event beat

Starting a Local Food Revolution
Bryn Mooth May 14, 2012 Event Beat 0 comments
Have you heard that Saturday, May 19, is Food Revolution Day? Started by the Jamie Oliver Foundation, it's a worldwide event designed to celebrate healthy eating and bring people together at dinner tables and local events. Here's from their mission: "Food Revolution Day is about connecting with your community through events at schools, restaurants, local businesses, dinner parties and farmers' markets. We want to inspire change in people’s food habits and to promote the mission for better food and education for everyone." As individuals, we can do something about the issues revolving around health, culture and the environment. There's a feeling of power, even revolution, about our food...
Flavors of the Valley 2012 Highlights Local Farms & Food Artisans
Ana Bowens Apr 17, 2012 Event Beat 0 comments
This past Sunday, April 15th, Kaitlin and I had the pleasure of attending the annual Flavors of the Valley event hosted by a local organization called Vital Communities. The event took place at Hartford High School in Hartford, Vermont, filling their gymnasium with over 40 farms, food artisans, restaurants and organizations from across the Upper Valley (a region that spans a small section of both Vermont and New Hampshire, where the FarmPlate headquarters are located). The importance of the local food movement to the area was evident and the hosts did a great job of integrating sustainable event practices. For example, they encouraged people to bring their own plates and utensils in...
Breaking the Disconnect Between Production and Plate
Bryn Mooth Feb 23, 2012 Event Beat 0 comments
Recalling a way-off-Broadway play called “The Rescue” that he’d seen years ago, Andrew Kimbrell (executive director of The Center for Food Safety) talked about the dilemma faced by the play’s main character: A bomber pilot, he had no difficulty dropping ammunition from many thousands of feet above, and yet he couldn’t pull the trigger when forced to shoot someone in front of him. During his presentation at the Ohio Ecological Food and Farming Association’s annual conference, Kimbrell likened the pilot’s dilemma to the physical and psychological disconnect that’s inherent in the industrial food system. Because we’re so far removed from CAFOs and from the monoculture farms that produce the...
Dine Out for Farms™ this week!
Jennifer Phillips Oct 18, 2011 Event Beat 0 comments
Candied pecans sprinkled over chèvre cheesecake drizzled with caramel and topped with sweet apple compote. Yes, please! No matter how old I am, I will always long for dessert before my entrée, and this particular dessert did anything but help me curb that craving. To kick off the American Farmland Trust’s Dine Out for Farms™ week, I sampled the seasonal specialties of Harvest Restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin. Named one of Gourmet Magazine’s top American Farm-to-Table Restaurants, Harvest was also deemed one of the 20 best restaurants in America by Organic Style Magazine. The restaurant's inspiration is drawn from both French and American cuisines, offering an ever-changing...
Eat Your Heart Out at Oakland’s Eat Real Festival
Jen Robinson Sep 27, 2011 Event Beat 0 comments
The first of three days at the Eat Real Festival in Oakland was the stereotypical California day: a balmy, sunny 85 degrees. Unfortunately, I chose to attend the festival the second day when the temperature plummeted over 20 degrees and the coastal fog of the morning lifted into heavy cloud cover. Luckily it didn’t rain! On Saturday, September 24th in Jack London Square, the scent of meat roasting over open coals against crisp fall air tinged with sea salt was divine. Within a few hours of my arrival, every Bay Area foodie was packed shoulder-to-shoulder in the square, waiting patiently for homemade tamales, organic bánh mì and hand-dipped corn dogs. Eat Real coordinates festivals annually...
Sustainable Goodness in Wisconsin
Jennifer Phillips Sep 22, 2011 Event Beat 0 comments
This year’s annual Food for Thought Festival, held last weekend in Madison, explored and celebrated the diversity of ways to eat more pleasurably, healthfully and sustainably in Wisconsin.  Hosted by REAP (Research, Education, Action and Policy)—a Madison based non-profit organization with the mission to build a regional food system that is healthful, just, environmentally sustainable and economically viable—the Food for Thought Festival is reminiscent of the age-old harvest festival.  However, this festival is more of a festival of the minds than one celebrating piles of wheat and corn stacked high. The goal this year was simply to connect and reconnect people with their food...
Heirloom Tomato Tasting
Larissa Curlik Aug 30, 2011 Event Beat 0 comments
Don’t be fooled…The Wapsipinicon Peach is not really a peach. The fuzzy yellow plum-shaped tomato was named after the Wapsipinicon River in northeast Iowa and first cultivated in 1890 by a gentleman named Elbert S. Carman. It blushes ever so slightly when ripe, hinting at its delicate sweetness. A perfect pairing for sweet summer corn with a simple salad, the Green Zebra develops a yellow hue as it ages on the vine. Its slightly spicy tang also makes it an irresistible choice for this Indian-inspired tomato jam with ginger, cinnamon, cumin and cayenne. My favorite—Kellogg’s Breakfast—is deep orange, thin-skinned and nearly seedless. When sliced, its meaty flesh reveals a kaleidoscope of...
