September Membership Drive

Soggy tater tots. Mystery meat. Fast-food pizza and refined sugar.

This is the reality of our children’s school lunches and it is time for some serious change.

On September 7th, people in all 50 states are coming together at nearly 300 “Eat-ins” to show their support for real food in schools. With the National Day of Action just a few days away, we critically need your gift today to help grow our movement and force our legislators to take notice.

And here’s the best part: during the month of September only, your donation of any amount will make you a member of Slow Food USA.

Here’s why we need your support right now. Slow Food USA is working to directly impact national and local food policies. From the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act to the Farm Bill, we will be building alliances, bringing in key industry experts and heading to Washington to demand change.

Our National Day of Action marks the beginning of these efforts. Your gift today will allow us to take immediate action in the days following September 7. With your help, we can turn the power generated by thousands of people attending hundreds of Eat-ins into a movement that makes real impact on America’s food policy. Will you help us grow the movement by becoming a member today?

As a member of Slow Food USA, you’ll enjoy the following benefits:

* Invitations to local, national and international events celebrating good, clean, fair food.
* Member-only discounts on select events and publications.
* Getting connected with your local Slow Food chapter, made up of people who care about food, agriculture, health and the environment.
* Opportunities throughout the year to take action and have an impact on critical legislation affecting food and agriculture in the U.S.

Membership normally starts at $60, but from now until September 30th, your gift of any amount makes you a part of this movement. Give more if you can and less if you can’t. The point is – we want you with us.

Our kids deserve more than mystery meat and our communities need access to fresh, real food. Your support today will help make that happen.

Thanks for your support and we look forward to your involvement! Become a member today by visiting www.slowfoodusa.org/growthemovement.

With thanks,

Josh Viertel
President, Slow Food USA

Two Great Guests at Slow Food RI's Eat-in

Slow Food USA's Time for Lunch launches in just over a week with more than 280 Eat-ins all over the United States.

Here at Slow Food Rhode Island, we're looking forward to an afternoon of good food and great company for a cause at Tiverton Four Corners Arts Center on Monday, September 7 at 2pm.

In addition to pot-luck dining, we are thrilled to have Deborah Lehmann, one of the editors - with Chef Ann Cooper - of School Lunch Talk, and Kimberly Sporkmann of Kids First RI on hand.

Deborah has spent 8 months traveling the United States researching school lunch. She'll share her observations and experiences with us at the Eat-in. 

Kimberly coordinates the Farm to School program for Kids First RI. If you are unfamiliar with Kids First RI, they are very involved in child nutrition and physical well-being throughout the state. In addition to working to get Rhode Island-grown fruits and vegetables into schools, Kids First has a team of chefs who work with food service directors in every district to improve school lunch. This year, Rhode Island has new nutrition requirements that have been mandated. The standards are high and exceed the USDA requirements for whole grains, the amount and variety of fresh fruit and vegetables, and include sodium limits. Kids First works to help school food service change their practices and offerings to meet these new requirements, and also works with schoolchildren to educate them on nutrition and help them adapt to these changes that are being made. 

Please spread the word to your friends, invite them to join you at the Eat-in, and if they are unable to make it, please encourage them to sign the petition and to contact their legislators to let them know that healthy food in schools is important to us all.

If you are able to join us, please rsvp to slowfoodri@gmail.com, and please let us know what dish you'll be bringing. The Eat-in is BYOU - bring your own utensils (and plates, and cups!) - to cut back on waste at the site.

We're looking forward to seeing you there!

You're invited to Slow Food RI's Time for Lunch Eat-in, Monday, September 7

About a month and a half ago, we announced Slow Food USA's new campaign to get healthy food into schools, Time for Lunch.

Time for Lunch aims to change the Child Nutrition Act by letting our legislators know that healthy food in schools is important to us all. The Child Nutrition Act governs the National School Lunch Program, which sets the standard for the food that more than 30 million children eat every school day. In the last few decades, as school budgets have been cut, our nation's schools have struggled to serve children the healthy food they need.

Primary goals of Time for Lunch are to increase the amount allotted for each school lunch by a dollar - from $2.57 to $3.57, to guarantee 50 million dollars in funding for Farm-to-School programs, and to enact high standards for all food sold in schools, including vending machines and fast food outposts.

To read more about the Child Nutrition Act and the National School Lunch program, please visit Slow Food USA's Time for Lunch website.

Slow Food Rhode Island will be kicking off our Time for Lunch campaign efforts - which will continue throughout the fall - with an Eat-in - a pot-luck get-together held on the beautiful grounds of the Tiverton Four Corners Arts Center on Labor Day. As of today, there are 232 Eat-ins planned in 49 states, all taking place on Labor Day.

