During the month of September, in conjunction with the September 17 $5 Challenge Day of Action, Slow Food USA is holding a special “give what you can” offer for new memberships joining between September 1 – September 30. Pay any amount you can or want, and you will be signed up for a 1 year Slow Food membership! In addition, if you join through the link provided below, 50% of your membership fees will come back to the local chapter.

I want to join!

Why join? Here are some of the benefits to being a Slow Food USA member. With SFUSA membership you…

Become part of a community:
• Connect to your local chapter and get invitations to local events
• Get a Slow Food USA member card (with a donation of $25 or more)
• Support a movement that is local, national, and global

Get informed:
• Learn about the issues
• Get tips on cooking, gardening, and “going slow”
• Stay up-to-date on the latest food news

Get involved:
• Help out with local projects
• Receive action alerts and insider updates on advocacy

Though there are a variety of membership benefits, the best part is knowing your contribution plays a critical role in bringing people together to plant gardens and share food, to support farmers and local food traditions, to teach the next generation about good food, and ultimately to transform food and farming in the U.S.

I want to join! Become a member now!

And don’t forget to join Slow Food Portland at Quimby Colony on Sept. 17 for our $5 Challenge Farmers’ Market excursion and lunch.

Take the $5 challenge! Join Slow Food Portland as we join thousands of people all over the country on Sept. 17 to show that good, clean, local, sustainable food doesn’t have to cost a fortune by creating a $5 slow food meal.

Slow food shouldn’t have to cost more than fast food. It shouldn’t be harder to feed our children fruit than it is to feed them Froot Loops. But against the odds, every day there are people all over the country who manage to cook healthy food on a budget. We need to make cooking and eating this way a possibility for everyone.

Slow Food Portland will be hosting an amazing $5 meal that you won’t forget. We’ll be gathering at Quimby Colony’s (located in the old Roma Restaurant) new renovated kitchen facility, everyone will put $5 into a spending pool, we’ll walk down to the Saturday Farmer’s Market in Deering Oaks Park, buy locally grown ingredients, and then come back to the Quimby Colony kitchen and together cook a delicious $5 lunch. Jonah Fertig of Local Sprouts Cooperative and Cafe will lead the farmer’s market shopping expedition and lunch preparation. We have room at the event for 30 people, so sign up today:

SIGN UP: Slow Food Portland Maine $5 Farmer’s Market Excursion Lunch

Or if you can’t attend our event on the 17th, you can still take the challenge and share a meal with family and friends and create your own $5 slow food meal. Click here – every action counts!

We have a Slow Food Portland Potluck and Meeting:

Wednesday August 17, 6-8pm
@ Quimby Colony (the old Roma Restaurant)
769 Congress Street

Our special guests on Wednesday will be Nick Runkle and Justin Cutter from the Compass Green Mobile Greenhouse project.

Compass Green is a fully functional greenhouse built in the back of a box truck that grows vegetables and herbs and is powered by waste vegetable oil. They teach practical farming tools and raise awareness on sustainability through presentations, workshops, and greenhouse tours.

They will be talking about their project and giving tours of the mobile greenhouse, which we hope to have parked right in front of Quimby Colony.

We will also be talking about our plans for the $5 meal Slow Food Day of Action, which will take place on Sept. 17.

We discovered last month that while the beautiful kitchen at Quimby Colony has lots of plates and glasses, there is a definite lack of serving and eating ware, so I highly recommend everyone bring their own eating “kit” or at least a fork or spoon, and whatever serving utensils you need for your dish.

We had an amazing potluck last month with the likes of seared tuna, and amazing salads and cheese. Let’s see if we can top it this month.

Please RSVP to info@slowfoodportland.org, so we can have a rough head count.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Slow Food Portland July Meeting & Potluck
Tuesday, July 19, 6-8pm @ Quimby Colony / Roma Restaurant
769 Congress Street, Portland

Come out and share the taste of Summer at Slow Food Portland’s July meeting and potluck dinner. Our gardens are producing and there’s lots of great stuff at the farmer’s markets, so it’s the ideal time to get together and share a meal and good company. This month we’re going to meet up at Quimby Colony located at the old Roma Restaurant at 769 Congress Street.

Program:

• Tour of the Quimby Colony kitchen with a discussion of what’s going on at Quimby Colony* and potential future collaborative opportunities for Slow Food Portland.
• Potluck dinner
• Presentation by Karl Schatz on Slow Food USA’s initial national strategy session for the 2012 Food & Farm Bill Campaign
• Discussion of this year’s Slow Food Day of Action, planned for Sept. 17.

