Guest Post by: Bill Couzens, Founder Less Cancer
Middleburg, Virginia

Market Salamander is designed as an open marketplace that caters to contemporary demands and lifestyles by offering a selection of local, organic, chef-prepared foods.

With a focus on healthy cuisine and an endless assortment of high-quality fresh ingredients, Market Salamander is attracting patrons near and far. The market offers an unrivaled selection of seasonal produce, prime aged meats, fresh caught seafood, artisanal cheeses, homemade breads, fresh baked pastries, boutique wines, and imported packaged goods. And while quality often comes with a high price, Market Salamander is a best deal for a local breakfast. In fact, breakfast never tasted so good!

Market Salamander’s team in Middleburg is led by Vaughn Skaggs, the Chef de Cuisine, who began his culinary career at a young age in Virginia. Originally inspired by his mother, an inventive cook and restaurateur, Skaggs’ tireless conviction and support of gastronomic, local, organic, and sustainable foods makes him the “backbone of Market Salamander.”

Skaggs’ philosophy about the origins of the ingredients Salamander uses reveals his passion for the art of healthy cooking and living. “Whether it is produce or fresh meats, buying local helps many aspects of our business. It gives our guests a sense of trust and loyalty, knowing that they could trace which farm their food is coming from. The food is always more fresh and tastes better when it comes from the local farms. We also feel better about the food we are serving. We are leaving a smaller environmental footprint, instead of using transportation. In addition, we are supporting local businesses and helping keep our community economy strong.”

Skaggs’s culinary evolution has taken place in some of the best kitchens in the area – like Vidalia’s in Washington, DC; Potomac Grill in Leesburg, Virginia; and some of the most exclusive private homes of Virginia. His skilled culinary repertoire, coupled with his positive attitude and devotion to freshness and seasonality, has won him many acquaintances in the local farm movement. His combination of talent and commitment drives his passion for delicious and conscientious food.

Jason Reaves, Pastry Chef

Recently awarded the 2008 Front-Line Tourism Employee of the Year by the Loudoun Convention & Visitors Association, Jason Reaves is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY with a degree specializing in baking and pastry.

Before joining the staff at Market Salamander, Reaves worked at Lansdowne Resort in Leesburg, Virginia; Postrio in San Francisco, California; and as Pastry Chef on board Norwegian Cruise Line’s Pride of Aloha, and Pride of America. Reaves specializes in custom wedding and special occasion cakes as well as delicious pastries.

Though young, Jason Reaves is already famous for his mouth watering Salamander’s Signature Butterscotch Scone. At just 2.00 per Scone, it is the most delicious thing you could ever eat at breakfast – especially delicious with Salamander’s bottomless cup of coffee!

Salamander often uses local and organic foods. One such supplier is Ayrshire Farm in Upperville, Virginia which has been growing healthy, beautiful foods since 1821. The present farm was purchased in 1912 by Brig. Gen. James A. Buchanan of Washington, DC. The historic property of approximately 800 acres was purchased from his descendants in 1996 by Sandy Lerner. The farm’s mission appropriately states, “To farm sustainably and profitably, promoting the benefits of locally produced, humanely raised meats and organic produce to the consumer, our community, and our children through education, outreach and example.”

Dr. Maryann Donovan, Director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, said, “Beyond the obvious benefits in freshness, quality, and flavor, eating seasonally and sourcing food locally can make important contributions to reducing carbon emissions. The local farms that are additionally certified organic, and the markets that sell organic foods, also have great potential for reducing exposures to pesticides and other chemicals, benefiting both the environment and human health.”

Salamander’s owner Sheila Johnson (musician, movie producer, sports team owner ) understands the importance of local and organic fare, often feeding the Washington Mystics a farm to table regime.

The good news is that you too can enjoy a breakfast of champions and not have to break the bank to eat healthy.

Local Beef Burger from Silver Diner

Guest post by: Liz Reitzig
Cross posted from Liberation Wellness

Ok, I admit it.  Eating at a diner kind of makes me feel like a kid again.  It brings out the Peter Pan in me—I won’t grow up!  But, with four children of my own now, it gets more difficult to justify doing things just for fun.  Sitting in one of those diner booths with the retro pictures and the cute jukebox at each table actually begs one to get a burger and shake.  But I can’t do that now that I’m grown up and “responsible,” can I?  I make huge efforts to feed my kids organic and local foods.  I buy grassfed beef and dairy.  I shop at farmers markets and I know most of the farms where our food comes from.

