Thank You for Joining Us at Good Food Community Fair!

The times challenge us. Slow Food Urban San Diego is grateful for our community - you uplift us in times like these and help to ground us in others. Thank you for your important contributions to our Good Food Community Fair: True Cost of Food and to our local food system. Thank you for sharing your wisdom, skills, knowledge, sense of hope, resiliency, successes, humor and delicious food and drinks.

This year's Fair celebrated how we are addressing the True Cost of Food in our region and acknowledged the work we have yet to do.

We discussed the true cost of food and farm labor, sustainable seafood, wasted food, soil health and land management, preserving cultural traditions and more. Thank you for sharing your stories and local treats, for teaching us about heirloom seeds and gyotaku, how to prepare "three-sisters," and how to connect to our farmers and fishermen and support healthy food systems. Slow Food looks forward to continuing the effort with you, our community. Thank you to all who contributed and volunteered, and all who attended, and to the WorldBeat Cultural Center for being our gracious host.

We're grateful to our generous sponsors who made it possible to charge only a "suggested donation," so that we can truly bring the Slow Food mission of good, clean and fair food to ALL. Creating opportunities to connect that are accessible is important to us.

Thank you to all who attended and partook of this community event. If you missed this year's good, clean and fair food fun, you can catch the next one in 2018. And of course, you can find us planting, eating, learning, teaching, connecting, cooking and expanding community with our partners in the meantime.

From all of us at Slow Food Urban San Diego, eat well, grow well, and be well.

What is the WorldBeat Cultural Center?

Slow Food Urban San Diego is excited to host this year’s Good Food Community Fair at the WorldBeat Cultural Center in Balboa Park. The Good Food Community Fair is our largest annual gathering of food activists, producers and purveyors. This year we’re integrating the theme of ‘The True Cost and Value of Food’ into the day’s activities. We hope to bring awareness to the parts of the food system people don’t see, good and bad, and to focus on food justice concerns. With this in mind we couldn’t think of a better place to host than the WorldBeat Cultural Center (WBC).

The WorldBeat Center is a non-profit multi-cultural arts organization committed to “healing the world through music, art, dance, education and sustainability” housed in a repurposed 1-million gallon water tower. They provide programs and services that nurture the spirit of children, elderly and everyone in between. Ultimately, they seek to heal the world by creating unity through diversity. Its doors are open every day to all people, regardless of color or creed, as a place to celebrate all cultures, art, music, dance, and people.

THE EDUCATION GARDEN

One of the many beautiful assets of this venue is the Children’s Peace Garden. This native garden is a favorite location for school garden projects, nutritional education programs, summer camps, field trips, and partnerships with local organizations dedicated to food security. Through this garden, the WBC  raises awareness around sustainability, urban wildlife, conservation, and urban gardening teaching inner city children and adults about recycling, composting, gardening and bird watching.

The WBC utilizes this space to educate the public about the role of plants in society today along with the relationship of plants in the local and global indigenous cultures of the past. In 2015, in coalition with the local Kumeyaay, the World Beat Center embarked on a multi-level terraced garden of endemic and indigenous plants and vegetables that are part of the Kumeyaay lasting traditions.

THE SUSTAINABLE BUILDING

Not only is the building constructed of a repurposed water tower it’s sustainably run with LEED Certification, solar lighting fixtures, recycling and composting programs & handi-capable bathroom facilities.

With the inside walls covered in murals by local artists brightly commemorating important leaders and historical cultures, there are multiple galleries and small shops within the building where healthy local foods are served, locally-sourced goods are sold, and a gallery of art and artifacts is displayed. Flags of all nations fly from the ceiling while the stage and dancefloor have hosted hundreds of famous and upcoming acts, artists, and events to the delight of tens of thousands of fans and attendees.

Known throughout California and Mexico for its exterior murals celebrating Egyptian, African, and Indigenous Cultures, the WorldBeat Center is leading as one of the most-important multicultural art and event centers in San Diego and we are proud to collaborate with the WBC and host the 2017 Good Food Community Fair in their space. We look forward to seeing you there!

Learn More about the Fair Here:  www.goodfoodfair.com

And get your tickets here (Only a $5 Suggested Donation!) 

Sincerely,

Michelle PolinerGood Food Community Fair Chair

Special Thanks to the WorldBeat Center Website and Facebook page for the photos used in this post. 

Edible San Diego For Kids - Spring 2017

EDIBLE KIDS #5

Announcing the 2017 Good Food Community Fair! Mark your calendars for 10/1

Click here to reserve your tickets today!