NOFA Summer Conference
Kaitlin Haskins Aug 18, 2011 Event Beat 0 comments
A weekend of beautiful, warm weather in early August set the stage for a lively convergence of over 1,400 farmers, gardeners and foodies in Western Massachusetts last weekend. For any New Englander interested in sustainable food and farming, the 37th annual Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) Summer Conference was the place to be—as long as you could spare the valuable time away from your field or garden in the middle of prime harvest season!  The University of Massachusetts in Amherst hosted this year’s Conference, which was held in conjunction with Northeast Animal-Power Field Days (NEAPFD). The conference included over 225 workshops, film showings, a country fair, farmers’...
Strawberries, Shortcake & Sunshine
Adrienne Nunez Jul 01, 2011 Event Beat 0 comments
Saturdays at Picadilly Farm in Winchester, New Hampshire are a time for the community to come together, enjoy the open air and pick up their delicious weekly share of the harvest. Owners Jenny and Bruce Wooster greet CSA members and keep their farm store—open to the public—brimming with fresh organic produce, dairy, meat, preserves, bread and free range eggs. All this generally keeps the farm bustling on Saturdays, but last weekend was particularly special… It was the Picadilly Farm Strawberry Shortcake Festival!  This was the second year that Picadilly has thrown a celebration of summer’s most loved fruit, and  word about the festival has traveled far and fast. Over 150...
OysterFest 2010: A Wellfleet Tradition
FarmPlate Oct 25, 2010 Event Beat 0 comments
For more than two hundred years, oyster lovers have recognized the particular sweet, brininess of Wellfleet oysters. Today the Cape Cod town leases roughly 200 acres of tidal estuaries in and around Wellfleet Harbor to local commercial fishermen for the sole purpose of farming shellfish. These pristine waters produce an annual commercial harvest of an estimated 850,000 large choice oysters. The people of this Cape Cod town think their vibrant tradition of shellfishing is something worth celebrating. On October 16 and 17, more than 10,000 oyster devotees and clam fanatics thronged Wellfleet's Main Street for the 10th Annual OysterFest. The opportunity to eat some of the world's best...
Outstanding in a Vermont Field
FarmPlate Aug 30, 2010 Event Beat 0 comments
Great meals are not out of the ordinary in Orleans County, Vermont's localvore Mecca. Still, August 17 stands out, even in the minds and palates of Vermont's hippest foodsters. That was the day the Outstanding in the Field's red-and-white bus pulled into the driveway at Pete's Greens at Craftsbury Village Farm to begin assembling one very long table for one unforgettable meal. A touring "restaurant without walls," Outstanding in the Field brings together local chefs and producers for a special culinary experience in a beautiful outdoor setting. Here, the very two people who made the event possible share their experiences: Pete Johnson, owner/farmer, entrepreneur, Pete's Greens, Craftsbury,...
Build a Table for a Feast
Michael S. Aug 26, 2010 Event Beat 0 comments
It was gray and drizzling in Woodstock, Vermont, last Sunday, but the weather didn't diminish the festivities for the 128 people who gathered just off the Green, under the Middle Covered Bridge, to celebrate a weekend spent hand-building tables and feasting on a lunch made from locally grown foods. Bagpiper Tim Cummings blew up a stately march to welcome diners who took their places around the tables, which were hand-built that weekend by 17 individuals and families who participated in the Naked Table Project sponsored by ShackletonThomas. The Naked Table was conceived by well-known furniture maker Charlie Shackleton last year. Shackleton had a vision of people hand-building a table from...
Cheese, Love
Chris H. Jul 30, 2010 Event Beat 0 comments
Good cheese is true love. I'm wading in a sea of cheesemakers, winemakers, brewers and fine food producers. In my right hand I'm holding my love, Sarah; in my left hand I'm holding Sarabande, another (not-so-secret) love of mine. Leave it to the Vermont Cheesemakers Festival to complicate the romantic lives of cheese-lovers, if just for a day. The second annual Vermont Cheesemakers Festival on July 25th at Shelburne Farms welcomed 50 artisan cheesemakers from Vermont and western Massachusetts to the shores of Lake Champlain. Twenty Vermont wineries and breweries and 15 artisan food producers balanced the ticket. Tasting seminars and a cooking demonstration by Sean Buchanan, renowned chef...
Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Healthiness
FarmPlate Jul 02, 2010 Event Beat 0 comments
Philly has the Let Freedom Ring bell-ringing ceremony and Boston goes all out with Harborfest, but New England's true patriots and parade fanatics head to Warren, Vermont, for the best July 4th spectacular around. Warren takes patriotism and parades pretty seriously. Named after the first American to fall at Bunker Hill, the little town on the Mad River swells from about 1,700 year-round residents to three times that number on the morning of Independence Day. Since the 4th falls on a Sunday this year, Sunday morning church service has been moved to Saturday. The parade is an eclectic mix of marching bands, honking fire trucks, waving politicians and homegrown floats—all blessed by an Air...
Farm, Bike!
Chris H. Jun 25, 2010 Event Beat 0 comments
It's 7:15 am, mid-June, and a steady stream of bikers is rolling down Riverside Avenue into Burlington's Intervale: farmers heading to work. While this image may not be a new one, the number of non-farmers hopping on a bike to pick up produce or simply pay a visit to nearby farms is on the rise. Bike-centric farm events (and even a farm-centric bike business) are sprouting up all over Vermont. You might wonder just how many people are both into cycling and a fan of small farms? Lots, it turns out. Last year, more than 500 people attended the annual Tour de Farms, a fall ride with stops (and samples) at a variety of Addison County farms. In July, I’m teaming up with Local Motion and the Open...