So imagine my delight to find out that I could have my shake and drink it too. I realize that being “responsible” is about being open and responsive to the circumstances and opportunities that life presents without always being rigid and following a set of rules.  There is one diner where I can have fun with my kids without compromising my food philosophy: Silver Diner.  They source their foods locally and even invite farmers to sell, market style, at their restaurants.  And to add icing to the cake, Silver Diner is now partnering with the producer of the movie FRESH—an inspiring window into the local foods move

Silver Diner has made a big splash recently with their new menus featuring “fresh and local” ingredients. It is a treat to find a restaurant or chef, who is truly committed to the entirety of the “local” message.  In addition to their commitment to “Fresh and local”, they are equally committed to helping children understand about food choices and where their food comes from.  Each diner has a TV screen in the lobbies.  These screens show clips from various music videos.  A few days ago I took 6 children (my four and a friend’s two) to one of the Diners and a music video on the screen captivated their attention while we waited for our table.  These screens are now also showing idyllic clips from the movie FRESH.  Young visitors to the diner, many of whom have never been on a farm, will see scenes from local farms.  These short scenes have the potential to convey the greater ramifications of food choices.

This inspiring film highlights what we can each do to increase access to fresh and local foods. FRESH graphically illustrates the contrast between the industrial food system and the “fresh” food system.  The film engages people about where their food comes from as it takes the viewer on a journey to several local farms that produce food for their communities.

Showing the movie trailer at Silver Diner has the potential to captivate a whole new audience as it motivates these customers to bring the movie to their communities. The film’s creators designed the film as a community educational tool.  Across the country individuals arrange screenings of the movie in their own communities (living rooms, churches, school, etc.) to significant response.  These screening events engage consumers where they are and inspire them to propel the fresh food system further forward.  With super heroes Will Allen—urban farmer extraordinaire—and Joel Salatin of Polyface farms, scenes from this movie are the perfect accompaniment to a fresh and local meal, and an amazing inspiration for all our budding super heroes.  It’s going to take all of us to encourage the rest of the restaurants to use fresh and local foods and educating those around us—especially our young ones—with tools such as this movie is a first step to transforming our food industry in such a way.

At Silver Diner, “FRESH” is not just a movie, it is a philosophy—a philosophy that is taken seriously because they realize their responsibility to their customers and to the producers of the food. Behind the scenes of FRESH, it is not just a movie, it is an inspiring invitation to a refreshing way of eating.  The partnership between Silver Diner and FRESH brings the message of “fresh and local” full circle so that children—and adults who wish they were still kids—can add depth to their diner experience.  Because they have chosen this direction for their diner, I can now responsibly enjoy my burger and shake with my children as we all sing along to “Puff the Magic Dragon.”  And unlike little Jackie Paper, who does grow up, today, I’m still a kid.

Action Items: What you can do to support Silver Diner in doing what they’ve started…

1. Dine at Silver Diner and let them know that you support their new practices
2. Let your waiter / cashier know how you feel about them showing FRESH
3. Bring FRESH to your community….

Have you seen FRESH? Please share your experience below.

About Liz Reitzig
Liz Reitzig is a certified Liberation Wellness Nutritionist and a regular contributor to Liberation Wellness (www.LiberationWellnessBlog.com) She serves as President of the Maryland Independent Consumers and Farmers Association and Secretary of the National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association.  As a champion for real foods and farm freedom, Liz is the co-founder and partner in a farm fresh buying club and raises her own family on real foods from local farms. She is also a Chapter Leader for the Weston A Price Foundation.

The media got it wrong and let the public down when it erroneously reported Monsanto’s wholesale victory in its Supreme Court appeal of the GM alfalfa case — the first-ever Supreme Court case on GMOs (Monsanto Co. v Geertson Seed Farms). Despite claims and headlines to the contrary, Monsanto is still prohibited from selling and planting its Roundup Ready GM alfalfa. The true victors in the case are farmers, consumers and environmentalists who have argued that planting GM alfalfa would contaminate conventional and organic crops and lead to spraying noxious pesticides in regions where over 90% of alfalfa farmers do not use or need them.

So, why did the press get it so wrong? Monsanto hit the press early and convincingly and the press failed to do its due diligence by corroborating Monsanto’s facts with both sides in the case. It should have known better and acted more carefully despite the rush to get the first story published, but it didn’t. Monsanto’s Goliath PR machine succeeded in framing the Supreme Court decision as a slam dunk in its favor, to head off a drop in its stock market price. The real news — that it still can’t sell its patented GM alfalfa — would surely have driven impatient investors to sell their stocks.

Not surprisingly, shortly after the publication of multiple stories announcing Monsanto’s unequivocal win, an alternative narrative began to circulate on the web and people started asking questions about whether Monsanto actually “won” the case and what it meant to “win” the case anyway. Fulfilling the role of David against Goliath, bloggers exposed how the rightful victors had been unfairly slain by the press due to the unsavory alliance between the Goliath biotech giant and the major media.

