Farm to Restaurant Partnership Workshop
Post Date: January 27, 2010
On Monday, February 1, Slow Food First Coast is hosting a breakfast and workshop to learn more about successful farm partnerships from those in the field! This is a free seminar to bring together local farmers, ranchers, artisans, and local restaurants. Space is limited.
Some of the topics covered will be:
• Reasons to make the effort to establish local partnerships.
• How to find farmers, ranchers, and artisans.
• How to make crop plans.
• The process of ordering and receiving the products.
• The significance of locally grown food.
Key-note Speakers will feature:
• Nan Kavanaugh of 29 South Restaurant in Fernandina
• Genie Kepner of Du Jour Market and Catering in St. Augustine
• Chef David Bearl of the Culinary School at First Coast Technical College
• David Dinkins, Director of the St. Johns County Extension Service
Please view the event website HERE!
Winterfest 2010 - January 14, 15, & 16, 2010
Post Date: January 07, 2010
Join the chefs and students of the First Coast Technical College as we heat up our kitchens with a bevy of competitions. This is our 15th annual competition! It is hard to believe we’ve been at it so long, so come join us and help make this the best round of competitions ever!
As in years past we begin with an ice-breaker reception on the evening of Thursday the 14th. Then on the 15th the Junior Member teams will do their Skills Salon and heat up the kitchens. On Saturday the 16th both students and professionals get to compete. Professional chefs will do the Pro-Chef Signature Hot Food Challenge – Category K and students have the opportunity to show their skills by doing the SK-1 competition. This is the first year we’ve done the SK category and it should be a lot of fun. While the pros and students work in the kitchens the Salon participants will wow us with their incredible creations.
Awards receptions will be held on Friday the 15th for the Junior Member teams. At noon on Saturday the 16th the Salon awards will be presented. The Pro-Chef Signature Hot Food Challenge and SK-1 awards will be presented as soon as the judging of this event is finished.
As in past years we will roll out the southern hospitality and make sure participants and quests alike will be well fed. We plan to make this the best event we’ve ever done so please get your reservations in. Space may be limited and is based on a first come, first entered basis.
We can’t wait to see you again!
David S. Bearl, CCC, CCE
Program Director
FCTC School of Culinary Arts
2980 Collins Avenue
St. Augustine, Florida 32084
904-547-3460
Fax: 904-547-3459
E-mails: david.bearl@fctc.edu; rotachef@yahoo.com
Slow Food Field Trip~ 29 South!
Dear Snails,
I am excited to announce a Slow Food field trip to 29 South Restaurant in Fernandina Beach on Saturday, October 17, for a special lunch date with Chef Scotty Schwartz and his lovely wife Nan Kavanaugh, the masterminds and gracious hosts behind North Florida's premier farm to table dining establishment. Together they have created an outstanding network of small family farms from our region that supply the restaurant with extraordinary ingredients that Chef Scotty allows to shine simply yet elegantly.
I was blown away by the freshness and tantilizing flavors of the dishes at 29 South and was impressed by the vibrant garden Nan lovingly tends to a stone's throw from the eatery's kitchen out back. You can learn more about the restaurant's philosophy and drool over the menu at www.29southrestaurant.com.
I hope you will join me for this delicious event, which will also include a visit to Fernandina Beach's wonderful Saturday morning farmers' market.
Please RSVP to me by Thursday, Oct 8, so that I may reserve your space, which is limited.
Lincolnville's Community Garden Update
Hello CitySprouters,
Progress continues on the Lincolnville Community Garden (LCG). The LCG construction crew is busy installing the gardens infrastructure. So far, we've installed the perimeter fence, filled and leveled the site, and are set to complete the education pavilion this week. We have available funds to complete the raised garden boxes and install the edible grove. However, we will need to raise more money in order to complete the gardens tool shed.
