For Slow Food members and friends in the community:
† Slow Food Nation, the four-day event originally announced for May 2008, has been changed to Labor Day weekend, August 29 through September 1, 2008.
The Slow Food Nation team changed the date in response to input from farmers who were eager to show their produce at its peak in late summer, as well as opportunities to use some of San Francisco's most emblematic public spaces, including Fort Mason on San Francisco Bay and the Civic Center Plaza in the heart of the city.
Information will be made available here and on the Slow Food Nation website, but mark your calendars in the meantime!
† Slow Food USA has just launched the Slow Food USA blog, now available at www.slowfoodblog.org. The blog is already a source of articles, opinions and commentary, and news, and we encourage you to take a look and visit it frequently.
† Something GOOD for Slow Food: Slow Food USA has also announced a partnership with GOOD as part of GOOD's partnership program with 12 nonprofit organizations. The monthly magazine focuses on social, political, and environmental issues, and will donate 100% of its subscription revenue to nonprofit groups. If you sign up for a subscription to GOOD you can designate your $20 subscription fee to Slow Food USA, a win-win situation. Visit the subscription page and consider adding GOOD to your monthly reading list.
† Slow Food's Fifth International Congress was held from November 8-11 in Puebla, Mexico and brought together nearly 600 delegates from over 130 countries to discuss business issues and strategies and to explore new opportunities for cooperation among Slow Food's national organizations. Southern California was represented by four delegates, and highlights and information will be posted shortly.
Although we did not promote particular sources for Heritage and locally-raised turkeys this year, we have recently received inquiries regarding the availability of such turkeys as we approach the holiday.
Two California sources have been brought to our attention, so if you're still seeking a special bird, you may wish to contact one or both to confirm availability:
++ Steve Fields and Sims Brannon, coleaders of Slow Food Ojai, have alerted us that Sharon Ann Palmer of Healthy Family Farms has locally raised turkeys available for Thanksgiving. The turkeys will range from 16-20 lbs, 20-24 lbs and 24 lbs and over. They will be processed fresh and will delivered to farmers' markets in Ventura and Ojai this weekend (November 17 and 18). Vacuum packed, they will stay fresh in the refrigerator for 7 days. The price will be $3.50/lb and orders will be taken this week by calling Sharon at 805.421.3301. They can be delivered either to the Saturday Ventura market or Sunday Ojai market. (Additional note: Greta Dunlap of the Beverly Hills Farmers' Market emailed to let us know that Sharon is also a regular at the Beverly Hills Market, so if Ojai or Ventura seem too far to go for your turkey, don't hesitate to contact Sharon and ask if turkeys will be available on the west side this weekend.)
++ Jim Reichardt of Sonoma County Poultry may also have turkeys available. A Slow Food member and fourth-generation duck farmer, Jim has informed us that he has a limited number of turkeys that will be available for shipment in the coming days to individuals. For information about availability and cost, please contact Jim directly by email to scpducks [at] aol [dot] com or by phone at 800.953.8257.
It might not be your everyday choice for coffee, but Intelligentsia Coffee is offering coffee lovers the opportunity to sample Geisha coffee from Hacienda la Esmeralda, which was purchased last May by Intelligentsia at auction.
This coffee won Best of Panama in 2004, 2005, 2006, and again this year in 2007 and garnered $130 per pound, the highest amount ever paid for coffee at auction. On November 15th, Los Angelenos will have a chance to taste this storied brew and judge for themselves whether it measures up.
When: Thursday, November 15, 2007, beginning at 7:00pm
Where: Intelligentsia Coffee in Silver Lake, 3922 West Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles
Cost: Free. Reservations are not required.
Intelligentsia Coffee Buyer Geoff Watts will present Hacienda la Esmeralda. Guests will receive samples of this unique and rare coffee, freshly brewed to order on Intelligentsia's Clover coffee machine. Hors d'oeuvres and wine will also be served.
Additionally, a very limited quantity of the auction-winning Esmeralda will be available for purchase at the event and for a short time following. The coffee will sell for $99.00 per half pound and $55.00 per quarter pound.
This Saturday, Evan Kleiman's "Good Food" broadcast on KCRW will include Evan's conversation with Edward Espe Brown: chef, Zen practitioner, cookbook author, and the subject of the recently released documentary, How to Cook Your Life. Tune in to the conversation this Saturday (November 10) at 11:00am on KCRW (89.9 FM) or listen after the broadcast at your leisure via KCRW.com.