The answer to the question of “who really won the case,” requires examining on what grounds Monsanto appealed to the Supreme Court. Specifically, Monsanto asked the court to reconsider the lower court decision in the GM alfalfa case by:(1) lifting the injunction on GMO alfalfa, (2) allowing the planting and sale of GMO alfalfa, and (3) not allowing contamination from GMO crops to be considered “irreparable harm.”

In truth, the Court only ruled on Monsanto’s first request, which it affirmed by stating that the injunction was too broad to be allowed to remain in place. However, it ruled in favor of the farmers and Center for Food Safety on the two other remaining issues, which in many ways are even more important. First, the Court did not overrule the lower court’s ban on the planting and sale of GMO alfalfa and, therefore, the ban remains intact. Moreover, the Court’s decision to set aside the injunction was based, in part, on the fact that a prohibition on GMO planting was already in effect, due to the lower court’s ruling and, therefore, the injunction was duplicative overkill. Second, the Supreme Court agreed with the lower court that the threat of GMO contamination was a sufficient cause of environmental and economic harm to support future challenges on GMOs. Unfortunately, these critical details about the Supreme Court’s decision were omitted in early press accounts, making it look as though Monsanto prevailed in its quest to deregulate GM alfalfa.

Two and three days later, the real story about the outcome of the GM alfalfa Supreme Court case has emerged in some press accounts. Yet, any analysis about the need for civil society to demand greater corporate accountability in the face of government inaction to halt threats of GMO contamination has yet to surface in the mainstream media. Clearly, the greatest significance of this case is that it shows how Goliath corporations, like Monsanto, BP and the rest, can be held accountable for their actions by members of civil society who have the courage to take on the role of David in the battle to protect our environment and food supply.

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Lisa J. Bunin, Ph.D. is the Organic Policy Coordinator at the Center for Food Safety, a national, non-profit, membership organization, founded in 1997, that works to protect

human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. On the web at: http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org

Guest post by Cooking Up a Story

Continuing with our Seeds of Life series, Willamette Valley organic seed breeder, Frank Morton, explains the benefits of open pollination in plant breeding, and the important role for farmers in the selection process to continually improve plant varieties for better local adaptation.

In open pollinated plant varieties, pollination can occur from the pollen of related species that sometimes travel great distances (as measured in miles), by insects, wind, and birds.

Open pollinated plants can be selected over time to breed a desired mix of traits, and the seeds from these plants can be reused over successive generations with highly favorable results. In particular, Morton says, organic farmers want organically bred seeds, that is, seeds which are designed to work well in an organic system. Organic farmers place a strong emphasis on maintaining soil fertility, and do not use commercial fertilizers, and other chemicals to artificially boost production yields. Organically bred seeds, may be bred for roots that travel deeper through the ground to acquire the necessary supply of nutrients that a healthy plant may require. By contrast, an organically grown seed, means only that the seeds were grown on organic soil, but will not have been bred to do better under an organic farming system.  Keep Reading….

I had been considering trying raw milk for a few months. Not only are my food decisions based on how the food is raised but also how it tastes. Through The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund I found a farmer, Kalish Family Farms, in Southern Minnesota that delivers raw milk to the Twin Cities. I had been considering ordering from him so that I could at least try raw milk and see how it tastes. I had signed up for the farms e-mail list to try to get more info from them before I purchased. They also raised beef, pork, chicken and sold eggs.

Last month there was an E-Coli outbreak that has allegedly traced back to a different raw milk producer in Southern Minnesota. Soon after this e-mail came:

To all my dear customers:

Thank you for all the kind emails and voice messages you have left me this week. Sorry I could not reply to every individual email and voice mail, as I received hundreds, and you all mean a lot to me. My decision to pack it in is due to the e-coli breakout down in southern Minnesota, and the way the government is putting the fear of God into all local farmers with threats and machines guns (ok I just threw the “machine gun” part in for kicks).

The dairy farm where I have my guersney cows is quitting with all the raw milk production and I have been backed into a corner as a result, with no other options. I cannot do just the meat and eggs and still be able to provide for my family. If I can’t farm with the quality and high standards that I set for myself, I do not want to do it at all. I refused to take shortcuts like my previous partners do.

I would happily like to keep going, but getting the finances to do so is out of the question at this time (unless any of you are venture capitalists and want to invest?)

It has been said that big government is pushing away all the small farmers. I now have experienced this first hand. I may not have been the best businessman, but I have always been an honest, hardworking individual, who loves what he does.