Support Slow Food's Educational Programming

A message from our Board

Dear Slow Food Urban San Diego Supporter,

As you enter into this season of giving thanks and enjoying food, please consider supporting Slow Food Urban San Diego in our efforts to teach the children of our community about good, clean and fair food for all. We need your help to continue our programming in schools and in the community focusing on instilling in our children the slow food values:

“Good” – enjoying the pleasures of healthy and delicious food

“Clean” – gardening for sustainability

“Fair” – producing food that respects economic and social justice

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Your support will enable us to continue our programming in schools and at local events including the Slow Food School Gardens and Edible San Diego for Kids. The Slow Food School Garden Curriculum provides lessons for taste education and basic cooking skills. The activities center around cooking and eating with the goal for students to customize and enjoy what they have grown. The lessons promote critical thinking and involve hands on actions by the students.

We believe in the power of this work to build our community and empower the next generation to continue the mission of good, clean and fair food for all. As Alice Waters has said,

“Edible education reaches and nourishes children deeply. It recognizes their worth and their power. It connects them to each other and to nature. It teaches them one of the fundamental values of democracy: that we are all dependent upon one another.”

Your donation will help us to do this work by enabling us to purchase some of the following items for our programming:

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Our goal is to raise $5000 to fund tabling kits for taste education and a new printing of Edible San Diego for Kids.

You can make your donation by clicking on the “Donate” button at the top of this page. If you would like to make a donation as a gift, please make a note in the comments when you make your donation and we will send you a gift certificate to present as your gift. We appreciate your support in this important work!

SFUSD is a 501c3 non-profit organization. All or part of your donation may be tax deductible as a charitable contribution. Please check with your tax adviser.

In Gratitude, Slow Food Urban San Diego

Recipes To Reduce Food Waste

Special thanks to Slow Food Urban San Diego volunteer Jenny Ikoma for these great food waste fighting recipes!

Cooking With Rind

How to get the most out of your food and reduce waste.

Parmesan is a wonderful ingredient in the kitchen but did you know that you can use the rind as well? Stop wasting those precious rinds and save them up in the freezer for some amazing uses. The natural rinds of cheeses like Parmesan, Pecorino, and Romano is air dried like a crust and edible. The rinds can be used to flavor soups, stews, rice and bean dishes almost like bay leaves. Parmesan rinds can even be thrown together with other vegetable scraps such as onion, celery, carrot, mushroom stems, and herb steams like cilantro or parsley to make a delicious and nutritious broth.

Basic White Beans

1Lb. dried white beans (great northern, cannellini, navy, zolfino for example)

10 cups of water (or broth as mentioned above)

1 bay leaf

3 cloves of garlic peeled and smashed (more if desired)

1 Tbs olive oil

Cheese rind

Heavy pot or slow cooker

1. Wash beans and place in pot with water, bay, garlic, and oil.
2. Bring to the boil over high heat. Once at a boil turn to low heat
3. Simmer 30-60 min or until beans start to soften then add cheese rind and continue to simmer until fully cooked
4. Drain if desired and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Tips:

Do not add salt or use salted stock/broth at the beginning of the cooking process so that the beans cook quickly and evenly.

Any fresh or dried herbs can be added to the cooking process as desired.

Once cooked beans can be eaten as is or added to soup, pureed into a dip, topped on pizza, mixed into pasta, tossed into salad, or pared with rice.

Dried beans are versatile, healthy and cheap!

Fish Stock

How to get the most out of your food and reduce waste.

If you ever take a Saturday morning trip over to the Tuna Harbor Dockside Market at the Port of San Diego you will see a dazzling array of seafood for sale direct from the fishermen who just caught it. While you can get a whole fish at a fraction of the cost of the grocery store it can be a bit daunting to purchase. What do you do with a whole fish? There is a butchering station there that will cut it up for you but don’t waste those heads! Make your money go even farther by cooking up some fish fumet that can be used to make healthy and delicious soups and pastas. Use it in chowders, bisques, cioppino, miso, even as a warm cup of “bone broth”.