The Slow Food RI Eat-in will start at 2pm, and in addition to good food, great company, and supporting an important cause, there will also be live music. State legislators and school administrators have been invited to attend as well.

If you are planning to attend the Eat-in, please email slowfoodri@gmail.com to let us know you'll be joining us, and to let us know what dish you're planning to bring. There is no admission for the Eat-in, though donations in any amount are appreciated to offset the facility fees.

If you cannot attend the Slow Food RI Eat-in, please be sure to sign the petition, contact your legislators to let them know that healthy food in schools is important to you, and spread the word to your friends. If you'd like to organize your own Eat-in, information on coordinating Eat-ins is available here.

We look forward to seeing you at the Eat-in!

Details:
Slow Food RI Time for Lunch Eat-in
Monday, September 7, 2009
2pm
Tiverton Four Corners Arts Center
3852 Main Road
Tiverton Four Corners, RI
For directions, click here

It’s Time for Lunch: Slow Food USA Pushes to Get Real Food into Schools

We are thrilled to announce that the Slow Food USA Time for Lunch Campaign is planning more than 100 Community Eat-Ins for National Day of Action on Labor Day, Monday, September 7, 2009.

Today, Slow Food USA launched Time for Lunch, a national campaign to tell Congress to provide America’s children with real food at school. One of the major milestones for the campaign will be orchestrating more than 100 Eat-Ins in communities across the country on Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2009. The Eat-Ins will draw attention to the need for real, healthy food for the more than 30 million children who participate in the National School Lunch Program. The program is part of the Child Nutrition Act that Congress will reauthorize later this year.

“The way we feed our kids is a reflection of our values. We cannot, in good conscience, continue to make our kids sick by feeding them cheap byproducts of an industrial food system,” stated Josh Viertel, president, Slow Food USA. “It is time to give kids real food: food that tastes good, is good for them, is good for the people who grow and prepare it, and is good for the planet.”

With nearly 32 percent of children ages 2 to 19 considered obese or overweight, and one-in-three born since 2000 in jeopardy of developing diabetes in his/her life time, providing schools with real food is a national priority.

The Time for Lunch campaign is asking people everywhere to contact their legislators and tell them to invest in the health of our children by allocating $1 more per day per child for lunch. The USDA currently reimburses schools $2.57 for each meal served to a student who qualified for free lunch – most of this covers labor, equipment and overhead costs – but less than $1 goes toward actual ingredients.

The campaign also seeks to protect against foods that put children at risk by establishing strong standards for all food sold at school, including food from vending machines and school fast food. Right now, children can buy overly processed “fast” foods from vending machines and on-campus stores that sneak under the radar of federal nutrition standards.

Lastly, the campaign is pushing for the government to provide mandatory funding to teach children healthy eating habits through innovative farm-to-school programs and school gardens.

To show your support, sign-on to our petition, read our platform for updating the National School Lunch Program, or for details on how to organize your own Eat-In on Labor Day, visit our web site at http://www.slowfoodusa.org/timeforlunch.

True Red Cranberry Bean

The True Red Cranberry bean is one of the oldest American bean varieties and is on the Slow Food USA Ark of Taste. It is one of the varieties being grown in the Renewing America's Food Traditions (RAFT) Grow-out project.

Its geographical location is concentrated around the northeastern region of the US. The Abenaki Indians and woodsmen, who inhabited the area that is now known as Maine, historically used this bean. The True Red Cranberry bean is a rare heirloom that was rediscovered by bean collector, John Withee, after an 11-year search in Steep Falls, Maine. As their name suggests, the mature True Red Cranberry bean is a deep lipstick-red color and looks like a ripe cranberry. The beans are fat and shiny and are mostly used in their dried form.

If you would like to grow the True Red Cranberry Bean, seeds are available from Seed Savers Exchange.

Sibley Squash

The Sibley Squash, which is also known as Pike’s Peak squash, was obtained from an elderly woman in Van Dinam, Iowa who had grown it for more than fifty years. Hiram Sibley & Company of Rochester, New York introduced it commercially in 1887. It is a Hubbard-type squash with moderately vigorous 12-15 foot vines.

The slate blue teardrop-shaped fruits have very shallow ribs and weigh from 8-10 pounds. Its medium-thick orange flesh is flavorful and sweet. The flesh becomes drier and richer with storage, reaching its peak right after turn of the New Year, perfect for a roasted squash soup during those long winter months.

The Sibley Squash is on the Slow Food USA Ark of Taste, and is being grown in the Rhode Island area Renewing America's Food Traditions (RAFT) Grow-out project this year. Look for the squash at harvest time in farmers markets and on restaurant menus around the state. If you would like to grow the Sibley Squash yourself, you can purchase seeds at Seed Savers Exchange.