Regards,

Jay Kalisch

As someone who wants to begin small-scale farming my biggest fear is regulation designed to kill a fly with a shotgun. More small farmers go out of business and we let more and more consolidation of our food sources. Minnesota is a large agriculture state but we import about 90% of our food.

Also, the E-Coli strain is the famous O157:H7 which only emerged when we stopped allowing cattle to eat grass and started making them eat corn.

Please call and e-mail your government representatives and make sure they understand that people do care where their food comes from and want to know the people that produce it for them.

Thanks!
Evan Sayre

Photo from Chiot’s Run on Flickr

FRESH is more than a film, it is a reflection of a rising movement of people and communities across America who are re-inventing our food system. Directed by ana Sofia joanes, FRESH celebrates the farmers that are really making a difference — individuals like Milwaukee’s own Will Allen, whose vision and guidance has made Growing Power one of the most successful urban farming projects in the nation.Fresh is about inspiration — not scare tactics.The film offers a practical vision for the future of sustainable agriculture — and empowers ordinary people to take action that incites real (and lasting) change.

FRESH is currently being screened in selected cities (and homes) around the nation. And the screenings are being accompanied by a series of great events promoting local eating and sustainable agriculture.

Sustainability is at the heart of our food philosophy here at Burp! So, when the good people at FRESH asked us to be the official bloggers at one of their farm to table restaurant events, how could we resist? Of course, we had no idea that our dinner at Meritage would be one of the best we’ve eaten in the Milwaukee area.

Sure, Meritage has a Zagat rating of “Very Good to Excellent” with comments ranging from “a welcome addition to the West side” to “can’t wait to go back.” They’re soon to be named among the “Top 25 Restaurants” this week by Milwaukee Magazine. And yes — friends have recommended we eat there many-a-time in the past… but we failed to heed their call. Silly Peef and Lo!

When we arrived at the restaurant, we were seated promptly. The host even granted our request to be seated at the window, where we’d have better natural lighting for our photography. Our waiter, Peter, was an absolute joy. Friendly and knowledgeable, Peter put his 25 years of restaurant service experience to work from the get-go. He started off by walking us through the prix fixe farm-to-table menu:

• Spinach salad with buttermilk apple cider vinaigrette
• Portabella mushroom pizza with feta cheese, spinach, and roasted tomatoes
• Our choice of entrees: Bison ribeye with roasted fingerling potatoes and vegetables OR Vegetable paprikash with tofu, broccoli, carrots, and celery root
• Meritage’s signature dessert: Chocolate Lover’s Cake

The spinach salad arrived at the table with a glass of Charles DeFere Brut — a delicate, yet concentrated, champagne with elegant bubbles and a pleasantly toasted aroma. It paired beautifully with the spinach salad — which featured locally grown (and stored) apples, local greenhouse spinach and red onions, with a delightfully sweet-tart buttermilk dressing.

The portabella mushroom “pizza” also paired nicely with the champagne. Composed of a grilled portabella mushroom cap, tomato-based sauce, sauteed spinach, roasted Roma tomatoes, and feta cheese, this dish reminded us of the sort of starter you’d find served in a Napa Valley eatery. The dish was bursting with flavors — salty, sweet, and briny — with the flavor of freshly cracked pepper lingering on the finish. Even the bed of watercress on which the “pizza” was served seemed to complement the dish swimmingly.

The grilled bison rib-eye was perfectly cooked to a medium-rare — and covered in richly flavored sauteed wild mushrooms. It was accompanied by a generous helping of sweet, roasted fingerling potatoes, more of the roasted Roma tomatoes, and a luscious pile of roasted celery root. The dish was paired with a Wisconsin gem — Big Mouth Red by Stone’s Throw Vineyard — a wine bursting with cherry flavor, augmented by a bit of pepper on the finish.

And then there was the dessert: Chocolate Lover’s Cake. Although we were nearly too full to move, we couldn’t resist this sumptuous treat. Layers of flourless chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, and chocolate ganache came together in a chocoholic’s dream that was further topped with whipped cream and a sprig of mint. It was even more perfect when paired with Ramos Pinto Porto Riserva (Portugal) — an unfiltered ruby port with sweet cherry notes and plenty of complementary chocolate flavors.

Throughout dinner, Peter was happy to guide us through the menu — answering questions about the various farms that had supplied the dishes we ate, and running back to the kitchen to check on items about which we had questions. Turns out Peter himself grew up on a farm in Dubuque, Iowa, where his father farmed and his mother gardened and captured the summer bounty by canning and preserving. He learned first-hand what “farm to table” meant — and it’s fed his passion for the restaurant business. His eyes shone as he spoke about his boss, Chef Jan Kelly.

