!
• The Victory Garden: Great news! The Victory Garden, planted on the front lawn of San Francisco’s City Hall for the event, will be kept up through November.  The garden was the heart of the activities of the Civic Center, and was home to a soap box series, musicians, and leisurely strolls.
• New Vision for a 21st Century Food, Farm, and Agriculture Policy: On Thursday August 28th, Slow Food chapter leaders and staff gathered in front of the main steps at City Hall to show support for this new petition which seeks to lay out, in no uncertain terms, what is needed for our food system to move forward in a healthy, systemically sustainable way.  You can read more about the declaration and sign onto the petition Food Bill Declaration.  And we will definitely be writing more about this in the weeks to come.
• Take Back the Tap: Food and Water Watch partnered with the event to make sure that tap water (instead of bottled water) was available at all of the venues; in addition it was an opportunity for attendees to think about how much waste is created by the bottled water industry.  The “Take Back the Tap” stands at the Civic center were cleverly constructed out of old plastic bottles and were selling re-usable metal ones.

We’d love to hear your stories—of a favorite product bought at the market place, or a favorite conversation had on a hay bale, of an inspirational talk you attended, or a slow journey you took in the Bay area. We’ll be sharing more too, day by day, so keep checking back in.

For SFUSA Board Member Chef Kurt Michael Friese’s re-cap on Grist, click here.

For media coverage of the event. you don’t have to look far.  Check out the NY Times Dining section today, or sfgate.com’s ongoing coverage, or menupages.com’s interview with Michael Pollan, or seriouseats.com’s coverage, or…or…or….

Gardens and Ranchers et al

Some Thursday links for your all:

• Slow Food Nation's Victory Garden is complete and it's beautiful. And Alice Waters talks up the street food section of the event.
• But can edible gardens save our broken food system? Check out this very interesting article from one of the people who had his lawn transformed by artist Fritz Haeg's Edible Estate project. He says that "to repair the broken system that supplies the bulk of the nation's diet will require Americans to step out of the garden and into the public arena."
• A Montana environmentalist spends the day with some ranchers and opens her eyes to the threats that ranchers are facing out west.
• Check out the new "Eco-tube" and watch a video about you can reduce energy use in your home.

Gleaning

This piece, from Huffington Post, got us thinking about the practice of gleaning. Apparently a food pantry director in New Hampshire, faced with a food shortage that has become commonplace in pantries this year, and an utter lack of anything fresh or green, has started to ask local farmers to plant a little extra to donate to her pantry.

Reminds us of the biblical injunctions of Leviticus and Deuteronomy that demand that landowners leave the edges of their fields for the poor:

"When you reap the harvest of your land, moreover, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field nor gather the gleaning of your harvest; you are to leave them for the needy and the alien."

Gleaning is a modern-day practice as well–some farmers supplement payment to their field workers by allowing them to glean the harvest, for example. Can you share with us some modern examples of gleaning? In the meantime, we're off to watch French New Wave director Agnes Varda's 2001 movie by that name….

Slugs and Snails are Friends

by Slow Food USA staffer Julia De Martini Day

Our beloved Snail seems to have a new (or long lost) friend in the Slug. This morning on NPR, car-pooling commuters – aka slugs – were interviewed about why they choose to find rides with strangers to speed their trips to work up rather than drive their own cars. Car-pooling allows them to ride in the fast, HOV lane (High occupancy vehicle) and save money on gas. This is not your iconic stand on the side of the road thumb in the air hitch-hiking though. It is an organized activity with its own website.

So aside from the Snail and the Slug both being part of the Mollusk family – what is the connection to Slow Food USA? Images of slow creatures helping us decrease our environmental impact a little faster!

Bart Simpson Has a Cow

While network television is rarely a topic of discussion here, Sunday night's episode of "The Simpsons" proves that awareness of industrial agriculture practices might be growing in the minds of Americans. When Bart joins 4-H (it's slogan on the show: "4-H: it's still a thing") in order to drive a combine, he finds himself caring for Lou, a runt calf, for a competition at the county fair. What Bart learns when Lou wins the blue ribbon, though, is that first prize means a first-class trip to the feedlot and the killing floor.

Of course, this being "The Simpsons," a plot to save Lou is hatched and hilarity ensues. In this case, Bart doesn't "have a cow, man," he saves a cow. But before the happy ending, we head to the feedlot where hundreds of cattle are literally stacked on top of one another and Lou is found bloated with growth hormones. That's not to say that the episode ends in serious reflection or comment (Lou is sent to India to escape slaughter, after all), but the fact that the writers took on the subject may serve as a small sign that some messages about big agriculture are beginning to take root in our culture.

And it's true, by the way, 4-H is still a thing. In fact, it's a thing that has—in Sonoma County at least—a connection to Slow Food. Slow Food Russian River has helped establish a 4-H heritage breeds club, one that is helping to reintroduce heritage turkey breeds into the marketplace. This past November the convivium and the 4-H members processed and distributed 200 turkeys in the Russian River area. So heads up, Bart! Sending the cow to India is one way to "save" it, but if you want to save the whole breed, you've got to (as Slow Food USA Ark of Taste Committee Chair Poppy Tooker would say) eat it to save it! Just ask the kids at 4-H in Sonoma….

Food riots make the front page

Riots in Haiti, in response to the inflation of food prices, have brought this issue of rising food prices around the world to the front page. Riots such as these have taken place in Egypt, Cameroon, Senegal etc. and are at risk of occurring in 33 more countries, The Wall Street Journal reported today. The IMF Board of Governors is calling for an "integrated response" from the World Bank and the IMF to what has become an untenable situation for many poor countries. Although, as we mentioned in last Tuesday's post, there are several contributing factors to this rise in food prices, everyone seems to agree that the United States' obsession with biofuels is partly to blame.

* This article on WSJ.com is only able to be viewed by non-subscribers for a few more days.

As We Sow

Slow Food USA Board member, Jim Braun, was one of the subjects of a documentary a few years back on the disappearance of the family farm. It's a short, simple, and very effective film in three parts that discusses how small farmers in Iowa were squeezed out, with a focus on the small hog farmer being coopted by the CAFO. It was recently posted on YouTube; check it out.

Midweek Movies

Does Thursday count as mid-week? Let's say it does.

Movie #1: GMO corn ruins a perfectly good party.

Movie #2: Taste Education.

Ye Olde Radio

For those of you still charmed by the simple pleasure of ye olde radio, please take note of "The Food Chain," (not to be confused with Slow Food USA's monthly email newsletter of the same name).

Each week, host Michael Olson explores topics ranging from farms in the city to humanely raised animals, and encourages listeners to call in and get engaged in the conversation. You can listen live on the radio, or via your computer, or download a podcast after the fact. It's good stuff, but you might want to think twice about listening to the recent show about what happens behind restaurant kitchen doors…!

As described on their website:

The Food Chain is an audience-interactive newstalk radio program that airs live on Saturdays from 9am to 10am Pacific time. The Food Chain, which has been named the Ag/News Show of the Year by California's legislature, is hosted by Michael Olson, author of the Ben Franklin Book of the Year award-winning MetroFarm, a 576-page guide to metropolitan agriculture.

Check it out.