The LCG recently applied for a $2,000 Brighter Planet Micro Grant. The goal of the Brighter Planet Grant Fund is to seed worthy projects that will help communities reduce their carbon footprint. The LCG will allow neighbors to effectively reduce their personal carbon footprint, while participating in a social and recreational activity. The garden is also already inspiring neighbors to garden in their own backyards, further reducing our community¹s carbon footprint.
The garden needs your help to win this grant!!! It's a very easy way to help. Follow the 3 steps below.
1) Visit the following link
http://brighterplanet.com/project_fund_projects/22
2) Select the "Sign up" link. Then enter your email, create a user name and password. That's all that is required.
3) Each Brighter Planet community member is given THREE votes. You can apply all THREE votes to the Lincolnville Community Garden.
The more votes we get the better chance we have at obtaining the grant. So please spread the word or forward this e-mail to anyone that you think might be interested. We very much appreciate your time in voting to award the Lincolnville Community Garden a Brighter Planet Grant.
Please visit citysprout.org to learn more about our communities gardening endeavor.
Be the Seed, Sprout a Garden!
-Cash
citysprout.org
September Membership Drive
Dear friend,
Slow Food First Coast is part of a growing movement that needs you. On Labor Day, more than 20,000 people came together across the country to show their support for getting real food in school. You are helping us send a powerful message to decision makers that this is a movement of people who think it's time to change what kids eat at the lunch table. Thank you to so many of you who already support us through your participation and membership.
To keep building momentum and change our food system, we are counting on you to be part of our local chapter. If you're not yet a member, you can join the organization with a donation of any amount through September 30. Give more if you can and less if you can’t. The point is – we want you with us. Membership normally starts at $60, so please visit http://www.slowfoodusa.org/growthemovement so you can take advantage of this offer and join today.
Your support will help legislators take notice of our cause, and your involvement in our chapter will make a difference. Please join us.
Thank you,
Richard Villadoniga
Chapter Leader
Slow Food First Coast to Host a Time for Lunch Eat-In
SEND A MESSAGE TO CONGRESS THAT REAL FOOD FOR SCHOOL LUNCHES IS A NECESSITY TO MAKE OUR CHILDREN HEALTHY
Who: Slow Food First Coast, the local chapter of Slow Food USA.
What: Slow Food First Coast, the local chapter of Slow Food USA, is planning an Eat-In, or a public potluck, to draw attention to the need for Congress to pass a better Child Nutrition Act that brings real food to schools. Our Eat-In is part of a National Day of Action when thousands of people across the country will share a meal to demonstrate our commitment to getting real food in school lunches.
Where:
Florida Agricultural Museum
7900 Old Kings Road
Palm Coast, Florida 32137
When: Labor Day, September 7, 2009 12pm – 2pm
Why: In a time of escalating obesity and diabetes epidemics, our schools are serving children precisely the fast food and junk food that endangers their health. This year, Congress can give schools the resources to serve real food by:
• Increasing school lunch reimbursements by $1/child/day in this year’s Child Nutrition Act. Providing real food at school is a down payment on health care reform.
• Protect against food that threatens children’s health.
• Teach children healthy habits that will last through life.
Join parents, teachers, farmers, and legislators in sending a message to Congress that getting real food in schools is a national priority and it needs to happen now.
Vist the Slow Food USA website to read the national press release. While you are there, read their platform and sign their petition to tell Congress that CHANGE CAN'T WAIT! It's time to provide America's children with REAL FOOD at school.
Please RSVP or contact:
Tracy Chamberlain
Slow Food First Coast
tchamberlain71@gmail.com
For more information and to help spread the word, please follow the link Time for Lunch!
August 19, 2009
Dear Snails,
On Monday, September 7th, Labor Day, Slow Food First Coast will be joining almost 300 other Slow Food chapters across the country in hosting an Eat In, or community potluck, as part of the Time for Lunch campaign to call on Congress to update the National School Lunch Programs standards, which govern what food millions of school children are served daily, where it comes from, and how it gets there.
