Seacoast Eat Local

Citizens for Community Wellness in Exeter is hosting a free showing of the movie “Fresh” at the Exeter High School on Saturday, March 12th. The movie will screen at 12:30, during Winter Farmers’ Market hours — all parents, students, farmers, educators, chefs, business owners and community members are invited:

See the movie FRESH on Saturday, March 12 at 12:30 pm during the Seacoast Eat Local Winter Farmers’ Market (10:00 am – 2:00 pm) and buy fresh food from local farmers at Exeter High School.  The movie, sponsored by Citizens for Community Wellness, will be shown in the auditorium and is free of charge. It will be followed by a panel discussion with a food service director, a farmer, chef and a local fisherman to open up dialogue on how to get more local and fresh food into schools.

 

Citizens for Community Wellness (CCW) is a grassroots group which came together last November. It includes parents, teachers, chefs, farmers, students and nutritionists. In addition to supporting community and school gardens, the group is trying to connect local farms to food service directors. A volunteer “food broker” is already helping to negotiate prices, develop seasonal product lists and liaise between the two groups.

 

Josh Jennings from Meadow’s Mirth Farm in Stratham sold 50 pounds of carrots to Exeter High School this week and vegetables to four other schools including Hampton Falls, Winnacunnet, North Hampton, and Marston School. “It has been a really good response and a great start. We are adjusting to school schedules and hope we can get long term commitments as we plan for the fall harvest,” said Jennings.

 

To help the food service directors come up with recipes for things like turnips and kale, the CCW recently hosted a “food demo” with local farmers, a nutritionist and parents.  Food service directors tried kale chips, sautéed kale, a confetti of roasted turnips, beets and carrots, butternut squash and a raw beet salad.

 

A vegetable garden at the Exeter High School is in the development stage with support from the student Environment Club, but the project needs community support to help get it off  the ground and to maintain it over the summer. “We plan to use the food from the garden in school lunches,” said Jeannie Pierce, the Director of Food Services for Exeter Region Cooperative Schools. “But since students won’t be here over the summer, we need parents to help out and “adopt” the garden to help maintain it.”

 

The 70-minute film, FRESH, celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision for a future of our food and our planet. “FRESH portrays a movement that is happening in America and worldwide. The alternative food market is the fastest growing market in the United States, even though it still makes up a minuscule percentage of the food economy,” said producer and director Ana Sofia Joanes.

 

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. FRESH celebrates the food architects who offer a practical vision of a new food paradigm and consumer access to it.  Encouraging individuals to take matters into their own hands, FRESH is a guide that empowers people to take an array of actions as energetic as planting urban gardens and creating warm composts from food waste, and as simple as buying locally-grown products and preserving seasonal produce to eat later in the year.

 

If you can’t come to the movie, but would like to be included on the mailing list for future events and meetings or to volunteer, please send an email to Tracey Miller at tracey@traceymillerwellness.com or call 603-380-1080.

Join Chef Evan Hennessey as he introduces hospitality management students at UNH to molecular gastronomy with their next series of Gourmet Dinners this Friday, March 4th and Saturday, March 5th. With an emphasis on using locally sourced food, the menu for “Savor the Elements: Inspirations from Earth, Water, Wind & Fire” promises a memorable evening of gastronomical delights and surprises:

Savor the Elements 

Inspirations from Earth, Water, Wind, & Fire

Hors d’oeuvres

Earth

Porcini Tartlet — Spinach & Parmesan

Wind

Cool Pea Shooter — Fresh Mint Foam

Water

Blue Point Oysters — White Wine Mignonette

Fire

Chipotle Chèvre — Pepper Dust  

Appetizer

Water

Beef Consommé — Black Radish & Hijiki

Entrée

Fire

Spicy Shrimp — Sweet Onions & Scallions

Intermezzo

Water

Rosewater Sorbetto — Blood Orange & Rose

Main Entrée

Earth, Water, Fire

Moroccan Lamb — Turmeric, Coriander, Saffron

Potato Pancake — Heirloom Potatoes, Chives

Rapini — Garlic, Australian Sea Salt

Port Wine Sauce

Salad

Earth

Thirteen Greens — Feta, Pine Nuts, Pickled Peppers

Dessert

Wind

Raspberry Filled Phyllo — Marshmallow & Lemon Curd

“Savor the Elements: Inspirations from Earth, Water, Wind & Fire” will be held on Friday, March 4th and Saturday, March 5th at Stillings Hall, 20 Ballard Drive, Durham, NH, beginning with wine and hors d’oeuvres at 6 o’clock with dinner to follow. Tickets are $60 per person and may be purchased online: http://wsbe.unh.edu/gourmetdinner

