This month: Our Garden

Our Garden is a ten-acre family farm seventy miles west of St. Louis in New Florence, MO. They grow a wide variety of naturally grown fruits and vegetables. Plants and herbs are available in the spring. Jams, pickles and seasonal vegetables, along with goat cheese and goat meat are available throughout the year.

Come shop at the Maplewood Farmer’s Market and stick around to hear about their farm and what it takes to get their wonderful, fresh, local produce to our markets and our tables. Then enjoy some delicious specials using ingredients provided by Our Garden and prepared by Bottleworks Chef Matt Bessler.

6-7 p.m. Slow Food St. Louis Meeting in the Crown Room
7-7:45 p.m. Settle in and place your orders if you’re dining
7:45-8:45 Guest farmer presentation
8:45-9:00 Q&A

Stay as long as you’d like!

Next Month: August 13: Ivan’s Farm - Dittmer, MO

We have established the Terra Madre Relief Fund for precisely this purpose.  Some of you may remember of the great successes this fund had, under Poppy Tooker’s able guidance, in raising over $40K to help victims of Katrina and Rita.  Today the fund exists to help all those farmers and food artisans struck by natural disasters nationwide, and right now the focus is on the Mississippi River and its tributaries.

But just as it was for so many after Katrina, such as Kay and Ray Brandhurst, the shrimpers in Louisiana who’s trawler got a new engine thanks to the TM Relief Fund, so that they could get back to providing good, clean, fair food, there is hope for the folks in the Heartland as well.  We intend to help get these farmers back to the markets, and get those markets back up and running.

Please also consider organizing a benefit event within your convivium to help us raise the money that is so desperately needed, or perhaps to refocus an event you already have planned to benefit flood relief.  And please be sure to ask each of your members to give generously at this link or by sending checks (made out to Slow Food USA - with “Terra Madre Relief Fund: Iowa” in the memo) to the address below.

We truly appreciate, and are relying on your generosity.  Please give at the Terra Madre Relief Fund, and feel free to contact me at any time with comments or questions.  Thank you all so very much, and I’ll be in touch soon with more details.

The third annual Slow Food St. Louis Art of Food is shaping up to be an exciting one.  Details are still pending, but the line up of chefs is looking tremendous, and you’re not going to want to miss it.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

How cool will you be when you’re waving around your signed Michael Pollan book collection?

I don’t know, but you can find out if you win because Slow Food USA is pleased to announce that the 4th Annual Online Auction is now LIVE!

Visit the Slow Food USA auction web page for a complete listing of all of this year’s items up for grabs:
http://slowfoodusa.org/support/auction.html

Please join Slow Food St. Louis and STL GreenDrinks Monday, June 16th, to talk about “the sustainable summer table.”

Now that summer is here and transportation costs are soaring, it’s prime time for turning our attention towards eating locally grown foods. Wendell Berry summed up the connection between our food choices and the health of the planet when he wrote: “Eaters … must understand that eating takes place inescapably in the world, that it is inescapably an agricultural act, and that how we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used.”

Our panelists will give us meaningful advice for connecting with where our food comes from and strategies toward creating a more sustainable table for each one of us:

Beki Marsh, founder and co-leader of Slow Food St. Louis, will introduce us to the roots and the concept of the Slow Food movement

Andy Ayers, Owner/Chef Emeritus of Riddle’s Penultimate Cafe & Wine Bar in the U. City Loop and local foods entrepreneur, will help us understand the challenges of bringing local food from farm to retail shelf or restaurant table. More importantly, he’ll also share with us the good news from around town as these barriers are being overcome.

Nicola MacPherson, owner of Ozark Forest Mushrooms, grows certified organic shiitake and oyster mushrooms on her farm in Salem, Missouri. Nicola sells her products directly at markets, to restaurants, and to retailers. She will help us understand the struggle of the small American family farmer in the global marketplace.

Drinks will be available in the Crown room. If you prefer to dine, please come early and eat in the dining room or on the patio. Table service is not available during the event.

