Family photo, at Duck's Cosmic Kitchen

I think this may be the first family one in a year. Gillen looks like he's been drinking our beer but he was actually way energized by the sweet tea.

The lovely locavore Virginia Dupree offered to take it last night. We were at one of the dinners that she puts together with the Decatur restaurant, Duck's Cosmic Kitchen, to highlight eating locally.

Three years ago, Virginia was eating lunch at Duck's and reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Miracle. She remembers what she was eating and that it was local. Between the delicious meal and the writing, she was inspired to take action. She put out an email to some friends asking if they would like to eat a meal with only locally produced ingredients at a local restaurant. That was on a Friday. By Monday, the word had spread and she had enthusiastic commitments from sixty people.

Now, there is usually a long waiting list for each dinner. She always includes a local farmer or other locavore, to eat with the gang and then talk about the specifics of eating local. The next dinner is hosting a local canner.

Nicolas and his mother went once before. Last night, Gillen was invited to join him in order to talk about his heritage breed turkeys. Jesse and I decided to join them. It was so nice - Tomato Pie, locally produced steak, Vidalia onion rings, blueberry sorbet served with orange and red watermelon. And Gillen was quite a wonderful speaker. Here, he is being transformed by his love of the desert:If you live in Atlanta or Decatur, Duck's Cosmic Kitchen (usually only open for lunch) is very special.

Big-Hearted Benne Vegienna

I am going to write yet another very long post about our four days in Italy. This is because I have a dismal memory that may lose Italy if I don't record it here. Plus, I am loving re-living those days. And finally, because I am hoping that someone who reads here may feel inspired to look further into the Slow Food organization and/or nominate themselves as a delegate in two years for the next Terra Madre.

The only thing missing in Italy that week were a certain brilliant farmer/educator from Maryland and a fiesty red-headed one from Wisconsin. ; )

So, on to the stories about Benne Vegienna - the romantic, lovely little village where we stayed, and that, yes, much to all of our squealing third-grade-boy-like glee, is pronounced, with lots of intense Italian articulation, exactly like a certain part of the female anatomy. : > 0

Every day, hundreds of buses took all six thousand plus Terra Madre delegates to hotels in the areas surrounding Turin. Our bus ride was an hour and a half long. Our group was made up of mostly young American farmers and we were led by the best two young Italian volunteers that have ever existed in the history of Italian volunteers. I know I'm right about this. If you go to the next Terra Madre, you have to make sure to get on the bus with Eugenio (the cute anthropologie major from Rome) and Fabiola (the beautiful young female medical student), both of whom had the most charming English, ever. Here is an example - a recent email from Eugenio:

Hello my friends,

I am Eugenio!

how was your return in United States?

Are you happy e serene? I hope so! Are you talking with your friends about terra madre, turin, Bene Vagienna and the seven churches of Bene Vagienna? ( i have still to show you the third church!)...You all are in my heart, and I can imagine you now if I close my eyes, you are on your sofa, drinking wine watching the electoral results on tv hoping for Obama. I am with you.

... I miss you all. I would like to wish you a good day, a good week, a good month, a good year, a good two year....until the next terra madre when we will meet in Turin for the second time.

Today is a great day for me because i will move in bologna tomorrow, and i am very gloomy.

VI VOGLIO BENE TUTTI,

GREETINGS FROM ROME.

At the end of each day's meetings we assembled for our bus by searching through the hundreds of signs for this one, and by listening for the wonderful Italian cry of "Benne Vegienna!" being sung out by Eugenio or Fabiola.
To the left is Eugenio, always ready to guide or embrace any of us:

Here is our group of young Americans . I was the older American, by then on about the eighth night of insomnia, so happily taking the picture. One night, Eugenio was enlisted to translate for us during an impromptu midnight tour of the city of Benne Vegienna by the minister of culture there. But first, more introductions of the town's protagonists.

