Friday, June 19: Meet internationally renowned epicure/ food activist /author Gina Mallet and learn about the state of food today. What are the trends, the biggest risks to our food supply, and how we can help? The all-inclusive $50 event includes a special 4-course dinner menu prepared by Executive Chef Hickey of The Cellar, Camp Hill. The Cellar is a BYOB restaurant. The presentation and dinner costs $50 (including gratuities), payable at the end of dinner to The Cellar. By not charging its own separate fee, Slow Food Harrisburg wants to keep this event moderately priced. However, please consider a donation to help support Chapter activities. The deadline for reservations is Wednesday, June 17.
To make a reservation, call The Cellar at 724.2803 (in the evening). Be sure to mention Slow Food Harrisburg event when making your reservation. The event starts at 6 PM with hors d’oeuvres and an informal presentation on The Future of Food. Then at 7 PM Chef Hickey works his culinary magic using fresh, local ingredients. Winner of the 2005 James Beard Award for writing on food, Ms. Mallet is author of Last Chance to Eat. Copies will be available for purchase and signing. She is currently restaurant critic for the National Post of Canada.
Categories: Current Events
Saturday, July 11 Buy Fresh/Buy Local of Central PA has organized a self guided bicycle ride of Cumberland County’s farm stands and preserved farms. Riders of this Buy Fresh/Bike Local event will be provided with a map and queue sheet for two 25-mile rides. The maps highlight farm stands, farmers markets and preserved farm land along the route and give information about the agricultural highlights of the area. Following the ride, sample delicious farm products from area farms including cheeses, fruits, baked goods and ICE CREAM!
Pre-registration by July 9 is required. Register online at www.BuyLocalPA.org/event . For more information, contact Susan Richards at 717.724.0009 or susan.richards@rcdnet.net.
Categories: Current Events
AREA PRODUCERS SOUGHT FOR 2009 SEASON NEW NATURAL & ORGANIC
OPEN AIR FARMERS’ MARKET IN INNER CITY HARRISBURG
HARRISBURG Ngozi Eco-Village can be defined as a system of micro-structure agribusinesses, entrepreneurships, designed to be a viable solution in addressing and reducing health and poverty disparities in an underserved area. Ngozi Eco Village (NEV) Natural & Organic Farmers’ Market is a new economic development initiative nurtures the growth of a diverse and equitable community food system to promote local economic opportunities, access to affordable nutritious food and social change education.
Partnering with Broad Street Market Corporation, farmers looking for a new opportunity to retail/wholesale their products this 2009 season are invited to attend an exploratory meeting about this exciting concept in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
The exploratory meeting will take place Monday April 20th 2009, starting promptly at 6:00 pm location Broad Street Market Stone Building 1233 N. 3rd Street Harrisburg, PA 17102.
Farmers who raise fruits, vegetables, herbs, eggs, plants, honey, maple syrup or almost any other shelf-stable farm product for sale to consumers along with local artisans, restaurateurs and small grocery store owners are encourage to attend.
Harrisburg has a FOOD DESERT, 52% over of our children in the Capital Region are obese due to lack of whole nutritious food. 49.6% of children under the age of 5 years live below the poverty level (Data source U.S.census 2007). Our goal is to partner with other local agriculture businesses to break new ground create a more diverse one stop shopping site for consumers. Featuring the best in local whole food products to inner city Harrisburg. Why wouldn’t we want our communities to eat healthy? This meeting will help set the direction of such a market according to Rafiyqa Muhammad, Ngozi Eco Village Director.
Farmers will hear a brief overview of the opportunity and have ample time to discuss choices and voice preferences. Details such as potential sites, rules, products, and sales time will be covered.
No reservations are needed. Please RSVP by Friday, April 17, 2009 so we may have enough material for everyone. For more information, or if interested growers cannot make the meeting,
Contact: Rafiyqa Muhammad, Eco Village Director
email: rafiyqam@aol.com or ngoziinc@mail.com
Phone: 717-234-7724
Categories: Local Food Resources
PA Wine Excellence Winners Meet the Producers Spring Slow Supper
HARRISBURG, PA – Slow Food Harrisburg is pleased to announce its spring Meet the Producers Slow Supper featuring Pinnacle Ridge. This dinner will be held at 6:00p.m. on May 1 at the Wildwood Conference Center, HACC. Pinnacle Ridge produced four of the top ten winners in the 2009 Pennsylvania Wine Excellence competition judged by the Pennsylvania Wine Society. One of those wines, the Veritas, was the best wine of the judging. We will serve all four wines, including the award winner at the dinner. Wine maker Brad Knapp will be on hand to talk about his wines. HACC Culinary Arts Instructors Chefs Switzenberg, Miles and Finch, as well as the students, are assembling a delicious and creative menu designed to complement the wines.
