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Blood. Guts. I spent Sunday up in New Hampshire, but I wasn’t watching football, or even a gory b-rated horror flick. Instead, I found myself in rubber boots, a brown apron, plucking feathers from a turkey with a pair of pliers, facing the inevitable question “what are you doing here?”
Everyone else comes to turkey killing day as part of a family obligation to help out Uncle Charlie as he gets this year flock of turkeys ready in a hurry for the Thanksgiving season. I had come out of sheer curiosity to see how exactly the turkey running around in the backyard came to rest on my plate.
**Warning to the squeamish and weak of stomach: I am now going to describe the process between the live turkey in the pen and the Thanksgiving turkey on your plate.** Click here for the rest of this entry…
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At this year’s Food and Society conference Carlo Petrini implored the attendants to slow down their food experience, and become co-producers with the people who grow our food. I left his talk energized to cook my own meals, and host dinner parties of people I didn’t know, uniting people around food.
Then I returned to work. I saw people eating lunch at their desks, or bringing their laptops to the lunch table. While I understood that there was always more to do than there was time to do it in, it saddened me to see, even in an organization that cared so deeply about food, people struggling to take time to appreciate every meal.
My sadness is increased by the knowledge of what a wonderful experience lunchtime at The Food Project can be. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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Yesterday, I walked into a kindergarten class, armed only with a cornstalk, a trifold, and 14 ears of popcorn. When I walked out 90 minutes later, I didn’t even have the cornstalk – the kids had blown me away.
The Food Project has gone for several years to the Lincoln Kindergarten to talk about corn. One kindergartener told me all about pollination, while another explained to me that conservation land was “where you couldn’t build on”. Everyone got to see the difference between sweet corn, flour corn, and popcorn, and then they worked in pairs to shuck popcorn, collecting it to give to Rosie’s Place, a women’s shelter downtown, to have popcorn for the holidays. Giggles flew as popcorn kernels popped off the cobs, kids oohed and ahhed at the different colors of kernels, from red to yellow to blue, and the room exploded with delight at seeing popcorn pop right off the cob in the microwave.
Who knew corn was so exciting? I’m now bringing popcorn to all my friends.
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This was written by Mikey Azzara, 2004-2005 BLAST Cadre member, about the Iowa Dig-In. The Dig-In was the Cadre’s final retreat, and a chance to explore the issues, successes and challenges that sustainable agriculture is facing in Iowa.
Iowa is so very much different from New Jersey. And so is its agriculture. I had to see it to believe how much corn and soybeans, and how much farmland, there really is in Iowa. Those who know me know about my passion for place and local-scale change, but since this trip I am beginning to think more about the potentially larger role that I can place in the coming years. Seeing and experiencing Iowa really grounded me in the fact that every region and every state and every town has a slightly different set of circumstances (whether its climate, soil, farming practices, or markets), and inspired me to really want to learn more…what’s it like in Texas? Florida? New Mexico? Maine? Click here for the rest of this entry…
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Today started with a bunch of students racing into our city office, eagerly washing potatoes that they grew, cooking them in different ways, and chomping down on their finished products. Apparently the classes have been waiting for a month to come into the kitchen to work, and their energy was pulsing throughout the morning.
School Partnerships is a program we have that pairs with elementary schools to work with third graders once a week in the fall and spring. The students get to learn about plants, gardening, working hard, and eating healthy as they help us through the food cycle by planting potatoes and garlic that they take from seeds to the table. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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There’s a good essay at World Hunger Year entitled “Growing the Local Food Movement”. It was written by Peter Mann, the International Director of Wolrd Hunger Year. Read it here.
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Anim Steel is our Director of BLAST, as well as a Pro Bono Scarecrow.
“So what’s the answer?” I asked the woodchuck warming her hands by the fire next to me. The were-woodchuck, to be precise. It was about 5-foot-4, brown fur, with menacing buck teeth that didn’t seem to go with the young, female voice that came out. “You want to know how much wood could a woodchuck chuck?” it/she said. “Yeah…I mean if a woodchuck could chuck wood, that is,” I clarified. “Sorry. Trade secret, “ she said. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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Being a farmer in the city is much more than knowing the needs of your crops. It’s also knowing the needs of the community, being a good neighbor and dealing with the Porta-Potty when someone decides to push it over.
On a chilly harvest morning this fall Danielle and I walked onto the land to discover that someone had had some fun on the land the night before. This just added to a continuing saga of the ‘mysterious life of the city gardens at night.’ For Danielle, this was not a first. She obviously wasn’t happy about the situation but kind of regarded it as something that is scheduled to happen at least once a season. I, on the other hand, felt violated that this would happen to US. This is how we’re compensated for being a good neighbor?! We’re constantly trying give back to the community and in return, we get spilled poo. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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In mid-October a small group of TFP staff and youth traveled to the 2005 Bioneers Conference. Geisha is one of the youth that attended.
Well what can I say? Bioneers was a great trip. I really enjoyed myself. I have to say that Bioneers really changed me. I learned so much, and took so much to teach others. You can see I went from just a girl to a girl who is now a tree hugger.
When we got to California it was really a change of pace .We got lost for three hours just on our way to the hotel. My fellow members and I looked on the positive side and considered it touring instead of being lost for an hour. When we finally got to Bioneers that is when I began to get so amazed. When we sat down to see the plenary I just couldn’t believe the atmosphere, it was so welcoming. Then when it came to the workshops my mind was in shock, in pure shock. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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In mid-October a small group of TFP staff and youth traveled the 2005 Bioneers Conference. Sarah is one of the youth that attended.
Brian paused, searching for the right words. “It’s a little out there,” he said. “Some might call them hippies.”
I knew then that I would enjoy the conference, and I did.
It wasn’t as “out there” as I expected. I saw many people who appeared to be talking to themselves but were really using hands-free cell phones. The conference was broadcast to several other sites via satellite. It all took place right by a highway.
At first I wondered how raw idealism could fit neatly next to these technologies. Click here for the rest of this entry…
