So. Farm to Table.
Saturday morning rebby and I woke up oh so early (especially considering we rocked out at the Garfield Artworks the night before) and got ourselves ready to go to the conference. We made a pit stop at Einsteins because I wasn't prepared with coffee or travel mugs and honestly, I just couldn't get my mind around making coffee without first drinking coffee that morning. That's how it goes sometimes. So we got some bagels and coffees and headed for the north side. It was a little tricky finding the place because the building at the end of the street had a decoy sign on it, but we did eventually make our way down to the proper place. The Bidwell Training Center looks to me like a highschool built in the 1970s--which for all I know it could have been. Anyway, we managed to get street parking right across from the place. Score. Got in and got registered and the first thing I saw was a table for Table magazine. I was very impressed with this magazine from the copy I picked up at the Michael Pollan lecture(oh yeah, I never wrote about that either, did I?) and I had actually learned about the conference from the magazine, so I wanted to chat with the editor and thank her. I ended up getting a subscription and one of the very last copies of the first issue, which I still haven't completely digested. It looks great.
The co-op was there with a leaflet listing all the local products available at the store---I thought that was really nice. Mung Dynasty was there with some wheat grass and a juicer and later in the day a kinda freaky lookin dude playing guitar and singing about the virtures of sprouting. There were several tables of people selling various kinds of supplements....I usually just glaze over when I am confronted with that stuff. I go to a FARM conference to learn about whole foods, not weird extracts and little plastic bottles of expensive stuff. That's just me.
Out on the patio under a big tent were most of the farmers....the Penn's Corner Farm Alliance, Blackberry Meadows Farm, Marburger Dairy, Wil-Den, the Amish Dude (more on him later) the goat farmer and the raw milk people (I can't remember their names now--should have done this last week....) and some woman pushing a service where sustainably fished salmon and halibut can be flown right to your door. You can find info on most of these farms (and a bunch of others in the area) on LocalHarvest.org.
Search for farms around pittsburgh.
Anyhow, down the hallway were some other exhibitors...more of the weird supplement people, plus Maggie's Mercantile, the chef from the convention center serving a special local tomato bruschetta, WYEP/Allegheny Front with a Cd compilation of the shows they've done on sustainable agriculture (free!) various agricultural/farming associations, some yoga people, a chiropractor giving free massages(yay!), Slow Food Pittsburgh, The Pampered Chef(what?) and the Weston Price people. I could write an entire essay about my ambivalence about these people and their ideas, but I have to say there is at least a kernel of truth in what they are all about. It does resonate with me on a certain level. They advocate for pure clean food, which I can certainly support. Wholeheartedly. I can buy that a lot of the ills of modern American society are brought on by our chemicalized and unnatural food supply, for sure. But I can't quite make the leap to the assertion that the best thing for Americans is to eat tons of animal products all the time. And they also seem to have something against soy foods, which suggests to me that they were very selective in which indiginous populations they chose to study. I haven't really done any research or read any source materials, so I am kind of speaking out of my ass about them based on what I picked up from their displays (and the raw milk lecture I attended at the end of the day) Also, the phrase "nourishing traditions" freaks me out a little bit. It feels a little cult-y. BUT--I did get a couple of books from their table: The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved by Sandor Katz which I am already devouring and loving, and Full Moon Feast which I have just glanced at but looks interesting, if a little hippiedippy. I'll report back.
So after taking our tour of the vendors and getting a feel for the lay of the land, so to speak, rebby and I parted ways to go to our first sessions. She attended a workshop on rain barrels and backyard composting, from which she got lots of ideas and pages of notes. I attended the Farmer's Panel Discussion, from which I got no notes but lots of inspiration and gazing with worshipful admiration upon Don Kretschmann, Barb Kline and Ron Gargasz. I think the piece of information that stuck with me the most is that most Americans spend less than 10% of their income on food, whereas Italians spend around 40% and in some European countries it's even more. That was sort of astonishing. I know that since I've been going for the local/organic wherever possible, I've been spending a lot more. But knowing that my food dollars are going to people who at least in part share my outlook on the world, and barring that at least are going to people who are going to reinvest those dollars in my local economy---it's easy. I'd rather eat less food that is good, than more food that is garbage. Of course, I'm not perfect (witness the great Hostess Outlet Massacre of a few weekends back) but I'm working on it. And soon it will be a whole lot easier, what with spring coming and the farmer's markets starting back up and our own garden.