“There’s no Milwaukee chef better than Kelly…” he crooned, “she has the restaurant business in her blood, and there’s no one who pairs flavors quite like she does.”

Peter also introduced us to Chef Kelly, herself, who took the time to talk with us about her philosophy in bringing farm-fresh produce to her restaurant table.

Kelly has been involved with “restaurant supported agriculture” programs for almost three years now. She was a founding member of “Braise RSA” — the brainchild of David Swanson — an organization which provides the infrastructure for local farmers to easily distribute and sell to restaurants and businesses who support local food in Southeast Wisconsin. She also supports local farms and businesses like Growing Power, Sassy Cow Creamery, Simple Soyman, Yuppie Hill, Pin-Oak Ridge Farms, and Lakeview Buffalo Farm.

“These are not corporations,” Kelly commented, “they’re people. And we’re supporting families, not just buying product.”

Kelly suspects that up to 70% of the food she serves at Meritage is sourced either locally or regionally — which is pretty fantastic, considering we live in Wisconsin (a lovely place, but not one known for its long growing season).

“This is the hardest time of the year,” she confesses, though judging from the meal we’d just finished, she’s doing pretty well. “Braise is great,” she added, “but Growing power gives us balance during the winter months — fairly soon we’ll be able to get green tomatoes from their greenhouse.”

Ah — the thought of fried green tomatoes made us feel a little bit woobly inside. And we couldn’t help but feel excited when she told us that they’d be growing Chinese long beans for Meritage during the next growing season.

We chatted for almost a half-hour as we sipped our locally roasted Alterra coffee. It was difficult not to feel utterly welcome — as if we’d been invited into Kelly’s living room for a visit. Of course, that might not be so far from the truth. In fact, our night ended with a hug from the Chef… and the feeling that we’d just done something pretty awesome.

______________________

Of course, one night of awesome only goes so far… we need to stick with it… which is exactly what FRESH is all about. One person at a time, making little changes that have a big impact.

Here are a couple of things you can do right now to bring a little bit of “FRESH” into your own lives:

• • If you’re in Milwaukee, think about attending one of the remaining FRESH Week events, including one of the movie screenings at the Landmark Downer Theater on April 19-21. We’d love to see you there!
  • If you don’t live in (or near) Milwaukee, participate in FRESH events in a city near you (upcoming events taking place in Minneapolis, Portland, and Seattle):

We’ll be back next week to tell you all about the movie. And talk a bit more about things we can do to really make a difference. One little bite at a time.

Disclosure: We were not paid or compensated in any way for writing this post.  We were asked to write about the experience by the crew over at FRESH, but the opinions are our own. In other words, the experience really was that awesome — which makes it all the easier to share.

“Buying local is nothing new. 100 even 50 years ago, buying and eating local wasn’t a choice. Everybody had to do it.”

When you put it that way, “local” is far from a new concept but the buy & eat local craze is sweeping the nation and the ladies of HAP are excited about it. We recently attended a “Farm to Table” dinner hosted at La Merenda, an international tapas restaurant and a true Milwaukee gem. The dinner was hosted in promotion of the movie “FRESH,” a documentary exploring the world of sustainable farming and shedding light on what has become the industrial agriculture market.

A member of Braise RSA, La Merenda is a local restaurant with a focus on buying local. With an eclectic mix of flavors from around the world, you would never guess many of the ingredients come from our own backyard. Local businesses like Sweet Water Organics, an urban farm that uses hydroponics to grow crops, make it possible for restaurants like La Merenda to support the cause.

Executive Chef Peter Sandroni prepared a four-course meal, with every ingredient hailing from Wisconsin…not an easy task for April in Wisconsin. Wisconsinites are lucky at this time of the year to escape spring snowfalls. But Sandroni mastered his courses with the freshest of ingredients and bold flavors that kept us wanting more. When we asked about our favorite seasonal dish, the Butternut Squash Ravioli, we found that not only does he buy local for that dish as well, but Sandroni houses the squash in the basement of his house to ensure he has enough! We were also treated to sustainably produced wine at each course, expertly paired by local sommelier, Nate Norfolk.

Don’t think that you can make a restaurant style meal using all local ingredients? Check out the menu and you’ll be amazed at what you can find.

