Sunday, September 13th, 2-9pm, join Rippling Waters Farm for the 5th Annual Soil to Supper Farm Dinner.Location: Rippling Waters Farm, 55 River Road, Steep Falls, Maine.Contact: 207-642-5161.A $10 donation is appreciated to help support Rippling Waters initiative to promote local food independence through education, service and action.Directions:  Head 13 miles west of Gorham on Route 25, continue past Route 25 in Standish. Turn left onto River Road immediately before crossing the Saco River. Go 0.2 miles, 2nd farm on the right.

Slow Food Portland is pleased to be a sponsor of Cultivating Community’s 2009 Boyd Street Bash.The Boyd Street Bash is coming this Sunday, July 19 from noon to 2 pm. A celebration of sustainable cities at our Boyd Street Urban Farm! There will be music, crafts, kids’ activities, a raspberry bake-off, yummy food, and an urban sustainability fair. Bring the family!Location: 40 Boyd Street, PortlandCultivating Community need volunteers to help with set-up (9:30-noon), during the event (noon-2) and for clean-up (2-3:30). Contact Hilary Burgin at hnburgin@gmail.com if you can help.

The Next Slow Food Book Group Selection is in!

The Making of a Chef, Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America by Michael Ruhlman

Ruhlman, author of Ratio, The Elements of Cooking and Charcuterie, among many others, has made his mark with knowledgeable and engaging food journalism.  This is his classic tale of studying at the Culinary Institute of America.  Ruhlman takes us along as he learns the whys and wherefores of a good stock, how not to slice your fingers when cutting up your mirepoix and slogs through long hours on his feet.  For anyone interested in cooking school or who wonders what happens behind the scenes this is a great read.  Ruhlman has worked with such notable chefs as Eric Ripert and Thomas Keller on their books.  Originally published in 1997, this new edition includes a new introduction from Ruhlman.  He has a very engaging, and informative, blog at www.blog.ruhlman.com.

We will meet to discuss the book on Monday July 20th at Rabelais, 86 Middle street, beginning at 6:00.   Slow Food members get a 10% discount on the book.

The book group is open to any and all.  We invite you to come out and talk food!

Slow Food Portland is pleased to award $250 to the King Middle School, in support of the ‘Seed to Soil to Supper’ program. The ‘Seed to Soil to Supper’ is a dinner with recipes suggested by the students at King Middle School and finally chosen by the group based on what they can produce.  The students will cook and serve approximately 200-250 meals.

The King Middle School serves the most racially, ethnically, and economically diverse neighborhoods in the state of Maine. King’s approximately 500 students speak 28 languages and come from 17 countries.

The poster you see was designed by the students in the program, at the studios of photographer and Slow Food Portland member Russell French. Thanks to Russell for bringing this valuable community project to our attention.  

FOOD+FARM – Examining our access to sustainable foodThursday, May 7 – Sunday, May 10th, 2009Presented by SPACE Gallery, the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and Cultivating CommunityAll events (except Saturday’s Urban Garden Fair) held at:SPACE Gallery – 538 Congress St, Portland, MaineInfo: (207) 828-5600 | www.space538.org | info@space538.orgBuy advance tickets at: www.brownpapertickets.com/producer/5845

The headlines are full of food and gardening stories: The Obamas plant a White House vegetable garden (an idea championed at last year’s Food+Farm by Roger Doiron of Kitchen Gardeners International), the Secretary of Agriculture jackhammers up the pavement in front of his office to create a People’s Garden, the National Gardening Association predicts a 19% increase in the number of new gardens, the New York Times Sunday Business Section devotes a full page and a half to talk about Michael Pollan, Alice Waters and the new documentary Food, Inc.   Public interest in healthy, sustainable food is clearly at a crucial point.

 

Food+Farm is a 4-day event which examines our access to sustainable food.  It is intended to motivate and inspire our community with some of the brightest leaders in sustainable food thinking and activism, both from Maine and from away, to understand the challenges to safe, responsible food and to illuminate opportunities that are available to producing and accessing it.  Recognizing the need for positive action to compliment awareness, we want to provide informative and affordable hands-on workshops that will teach the skills needed to produce healthy, locally grown food.  This year’s hands-on components have a special focus on urban and small-space food production to address the majority population of Portland’s living circumstances.