Fish Fumet

1 Fish head (I used Opah) and bones if desired

1 large onion, small dice

2 carrots, small dice

3 celery stalks, small dice

2 Tbs butter or olive oil

2 bay leaves

2 Tbs peppercorns

6 sprigs thyme (or ½ tsp dried)

1 bunch parsley or cilantro stems

¼ Cup dry white wine or lemon juice

Aprox. 2 quarts cold water or enough to cover bones

Large pot

1. Wash head and bones well and set aside
2. Melt butter in large stockpot over medium heat and add onion, carrot, celery, bay, peppercorns, thyme and parsley, stirring often until vegetables become soft but not brown.
3. Place fish head and bones in pot. Cover pot and let cook about 10 minutes or until bones have turned white
4. Add wine or lemon juice then cover with water and let simmer on low heat approximately 30 minutes.
5. Strain through a cheesecloth set inside a fine mesh strainer and cool over an ice bath if not using immediately.
6. Once cool refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze up to 2 months. Like all homemade stock it will have a jellied consistence when cool but will melt when reheated.

Tips:

Great way to use up vegetable trimmings as well. Feel free to add other vegetables such as mushrooms, leek, garlic, fennel but avoid strong flavors like broccoli, asparagus or bitter greens.

Oily fish such as salmon, tuna, or mackerel have a strong flavor and will make a stock right for their own chowders but will be too strong for other applications.

Easy stocks can also be made using crustacean shells like shrimp or crab.

Waste Not SD: Reducing Local Restaurant Food Waste

Food Waste is  a topic gaining momentum in the media as well as with individuals and organizations throughout the world.  You do not have to go far to find stories and programs around Ugly Fruit, Gleaning, Food Insecurity, Waste Free Dining, etc. Here in San Diego there is a new program designed to help combat food waste called Waste Not SD.  San Diego’s Specialty Produce recently started Waste Not SD to help recover food from local restaurants before it goes to waste and get it to local food insecure populations. We spoke recently with Specialty Produce’s Allie Tarantino, who worked to bring the program to life.  Allie told me that she’s been working in food service for over a decade and that a ton of food goes to waste.  One single restaurant can have between 25,000 and 100,000 pounds of food waste a year.  Allie was inspired by other programs that exist, like LA Specialty’s Chef’s to End Hunger to create something in the San Diego area that can help reduce the amount of food that our restaurants throw away.

The program is genius in its simplicity.  Specialty Produce works with over 800 restaurants in San Diego County.  Those restaurants can order food safe containers along with their produce order, fill them up at the end of the day with food that would otherwise go to waste, and the Specialty Produce delivery team will pick it up and deliver it to a local organization that distributes the food to people in need.  Because the program builds on relationships and delivery routes that already exist, it requires minimal additional effort for any of the parties involved.

The program here is new, but Waste Not SD  has three active accounts and is already actively working with both Tom Ham’s Lighthouse and Bali Hai Restaurant to collect food and distribute it to non-profit partners that they’ve identified through the San Diego Food Bank.

If you are interested in learning more about the Waste Not SD program please contact Kelly@SpecialtyProduce.com

In San Diego, local seafood is limited to the coast

We are very pleased to share the following guest blog from California Sea Grant on local seafood in San Diego: Most of the seafood consumed in the United States is imported. Even in California, it is likely that less than ten percent of the seafood consumed is domestic. With our coastal location, why aren’t San Diegans enjoying locally caught seafood?

A new study shows that just eight percent of the city’s 86 seafood markets consistently carried San Diego-sourced seafood. Fourteen percent of markets carried it on occasion. The majority of markets that did carry local seafood were located within a mile and a half of the coast.

“Locally landed San Diego seafood isn’t that accessible to San Diego consumers,” said researcher Nina Venuti. “Few seafood markets in the city sell San Diego-sourced seafood.”

To buy locally-caught fish in San Diego, many shoppers have to visit the Tuna Harbor Dockside Market in downtown. It is one of few seafood markets that consistently carry local catch.

San Diego-based commercial fishermen Luke Halmay and Nathan Perez see the Port of San Diego redevelopment as an opportunity to reevaluate how space is distributed

One of the potential limitations to local seafood access identified by the study was a lack of waterfront workspace, including space for docking boats, maintaining gear, offloading and refrigerating catch, and for selling catch directly to the public. To maintain local seafood systems and the fishing heritage of many waterfront cities, reliable waterfront infrastructure is needed. With the Port of San Diego reviewing plans for a radical redevelopment of Central Embarcadero. San Diegans have an opportunity right now to fulfill this need.

The study also pointed to a lack of urban infrastructure as a potential barrier to establishing and supporting a local seafood system. Unlike agriculture, seafood production is limited to the coast. Therefore, local distributors may play a larger role in increasing community access to local seafood, bridging the gap between the waterfront and the city’s restaurants and markets.