Course 1: Toasted Goat Cheese Salad
Honey Goat Cheese: Montchevre Belmont, WI
Mixed Greens: Sweet Water Organics, Milwaukee
Pancetta: La Quercia Norwark, IA
Wine: 2008 Tangent Sauvignon Blanc – Edna Valley, CA

Course 2: Spinach Ravioli in Rosemary Cream Sauce
Spinach: Pinehold Gardens Oak Creek, WI
Ricotta: Grande Cheese Brownsville, WI
Cream: Sassy Cow Creamery Columbus, WI
Rosemary: from Peter’s house!
Parmesan: Sarveccio Plymouth, WI
Wine: 2005 Vitanza Chianti Colli Senesi – Tuscany, Italy

Course 3: Braised Pork with Mushroom and Blue Cornmeal Polenta
Pork: Wilson Farm Meats Elkhorn, WI
Prosciutto: La Quercia Norwark, IA
Carrots: Tipi Produce Evansville, WI
Onions and Mushrooms: River Valley Farm Burlington, WI
Blue Corn Meal: Pristine View Farm Hillsboro, WI
Half and Half: Sassy Cow Creamery Columbus, WI
Asiago: Belgioso Denmark, WI
Wine: 2008 Ecologica Syrah/Malbec – La Rioja, Argentina

Course 4: Chocolate Hickory Nut Crème Brulee
Chocolate: Omahene Milwaukee, WI
Cream: Sasssy Cow Creamery, Columbus WI
Eggs: Yuppie Hill Farm Burlington, WI
Hickory Nuts: Twin Hawks Hillsboro, WI
Wine: NV Lautenback’s Orchard Country Sweet Black Cherry – Fish Creek, WI

Similar to Food Inc and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, FRESH digs in and asks viewers to reconsider where their food comes from and why they buy what they buy.  Without being all doomsday-style, FRESH will definitely make you think twice about what you eat and how even small decisions with your dollar might cause corporations to listen up.

We were also thrilled to see a fellow Milwaukeean, Will Allen of the Growing Power urban farming initiative, play a prominent and truly inspirational role in the film.  If you thought “farm” and “city” can’t go hand-in-hand, think again.  Based in a rough Milwaukee neighborhood, Growing Power’s two acre headquarters is home to 6 greenhouses, aquaponics stations, beehives, hen houses, goats, a compost center and more. We can’t wait to check out their goods at the Fox Point Farmer’s Market and hope to pop by HQ sometime soon.

How do you get involved with this Fresh movement? What are your favorite “fresh” places to eat? Share your ideas here or get more involved by hosting your own farm to table event with ideas from the FRESH community.

The advertising, publicity, and public reaction surrounding the Kentucky Fried Chicken “Buckets for the Cure” campaign to benefit Susan G. Komen For the Cure is immense – even though the two organizations seem like an unlikely match. And while I am eager to see a cure for cancer, I am more interested in seeing cancer stopped at the cause. I am interested in seeing us not only win the battles, but the war. Winning the war translates into not just more cases of cured cancer, but Less Cancer all together – stopping cancer at the root. We need to be taking a new look at the way we work to stop cancer before it even becomes cancer.

Despite Richard Nixon’s efforts in 1971 to launch the War on Cancer, the problem has not been solved and in fact has multiplied. Nearly a lifetime and countless billions later, identifying and treating cancer has become its own economy. While I am grateful that so many researchers are looking for the cure, we are living in a time of unprecedented increases in the number of friends and family battling cancer or dealing with the issues that cancer survivorship brings.

Michale Pollan in his book Food Rules An Eaters Manual (Penguin) says, “If it came from a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, don’t. It’s not food if it’s served through the window of your car. It’s not food if it’s called by the same name in every language.” Think Big Mac, Cheetos or Pringles.

While there is no evidence to say chicken causes cancer – we do know that some fast/processed foods can contribute to illnesses such as obesity. During the last two decades, the percentages of obese adults and children have been steadily increasing and, in turn, increased the risk for health effected outcomes including coronary heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Obesity also increases the risk of cancers of the breast, Endometrium (the lining of the uterus), colon, kidney, and esophagus (NCI).

We live in a time when cancer has become so commonplace that the news of new cases seems almost expected. Everyone I know is involved with a walk, a run, or a ride to support cancer research. We as a culture are working every day to find new ways to fund big dollar cures and cancer treatments. While I applaud those efforts, and would have done anything to see my sister and mother cured, the larger issue is that little if anything is being done in the area of cancer prevention.

Recently at a bank drive-thru window I was offered the opportunity to buy a candy bar with the profits going toward a cancer cure. David Servan-Schreiber, MD, Ph.D, author of Anticancer: A New Way of Life is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and co-founder of the Center for Integrative Medicine. Dr. Servan-Screiber’s book discusses concerns about sugar as a food that feeds cancer. So why are we selling candy bars to fund the cancer cure? It doesn’t make sense. We as a society can’t seem to move away from the “break and fix” model of health care.