So. I sat next to Randa Shannon (who is the co-owner of Mildreds' Daughters with Barb) at the talk---I always seem to sit next to her! I congratulated her on the cover story in the CP about her son Bill, and spoke to her about the Wednesday morning volunteer days at the farm. Rebby and I are very excited to do this. Then I made my way down to the cafeteria to look for rebby. I ended up speaking with Don K for a little while, and he told me that I have a beautiful smile and he appreciated my attentive listening. Swoon. I have come to believe that farmers deserve all the adulation of rock stars, and I swear my heart skipped a beat. "he noticed me!" hee hee.
I had a delicious taste of lacto-fermented kimchi from a Sandor Katz recipe---the whole fermented foods thing is another one I'm not entirely sold on, but I do enjoy them when I try them. I found rebby and she was very excited about her workshop too. We decided to go ahead and get lunch...and here's where I had a big cognitive disconnect. The wraps from Mung Dynasty were presented in plastic shells. The soup from the Green Chef Deli was served with plastic spoons in styrofoam cups. There were plastic cups for cider, and bottles of Dasani water. Eeek. We sat in a fully functioning cafeteria with a dishroom to eat this meal. Sure, it was tasty, and made with local ingredients, etc....but. Watching the workers bringing in plastic bag after plastic bag of plastic containers just made me twitchy. Could they not have wrapped the wraps in butcher paper(like we do at the Storm)? Could they not have arranged to turn on the dish machine and use the plates and bowls and silverware from the cafeteria? I don't know what the logistics were, but I can't be the only person who was unnerved by so much waste being produced by a conference on sustainable agriculture. (in fact, I know I wasn't.)
We got over our heebeegeebees and went on to find our next workshops...rebby went to a talk by another farmer about farming in Pennsylvania, and I went to the Chef's Panel. It was kind of interesting, and kind of entertaining, and the little nibbles they ended up producing were yummy. But, I gotta say that as much as I consider farmers to be rock stars, I get a little put off by chefs who ACT like rock stars. I'm of course very impressed and heartened by Bill at Big Burrito and Chris at Six Penn and Doug at Bona Terra, and their commitment to sourcing locally wherever possible. But there was a real clique-y vibe, and Bill's whole celebrity chef thing turned me off. He knows what he is talking about though, and for the most part walks the walk, and I respect that. I guess it was just in contrast to the humility of the farmers that the bravado of the chefs rubbed me the wrong way. Eh. I was impressed by his diatribe about bottled water though...it happened just as I was making my way out of the room and I am glad I didn't manage to get out before it started.
I found rebby again and after we ate the second half of our wraps from lunch, we took a little tour around the tables in the back. She chatted with a farmer at one of the agriculture association booths, and I got my free massage. Yay. Then we made our way up to the Raw Milk lecture.
I'm really psyched about raw milk...I don't necessarily believe the hype about how it will cure diseases and all that, but I spent enough time on a farm as a kid to know what milk is supposed to taste like, and the idea that I can actually drive out to a farm and get milk like that turns me on. The dairy farmers who participated in the talk were great and the milk was amazing. The Westin Price Foundation lady who was giving the talk impressed me less, and as with all their stuff, I found it to be a little unbelievable. But if the practical application of their beliefs is making raw milk more available for the people, I'm all for it.
After the milk talk we went out to the farmers tables to start collecting some souvenirs in the form of food. I got a loaf of raisin bread from the Amish dude, and a bar of goat milk soap from the goat lady. Rebby got us a $25 sampler pack from Wil-Den farms of pastured pork. Oh boy. We got a pound of bacon and two pork chops and two kinds of sausage and a half rack of ribs. Wow. The pork chops and bacon we've already gotten into-both are possibly the most delicious ever. Of course, as I always say, there is a psychological component to their deliciousness, but I'll bet if someone put those chops in front of me and didn't tell me they were from a happy pig I would still be able to tell. Yes, that good.
So, the Amish Dude. Apparently the Amish Dude follows the Westin Price people around, and apparently the Amish Dude can get away with selling things like raw milk butter and cheese because he's an Amish Dude and therefore the regulatory people don't come down on him as hard. Whatever it takes is what I say, because the amish butter ROCKS. Seriously. The Amish Dude's raisin bread cost me $5.50, but boy oh boy was it good. Not something I would spend $5.50 on every day, but I think it was totally worth the expense.
And that was that. We have been plowing through our literature whenever possible, and as I said I am really digging Sandor's book. And just yesterday when we were at the Benford Shanley house trying to decide what to eat for lunch....rebby stared at a pizza delivery menu for about 10 minutes before deciding that she just couldn't bring herself to eat any of that. That's the way we're headed, a little at a time.