Tickets are $65 to $75 and are available at Brown Paper Tickets
Categories: Restaurants
Carlisle Area Local Producer Tour & Lunch
The Carlisle & Newville areas have exploded with local producers selling fresh organic vegetables, free-range chickens and eggs, artisan cheese and handmade crafts. The area also boasts two vibrant farmers markets. Food writer and Slow Food Harrisburg member Kay Graham has put together a great program for Saturday, Aug. 9.
At 9am, assemble at Piatto, 22 West Pomfret Street, for coffee and pastries. The group will tour the two Carlisle Farms Markets, then carpool to explore the local farm stands, including Otterbein Farms. Kay will distribute a map to help with navigation.
The group will return to Piatto’s garden for lunch. Either bring a dish to share made with local ingredients or sample some dishes made specially for us by Piatto and California Cafe. Then around 4pm, the garden hosts a free concert, the Gabjo Playboys specializing in Parisian-style jazz.
9:00 – Meet at Piatto for coffee and artisan pastries.
9:30 – Tour of the two Carlisle Farmers Markets
11:00 – Tour of local producers
2:00 – Lunch at Piatto
4:00 – Jazz in the park
Slow Supper Celebrating Heirloom Apples & Pork
Date: Friday, October 3, 2008
Time: 6:30 pm
Place: Wildwood Conference Center, HACC
Categories: Uncategorized
Endangered species have come out of the woods and onto the table.
No, people aren’t eating piping plovers or eastern pumas. At least no one I know. But people also aren’t eating a lot of the vegetables our grandparents ate … because they don’t exist any more. Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland and the rest of Big Food have eliminated hundreds of thousands of heirloom seeds and plants.
Factory farms select their vegetable varieties based on one thing: shipability. Say, the ability of a tasteless tomato to look good at Giant after it’s traveled 3,000 miles.
Working to reverse that are Keep reading →
Categories: Uncategorized
Time to celebrate spring greens and spring lamb
By CURTIS VREELAND
Slow Food Harrisburg is hosting its Meet the Producers Slow Supper, Spring Tonic, celebrating the birth of the year. This dinner will be a cuisine du marché — market cooking — selecting the freshest local greens available the day of the dinner and pairing with locally raised natural lamb.
This Slow Supper will feature products from Creekside Nursery (Marysville), Lancaster Farm Fresh Organic Cooperative (Lancaster County) and Blue Rooster Farm (East Waterford), and give you a chance to talk to the farmers involved.
The dinner is a collaboration of guest chef Drew Wandishin, the PA Preferred Best Chef of Pennsylvania, and two chef educators from the culinary program at HACC, Michael Finch and Jim Switzenberg.
It is scheduled for … Keep reading →
Categories: Local Food Resources
Michael Ruhlman did a great post on chefs who blog, with a bunch of links and a link to more.
I’ve wanted to put a list of chef blogs in the right column of this page for ages but a number of posts and articles about chefs who write have forced me off the couch. Mario and other chefs have decried blogs, viewed them with scorn at best (mainly chefs who own restaurants maligned by bloggers or commenters, often anonymously, a practice I find pathetic and regrettable and I hope short-lived). It’s an understandable response to this new anarchy. But what about chefs themselves who’ve embraced this new medium, whether by blogging or by reading and responding to blogs? It’s exciting.
Indeed. Especially because Ruhlman links to Andrew Little, a Hanover chef who writes Fresh Inspirations From Central Pennsylvania.
Categories: Local Food Resources
The Pennsylvania Farmstead and Artisan Cheese Alliance is offering a cheese tasting at 5:30 on Thursday, April 3, to chefs and restaurant owners.
If you’ve never tasted Dragon’s Breath or Ewe’s Dream or the other artisan cheeses made around here, it’s worth the trip to Carlisle. The event is not open to the public, only to people in the business.
Call Sandy Miller at 423-5663 or email her here for details.
Categories: Local Food Resources
We got a happy surprise at the Carlisle Market on Saturday. Jonas Stoltzfus of Jujo Acres Beef Farm had set up next to Sandy Miller of Painted Hand Farm and the Fishers of Otterbein Acres Farm.
So within ten steps there was all the free-range grass-fed organic beef, lamb, pigs, goats and chickens — and eggs — imaginable.
I asked Jonas if he was going to be at Carlisle regularly; he said he was thinking about it. Then he gave us some of his wife’s beef vegetable soup and we talked about their beef. They raise heirloom Limousin cattle at the northern end of Perry County, up past Loysville, and distribute it at dropoff points in the Harrisburg area.
Christian Ruzich emailed me a month ago about their beef and he said he also gets eggs from them.
You can ask for a price list from the Stoltzfuses here.
Categories: Local Food Resources