Below, the Minister is dancing with one of the American farmers at an annual celebration of the city that took place in a tent, one of the nights that we were there.
Our intrepid Hotel Manager wishing us goodbye, as he did everyday, while we pulled off in our bus towards Turin.
Here is a museum curator who spoke English really well and was enlisted by the minister of culture to give us a tour of one of Benne Vegienna's magnificent churches, late one night. The ancient angel lent support.
With the generous help of yet another curator, we were then given a tour of Benne Vegienna's archaeological museum. This area of Italy was part of an original Roman city and there is even a partially excavated Roman amphitheater in the area.

That same night, we were invited to view an artist's exhibit that hadn't yet even been opened to the public.

Judith brought some sustenance - Meade that she purchased at the presidio market that day. It was a loving cup, shared by all. The art was really good too. Lisa shared her prickled pears:
The impassioned guy on the right is the young successful founder of High Mowing Seeds, a farm in Vermont that grows organic seeds and whom Nicolas was very excited to be able to meet in person. His wife, a potter, is also very cool. He shared dried caterpillars on the bus, which he purchased every day from an African farmer. He generously also always brought Meade to help wash them down. These two are the South Carolina farmers that our friends the Lovejoys know. They are unschoolers! What a surprise, with so many people, to have them at the same hotel. Here they are reading the beautiful book about the ancient town that existed before Benne Vegienna, a book that was given to each of us by that irrepressible, industrious, always smiling Minister of Culture. My favorite night in the village was the night when we were invited to see a local band perform in one of the many churches. "Trio Bab" was made up of an accordionist, a drummer and a guitarist. They played music from Cirque de Soleil, Edith Piaf's La Vie en Rose, and my favorite of their choices - this music from Amelie. We arrived almost at the end of their concert but the Minister of Culture kept murmuring things in one or another of their ears as they would leave the stage, always resulting in yet another encore. They didn't seem to mind at all. They were so passionate about their music and happy to try out their English on us before each of their five encores.

It was a beautiful church:
We went after dinner, so it was after our nightly allotment of local red wine. Lots of wine can be poured over four courses. All of this is to say, I thought that I was seeing straight. This angel has the same mouth (as well as that area between the nose and mouth) as my brother and Gillen.
After Trio Bab finally were allowed to call it a night, we were given a tour of BenneVegienna by the Minister of Culture, with Eugenio trying to translate. It is filled with those old European narrow, cobble stoned streets, tunneled sidewalks, and soft street lights that immediately bring you back in time.The best of the many stories we heard was one told after viewing the ancient outdoor freezer - a thick, stone, well-like enclosure. We were on a street... ah, I've lost the name - but it is the Italian word for that sigh that you take when you are very much in love. Eugenio charmingly demonstrated this sigh for us. Then, continuing to translate the minister's words, he told us that people always kissed on this small street. We were then led by the m. of c. to a small park, just up the hill. We stood there silently for a moment, taking in the brilliant fall leaves' colors, dramatically lit by a street lamp. The silence was broken by a sigh. It was the sigh that Eugenio had described. We all looked for its source. It came from a cute elderly man from the town who had been accompanying us on our tour. He spoke. Eugenio translated. He pointed dramatically to a bench across the lawn and said that this was the bench where he had first made love. And then he added - "it was to a woman" just in case, I guess, we were thinking a mule, or a man. Then those Italians present all started sharing stories, some of which may have been translated by Eugenio, but none of which I heard, so hysterical and joyful were I and my fellow Americans to be witnessing this Italian scene. I didn't have my camera that night so there are no pictures but I remember the glow of amber light hitting that bench, as well as the partially lit castle we then saw that is now a home for the elderly.

We all agreed - we were the luckiest group in the whole of Terra Madre, except for the fact that now everything pales in comparison to that town and those wine-filled meals. Well, not everything. We were very ready to get back to Holland to see Gillen and Jesse, who'd been staying with Nicolas' father and step-mother.

Maybe I can be less slow while reliving Holland.