“Urban infrastructure like seafood processing, packaging and transport facilities, as well as markets and restaurants to sell our locally sourced catch are all needed to increase access throughout the city,” said study author Theresa Talley. “This will ensure that more of the fish landed by our fishermen ends up on more of our plates here in San Diego.”

#knowyourfishermen

A version of this post first appeared on the California Sea Grant website

Snooze: Celebrate Bacon Day and Support Slow Food

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Did you know Saturday September 3rd is International Bacon Day?  Slow Food USA is celebrating the holiday this year with Snooze an A.M. Eatery.  Snooze is throwing a Bacon Day event and donating 10% of their sales Saturday from all of their locations to Slow Food!

Snooze is a Denver based breakfast restaurant with locations in Colorado, Arizona and California with two locations in San Diego County - one in Hillcrest and one in Del Mar. Snooze operates under values very similar to Slow Food's Good, Clean and Fair Food For All that they express through their menu, their sourcing practices and their involvement in their communities.

The Snooze menu includes breakfast classics with a twist (e.g., Breakfast Pot Pie, Caprese Benedict, Sweet Potato Pancakes) and they go out of their way to find and create foods that are the intersection of tasty and responsible.  We spoke with their sourcing lead, Spencer Lomax about their approach to souring their food to be Good Clean and Fair.  He says that the bottom line is that they want to serve their guests responsibly sourced and tasty food fulfilling their responsibility to the land, to their customers, to their communities and to Snooze.  They live up to that responsibility by providing real, tasty food that was produced sustainably and locally when it makes sense and by engaging with their local communities.  In San Diego they source from several local companies including Bread & Cie and Jackie's Jams.  They support several local non-profits ARTS (A Reason to Survive), Bike To Work, Mama’s Kitchen, Dining out for Life, Helen Woodward Animal Shelter, Del Mar Education School Foundation and the San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy.

In honor of Bacon Day Lomax talked specifically about his search for bacon that was both delicious and lived up to the Snooze standards.  Snooze sources their pork from Tender Belly.  Tender Belly is devoted to the well being of the animal through both the environment in which they live and the all natural, vegetarian diets they are fed. As a part of their Bacon Day celebration you can not only enjoy a full special menu full of Tender Belly bacon items you can register to win bacon for a year from Tender Belly.

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Come by one of the Snooze San Diego locations on Saturday to enjoy the awesome bacon menu, visit with our Slow Food Urban San Diego team, and support Slow Food!

Envision Urban Agriculture in Urban San Diego

Hillary of Girl Next Door Honey giving the buzz about local bees

Last month Slow Food Urban San Diego held an Envision Urban Agriculture Fair in partnership with the San Diego Food System Alliance and International Rescue Committee at Silo in Makers Quarters, Downtown. Together with our good, clean & fair collaborators, we provided the community resources to grow food in our city at this free event. The fair featured an urban farmers market, live music, local organic food and beer, seed exchange, composting workshops, resources for growers, cooking demos, and the Lexicon of Sustainability exhibit.

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A BIG thanks to all our collaborators including Girl NextDoor Honey for the Helping Honeybees Workshop, The Heart & Trotter  for the butcher demo, Kitchens for Good and Vivacious Dish for a raw desserts demo, and Specialty Produce, Karl Strauss, Golden Coast Mead and Kashi for their generous food and drink donations. 

Get to Know Local Farmer Stepheni Norton, founder of Dickinson Farm

Slow Food Urban San Diego Board Farm Liaison, Stephanie Parker, recently interviewed Stepheni Norton, the owner of the local Dickinson Farm to learn more about how and why she farms. Before becoming a farmer Norton had a distinguished and decorated career as Chief Yeoman in the US Coast Guard.  Learn more about Norton's journey to becoming a farmer in her own words. Why do you farm?  It really started as a personal necessity and as my health improved has become a respite, a mission and as my husband says, a calling.

Tell us about Dickinson Farm's beginnings.   A year-round heirloom fruit, vegetable & herb farm in National City, California…that all started because of a bug the size of a pinhead.

My husband Mike & I purchased the Wallace D. Dickinson homestead in February  2012, as our “forever” home. When we first started dating we half-jokingly made a list of everything we wanted in a home …it was really a delusional list….6 bedrooms, actual land (not a postage stamp), architecture and character, room for a 7 car garage and of course a view of the ocean, and must be in SoCal. It was certainly not something we expected to find.  Then we did, insomnia and the end of the internet, I found the house.  We saw it the next day and put an offer in right away.

