March 31, 2012: To kick off the series, join Ernest Miller, founder of the Los Angeles Master Food Preserver program, at The Farmer’s Kitchen in Hollywood for a class on the basics of canning. Under Chef Miller’s guidance, the Master Food Preserver program has become one of the region’s most sought-after programs focusing on food safety and preservation

June 30, 2012: Stephen Rudicel owns the Press Restaurant in Claremont and is a founder of Mariposa Creamery in Altadena. Class will take place at the Creamery, a microdairy through which Stephen promotes home dairying and cheesemaking through classes and internships.

September 8, 2012: Craig Ruggless will welcome students to Winnetka Farms, a suburban homestead in Winnetka that includes a stonefruit orchard, a flock of Barnevelder chickens, and a half-acre vegetable garden that produces an extraordinary range of Italian heirloom vegetables and herbs.

November 3, 2012: Jessica Koslow of Sqirl in Silver Lake will share her experience making small batch preserves with produce from family-owned local farms that practice sustainable methods.

Participants will learn recipes and processes and glean inside information about food preserving businesses that reflect the growing and diverse foodsteading community.

Each class will take place from 10:00am until 2:00pm at the locations noted above. The fee for the four-part series includes class time, samples, recipes, a Ball Canning accessory kit, and a Food Forward apron. Attendance is limited to 15 students to ensure that each class will provide ample opportunities to participate. All profits generated from the series benefit Food Forward and their array of gleaning programs in the greater Los Angeles area.

The cost of the four-part class is $475 and registration may be made through EventBrite. Those interested in attending individual sessions of the series (rather than subscribing to the entire series) should contact Meg Glasser at meg [at] foodforward [dot] org for information.

When: Thursday, February 9, 2012 from 7:00pm until 9:00pm
Where: Santa Monica Public Library, Main Library, 601 Santa Monica Boulevard, Santa Monica (MLK, Jr. Auditorium)
Cost: Free and open to the public

Join farmer Nate Peitso of Maggie’s Farm, L.A. County Master Gardener and Master Food Preserver Sarah Spitz, chef Sal Marino of Il Grano, and urban homesteader Craig Ruggless of Winnetka Farms in a lively discussion about how their gardens grow. The discussion will be moderated by Darra Henigan of the Santa Monica Farmers’ Markets.

Post-discussion market treats for attendees will be prepared by Sal Marino.

MLK Auditorium seating is limited and available on a first-arrival basis. Overflow seating will be available in the 2nd floor multipurpose room. Doors open at 6:45pm, lecture begins promptly at 7:00pm. The Santa Monica Public Library is wheelchair accessible. For special disabled services call Library Administration at 310.458.8606.

For more information about the Santa Monica Farmers’ Markets, visit their website.

Applications are now being accepted for the Spring 2012 class, which begins on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 and will meet each week until June 5. Completed applications must be submitted by February 10, 2012, and both the application and additional information are available online.

For more information about the L.A. County Master Food Preserve Program, visit their webpage on the University of California’s Cooperative Extension site, like their Facebook page, and/or follow them on Twitter @LACountyMFP.

Details noted below. For more information, contact Mud at schoolgarden [at] gmail [dot] com or find him on Twitter @cocoxochitl.

When: Sunday, November 6, 2011, 11:00am – 3:00pm
Where: Zenshuji Soto Mission, 123 S. Hewitt Street, Los Angeles
Cost: $45 per person (includes admission, kaiseki lunch, two tea ceremonies and sweets).

ADVANCE RESERVATIONS REQUIRED: DEADLINE: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2011. Reservations are limited: No walk-ins are permitted on the day of the event. Payment in full by check should be made in advance to Zenshuji Sado-bu and sent to 123 S. Hewitt Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012. For more information, call 213.624.8658.

You don’t have to go to Kyoto for authentic Japanese Zen Tea Ceremony culture. Zenshuji Soto Buddhist Temple in Little Tokyo, downtown Los Angeles, invites the Slow Food members and friends to attend its annual Chasen Kuyo, celebration of the chasen, the bamboo tea whisk used to make a bowl of matcha (powdered green tea). The event attracts practitioners of all Japanese tea ceremony schools in the region in seasonal kimono.

This chakai (tea ceremony gathering) combines two distinct temae (tea procedures) in the temple’s tea venues and a superbly prepared chaseki (meal for tea ceremony) incorporating seasonal shojin riori (vegetarian temple cuisine) crafted by the temple’s chefs.                

