ThinkLady

Voluptuous veggie

Meet last spring’s Early Wonder beets – a voluptuous veggie – sweet, crunchy, beautiful, delicious. Plotting the fall/winter/spring garden now and silly me – admit to being giddy with anticipation.

Technorati Tags: gardening,seasons,local food,beets

When being a greenhorn means hope

Tricia Dameron, a.k.a Oklavore

My friend Tricia Dameron, 30, has been blogging as Okla-vore since 2007. In her blog she passionately explores her interest in all sorts of foodie things: cooking, baking, preserving, eating, shopping, food culture and traditions, endangered food ways, farming, ranching. Tricia brings an adventurous spirit, indefatigable curiosity and plucky, self-deprecating humor to her blogging endeavors, sharing her triumphs and failures so we can all learn from them, and I’ve come to greatly appreciate her careful research and knowledge.

Because of her passion for fresh, healthy local food and farming, Tricia’s organized a very cool event – happening Saturday night, June 25th – the Oklahoma premiere of the film The Greenhorns, at IAO Gallery. The documentary …

“ … explores the lives of America's young farming community - its spirit, practices, and needs. It is the filmmaker's hope that by broadcasting the stories and voices of these young farmers, we can build the case for those considering a career in agriculture - to embolden them, to entice them, and to recruit them into farming.”

According to the film’s website, there are very compelling reasons for the making of Greenhorns:

“The average farmer is 57. America loses two acres of farmland per minute. One third of today's kindergarteners will develop type 2 diabetes. The last 30 years have seen a protracted crisis in American agriculture. We have fewer farmers, less land, a degraded soil base and intensifying corporate control over production, processing and technology.”

So we’ve got plenty of reasons to be concerned about current the state of agriculture, but here, joyfully, energetically, enthusiastically, ebulliently enter The Greenhorns and Tricia. Both give us plenty of reasons to hope. 

Technorati Tags: Film,hope,agriculture,awareness,change,sustainability,local food

Smells like garlic love

Monday’s harvest

Hangs deliciously tantalizing.

Rollicking, savory, pregnant with

Pungent promise.

32 cloves

Planted in October

Grew and grew and grew

And now harvested at the end of May

Fat, plump,

Drying and waiting to be braided

to hang with sassy promise.

Aware of their singularly noble place in

Soups, sauces, dips, pastas, casseroles, or even a sandwich or two

Sliced thin

Peeled

Chopped

Minced

Simmered

Roasted

Versatile

Aromatic

Voluptuous

They are sly,

Provocative,

Full of garlic joy

And

Taunting.

We love them.

Technorati Tags: Food and drink,hope,joy,local food,garlic,gardening

Join the local evolution

I’ve been working hard with my Sustainable OKC and Transition OKC peeps on this very cool event called “EVOLVE” for the last two-three months. Along with Marcy Roberts, I’m co-chairing Oklahoma City’s first Local Food Challenge which is part of the EVOLVE art exhibition and fundraiser. (See all the details below.)

At some point in this process it occurred to me how funny it might seem if someone from 100 years ago were to drop in and hear about a “local food challenge” since back then the bulk of everyone’s food was local. It’d probably seem crazy to them that we now pick tomatoes before they’re ripe and ship them 2,000 miles, especially given such tomatoes tend to taste like mushy cardboard. (Not that I eat a lot of cardboard – I’m just kind of guessing).

But I digress. The contestants shown below are now emailing us the names of their dishes, and the ingredients and where they come from. One of the criteria they’ll be judged by is how many local ingredients they use. As a result my taste buds are pumped and ready to taste it all.

We’ll also have a nice range of homemade desserts, including my mother’s legendary sour cream pound cake and chocolate chip cookies, food that would be totally suitable for the Goddess of Butter, Chocolate and All Things Sweet. Yes, my mother’s food is that good.

If you’re in Oklahoma City, hope you’ll EVOLVE and join us for local food, local art, local fun!

EVOLVE DETAILS

Six Oklahoma City chefs, restaurants and caterers are creating tasty local food as part of Sustainable OKC's EVOLVE juried art exhibition and fundraiser at Oklahoma City’s first juried Local Food Challenge this Saturday, April 23, 7 p.m. at Individual Artists of Oklahoma (IAO), 706 W. Sheridan on historic film row in downtown Oklahoma City.