• Who: STL Green Drinks
• When: Monday,June 16, 2008 6:30 pm to 9 pm (panel from 7 pm to 8 pm)
• Where: Schlafly Bottleworks, 260 Southwest Ave. (at Manchester), Maplewood, MO 63143
• Cover: $3 suggested donation

Wednesday, June 11 Slow Food St. Louis and Schlafly Bottleworks presents SLOWednesdays, featuring the Root Cellar farm.

Since 1997 Kimberly Griffin and Walker Claridge have been farming in Millersburg and, more recently, Hatton, Missouri. Between the two locations they farm seven acres and have three greenhouses. They grow just about any vegetables and herbs that can be grown in these parts, and in 2001 opened the Root Cellar Grocery and Cafe in Columbia, MO.

Come shop at the Maplewood Farmer’s Market and stick around to hear about their farm and what it takes to get their wonderful, fresh, local produce to our markets and our tables. And enjoy some delicious specials using ingredients provided by Root Cellar prepared by Bottleworks Chef Matt Bessler. Or, order from the full menu.

7-7:45 p.m. Settle in in the Crown Room and place your orders if you’re dining
7:45-8:45 Guest farmer presentation
8:45-9:00 Q&A

Stay as long as you’d like!

It was a long day of oppressive heat and ferocious winds that have left me too drained to really comment at the moment, but in the end the food was great, the hospitality was incredible, and we all walked away convinced that the Hillebrand’s live on one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Thanks to Barb and Dave Hillebrand and their family, chef Tim Grandinetti for helping out once again, and all the chefs he enlisted including Lou Rook III, Dave Owens, Margaret Kelly, Kevin Nashan, Christy Augustine, and all their staff that tagged along to sweat in Grandma Hillebrand’s garage.

I took over 500 pictures (of questionable quality) so I had to put them on my own site rather than Slow Food’s, but they are now uploaded for your viewing pleasure.

-BB

Lambstravaganza

3rd Annual Feast in the Field w/ Prairie Grass Farms

A dinner to benefit Slow Food St. Louis, Lambstravaganza is a multi-course dinner generously prepared for the third year running by Chef Tim Grandinetti. This year he has also enlisted additional help and will bring with him three more of St. Louis best chefs: Lou Rook III (Annie Gunn’s), Dave Owens and Margaret Kelly (Bissinger’s Chocolate), and Kevin Nashan (Sidney Street Cafe). The family-style meal will feature grass-fed lamb and free-range eggs produced by our Prairie Grass Farms hosts, Dave and Barb Hillebrand, as well as other Missouri products. Wine pairings will be provided with each course by Les Bourgeois and beer will also be provided by Schlafly.

Prior to dinner Dave Hillebrrand will give a walking tour of the farm for those interested.

Who: Slow Food St. Louis
What: Lambstravaganza
When: Sunday June 8, 2008, 2-6 p.m.
Where: Prairie Grass Farms, 230 Manley Road, New Florence, MO 63363

Tickets are $60 for Slow Food Members and $75 for non-members and can be purchased online only at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/35264

With only 50 seats available the event is sure to sell out quickly so get yours soon.

Slow Food has a program called the Ark of Taste which aims to rediscover and catalogue forgotten flavors, documenting excellent food products that are in danger of disappearing. More than 750 products from dozens of countries worldwide have been added to the international Ark of Taste which contains everything from heirloom vegetables to heritage animal breeds to salumi.

Bringing it closer to home, here are just a few items listed in the Ark with a strong foothold in Missouri:

• black walnuts
• norton grapes
• red wattle hogs
• traditional Sorghum syrup

LocalHarvest has now partnered with Slow Food USA and will be helping to bring attention the Ark of Taste by utilzing the LocalHarvest database to to find more farmers and artisanal food producers who might be interested in producing Ark of Taste products. They have also listed all of the Ark of Taste products independently under each farmers listing so that consumers can more easily find these unique items and learn about their place in our American food heritage.

More on the Slow Food USA Ark of Taste can be found here, and further information on the partnership is available on LocalHarvest’s website.