Tickets are still available for the screening of How to Cook Your Life on Friday, November 16, which will be followed by a Q&A with Edward Espe Brown at the Laemmle Sunset 5 theatre. (For more information about the screening, review our previous posts here and here.)
† Dan Owens is live-blogging the Senate debates on the Farm bill on the Blog for Rural America.
† C-SPAN.org carries House and Senate sessions on their website for those interested in the debates who have the time and bandwidth to tune in. (If so, you may wish to check out Dan's blog, noted above, for a sense of whether the Farm Bill debate is ongoing, or whether the Senate is discussing other matters.)
† Nicole Gaouette writes in today's Los Angeles Times about murmurs of a Farm Bill veto. Seems no one's happy with the Farm Bill's current state.
† Carolyn Lochhead of the San Francisco Chronicle also covers the debate, noting that
California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both Democrats, have not yet taken positions on the bill. "I think it's real clear that Boxer and Feinstein are really crucial swing votes," said Mark Lipson, policy program director for the Organic Farming Research Foundation in Santa Cruz. "It could really come down to them making the difference."Telephone numbers for Senators Feinstein and Boxer were noted in yesterday's post: Many Slow Food supporters are contacting these senators to voice support for the Dorgan-Grassley Amendment (which caps subsidy payments to $250,000 per farmer), for the Brown-Durban Amendment (which affects the average crop revenue program), and the Lugar-Lautenberg Amendment (aka The Fresh Act, which expands crop insurance to farmers whose incomes are less than $250,000 per year and benefiting all farmers, regardless of the type of crop grown). The Lugar-Lautenberg Amendment is also a sharp attack on subsidy payments and would eliminate millions (some say billions) of dollars in such payments.
† The Week of the Farm Bill: This week represents a crucial time in the Farm Bill debate. Whether you contacted your representative or senators earlier in the debate or postponed making a call or sending a fax, now is the time to do so, or to do so again.
† "Weed It and Reap": Today's New York Times features an op-ed by Michael Pollan and it's a must-read:
On Capitol Hill, hearings on the farm bill have been packed, and newspapers like The San Francisco Chronicle are covering the legislation as closely as The Des Moines Register, bringing an unprecedented level of attention to what has long been one of the most obscure and least sexy pieces of legislation in Congress. Sensing the winds of reform at his back, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, told a reporter in July: "This is not just a farm bill. It's a food bill, and Americans who eat want a stake in it."Read the complete piece on the New York Times site.Right now, that stake is looking more like a toothpick. Americans who eat have little to celebrate in the bill that Mr. Harkin is expected to bring to the floor this week. Like the House bill passed in July, the Senate product is very much a farm bill in the traditional let-them-eat-high-fructose-corn-syrup mold.
† "Calling Your Senators About the Farm Bill Can Have Unexpected Results": Janet Majure, a resident of Kansas and a contributor to The Ethicurean (an excellent source of Farm Bill information if you haven't already bookmarked it), writes about the experience telephoning her senators about the Farm Bill:
I think I was wrong, though, about the power of the phone call. In fact, it may be the best way to make an impression for those of us who don’t have money to gain access through contributions. Think about it. Emails are easy to ignore; how many do you delete a day? I suspect email drives by various organizations are interesting by not hugely persuasive because they’re relatively easy to accomplish.But not that many people are willing to make the phone calls. It’s uncomfortable. It's intimidating. And the politicians and their staff know it. That means that your voice, unless you're ranting, makes a significantly bigger impression. Try it. Ask the name of the staff person in charge of the topic, and then ask to speak to that person. You might get through. It’s our best chance right now.
† Making Those Calls: For Slow Food Los Angeles members and friends in California:
Senator Feinstein: 202.224.3841Although the action this week is largely in the Senate, it is also important to remember that House and Senate versions of the Farm Bill will need to be harmonized. With that in mind, we also recommend a call to Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, to say that we want Speaker Pelosi to push for real reform and substantial funding of programs that serve specialty crops, nutrition, food security, organic research and transition, and conservation programs. We appreciate the Speaker's boldness on other national and international issues, and now ask for her to continue her bold stance on the fundamental issue of how America eats. Speaker Pelosi's office number is 202.225.4965. (Thanks to Michael Dimock of Roots of Change for the reminder of the upcoming committee work.)
Senator Boxer: 202.224.3553
For our readers outside California, telephone and other contact information for your senators is available here.