From Seacoastonline.com, a recent article by Rachel Forrest on Chef Evan Hennessey and the upcoming dinner: Inspirations from Earth, Water, Wind at Gourmet Dinner

Slow Food Seacoast is hosting an event featuring three of the delegates representing the Seacoast at last fall’s Terra Madre, Slow Food’s biennial gathering of international “food communities”:

Terra Madre “Taste of Place”

An After Hours Slow Food Seacoast Social

March 10th from 5:00-7:45

Press Room (2nd floor), Portsmouth

Calling all farmers, fishers, artisans and eaters who value local, good, clean and fair food!

 

Come enjoy an after hours mixer with great local music, food and fun!  The event is free, and Black Trumpet Bistro will be providing sumptuous internationally flavored appetizers made with local ingredients.

 

This event also presents an informal opportunity to hear more about Slow Food Terra Madre — also know as “The Farmer’s United Nations”, from local delegates who represented the Seacoast region in Italy. John Forti, Jean Jennings and Evan Mallett gathered among over 5000 delegates from 150 nations at the Olympic Stadium in Turin, to discuss how to create new economies and artisanal products around local agriculture, horticulture, and fisheries. We hope this reception will inspire some of the hope delegates saw in models of sustainable, local practices in Italy and from around the world. To learn more about Terra Madre and the Salone del Gusto marketplace visit http://www.salonedelgusto.com/ and http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/programs/details/bringing_terra_madre_home/

 

This after work mixer will offer a celebration of our shared roots in community and positive social change. For a brief portion of the evening delegates will speak. Evan Mallett (Black Trumpet Bistro http://www.blacktrumpetbistro.com/) will talk about new found inspiration to be cleaner and greener, a better understanding of how to balance aquaculture and wild fish stocks, and getting our children to eat local and fresh ingredients in their school lunches. Jean Jennings (Meadow’s Mirth www.meadowsmirth.com/contact.html) will discuss the cost of good food and issues of accessibility, as well as organize some local/seasonal music to accompany the evening.  John Forti (www.jforti.com Co-founder Slow Food Seacoast) will talk about inspired land use, the “Salone del Gusto” market of place based foods, “Renewing American Food Traditions” and creating new ones which will take us into a better future.

 

There will also be RAFT, heirloom and native seeds available for everyone willing to help preserve and collect seeds for a more sustainable future…and remember, the best way to preserve rare breeds and heirloom seeds/plants is to eat them.

 

Please patronize the cash bar to thank The Press Room http://www.pressroomnh.com/index.cfm for hosting this event.

 

Slow Food is an idea, a way of living and a way of eating. It is a global, grassroots movement with thousands of members around the world that links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment.  Learn more about our work from Plate to Planet and Good, Clean and Fair. Slow Food seeks to create dramatic and lasting change in the food system. We reconnect with the people, traditions, plants, animals, fertile soils and waters that produce our food. We seek to inspire a transformation in food policy, production practices and market forces so that they ensure equity, sustainability and pleasure in the food we eat. Your local chapter – Slow Food Seacoast, works to support these goals, while fostering an appreciation of our unique regional and seasonal food systems, an understanding of how our native foods, heirloom crops, rare breed animals and artisanal practices have sustained us through history. Check out the Slow Food Seacoast website http://www.slowfoodseacoast.org/ or facebook page for further details

If you have a moment, please take this short survey from UNH graduate student, Perrin H. Long:

This is a confidential survey for educational purposes as part of a master’s thesis to investigate customer attitudes and opinions with regards to the creation of a sustainable, cooperatively run, nutritionally focused restaurant serving locally sourced foods in the New Hampshire seacoast area.

 

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/STSQ75P