Savoring Slow Food at Terra Madre

The fried calamari, the honey, the chocolate, the raw milk, the beers, the preserved fruits and olives and bread dipped in olive oil. The gelato! The canollis:

It was intense, this huge amount of food and people. We were very grateful that first day at the Salon de Gusto, having not slept the night before (well, me) in anticipation of a 4:30a.m. wake up call to make our flight to Turin from Brussels, and having dragged our luggage around for hours, to find these clever chairs, made from rolled up old newspapers.A few days later we would discover the most important section of the food booths - the "presidio", a large area set aside for rare, sustainably produced foods. These foods had to pass a rigorous set of guidelines in order to receive the presidio label. Each of these booths had a banner (one in English next to the one in Italian) describing the area where it was produced and giving detailed information about its production. There were amazing foods - like the raspberry sized strawberries that are only ripe for ten days a year. After being given a shot of the grappa , La Grappa di Susanna, produced with these strawberries, we couldn't resist buying a small bottle to share with family at Christmas.

Another fascinating food was a sweetener that grows in vine-like tenticles from an Italian tree. I wish that I had more information about these icycle-like, good for diabetics sugar, but the smiling Italian men who harvested it didn't speak any English. We brought home a bag of these, as well as a jar of dark, small, intensely sweet plums, Cannelloni beans, Quinoa from Peru, dried olives, an African cereal grain, and Sicilian honey. We also brought back beautiful fava beans and a strong, pink colored garlic - to plant.

Some of our treasures:And some North American Slow Food Presidia information.

I wished we could have brought back the seeds of these Italian tomatoes. They are cultivated in volcanic rich soil, which we will never come close to recreating, and they hang in kitchens (which are much less humid than ours in the south) where the tomatoes stay good for weeks!We ate a lot of cheese samples. This is a Parmigiano that we saw in the Salon de Gusto food fair:

Hanging Buffalo Mozzarellas:I discovered a new favorite - Pecorino Cheese.
The part of Italy where we were is part of the Piedmont Region. They are known for their meats. There were hundreds of cured meats. I think we may have sampled them all.

Salmon:

This was an entire room of hanging proscuitto at the Salon de Gusto.
And then, at night, we were all treated to a four course meal at all of our hotels or bed and breakfasts or hosts' homes. I don't know about everybody's situation, but our hotel dinner was accompanied by as many bottles of red wine as we wanted. These were slooow meals with great conversation with fellow farmers, and a ridiculously generous and jovial hotel staff looking after us, in a village called Benne Vagienna. But that is for another post. I need to go drink some water after thinking about all that meat.

Terra Madre

The week before last, Nicolas and I spent four days and nights in Turin, Italy as slow food delegates at the biannual Terra Madre event, what they call a "convivium". Terra Madre brings together over six thousand slow food producers, chefs and educators (primarily farmers) from over 140 countries, in order to share ideas about sustainability, about saving traditional food culture and even about saving the actual foods themselves that are close to becoming extinct. This year was apparently much more political than other years, the financial crisis highlighting how important small, diverse food producers and sustainable practices have become.

It was much more massive, moving and inspiring than I'd expected. Below is the front of the building that housed the "earth workshops" that we attended every day, as well as several hundred "presidio" food booths that sold and gave information about rare, sustainably produced foods from all over the world. Near to this building was another massive arena that housed the biannual Salon de Gusto, the world's largest food fair.

The food. Oh. my. The food. The food really needs its own post.
So, in this one I will stick to the non-edible. Terra Madre, for me, was about hope for the future. There were so many young, intelligent farmers who are energetically committed to this movement. It was also amazing to be surrounded by so many farmers from all parts of the world.

Below are examples of some of them.


These pictures were taken by Slow Food photographers other years and were shown on giant screens, along with many other pictures, during this year's opening and closing ceremonies.


















So many noble, proud, strong farmers - mostly young and mostly women.

Here were some of the first we saw upon arriving.
The opening ceremony was olympian in grandeur. One of the speakers called it the "olympics of food". There was a parade of flag holders, representing the 160 (?) countries who were present. These delegates, most dressed in their country's traditional costume, then sat on the stage for the rest of the proceedings. The African women, that night and throughout the week, were particularly majestic. There was lots of fantastic multi-cultural music, mostly performed by farmers, who also just happened to be musicians.