We are willing to race for a cure, but are not willing to work diligently to eliminate or reduce the exposures that cause it.
The problem isn’t just the fast foods we are consuming in record quantities, but the grocery choices we make in the store when shopping for our families.

Dr. Maryann Donovan, Director the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh’s Cancer Institute (CEO-UPCI) says that “consumers do need to become more selective when shopping for all products but especially food. Scientists at the CEO-UPCI have measured contaminants in canned food at levels that can cause biological effects in laboratory studies. There are a number of published studies showing that some ingredients in products that we use in our homes, schools and communities are toxic and some have been shown to cause cancer in laboratory studies. Examples of possible food contaminants can include pesticide residues or bisphenol A. (BPA), a component of the resin that lines some cans and can leach into food.”

Food choice presents an opportunity to make change and begin the process of providing healthy choices for your family, but especially for young children.

It is important to protect children. By making better food choices we can reduce their exposure to a host of unhealthy ingredients and contaminants. It is important to remember that children are not small adults, rather they are a developing version of an adult. Simply put, children are under construction. They are unfinished and their developing systems are quite fragile. We know, for instance, that in children the brain continues to develop into their twenties, and this makes their brains potentially more vulnerable to toxins. They also breathe much more rapidly, so they take in more toxins through their lungs. For children, depending on the exposure, some of the first body systems to show negative health effects can be their neurological and respiratory systems.

Our society has lost its grip on the problem because of greed and a general malaise and acceptance of cancer as a fact of life. Real progress will only happen when we address issues in behavior and choices. For example, there are foods that are not only not nutritious, but in some cases toxic. So when do we get the back bone to push back, make the tough choices, and do what is right – and not only what is profitable?

According to a Scientific American article (2-17-2010), about 133 million Americans have one or more so-called chronic conditions, which can include obesity and diabetes. According to a House bill introduced in July 2009 and currently in committee, there is a need to increase overall federal funding for health care. Wayne Giles, director of the CDC’s Division of Adult and Community Health, notes that some 75 percent of U.S. health care spending goes toward “treating patients with chronic disease.” As the authors of the bill hasten to point out, “The vast majority of these diseases are preventable.” These conditions also account for about 70 percent of deaths in the U.S.

It’s going to take more than branding a bucket of chicken with a pink ribbon to beat cancer. We’re in a war, and we need to do more than dress up the potential enemy.

The movie Food Inc. has gained increasing press and viewers that documents the serious jeopardy our food system has fallen into over the past three decades. With vast industrialization, synthetic ingredients have replaced what our Grandparents used to call ‘food’. Now as much as I love learning the facts, I also love positive and inspiring messages, which is where I hope the movie FRESH comes into play!

They are hosting Farm to Table dinners across the Nation with a free movie ticket to the showing. Not a bad deal for a meal, a speaker, and a movie all for only the price of the meal!

Here is an example of one City’s events (Minneapolis, MN). Click through to find events for a City near you!

I would like to invite all of you to also attend an event and the screening so we can see how the different cities took on the challenge of fresh Farm to Table dinners! Feel free to post your thoughts on the dinner, the speaker, and the movie as well. I am excited to attend a dinner, speaking event, and the screening over the next two weeks so for those of you unable to attend, I will be happy to share how it all went!

Here is a little snippet about FRESH the movie:

“FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Each has witnessed the rapid transformation of our agriculture into an industrial model, and confronted the consequences: food contamination, environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources, and morbid obesity. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision for a future of our food and our planet.”

Joel Salatin, a personal hero and any ’soil’ farmer’s advocate will also be speaking at several events and is featured in the movie, just as a little teaser.

Cheers to taking a healthy dose of reality, responsibility, and re-engaging with that simple yet vital thing called f-o-o-d. See you at the screening!

When a conversation with my neighbor, Lulu, hits the twenty-minute mark, it won’t be long before she raises her right pinky, dons a frenzied grimace and puts on her best impersonation of Herman, a clinically insane man pacing back and forth, hooking thin air and repeatedly chirping: “Neer! Neer! Neer! Neer!”

A lifelong tenant of my building in the Puerto Rican enclave of today’s Williamsburg, Lulu has reminded me more than once that the apartment building across the street stands on the former grounds of a psychiatric ward, where mental patients would mill around the gates and chat with kids on the street through a wire-mesh fence.