Saturday morning rebby and I woke up oh so early (especially considering we rocked out at the Garfield Artworks the night before) and got ourselves ready to go to the conference. We made a pit stop at Einsteins because I wasn't prepared with coffee or travel mugs and honestly, I just couldn't get my mind around making coffee without first drinking coffee that morning. That's how it goes sometimes. So we got some bagels and coffees and headed for the north side. It was a little tricky finding the place because the building at the end of the street had a decoy sign on it, but we did eventually make our way down to the proper place. The Bidwell Training Center looks to me like a highschool built in the 1970s--which for all I know it could have been. Anyway, we managed to get street parking right across from the place. Score. Got in and got registered and the first thing I saw was a table for Table magazine. I was very impressed with this magazine from the copy I picked up at the Michael Pollan lecture(oh yeah, I never wrote about that either, did I?) and I had actually learned about the conference from the magazine, so I wanted to chat with the editor and thank her. I ended up getting a subscription and one of the very last copies of the first issue, which I still haven't completely digested. It looks great.
The co-op was there with a leaflet listing all the local products available at the store---I thought that was really nice. Mung Dynasty was there with some wheat grass and a juicer and later in the day a kinda freaky lookin dude playing guitar and singing about the virtures of sprouting. There were several tables of people selling various kinds of supplements....I usually just glaze over when I am confronted with that stuff. I go to a FARM conference to learn about whole foods, not weird extracts and little plastic bottles of expensive stuff. That's just me.
Out on the patio under a big tent were most of the farmers....the Penn's Corner Farm Alliance, Blackberry Meadows Farm, Marburger Dairy, Wil-Den, the Amish Dude (more on him later) the goat farmer and the raw milk people (I can't remember their names now--should have done this last week....) and some woman pushing a service where sustainably fished salmon and halibut can be flown right to your door. You can find info on most of these farms (and a bunch of others in the area) on LocalHarvest.org.
Search for farms around pittsburgh.
Anyhow, down the hallway were some other exhibitors...more of the weird supplement people, plus Maggie's Mercantile, the chef from the convention center serving a special local tomato bruschetta, WYEP/Allegheny Front with a Cd compilation of the shows they've done on sustainable agriculture (free!) various agricultural/farming associations, some yoga people, a chiropractor giving free massages(yay!), Slow Food Pittsburgh, The Pampered Chef(what?) and the Weston Price people. I could write an entire essay about my ambivalence about these people and their ideas, but I have to say there is at least a kernel of truth in what they are all about. It does resonate with me on a certain level. They advocate for pure clean food, which I can certainly support. Wholeheartedly. I can buy that a lot of the ills of modern American society are brought on by our chemicalized and unnatural food supply, for sure. But I can't quite make the leap to the assertion that the best thing for Americans is to eat tons of animal products all the time. And they also seem to have something against soy foods, which suggests to me that they were very selective in which indiginous populations they chose to study. I haven't really done any research or read any source materials, so I am kind of speaking out of my ass about them based on what I picked up from their displays (and the raw milk lecture I attended at the end of the day) Also, the phrase "nourishing traditions" freaks me out a little bit. It feels a little cult-y. BUT--I did get a couple of books from their table: The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved by Sandor Katz which I am already devouring and loving, and Full Moon Feast which I have just glanced at but looks interesting, if a little hippiedippy. I'll report back.
So after taking our tour of the vendors and getting a feel for the lay of the land, so to speak, rebby and I parted ways to go to our first sessions. She attended a workshop on rain barrels and backyard composting, from which she got lots of ideas and pages of notes. I attended the Farmer's Panel Discussion, from which I got no notes but lots of inspiration and gazing with worshipful admiration upon Don Kretschmann, Barb Kline and Ron Gargasz. I think the piece of information that stuck with me the most is that most Americans spend less than 10% of their income on food, whereas Italians spend around 40% and in some European countries it's even more. That was sort of astonishing. I know that since I've been going for the local/organic wherever possible, I've been spending a lot more. But knowing that my food dollars are going to people who at least in part share my outlook on the world, and barring that at least are going to people who are going to reinvest those dollars in my local economy---it's easy. I'd rather eat less food that is good, than more food that is garbage. Of course, I'm not perfect (witness the great Hostess Outlet Massacre of a few weekends back) but I'm working on it. And soon it will be a whole lot easier, what with spring coming and the farmer's markets starting back up and our own garden.