Quimby Colony is a non-profit urban Artist in Residence program located in Portland, Maine’s newly designated Historic Arts District.
http://www.quimbycolony.org/culinary-arts/

We are going to be inviting Portland’s Permaculture group to join us for this meeting. If you want, you can RSVP through their very organized meetup site:

http://www.meetup.com/portlandpermaculture/events/23243171/

or please send an email to info@slowfoodportland.org if you are planning to attend, just so we can have a rough head count

Come celebrate the sixth year of fantastic food writing and delicious food from Maine.

March 10th at SPACE Gallery, 538 Congress Street, 6:00 PM.

This year’s line up promises a great evening of entertainment.  Our writers will include:

· Melissa Coleman, local author of This Life is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres and a Family Undone.

· John F. Mariani, food and travel columnist for Esquire Magazine and author of How Italian Food Conquered The World.

· Manny Howard, journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Food & Wine, Gourmet, Harper’s and New York Magazine, and author of My Empire of Dirt, A Cautionary Tale: How One Man Turned His Big-City Backyard into a Farm.

· The winner of the first Slow Food Portland Young Food Writers Competition.

As in past years there will be delicious food from land and sea before during and after the readings, Q & A’s with all the authors and book signings with the books available for sale at the event.  It is a charming night full of great readings, great food and great cheer.

Tickets are $25, $20 for Slow Food members and can be purchased by going to the SPACE Gallery website, or in person at Rabelais, Aurora Provisions and Rosemont Markets.  Doors open at 6:00PM and the readings begin at 6:30PM.  If you have further questions call Rabelais, 774 1044.

Slow Food Portland is proud to congratulate the winners of the first annual Young Food Writer’s Competition!

Grades 3-5
Grand Prize: Zoe Popovic, grade 4, Congin School
Second Place: Eliot Bramble, grade 3, Breakwater School
Honorable Mention: Wilson Haims, grade 4, Merriconeag Waldorf School

Grades 6-8
Grand Prize: Ellie Sapat, grade 7, Falmouth Middle School
Second Place: Luisa Hetzler, grade 6, Gray/New Gloucester Middle School
Honorable Mention: Julia Haskell, grade 6, Home schooled in Portland

Grade 9-12
Grand Prize: Ali Perkins, grade 12, Merriconeag Waldorf School
Second Place: Emma Sapat, grade 10, Falmouth High School
Honorable Mention: Gaelyn Lindauer, grade 10, Bonny Eagle High School

The grand prize winners have won a full family CSA (community supported agriculture) share from the CSA of their choice for the 2011 growing season. Second place winners won $50 gift certificates to Portland restaurants. The winning essays will be read as part of the Slow Food Writers Night event at the Space Gallery in Portland on March 10, 2011, 6pm. Selected winning essays will be published in the Portland Press Herald following Writers Night, and all winning essays will be posted on the Slow Food Portland website soon after that.

Special thanks to our judges: Meredith Goad, Nancy Harmon Jenkins, Don Lindgren, Samantha Hoyt Lindgren, and Alison Duffy.

We hope you will join us for Writers Night on March 10 to support our young writers and their work, not to mention hear from our exciting lineup of professional writers including John F. Mariani, Manny Howard, and Maine’s own Melissa Coleman.

And please also join us this Sunday, February 27, at Woodfords Church (202 Woodford Street) in Portland from 1-4pm for the MOFGA sponsored CSA Fair. It’s a great opportunity to learn about Community Supported Agriculture, meet and support local farmers.

We’ve decided to extend the deadline for the Young Food Writer’s Contest!
The new deadline will be Monday February 14.
If you have students, or know of students in grades 3-12 in Cumberland County, please encourage them to enter!
Three students will win full family CSA shares for their family.
Here’s a link for more info and the online entry form:
http://www.slowfoodportland.org/sfp/?p=90

Whew, I’m glad we postponed last night’s potluck. It was a mess here where we live, and likely a mess wherever you were in Southern Maine last night.

We’ve rescheduled for next Tuesday, January 25th, 6-8pm. It will be held at the previously scheduled location, the old Roma restaurant building (769 Congress), which is becoming the Portland Food Lab. Bring a dish to share, and whatever you’d like to drink. We have plates, glasses, flatware. etc., and the facility to warm something up, if necessary.

We’ll talk a bit about what’s happening with the Portland Food Lab, and take a look at the facility. And we can also discuss the Young Food Writer’s Competition, and Slow Food Writer’s Night.

See you there.

Due to the nasty weather, we’re postponing tonight’s Potluck. We’re not afraid of a little snow, but the forecast for freezing rain has us thinking twice. We’ll reschedule ASAP and notify everyone of the new date and time. Stay warm!

We are updating and clarifying the eligibility requirements for the Young Food Writer’s Competition. The contest is open to any student in grades 3-12 enrolled in public or private school, or being home schooled, in Cumberland County, or living in Cumberland County, but enrolled in school outside Cumberland County. If you have any questions about the writing competition, please email info@slowfoodportland.org.