 

• Thursday, May 7^th,7:30pm  Ted Ames: Fishing Voices.  The Stonington lobsterman and MacArthur “Genius” winner will discuss his work researching the past and future of wild fisheries and how they can be restored and used sustainably.  The event will include a screening of local filmmaker, Cecily Pingree’s short film, Fishing Voices. 

• Friday, May 8^th, 7:30pm– Food, Inc. screening.  A special advance-release screening of the new documentary exposing how corporations compromise profit over consumer health and safety in the American food industry.  The film features such sustainable food luminaries as Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma), Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Joel Salatin (Polyface Farms), and Gary Hirshberg (Stonyfield Farm).  Introduction and post-film discussion with Russell Libby, Executive Director, MOFGA.  Website: www.takepart.com/foodinc

• Saturday, May 9^th 9am-Noon – Urban Gardening Fair at Cultivating Community’s Boyd Street Urban Farm in downtown Portland.  The event will be a variety of demonstrations including garden preparation, composting, container gardening, rainwater collection and raised bed gardening.  CC website: cultivatingcommunity.org

• Saturday, May 9th, 7:30pm – An Evening with Bryant Terry.  Eco chef, author, food justice activist, Bryant Terry works in many facets of food advocacy. He is currently a fellow of the Food and Society Policy Fellows Program, a national project of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and has worked to build a more just and sustainable food system and has used cooking as a tool to illuminate the intersections between poverty, structural racism, and food insecurity. Website: www.bryant-terry.com

• Sunday, May 10^th 9am-5pm– Food+Farm University.  MOFGA helps organize a series of intensive workshops to give attendees the skills to start producing their own sustainable food with a focus on urban/suburban food production.  Topics will include, small space gardening, beekeeping, chicken care, root cellars, fruit for small spaces and vermicomposting.  Taught by some of Southern Maine’s leaders of local food production and preservation.

 

Slow Food Portland invites you to join Cultivating Community for the 8th Annual Potato Planting and Farm Clean Up Day. 

Saturday, April 25

Turkey Hill Farm

120 Old Ocean House Road, Cape Elizabeth, Maine 

8:30-9:30 All local pancake breakfast. $5—add $2 for Turkey Hill Farm bacon (yum!)

9:00-12:00 Work crews fan out across Turkey Hill to plant potatoes, divide and replant lilies, clear brush, and more

Noon May Pole & Gratitude Circle

Children’s activities and garden planting all morning thanks to Farm Camp (www.farmcampkids.com). Please come for some or all! 

IF YOU’D LIKE TO BE A VOLUNTEER CREW LEADER, PLEASE CONTACT SARAH MARSHALL:  SARAHKATEMARSHALL@GMAIL.COM OR (207) 761-4769 EXT. 3 AND PLAN TO BE AT TURKEY HILL @ 8 AM ON SATURDAY. 

P3 is always one of Cultivating Community’s most fun and fulfilling volunteer work days. You won’t want to miss it!! 

Craig Lapine

Cultivating Community

P.O. Box 3792

Portland, Maine 04104o

207.761.GROW

f: 207.541.GROW

207.671.1189

craig@cultivatingcommunity.org

www.cultivatingcommunity.org 

We want to try to capitalize on the momentum from Writers’ Night, so we’ve scheduled the first of what we hope will be regular monthly potlucks for next week. Here are the details:Thursday, Feb. 5, 6-8pmPublic Market House (downstairs)Monument Square, Portland.Bring some food and/or drink to share, and if you can, your own plate/bowl/fork/knife/spoon to try to minimize the use of paper or plastic. The one order of business will be the discussion and planning of future potlucks, specifically one for March.

Support Local Farmers and Fishermen

Attend a Community Supported Food Fair

Sunday, February 8th, 1:00 – 4:00 p.m., free admission

Learn how to support your community’s farmers and fishermen by purchasing shares of their harvest 

Enjoy HEALTHY, LOCAL, FRESH FOOD!

Slow Food Portland, The Maine Council of Churches, and the Main Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association is sponsoring eleven Community Supported Food fairs.  We thank the nine churches that are hosting these events and encourage everyone to attend a local fair.