The Local Food Challenge is organized by Transition OKC, a program of Sustainable OKC. The art exhibition will explore sustainability, resilience and community and proceeds from the event will benefit Sustainable OKC and IAO.

Food Challenge contestants will be judged by a panel of food industry professionals as they compete for a $500 juried prize. Guests enjoying the art exhibition will also have the opportunity to sample the local food creations and vote for the contestant they feel deserves the People's Choice award via raffle tickets.

Follow the EVOLVE / Local Food Challenge on Facebook, buy $25 tickets (or individual sponsorships!) online at Sustainable OKC’s website here or at IAO, 706 W. Sheridan, or at the door the night of the event.

It’s all about local art – local food – local fun!

Art exhibition jurors (awarding a $500 grand prize to the winning piece)

• Randy Marks, Groundwork
• Stephen Kovash, Istvan Gallery

Local Food Challenge contestants

• 105Degrees
• Chef Kurt Fleischfresser
• Chef Kamala Gamble
• Prairie Gypsies
• Chef Ryan Parrott
• The Wedge Pizzeria

Local Food Challenge Jurors

• Gail Vines, Flip’s Wine Bar & Trattoria
• Chef Jonathon Stranger, Ludivine
• Linda Trippe, The Lady Chef

+ YOU vote for the People's Choice Award

$1 raffle ticket = 1 vote / vote as many times as you like

Music

thespyfm.com

Tickets

• $25 @ the door or online @ www.sustainableokc.org 
• or at IAO, 706 W. Sheridan, Oklahoma City
• or at the door the night of the event

Technorati Tags: change,community,events,food and drink,locavores,sustainable okc,transition okc

One local food meal = one step toward reducing foreign oil dependence

A couple of weeks ago Transition OKC helped host a Local Food Meet and Greet. The Meet and Greet provided a host of folks passionate about growing a local food system the opportunity to network and get to know each other better. It was enthusiastically and well-attended, with more than 110 people coming on a sunny Saturday afternoon to IAO Gallery in Oklahoma City to nosh on locally produced food, wine and do a little “speed meeting.”

The event was organized by the “Going Locavore Group,” a loosely organized and growing grassroots coalition (or alliance) of several Oklahoma City organizations focused on catalyzing and transitioning our food system to a healthier, more sustainable and resilient one – and one strategy for doing so is to localize it. The team organizing the event was for the most part all-volunteer, and although we were scrambling up until the last minute to put all the details in place – we pulled it off – a total team effort if there ever was one. If you have any interest in networking with this group, or want more info, email us at localfoodokc@gmail.com. 

As one of the volunteers working on this event, part of my task was to put together a slide show about the reasons for transitioning to eating local food, and to provide a high-level overview of some of the initiatives in other states focused on growing regional and local food systems. As we researched, we discovered coalitions in New York City and Vermont have aggressive strategic plans for regional and localized food sheds and the body of work on this topic is growing exponentially -- encouraging.

Above you’ll find one of the slides from the presentation and I’ll be sharing more of these in the coming days. Eventually will put the whole presentation online here at ThinkLady and at other sites such as Sustainable OKC’s blog  Fresh Greens and Transition OKC so if it is useful in any way to other local food efforts, it’s available for anyone to use and adapt.

In the meantime, given the high price of gas these days, the fact the era of cheap, easy-to-produce oil is over, and the growing production decline in one of the U.S.’s major suppliers of oil – Mexico -- thought this slide might be a good one to start with. It illustrates one way we can begin to reduce our dependence on foreign oil imports. Ebullient and grateful hat tip to Barbara Kingsolver and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, for helping us imagine a different way of eating in the world.

Imagine abundant local food. Imagine the jobs it will create and the ways it will strengthen our local economy. Envision the health it will bring to our school kids, our communities, the resilience it will give our communities. Imagine how much we can reduce our country’s oil addiction if we eat not just one, but two local food meals a week, three, five, etc. Imagine. And then try it. I think you’ll like it.

If you’d like info on how to get started eating locally head over to Transition OKC’s website where we have a page full of local food resources.

Technorati Tags: Community,local food,localization,locavores,conservation,resilience,peak oil,transition,sustainability