Our local event will take place at the Florida Agricultural Museum in Flagler County just south of the St. Johns County line on US1 from Noon to 2PM. We have invited elected officials and school board members and we are hoping for a big turnout from parents and children from across the community. We will share a meal and ask those attending (including children) to sign petitions asking Congress to increase funding for better school food. We will also have some fun activities planned for the children in attendance.
I want to thank Tracy Chamberlain for doing an outstanding job in organizing this event over the summer while I was away. She and a handful of Slow Food members have done a tremendous amount of behind-the-scenes work and I owe them a debt of gratitude.
We need you to step up and help out at this event because this is a golden opportunity to truly make a difference in our children's lives. The time is right for Congress to act and they need to hear from us that we believe the next generation deserves food that is good, clean, and fair.
Can I count on you to help the day of the event? We are looking for people to help setup, serve food, and cleanup afterwards. It should not be a big burden. Please let me know if you can help out at the event.
I also need each of you to attend this event and bring a friend who has kids or is a teacher or is somehow involved in education. I need you to spread the word and promote the event to neighbors, church members, civic groups, anyone in the community that might be interested. We need to demonstrate that this is an issue that affects everyone and that the community supports it. I have attached a flyer for you to print out and hand out to anyone you think might want to join us for the event.
Please read the recent article (here) about what a great opportunity this is to bring about change in our school lunch program. And thanks for all you do!
Richard
Beaches Local Food Network News
Update from Gretchen Ferrell
June.11.2009
Greetings Locavores! Happy Thursday!
The weekend is just around the corner and a rockin' market is in store for us! Get out those bikes & bike baskets, put on your bathing suit and hit up the beaches, locavore style! (ummm, I guess that means hit up the Green Market for some local food goodness, bring your tasty melons & peaches to the beach, have a refreshing swim, then cook a delicious meal with friends and family! ... or something to that nature...)
Before I share with you all the excitements of this week's market, I want to share a heart warming and heart breaking 2009 commencement speech. How can something be both hearth warming and hear breaking you ask? Well, before I read this speech I wouldn't have imagined it possible, but it brought tears to my eyes while reading it, and afterwards I felt incredible faith in our future and strong like a lion for being alive in these times with the ability to shift our world!
"Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation... but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don't poison the water, soil, or air, don't let the earth get overcrowded, and don't touch the thermostat have been broken." Read more here.
If you like Paul Hawken, check out his other books "Blessed Unrest" and "The Ecology of Commerce". Fantastic.
In this week's news...
Green Market This Week!
News & Views
Green Market This Week!
Yummy Foods & Exciting Guest Vendors!
That's right! We have a full Market this week, with several of our favorite vendors and also a couple new vendors! I'll jump right in to the yummy details...
FRESH MAYPORT SHRIMP & RED SNAPPER!
A new local company, Swimming Yesterday Seafood, will make their debut at the Green Market this week, bringing delicious seafood, fresh from Mayport! Lucky for us coastal dwellers, we have the added perk of seafood in our local food cuisine!
POMEGRANATE GREEN ICED TEA!
Blessing us with unsweetened, delicious flavors of iced tea in the summer and hot tea in the winter, Simple Specialties is sure to quench our thirst. What a perfect compliment to those tasty pita sandwiches! I'd like to recommend getting lunch at the Green Market and eating it in the shade & comfort of the Community Garden picnic tables. Please feel free to do so! Just pack out your trash...
SWEETGRASS DAIRY-- Last chance to show them we love them!
Sweetgrass Dairy is coming out this week, with their amazing selection of local, all-natural artisan goat & cow's milk cheeses. They are using this week as a trial to see if it's worth it for them to drive down from Georgia to our Market once a month. If you value their cheese, be sure to vote with your dollars for them to come back!