Chanoyu (tea ceremony is not often enjoyed outside Japan in its original context, that of a Zen Buddhist Temple. Zenshuji, one of the oldest and most prominent Zen temples in North America, is unique to host this event. The day begins with a solemn Buddhist service in the hondo (main sanctuary) offering tea in appreciation of the efforts of the humble hand-tool. A talk about Zen and Chado (the “Way of Tea”) will follow chanting of traditional Buddhist sutras.

English language explanation of the events will be provided by Slow Food Los Angeles member Lauren Sochi Deutsch, a licensed instructor of Urasenke Chado. Chairs will be available.

Organizers
Zenshuji’s Tea Ritual organization is headed by Hiromi Sosei Yamashita, sensei, a senior student of the Chado Urasenke Distinguished Tea Master and USA/NEA National Heritage Fellow Sosei Matsumoto Sensei, of Los Angeles. The Zenshuji Sado-bu (tea ceremony teaching organization) presented chanoyu demonstrations at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and has been active for over 30 years. Lauren Sochi Deutsch also has been a student of Matsumoto Sensei since 1985. She has written about chanoyu in such publications as Parabola and Kyoto Journal, and has done lecture demonstrations at UCLA, the Olympics, Embassy of Japan in Washington DC, among other places.

For additional information about the tea ceremony in Los Angeles: http://www.urasenkela.org.

Once again, we offer our thanks to Bon Appétit Management Company for streaming the Edible Education classes live each Tuesday evenings beginning at 6:00pm Pacific, and for making these videos available for later viewing on the UC Berkeley YouTube channel. The video of last week’s class is available below:

A list of class dates, featured speakers and speaker bios, and class themes is available on the People’s Grocery Facebook page (Facebook membership not required).

Thanks to Bon Appétit Management Company, the Edible Education classes are being streamed live on Tuesday evenings beginning at 6:00pm Pacific and will also be available for later viewing on the UC Berkeley YouTube channel. The video of this week’s class is available below:

A list of class dates, featured speakers and speaker bios, and class themes is available on the People’s Grocery Facebook page (Facebook membership not required).

The fourth event in this summer’s Good Food film series, part of the opening day of the Good Food Festival & Conference, will feature The Harvest/La Cosecha, a documentary directed by U. Roberto Romano that provides an unvarnished view of child and migrant labor in the United States’ food system.

As Tomatoland author Barry Estabrook recently noted,

Under [U.S.] law, there is no minimum age for children to work on small farms, provided they have parental permission. At age 12, children are allowed to work on any farm if their parents consent. By age 14 a child no longer needs parental permission. In non-agricultural jobs, children between the ages of 14 and 15 are allowed to work a maximum of three hours on a school day and eight hours on a non-school day. There are no daily limits for farmworkers. And like adult farmworkers, children in agriculture are entitled to no overtime, even if they work more than eight hours a day or more than 40 hours a week. By age 16, it is perfectly legal for a child to mix, handle, and apply even the most toxic pesticides.

Following the film will be a discussion about the labor issues that are invisible to most consumers’ eyes but are critically important to any conversation about making our food system fairer and safer. Our panelists will include Tom Philpott, a nationally recognized commentator on food and agricultural policy. Lisa Lucas Talbot, chapter leader of Slow Food Los Angeles and Slow Food USA’s regional governor for southern California, will moderate the discussion.

When: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 beginning at 7:30pm
Where: The Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Avenue, Santa Monica
Cost: Tickets range from $7.00 to $11.00 and are available online or at the Aero Theatre box office.

Tom Philpott writes the Food for Thought column for Mother Jones magazine and before that was a contributor to Grist. Tom is the cofounder of Maverick Farms, a center for sustainable food education in Valle Crucis, North Carolina. His work on food politics has appeared in Newsweek, Gastronomica, and the Guardian. Maverick Farms has been featured in Gourmet and The New York Times, and in September 2008, Food & Wine named Philpott one of “ten innovators” who “will continue to shape the culinary consciousness of our country for the next 30 years.” In 2011, he was a finalist for a James Beard Foundation Journalism Award in the “Food-Related Columns and Commentary” category.

Films in the series have been selected by the Good Food Festival Film Committee (Lisa Lucas Talbot, Laura Avery, Marguerite Kenner, Susan Haymer, and Corinne Bourdeau) and are being screened with the generous assistance of the staff of the American Cinematheque.

