Late Notice: Growing Mushrooms at Home

Learn to grow your own mushrooms with Marta Teegan of Homegrown and David Kahn of Sustainable Habitats and the Los Angeles Mycological Society:

When: Saturday, November 8, 2008 from 10:00am-noon
Where: Location in Los Angeles; address provided with registration
Cost: $50 per person

The surest way to grow mushrooms at home is with a mushroom kit, which makes a great winter project. Depending on the kit, you can grow several types of mushrooms in a matter of weeks, including oysters and shiitake, as well as various button mushrooms. Learn how to start and care for mushrooms and about sources for growing kits. A limited number of kits will be available for purchase on Saturday. 

To register and for more information: Email marta [at] homegrownlosangeles [dot] com.

Batches of Jam--and Friends--at the Public Fruit Jam

Thanks to Mindy Farabee of the Los Angeles Times for reporting on the Public Fruit Jam held on Sunday at the Machine Project in Echo Park:

As pots of concoctions such as fig-lemon-lavender bubbled on portable burners, about 250 participants moved between indoor and outdoor tables with red-checked tablecloths, forming small jam-making bands. They chopped and stirred their syrupy creations, then poured them into mason jars.

Although instructors handed out tips about pectin and bindings, the cooking at times turned into gleeful hands-on experimentation.

Read the complete article online.

Tomatomania! Tasting

The passionate organizers of Tomatomania! invite those of you enjoying your homegrown tomatoes to join them and other tomatomaniacs for a Tomatomania! Tasting:

When: Saturday, August 9, 2008 from 10:00am until 12:00noon
Where: The new Loteria Grill in Hollywood, 6627 Hollywood Boulevard
Cost: One perfectly ripe, correctly labeled homegrown tomato

The tasting will be an opportunity to share what you've grown and get a taste of what's been ripening all over Los Angeles this summer. Jimmy Shaw, chef and owner of Loteria Grill, is graciously hosting the event. Share your stories of the season, taste what all that care and water have produced, and get great ideas from Jimmy Shaw on how to best use this season's crop.

Late Notice: Fallen Fruit Project Event in Los Angeles

Thanks to Judi Bikel for spotting information on the Slow Food Nation blog about an event tomorrow, August 3, in the Los Angeles area.

The Fallen Fruit project in cooperation with The Machine Project has organized the Third Public Fruit Jam. The Public Fruit Jam invites Los Angeles residents to come together and make jam with fruit harvested and collection from their own yards:

The kinds of jam we make will improvise on the fruit that the participants provide. The fruit can be fresh or frozen. Fallen Fruit will bring public fruit. We are looking for radical and experimental jams as well, like basil guava or lemon pepper jelly. We’ll discuss the basics of jam and jelly making, pectin and bindings, the aesthetics of sweetness, as well as the communal power of shared food and the liberation of public fruit.

Jamming will take place at The Machine Project in Echo Park, 1200 Alvarado Street, from noon to 3pm.

More information about The Machine Project is available on its website. More information on Fallen Fruit, and about their cooperative project to map public fruit in the Los Angeles area, is available on the Fallen Fruit website.

The Slow Food Nation Victory Garden Takes Root

In the first event of Slow Food Nation, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Alice Waters, and Anya Fernald, executive director of Slow Food Nation, officially opened the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden at the San Francisco Civic Center on July 12. Coordinators and more than 250 volunteers worked to transform the heart of the Civic Center into an ornamental edible garden. Naomi Starkman's description of the day can be found on the Slow Food Nation blog.

Planted on the same site as a World War II-era garden in 1943, the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden features a a wide variety of heritage organic vegetables suited to the Bay Area microclimate. All food grown in the garden will be harvested and donated to those with limited access to healthy organic produce through Slow Food Nation's partnership with local food banks and meals programs.

Amy Franceschini, the founder of Victory Gardens 2008+ and one of the coordinators of the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden, answers the question, what does a "victory" garden mean in 2008?

What do we want to be cultivating as urban farmers today? As you are well aware, "Victory," for the WWI and WWII Victory Garden programs was "winning the war." Winning the war by growing more food at home so that the nation could send more food overseas to support the war effort.

"Victory" for the Victory Garden 2008 program is independence from a food system whose values we do not support. "Victory" for the Victory Garden program is reducing the food miles associated with the average American meal by growing more food locally. "Victory" is building an alternative to the American industrial food system, which we view as injurious to ourselves, and to the planet. In this way we redefine Victory within the pressing context of urban sustainability, while building upon the previously successful Victory Garden model.

I had my reservations about keeping the name Victory Gardens, but it is something that people across a wide spectrum understand. If we are going to truly cultivate a large-scale food revolution it must be popular. The name gives us a chance to discuss gardening in a time of war. The problematics inherent in the title opens up space for conversation, like this one! If it were called "Happy Gardens" like one city official proposed, maybe we would be denying ourselves from looking at some of the darker realities associated with food policy.

(Read the complete interview on the Slow Food Nation site.)

For more comments on the Victory Garden and on the events of July 12, including some criticisms of the garden's cost and questions about its stated goals see Marc R.'s excellent post on The Ethicurean (with photos). And for photos, information, and commentary about the development of the garden, visit the Victory Garden segment of the Slow Food Nation blog, which will have updates as the garden grows.

We're looking forward to sharing more news about urban farming with Slow Food Los Angeles members and friends. As a counterpoint to the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden--visually and geographically--Slow Food member Carol Goldstein noted that readers interested in urban gardening may also be intrigued by the P.F.1 project that opened in Queens (NY) in late June. Built entirely from recycled materials, 100% solar powered, and irrigated with collected rainwater, P.F.1 aims to educate visitors about sustainable urban farming in the context of contemporary architecture. Don't miss the time-lapse film of P.F.1's construction: an excellent example of how a space can be transformed in less than a month. A bit of P.F.1's history is also available in a New York Times article about the project.