We have a couple vendors who are on our waiting list coming out this weekend, including Linda Jones with her "upcycled" jewelry (upcycled is when you reuse something to make it more useful than it was before, which usually means it was destined for the landfill). Eden's Leaf will also be there with their soaps and possibly organic cotton baby slings!
Because of the continuing rains and inevitable rotting of plants, Musickal Acres will not be back this week. To quote Scott, "I thought I was flood out two weeks ago, but I was wrong. After two more weeks of rain I now know what flooded out means." They are working on replanting though and plan to return June 20th. We have most likely seen the end of Down to Earth Farm for the summer -- we anxiously await their return in the fall! Just to fill you in, when organic farming, it's vital to let your soil rest during the down season, which is high summer here in Florida. At this point, you plant a cover crop, which is a nitrogen fixing plant that will replenish the soil and serve as fantastic green manure or compost material.
We will have fabulous options from Twinn Bridges, NCL Farms & Alvarez Farms this week. Twinn Bridges will have some eggplant, a great selection of hot peppers, squash, squash blossoms, zucchini, spring onions, red & purple new potatoes, carrots, and several types of cucumbers and beans!
News & Views
Florida is highlighted in the Organic Consumers Association newsletter, with it's own page discussing Florida issues--- such as immigrant worker conditions on tomato farms in Immokalee ("ground zero for modern day slavery"), the destructive business of mining phosphate for fertilizer, and more. Feeling up for a little education on some sunshine state issues? Click here.
Our beloved Monsanto and their push for GM Wheat:
Monsanto and the biotech bullies are once again moving to tighten their grip on the world's food supply. Genetically engineered (GE) varieties now account for 70-90% of all conventional (non-organic) corn, soybeans, cotton, and canola grown in the U.S. Joining the growing menu of unlabeled and untested gene-spliced Frankenfoods, genetically engineered sugar (derived from GE sugar beets) hit store shelves in 2008. Now it appears that the most controversial crop of them all, Monsanto's GE wheat, is not far behind, at least if industry gets its way. Given that wheat is such a major global crop and essential ingredient in bread, breakfast cereals, pasta and other everyday foods, the force-feeding of unlabeled GE wheat on the public would represent a major conquest for Monsanto and the biotech industry. Learn more & take action here.
Okay fabulous people of the beaches-- I hope to see you this weekend!
Best,
Gretchen Ferrell
www.BeachesLocalFoodNetwork.org
Zucchini Gleaning Wednesday & Saturday
Update from Sandi Newman June 9, 2009
Greetings Gleaners!
I spoke to the farmer at Heartland Organics in White Springs today and
we will be gleaning zucchini on Wednesday and Saturday! We plan to
meet at the State Farmer's Market parking lot at 8:30 a.m. The
Suwannee Valley-White Springs State Farmers Market is located at 2758
County Road 136, White Springs, Florida 32096. You get there by taking
I-10 west to I-75 and then take I-75 north for one exit. You will get
off the expressway and come to a stop sign. You will be facing a
McDonalds. Turn left and follow the signs for the State Farmer's
Market.
You will need to bring garden gloves and a hand clipper or small knife
to cut the zucchini fruit from the plant. Squash leaves and stems
sometimes have spiny hairs which can be irritating to skin so I would
suggest wearing long pants and maybe even bringing a long sleeved
shirt (for bugs as much as the plants). Bug spray is a good idea, even
more so now that mosquitos are everywhere, bottled water and a hat and
sunscreen for sun protection.
Please bring boxes and plastic shopping bags if you have them.
I would like to get an idea of how many folks will be gleaning with
us, so please respond to this e-mail if you plan to attend.
Blessings,
Sandi
Sandi Newman
NE FL area coordinator
Society of St. Andrew Gleaning Network
(904) 307-0914 (cell)
Local Gleaning Opportunities
Sandi Newman has potato gleanings scheduled on Wednesdays 6/10, 6/17 and 6/24, and every Saturday through 6/27. There are other potential gleanings as well, please inquire. Everyone is encouraged to join in the gleaning effort and your participation is greatly appreciated.