Williamsburg, like much of New York, has quite a bit of history behind it, and Herman’s antics comprise one small tale of many that are still waiting to be passed down. You might not know this, however, from the average New Yorker’s loyalty to the universal hipster narrative, that knee-jerk understanding in which the crazies and kids are now one, making Williamsburg little more than a weekend zoo for Manhattanites and a convenient target for the collective rolled eyes of the city. Given how little people seem to think on how this neighborhood’s various parts have come into being, going back in the day through Lulu’s stories is a nice way of sparking the imagination and offering glimpses at our lionized landscape that cut through the newspeak of pop-cultural geography.

Being just as transient as the next twenty-something, I don’t say this to stake out a claim on authenticity. As I move out of Williamsburg, I simply hope that twenty years from now this patch of Brooklyn won’t be remembered in the form of skinny jeans, facial hair and poorly conceived irony – the so-called “hipsters” of Williamsburg deserve better. Real communities, new and old, continue to write their own stories between Broadway and Nassau, and if the growth of Brooklyn’s locally sourced food scene is any indication, the resulting merge will be something more interesting than the displacement of roots with cash registers.

The Mast Bros. Chocolate tasting I attended last week as part of the publicity blitz for Fresh! is one example of how the dining scene in Williamsburg is equal parts consumer-based gentrification and organic community building. At a glance, the event seemed a stereotypical meeting of the prissy and the pricey; gourmet chocolates set out alongside flowers as the conversation of an affluent, educated crowd of mostly white faces.

A closer look at the Fresh! campaign and a deeper taste of the gathering on North 3rd St would reveal an element of ownership that instills affluence with anima, particularly in how the Mast brothers uncompromisingly handcraft their chocolate to the enviable passion that Shane Welch and his staff at Sixpoint Craft Ales put into their Brooklyn-based brews. While the $7 price tag of a Mast Bros. Chocolate bar (higher if you purchase it outside the factory) screams high end consumerism, the intimacy of this hole-in-the-wall factory and beard-charmed accessibility of its owners makes a more complex statement of migration and growth, one which shines in significant contrast to the new Duane Reade pharmacy in construction just a few blocks away.

The chocolates on offer during the tasting certainly offered a real taste of personality. I’ve dismissed the Masts’ chocolate as too floral in the past, but was happy to be proven immensely wrong as I sampled piece after piece of the brothers’ standard rotation of bars. Like my colleague over at Food in Mouth, I quickly got over the intensity of the chocolate and become much more concerned with when I could procure the next bite-sized chunk.

The most satisfying aspect of Mast Bros. chocolate is that the foo foo liner notes that accompany its product are stunningly accurate. Single origin, 81% cocoa Dominican Republic is a hefty expression of earthy flavors – “rustic earth, black tea, rum, black berry, maybe even tobacco and sometimes licorice,” to be precise. Likewise, The Masts’ Fleur de Sal de Guerande (hand-harvested sea salt from France) is “a perfect finishing salt, amplifying the sweetness and citrus of the Madagascar cacao,” and the “nuttiness, fruit and beautiful texture” of the Mast’s meaty cacao nibs introduce a hearty element to their chocolate that is as much to savor as it is to feel. The distinctive profiles of each bar bore much of this flavor text to my taste buds in way that rarely happens when I drink a glass of red wine.

At the top of my list, single origin, 72% cocoa Madagascar “tickles your palate with blood orange, dried sour cherry and raspberry notes. Soft tannins and bright fruit linger on your brain like a night in Napa Valley.” As I popped piece after piece of this chocolate into my mouth and grappled with the flavors as they unwound on my tongue, these ridiculous, J. Peterman-worshipping words only become more true, with one all-important difference: Whereas Peterman dealt in plastering status onto schlock, Rick and Michael Mast engage in creating food that encapsulates labor and art.

Is an artisan chocolate bar the form of hipsterism, matured? Is it simply another unwitting offensive in socioeconomic restructuring? The Mast brothers, flanked by like-minded, locally-focused entrepreneurs at the Brooklyn Kitchen, the Meat Hook, Marlow & Daugters, Pies and Thighs, the Greenpoint Greenmarket, and the many other members of North Brooklyn’s blossoming food community, have nurtured an answer that goes beyond dive bars without eschewing them and stands up to five-stars without pursuing them. Most importantly, these voices are not alone in their statement of delicious development: With the help of social media and the spark of generational change, a similar process has taken root in urban environments all over the United States.

I’m not one to know exactly how this spirit will guide the evolution of Williamsburg, let alone the rest of the country. Despite the fact that culture clashes of gentrification are very much alive and well, this town’s food-crazed denizens, the Mast brothers certainly included, have done a lot in my eyes to make a tasteful case for their ongoing invasion.

Mast Bros. Chocolate
105 North 3rd St.
Brooklyn, NY 11211
718.388.2625
Open Sat. and Sun. 2pm-8pm