The inaugural Good Food Festival & Conference, launched as part of the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market, will be held September 14 through 18 and will feature an exceptional array of speakers, demonstrations, and events that will celebrate the bounty of our foodshed and consider the state of our food system. More information is being posted daily on the Good Food Festival website.

The Schedule
10:00am
Suzanne Goin, AOC, Lucques, Tavern, Sunday Suppers at Lucques
Opening Remarks

10:15am
Roxana Jullapat, Cook County Restaurant
Mike Cirone, Cirone Farms
Easy Apple Fritters, Slow-Roasted Apples, Apple-Cheddar Tart

11:15am
Amelia Saltsman, The Santa Monica Farmers’ Market Cookbook
Jerry Rutiz, Rutiz Family Farm
Vegetable Lightning Round

12:15 pm
Erika Nakamura, Lindy & Grundy
Marcie Jimenez, Jimenez Family Farm
Lamb Breakdown, Marcie’s Greek Lamb Kabobs

(With thanks to The Gourmandise School of Sweets & Savories and St. Joseph’s Culinary Training Program.)

Nikki Henderson of People’s Grocery in Oakland and Michael Pollan are coteaching the class, and future sessions will feature contributions by Peter Sellars, Marion Nestle, Ann Cooper, Raj Patel, Eric Schlosser, Alice Waters, Frances Moore Lappé, and others.

Following Queen of the Sun will be a panel discussion and audience Q&A with Denise Ritchie, Ruth Askren, and Scott Kleinrock. Lisa Lucas Talbot, chapter leader of Slow Food Los Angeles and Slow Food USA’s regional governor for southern California, will moderate the discussion.

When: Wednesday, August 10, 2011 beginning at 7:30pm
Where: The Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Avenue, Santa Monica
Cost: Tickets range from $7.00 to $11.00 and are available online or at the Aero Theatre box office.

Denise Ritchie is a founder of Malibu Compost and a passionate advocate for and educator about biodynamic practices. Denise has also led efforts to provide sanctuary for organically raised dairy cows that would otherwise be sold for slaughter or to a conventional farm.

Ruth Askren is a volunteer with Backwards Beekeepers, a Los Angeles organization that promotes organic, treatment-free beekeeping and helps rescue and place wild swarms of bees that would otherwise be exterminated.

Scott Kleinrock is the manager of The Ranch at the Huntington Botanical Gardens, an extraordinary experimental urban agriculture field station that both explores productive gardening methods and serves as an educational resource. In his capacity as Ranch Manager, Scott serves as planner, gardener, and educator, sharing the lessons of the Ranch with the greater Los Angeles community.

The next event in this series will be a screening of the new documentary The Harvest/La Cosecha, a new documentary that provides an unvarnished view of child and migrant labor in the United States’ food system. The film will be followed by a panel discussion about the labor issues that are invisible to most consumers’ eyes but are critically important to any conversation about making our food system fairer and safer. The September event will be held at the Aero Theatre on Wednesday, September 14, 2011, the opening night of the Good Food Festival & Conference.

Films in the series have been selected by the Good Food Festival Film Committee (Lisa Lucas Talbot, Laura Avery, Marguerite Kenner, Susan Haymer, and Corinne Bourdeau) with the generous assistance of the staff of the American Cinematheque.

The inaugural Good Food Festival & Conference, launched as part of the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market, will be held September 14 through 18 and will feature an exceptional array of speakers, demonstrations, and events that will celebrate the bounty of our foodshed and consider the state of our food system. More information is being posted daily on the Good Food Festival website.

We look forward to seeing Slow Food members and friends at the event on August 10 and in the meantime invite you to enjoy the trailer for Queen of the Sun:

GMO Film Project Sizzler from Compeller Pictures on Vimeo.

For an update on the film’s progress and to donate to Compeller Pictures’ Kickstarter campaign, visit the Kickstarter page for the project.

We stand at a moment of opportunity. Today, more than ever, a growing network of citizens, businesses, and organizations are rethinking and challenging every aspect of our food – from the time it’s grown to the time it’s eaten. Help unite the movement and connect with one another to have meaningful and scalable impact.

More information about Roots of Change and their partners in this campaign is available on their website, including the ability to sign up for information from some or all of these allied organizations.