Everyone that gleans with us must sign a Gleaning Waiver Form, and anyone under 18 has to have a parent/guardian sign theirs. To Download a Gleaning Waiver Form: go to www.endhunger.org, or click here for the Gleaning Waiver in PDF format.
If you are interested in helping out, please contact Sandi Newman directly.
Anastasia Books hosts “Celebrating Hastings”
The St. Augustine June 5 Art Walk from 5:00-9:00 pm at 81-C King Street Saint Augustine
Jim Quine wil exhibit his photographs of migrant workers, taken in Hastings in February 2009. Qunie uses his skill as a photographer to make the public more aware of the contributions of the local farming community to our quality of life. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Harvest of Hope Foundation and Slow Food Fist Coast. All sales of art and books benefit the artist or author directly.
Michael Mitchell will display the pottery made by children in the O..U.R. after-school program in Hastings , sponsored by Communities in Schools. Kim Bradley will sign the newly published book of the poetry written by children in the Hastings O.U.R. program.
Dr. Brian Schoonover, assistant principal at Southwoods Elementary School , will premiere his new book Zero Tolerance Discipline Policies.
The Slow Food organization will be on hand to help local residents learn how to get fresh produce from local farmers for better personal nutrition and to sustain local producers.
Refreshments for the evening are provided by Johnnie’s Café in Hastings .
The children’s art from the ACE afternoon program at the West Augustine American Legion Post will be on display. The Ace Program is supported by the St. Johns Cultural Council.
Come by and celebrate local children’s talent, the joy of fresh food, and the works and dedication of authors and artists who bring to St. Augustine a unique view of the resources and potential of Hastings from 5:00-9:00 pm at 81-C King Street Saint Augustine.
Urge Governor Charlie Crist to Veto SB 360
(Hurry! June 2nd is your last chance!)
BACKGROUND ON SB 360: Amendments attached to SB 360 at the last minute allow a city or county to bypass the normal comprehensive plan amendment process and oversight by the state’s Department of Community Affairs. By establishing an “urban service area” a local government can avoid state review of large scale development projects under the Development of Regional Impact (DRI) process. Review by state planners often stops environmentally destructive projects. Under the new so-called “alternative state review” a land use decision by a city or county would only receive cursory review by the Department of Community Affairs. Once an “urban service area” is established, the state’s DRI process would cease to apply. This would allow large scale residential, commercial and industrial developments to escape state scrutiny.
This legislation was originally designed to encourage growth in existing “dense urban areas” by easing development restrictions in urban settings. Unfortunately, the House added bad last minute amendments that created a giant loophole in state planning laws that will drastically reduce state growth management safeguards perhaps even in rural areas.
(850) 488-4441 or email charlie.crist@myflorida.com
Help Sprout the First Community Garden in Saint Augustine
CitySprout.org is a nonprofit grassroots, community organization working to create a productive network of community gardens throughout the neighborhoods of St. Augustine, Florida.
City Sprouts primary goal is for gardening to become an integral component of each neighborhood by offering an activity that increases social interaction. The garden will also create awareness that producing food locally is an effective energy conservation program, as well as a vital component to enhance our community's sustainability.
For more information on community gardening and the efforts of City Sprout, visit citysprout.org.
International Potato Art Show
The 2nd Annual International Potato Art Show will be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 23rd at Johnny's Kitchen, Hastings. Along with potato-based art by 25 artists from around the world, art will be featured by students at OUR Center.
Chad Hutchinson, a potato expert from UF/IFAS, will present a lecture at 10 a.m., and a concert by blues artist Willie Green Blues Band will be at noon.
Sebago French fries will be available, as will made-from-scratch sweet potato pies, at $5 for a large and $2 for a small. All proceeds will go to support the Hastings Youth Athletic Club. Go to potatoartshow or e-mail potatoartshow
@yahoo.com