Jimmy Nardello's Sweet Italian Frying Pepper

The Jimmy Nardello Sweet Italian Frying Pepper is one of the foods being featured in the Chefs Collaborative/Slow Food USA Foods at Risk/Renewing America's Food Traditions (RAFT) Grow-out, and is on the Slow Food Ark of Taste.

Mr. Nardello's pepper was originally from Basilicata, in the south of Italy, and he brought it with him from Italy while immigrating to Connecticut in 1887.  

The pepper is sweet and light when eaten raw.  It is considered one of the very best frying peppers as its fruity raw flavor becomes perfectly creamy and soft when fried.

Be on the lookout for the Jimmy Nardello Sweet Italian Frying Pepper at local farmers markets and restaurants around Rhode Island at harvest time.  And, if you'd like to grow it yourself, you can purchase seeds at Seed Savers Exchange.

Taste Memory: More on Eating it to Save it

For a quick overview of why the Foods At Risk/Renewing America's Food Traditions (RAFT) Grow-out project is so important, have a look at this video of Slow Food New Orleans founder and leader, Poppy Tooker, as she tours the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden and talks to farmers and food producers about endangered foods. Among other interesting stories told in the video, a grower of Gravenstein Apples tells Poppy that at the height of their popularity, 9,000 acres were planted in Gravensteins, and now, they are grown on only 700 acres.

Early Blood Turnip-Rooted Beet

photo courtesy of Old Sturbridge Village

As promised, we will be posting historical information on the RAFT (Renewing America's Food Traditions) Grow-out project food varieties. The RAFT Grow-out project is a joint effort of Slow Food USA and Chefs Collaborative whereby local farmers have committed to growing the endangered foods and local chefs have committed to serving the endangered foods on their menus at harvest time. In addition to the farmers' and chefs' participation, we encourage you to select a vegetable that you can grow in your garden or in a container. The more exposure individuals have to these foods, the more likely we are to be able to save them and preserve biodiversity in our food system.

The Early Blood Turnip-Rooted Beet is a variety that has been cultivated since the early 1800s and is prized for its sweet and tender flesh. The beet has very dark, violet-red flesh with lighter zones. The leaves are dark with bright red petioles. Even when it grows to a large size, the flesh remains flavorful, tender, and juicy.

It has a slight clove-like aroma and wonderful sweetness - light like a carrot, but without the intensity of sweetness that a carrot has. If you were to sample it raw, you would find it has an apple-like, slightly astringent flavor. It has a complexity of taste that starts with a cinnamon flavor and a hint of heat, followed by a tartness and rich, earthy finish. The beet is good both boiled and baked, and the leaves are an excellent cooked green. And that's an added bonus - it's two vegetables in one!

If you are looking for a beet that will overwinter well, the Early Blood Turnip-Rooted Beet is an excellent beet for cold-storage, keeping well in root cellar storage for 8 months or more.

It has a variable rate of maturity - between 48 and 68 days - which makes it somewhat challenging for commercial growers, but an ideal variety for individuals and smaller farms.

The Early Blood Turnip-Rooted Beet is a highly endangered variety and is on the Slow Food USA Ark of Taste.

In addition to growing the Early Blood Turnip-Rooted Beet, other actions you can take include requesting it from farmers at farmers markets - now is a good time to do so in order that they have time to plan - and requesting that your local grocery store carry the Early Blood Turnip-Rooted Beet.

Seeds are available from Old Sturbridge Village and Seed Savers Exchange.

Please feel free to post a comment to let us know if you or someone you know will be growing the Early Blood Turnip-Rooted Beet. We'd love to hear all about it!

Eat It to Save It

We mentioned in last week's post that we're very excited about the collaborative effort of Slow Food USA and Chefs Collaborative's Renewing America's Food Traditions (RAFT) grow-out project. This year, the grow-out is taking place only in New England, and it offers we Rhode Islanders (and all New Englanders) a great opportunity to experience the tastes of endangered foods by purchasing them later this year at farmers markets and restaurants that feature these foods, and we are also fortunate because we can grow some of these foods ourselves in our backyard gardens and balcony planters.

Below is a list of RAFT grow-out foods for Rhode Island. If you click on the variety name, it will bring you to a seed source website for that food so that you can grow these heirloom varieties yourself. If you do have a garden, consider planting a plant or two of each variety - or even just a few varieties - and share the seeds with your neighbors. Please do spread the word - the goal for these foods is to repatriate them here in the region in which they originated, and the more individuals who take up the cause by sowing seeds, buying this produce at the farmers market, or requesting that their grocery store carry these foods, the better chance they have for survival.