Then, there were the speakers. The founder of Slow Food, Carlo Patrini, was wise and paternal. With that Italian accent it wouldn't have mattered if he were talking about plumbing, I still would have been on the edge of my dizzyingly high seat. If you click on his name you can see him in action. The translation allowed us to hear how impassioned he is in his commitment to fighting world hunger and industrial/big business fraud. He talked about the irresponsible speculation that has led to even more world wide hunger and about the wall we have hit. We will now have to move towards a more rural economy. He believes that consumers are getting ready for the big choices and are looking for healthy, local, seasonal food. He talked about the delegates representing the farmers and villagers of the whole world and about how farmers would be the "main protagonists of the third industrial revolution." He is quite a leader.
One inspiring speaker was Alice Waters, the famous chef of Chez Panisse and a vice president of Slow Food International. She spoke of a need from the new U.S. President for "stewardship and nourishment." She proposed an organic vegetable garden on the White House lawn that is gardened by children. Another powerful woman, Vandana Shiva, also a Vice President of Slow Food International, spoke passionately about the Mansonto-GMO-seed issue that is crippling Indian farmers. You can see a short video of her detailing this atrocity here.

I got this picture of Carlo Petrini in the building where the workshops were held. He stepped away from his closely protective entourage in order to speak to an African farmer who was selling products he'd brought from his home (as were hundreds of other farmers) on the arena floor. Buying from these farmers allowed us an opportunity to meet them.

These African men behind me at the closing ceremony carried themselves like chiefs. The whole six thousand plus of us managed to do the wave during the closing ceremony. In this section, an Aussie farmer was seated next to a Mexican who was next to a Native American in full regalia. The Earth workshops were interesting, though not very revelatory. Most people that I talked to agreed that the best part of the four days was spent talking to fellow farmers while being served four course meals at our hotels, or making our way through the Salon de Gusto or on the floor of the building where so many farmers were selling their seeds, hand made crafts and textiles.

One of the workshops, about the bee crisis, stood out for me. Bee keeper after bee keeper, from Brazil, France, New Zealand, Mexico, England, Spain, and many places in between, stood up and expressed their horror about what has been happening to their hives over the past several years. The colony collapse disorder just keeps getting worse and they don't feel that the scientists are listening to what they are saying. They blame the newest pesticides, the loss of biodiversity and the gmos. Someone ought to write a book. ; )

Next installments - staying in a village called Benne Vagienna; and of course, the food.

"Slow Food" Pig Competition

On Monday night, Nicolas and I got to go to a Slow Food event at 5 Seasons Brewery, a restaurant that strongly supports local sustainable food and that brews up some great beer. Below are Dave, the owner, Nicolas, and Judith, a friend of ours who is the co-leader of our state chapter of Slow Food. This event revolved around pigs.
Five well treated, grass-fed, rare breed pigs were given to five of Atlanta's best chefs. They cooked them however they wished and then we (the lucky participants) ate, and ate, and ate some more, and drank, and then shuffled our happy, bloated way over to a table where we voted for our favorites. There was a guy there, Allan Benton, who is famous for his delicious cured pork, and his proscuitto and bacon were amazing. I also ate belly fat for the first time and now can't stop thinking about how much I have to have more of it. But the winner of the best overall pig preparation, who used a Berkshire pig from our favorite meat-producing farmers, was Kevin Rathbun, of Rathbun's Restaurant. Apparently he wins lots of trophies on The Iron Chef as well. He vowed to attach this trophy to the hood of his car. The proceeds from this and several other Slow Food events are going towards paying for the airfare of those GA delegates who are going to the bi-annual international Slow Food Event in Turin, Italy, (Terra Madre)at the end of this month. Nicolas is a delegate this year. Unbelievably, I am one as well! So I will be coming home impassioned to share lots of information here about the politics and the soul of that which challenges, or supports a slow food culture.
Leaving you with some science, according to Charlotte (the stein-carrying farmer above who is responsible for raising all of the meat that we eat from her family's Riverview Farms), these two glasses, when full, contain the same amount of liquid in them. Before becoming organic farmers, she and her husband used to be chemists, so I (skeptically) believe her.