† "Cost of Cheap Food on the Nation's Health": The cost of food is often a subject of debate, and Slow Food has been criticized for promoting food choices that are deemed by some to be expensive, elite, or otherwise out of the reach of the "average" consumer. One effect of the Farm Bill debate has been to bring into sharper focus how much it costs to bring such "cheap" food to the market, and how the real price--in terms of the health of our citizens, the health of our environment, and the health of our social network--is far higher than supermarket prices suggest. For one view of the cost of food and the proportion of our income we allot to it, the San Francisco Chronicle featured a contribution by Barb Stuckey, a v.p. of marketing with a food product development company. (As noted in the article, you can also listen to an audio interview with Barb Stuckey and Michael Pollan here.
As previously announced, we invite you to join Slow Food LA for a special showing of the new film How to Cook Your Life followed by a question-and-answer session with Chef Edward Espe Brown:
When: Friday, November 16, 2007: Screening begins at 7:30pm, Q&A to follow.
Where: Laemmle Sunset 5 at 8000 Sunset Boulevard
Cost: $10.00 per person.
Advance tickets will be available for purchase through Slow Food LA. Seating will be limited.
Slow Food Los Angeles is pleased to inaugurate our relationship with Brown Paper Tickets and will be pre-selling tickets for the screening. Visit the Slow Food Los Angeles page on the Brown Paper Tickets site for information about how to reserve your seats. Slow Food Los Angeles ticketholders will be asked to check in outside the theatre to receive your admission ticket before the screening begins.
Edward Espe Brown has been practicing Zen since 1965 (and yoga since 1980), and has been head resident teacher at each of the San Francisco Zen Centers: Tassajara, Green Gulch, and City Center. He has led meditation retreats and cooking classes throughout the United States, as well as Austria, Germany, Spain, and England.
He is the author of several cookbooks including the groundbreaking Tassajara Bread Book, The Greens Cookbook (with Deborah Madison), the Tassajara Recipe Book, Tassajara Cooking and Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings, and is the editor of Not Always So, a newly published book of lectures by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi.
For more information about How to Cook Your Life, please see our original save-the-date post. You may also wish to view the trailer on the movie's website.
Our Slow Food colleagues in Santa Barbara have asked us to extend the following invitation to members and friends of Slow Food Los Angeles:
"Displaying aromas and flavors of cherry, plum, cedar, and tobacco, with notes of Asian spice." Did you ever wonder exactly what winemakers really mean by designations like these? How can pinot show a "leathery nose" or Syrah taste like "black pepper, plum syrup, and herbs de Provence"? What is the difference in taste between a wine aged in a barrel made of French oak or American oak, or with a medium or heavy toast?
Clos Pepe winemaker Wes Hagen will help demystify the descriptions winemakers give to their finest wines. After a brief introductory talk, we will each have an opportunity to educate both our nose and our palate. Participants will try to match a range of over twenty-five different characteristics noted on a score card with wines that have been specially infused to help us isolate and identify those mysterious aromas and flavors that give our favorite wines their character and complexity. After this, we will be much more confident about our ability to discern the specific flavors within a wine, either from the wine's nose or by tasting it.
But the evening will not be just educational. We will also enjoy a seasonal dinner created by Jeff of New West Catering, accompanied by Clos Pepe wines. Don’t miss this memorable experience at Clos Pepe, a lovely winery that is not generally open to the public.When: Saturday, November 10, 2007, beginning at 4:00pm
Where: Clos Pepe Winery, Lompoc, California
Cost: $80 per person for Slow Food members; $100 per person for nonmembers. Proceeds in excess of costs will be donated to Slow Food Nation.This event is limited to 40 people. To sign up, please send a check payable to Slow Food Santa Barbara to Laurence Hauben, 814 San Roque Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93105. For more information, contact Laurence at sbslowfood [at] verizon [dot] net.
Menu:
Pizzas from the wood-fired pizza oven topped with:
Chanterelle mushrooms, fresh thyme, ricotta, midnight moon;
Caramelized Onion, gorgonzola dolce, arugula;
Duck prosciutto, pasilla chile, grana padana;
Heirloom tomato, mozzarella, basil oil
Autumn Squash Pot Stickers With Black Bean Flavor And Sweet Soy
Charred Rare Ahi Tuna With Butter Lettuce, Avocado, And Ginger-Soy
Braised Berkshire Pork Belly With Apple Relish
A Selection Of Fine Imported And Domestic Cheeses, with Honeycomb, Crostini, Lavash, And Baguette
Grand Marnier Chocolate Truffles
Roasted Pear Crostada With Mascarpone
Scottish Shortbreads