RAFT Grow-out Varieties:

Early blood turnip-rooted beet
Jimmy Nardello’s sweet pepper
Sibley’s Pikes Peak squash
Boston Marrow Squash
Long Pie pumpkin
True Red Cranberry beans
Marfax bean
Gilfeather turnip
Winningstadt cabbage
Boothby’s blonde cucumber
Student parsnip
Wethersfield onion
Trophy tomato
Siberian Sweet watermelon
Stowell’s Evergreen sweet corn


There are an enormous assortment of foods that originated in New England - everything from fruit and nut trees, to chickens, to shellfish, as well as other vegetables - that are endangered. For the full list, please visit Slow Food USA's website to download a pdf on New England's Place-based Foods at Risk with more information on the RAFT project.

Also, to read a wonderful article on the Ark of Taste - created by Slow Food to raise awareness about these endangered foods and to keep them in production, therefore promoting biodiversity - and to learn where the title for today's post originated, please take a look at the FLYP website.

As winter slowly begins to wind down, we'll be posting more and more information on the RAFT project and the stories behind the foods. Once the growing season is upon us, we'll provide information on the farmers' efforts in growing the foods, and then, at harvest time, we'll let you know where to find these heirloom varieties - at farmers markets and on restaurant menus, and with your help, maybe even in grocery stores. We're looking forward to seeing the cycle unfold, and hope you'll join us in our efforts to restore these foods in Rhode Island.

Renewing America's Food Traditions, the Local Food Forum, and information on nominating a food producer to receive $10,000.

Here at Slow Food Rhode Island, we're busy planning our events schedule for the early part of 2009, and will keep you updated on those details here and by email (be sure to sign up to be included in the Slow Food RI email by joining us at Slow Food USA!).

Meanwhile, there are a lot of exciting things going on. We want to remind you that the fifth annual Local Food Forum is next Wednesday, February 4 at Andrews Dining Hall on the Brown University Campus. You can still register for the event through Sunday, February 1, and admission is free. It's a great opportunity to listen to and discuss plans for our local food system.

Slow Food Rhode Island is very excited to help Slow Food USA and Chefs Collaborative promote the Foods at Risk/Renewing America's Food Traditions (RAFT) grow-out project. The RAFT grow-out project seeks to help reintroduce endangered foods to their native regions. Rhode Island chefs and farmers will be working together on this project, with chefs featuring the endangered foods from the grow-out on their menus this fall. We'll keep you posted about those events, and, in addition to selecting one or two foods to champion here in Rhode Island, we will also be posting the stories of Rhode Island's own endangered foods here on the Slow Food Rhode Island blog, and will be doing community outreach to promote the growing of these foods by individual gardeners in addition to farmers. We think this is a very important project to help restore these foods to our region, fostering biodiversity as it does, and we hope to one day see these foods available not solely at the Farmers Market, but also at grocery stores and other retail outlets.

If you would like to read more about the RAFT project, please take a look at the Slow Food USA website, or the Chefs Collaborative website. If you'd like to purchase seeds to grow some of the endangered RAFT, or Ark of Taste, varieties, the Seed Savers Exchange website is the place to go. In addition to featuring background on individual foods, we will be posting a list of RAFT foods so that it's easy for you to track them down on the Seed Savers Exchange site.

Finally, if you know a farmer, business leader, or thought leader who is working to promote local food systems, The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has announced the first annual Growing Green awards to honor the work of a Food Producer, a Business Leader and a Thought Leader in the sustainable agriculture world. The organization will highlight extraordinary contributions that include innovation within an ecologically-integrated food system, advancement of sustainable food production, climate stewardship, water stewardship, the preservation of farmland, and social responsibility. We think this is a great opportunity to honor an individual who is making changes in our community in a unique area such as protecting biodiversity or leading a school garden program.

The following three categories are eligible to apply:

Food Producer: Farmers or other food producers, including aquaculture, who employ
innovative techniques to sustain agriculture, the natural environment, workers and
community; (this category includes a $10,000 award)

Business Leader: Entrepreneurs who effectively use the marketplace to promote sustainable food systems, develop infrastructure that enables producers to be more sustainable, or advance sustainable innovations anywhere along the supply chain from farm to fork;

Thought Leader: Visionaries who advance sustainability as it relates to food through creative research, public education, and outreach.

The deadline is next Friday, February 6, so you'll want to get on this quickly. For information on the nomination process, please visit NRDC's website at: http://www.nrdc.org/growinggreen/

Please visit the blog again soon as we will be starting to post the stories of RAFT foods in the coming weeks.