When we bought the property, I was in the mist of pre-deployment work-up preparing for a 10 month OCONUS deployment – a few weeks later I was bit by a tick on San Clemente Island off the coast of South California. Unfortunately, Southern California Doctors are not Lyme literate, so I was left sick and untreated for the rest of work-ups and a 10-month deployment.

Almost a year later I returned home, I was still very ill and was bounced around from Doctor to Doctor to find a cure.  After 2.5 years of fighting an undiagnosed illness and looking for a Doctor, in July, 2014 I was diagnosed with Lyme disease and related co-inflections.

Right away I started daily IV treatment and my Doctor wanted me to eat as fresh and healthy as possible.  Each day after treatment Mike would drive me home and try find fresh organic food to make for dinner.

This is when they noticed fresh produce was hard to come by in National City.

So I asked my  Doctor if I could be outside and garden a little… with no real farming experience we planted a few fruits trees. Then we got advice from  a few different garden consultants and started planting a small garden patch …and with that the Farm began.

In the SoCal sunshine, the crops spouted up with ease providing excess in abundance of what they could eat. We started giving away the excess to friends, family and even a crop share. Then decided to give the excess to Dreams for Change to help feed those that couldn’t afford to buy their own.

All the while I sat in the IV chair researching how to make the Farm an actual business.

By January 2016, the few trees and garden patch became 16 raised boxes, orchard, hop patch 20 in ground rows, 4 coffee rows; 1/4 of an acre total. Plans were set and licenses obtained – and in January 2016 the little garden patch officially became Dickinson Farm.

How many varieties do you grow?  Currently we have 42 crops and 108 varietals.  We used fall 2015 and spring / summer 2016 to determined what grows best on our plot.  Starting with our Fall 2016 planting we will reduce the varietals to 2 per crop, focusing on growing what does best on our land which still providing options to our customers.

What made you decide to grow all heirloom varietals?  When we purchased the property, I spent a great deal of time researching the properties history.  We found that Wallace D. Dickinson in addition to being a savvy business man, was one of the top local hobby horticulturists.  He spoke a lot about how to grow a kitchen garden in a [early 1900] “urban environment”.  We wanted to be true to the property and land, what would have Wallace grown? That notion started us down the heirloom path, and the taste and quality of the produce kept us there.

Where do you find your seeds?  I never expected finding real heirloom seeds to take the amount of research it does, but after many hours and some duds, we stick with a few companies we trust… Baker Creek, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Annie's Heirloom, Wood Prairie, & Sherck's.

What's been the biggest thing you've learned during this process?   You cannot control growth.  You are most likely going to be both elated and disappointed every day.  I am a data junkie and logical person. That works with lots of aspects of planning and farming…until the weather changes and the wind comes in.  Then all bets are off.

What's been easy?  Really once you let go of perfection, it’s all easy.  I’ve had a more than a few mentors who taught me hard are the days you or your shipmates do not get to come home. Everything else is just a little heavy lifting and another day in paradise.

Anything you're loving right now that you could share a recipe for?  Carrot tops! Seriously why do people throw these away? (FYI I do recipes like my G-Ma…measurements are swagged)

Carrot Top Pesto Few cups washed carrot tops Few basil leaves (1 leaf to each cup of carrot tops) Small handful whatever nut you like, toasted – we use black walnuts as an homage to our family land in Southern Illinois. Handful grated aged Parmesan cheese One garlic clove or more (I use more) flaky sea salt extra-virgin olive oil to consistency

Blend in mini-chop or get an arm work out with mortar and pestle

Put on Burrata, grab a baguette … amazing

How can people support the farm?  Shop Small & Shop Local!  We are a small farm,  and we want people to be able to choose what they like.  We so offer a free choice of in season, harvested to order fruits, vegetables & herbs in any quantity or combination you choose. It’s a “design your own” box – and is perfect for specialty diets & picky eaters.

Each Thursday evening, we send out a Harvest alert with what will be ready for harvest Monday. Friday morning at 7:00AM our on-line store opens and customers can pre-order online until 7:00AM Monday. Orders are harvested Monday mid-morning, ready for The Market Monday evening at 7:00PM

Every Monday (except holidays) from 7:00pm-9:00pm we bring pre-orders and the remaining harvest to Machete Beer House (aka "The Market")

The Market @ Machete Beer House 2325 Highland Ave National City, CA 7:00pm-9:00pm

Thanks so much to Stepheni Norton for sharing your story with us!