These fairs provide a great opportunity to purchase shares of local farmers’ harvest–last year many farms sold out during the winter!  This year we are pleased to support local fishermen who will also be attending many of the fairs giving attendees a chance to buy shares of their catch. 

The fairs will be at the following locations:

Belfast         Unitarian Universalist Church of Belfast, 37 Miller St 

Brunswick    St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 27 Pleasant St 

Canaan        Union Church, Rt.2 

Ellsworth     Unitarian Universalist Church of Ellsworth  121 Bucksport Rd 

Farmington  Fairbanks School Meeting House, 508 Fairbanks Rd 

Hallowell      St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, 18 Union St 

Newcastle   Second Congregational Church, River Rd 

Norway       Christ Episcopal Church, 35 Paris St 

Orono          Orono  Senior Center, Birch St 

Portland      First Parish Church of Portland, 425 Congress St 

Saco            First Parish Church of Saco (UCC), 12 Beach St

 Read all about this in the Portland Press Herald here. 

On Thursday, January 29th at SPACE Gallery Slow Food Portland will be hosting our Annual Writers Night for 2009.  This year’s line-up of writers includes:   

Anne Mendelson, author of Milk, The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages.  Mendelson is a contributing editor at Gourmet Magazine and has written for the New York Times and Saveur.  She is also the author of Stand Facing The Stove, a history of The Joy of Cooking and it’s authors.  

Nancy Carlisle, co-author of America’s Kitchens, an illustrated history of that beloved room. Carlisle, a graduate of Bates College, is a curator at Historic New England, the most comprehensive regional heritage organization in the country.  

Sam Hayward, chef and co-owner of Fore Street restaurant. The James Beard Award-winning chef who barely needs introduction will read from his story Island Sheep, published in The Art of Eating in the Fall of ‘08. 

Renier Nieuwkerk, Owner & Captain of the F/V Hannah-Jo of Kennebunk will read from his segment of Sharing The Ocean, Stories of Science, Politics and Ownership from America’s Oldest Industry, a new book from The Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance.  

And in a first for the Writers’ Night, Russell Libby, the Executive Director of MOFGA, will read some farm poetry from his new book Balance, A Late Pastoral.  

As in years past, there will be sample tastes from Maine’s soil and sea contributed by local cooks, this year including seafood from the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance and Mead from the Maine Mead Works. Books from all the authors will be available for purchase and signing at the event.   

The evening will begin at 6:30, doors will open at 6:00, at Space Gallery, 538 Congress Street in Portland. Tickets are $25, $20 for Slow Food members, and will be available at the door, or in advance at SPACE, 207 828 5600. For more information contact Don or Samantha Lindgren at 774 1044 or SPACE Gallery at www.space538.org.  

This Sunday, 9/14 from 2:00 to 4:00 pm, Dr. Roberto Rubino, Slow Food Italy member and renowned cheese maker will be visiting Nezinscot Farm in Turner for a Slow Food Portland gathering.Come sip wine and nibble on some of Maine’s best artisanal cheeses with the authority on Italian traditional cheesemaking and grass farming If you’ve got questions about making cheese this is an amazing opportunity to speak with a master.Celebrating the English version of his book Cheesemaking: A D.I.Y. Manual and Guide to Making Wonderful Cheeses at Home (translated from the Italian Formaggio Fai Da Te) the day before at Pinelands, this is an opportunity to meet & greet the Slow Food way … on Gregg & Gloria Varney’s stunning farm with a glass of wine in hand.Slow Food Portland is thrilled that ItalTrade Partners (through Constance Wark) was able to convince Roberto to extend his stay so that we could invite our Slow Food community to sit & visit with him in this informal manner.The event is free and the Varneys are looking forward to our visit.Directions:From Auburn:Go North on Route 117 from Route 4 for 1 mile. Nezinscot is the first farm you come to and has a white barn with red trim on the right and a house and store on the left. It’s midway between Turner Center and Turner Village.From Augusta:take 133 into Wayne, 219 to N. Turner, 117 south for 7 or 8 miles. The farm will be on the top of the hill.