So. I sat next to Randa Shannon (who is the co-owner of Mildreds' Daughters with Barb) at the talk---I always seem to sit next to her! I congratulated her on the cover story in the CP about her son Bill, and spoke to her about the Wednesday morning volunteer days at the farm. Rebby and I are very excited to do this. Then I made my way down to the cafeteria to look for rebby. I ended up speaking with Don K for a little while, and he told me that I have a beautiful smile and he appreciated my attentive listening. Swoon. I have come to believe that farmers deserve all the adulation of rock stars, and I swear my heart skipped a beat. "he noticed me!" hee hee.
I had a delicious taste of lacto-fermented kimchi from a Sandor Katz recipe---the whole fermented foods thing is another one I'm not entirely sold on, but I do enjoy them when I try them. I found rebby and she was very excited about her workshop too. We decided to go ahead and get lunch...and here's where I had a big cognitive disconnect. The wraps from Mung Dynasty were presented in plastic shells. The soup from the Green Chef Deli was served with plastic spoons in styrofoam cups. There were plastic cups for cider, and bottles of Dasani water. Eeek. We sat in a fully functioning cafeteria with a dishroom to eat this meal. Sure, it was tasty, and made with local ingredients, etc....but. Watching the workers bringing in plastic bag after plastic bag of plastic containers just made me twitchy. Could they not have wrapped the wraps in butcher paper(like we do at the Storm)? Could they not have arranged to turn on the dish machine and use the plates and bowls and silverware from the cafeteria? I don't know what the logistics were, but I can't be the only person who was unnerved by so much waste being produced by a conference on sustainable agriculture. (in fact, I know I wasn't.)
We got over our heebeegeebees and went on to find our next workshops...rebby went to a talk by another farmer about farming in Pennsylvania, and I went to the Chef's Panel. It was kind of interesting, and kind of entertaining, and the little nibbles they ended up producing were yummy. But, I gotta say that as much as I consider farmers to be rock stars, I get a little put off by chefs who ACT like rock stars. I'm of course very impressed and heartened by Bill at Big Burrito and Chris at Six Penn and Doug at Bona Terra, and their commitment to sourcing locally wherever possible. But there was a real clique-y vibe, and Bill's whole celebrity chef thing turned me off. He knows what he is talking about though, and for the most part walks the walk, and I respect that. I guess it was just in contrast to the humility of the farmers that the bravado of the chefs rubbed me the wrong way. Eh. I was impressed by his diatribe about bottled water though...it happened just as I was making my way out of the room and I am glad I didn't manage to get out before it started.
I found rebby again and after we ate the second half of our wraps from lunch, we took a little tour around the tables in the back. She chatted with a farmer at one of the agriculture association booths, and I got my free massage. Yay. Then we made our way up to the Raw Milk lecture.
I'm really psyched about raw milk...I don't necessarily believe the hype about how it will cure diseases and all that, but I spent enough time on a farm as a kid to know what milk is supposed to taste like, and the idea that I can actually drive out to a farm and get milk like that turns me on. The dairy farmers who participated in the talk were great and the milk was amazing. The Westin Price Foundation lady who was giving the talk impressed me less, and as with all their stuff, I found it to be a little unbelievable. But if the practical application of their beliefs is making raw milk more available for the people, I'm all for it.
After the milk talk we went out to the farmers tables to start collecting some souvenirs in the form of food. I got a loaf of raisin bread from the Amish dude, and a bar of goat milk soap from the goat lady. Rebby got us a $25 sampler pack from Wil-Den farms of pastured pork. Oh boy. We got a pound of bacon and two pork chops and two kinds of sausage and a half rack of ribs. Wow. The pork chops and bacon we've already gotten into-both are possibly the most delicious ever. Of course, as I always say, there is a psychological component to their deliciousness, but I'll bet if someone put those chops in front of me and didn't tell me they were from a happy pig I would still be able to tell. Yes, that good.
So, the Amish Dude. Apparently the Amish Dude follows the Westin Price people around, and apparently the Amish Dude can get away with selling things like raw milk butter and cheese because he's an Amish Dude and therefore the regulatory people don't come down on him as hard. Whatever it takes is what I say, because the amish butter ROCKS. Seriously. The Amish Dude's raisin bread cost me $5.50, but boy oh boy was it good. Not something I would spend $5.50 on every day, but I think it was totally worth the expense.
And that was that. We have been plowing through our literature whenever possible, and as I said I am really digging Sandor's book. And just yesterday when we were at the Benford Shanley house trying to decide what to eat for lunch....rebby stared at a pizza delivery menu for about 10 minutes before deciding that she just couldn't bring herself to eat any of that. That's the way we're headed, a little at a time.
posted by sheryl at 8:33 AM
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