The primary reason to join Slow Food Huntington, as should be the case for any social organization, is that it stands for something good. In this case, the good is the right to healthy food, with healthy understood as referring not only to the body consuming it, but to the environment in which it is raised, the workforce involved in its preparation and the community in which it is distributed.
Slow Food has been an important force in identifying and defending this right. In this sense it is a civil rights organization. The right to eat is just as important, and just as embattled, as the right to organize, assemble, and speak one’s mind, along with another right, not usually identified as such: the right to know. As the food industry becomes ever more corporatized and impersonal, access to reliable, accurate information has become ever more precarious. What chemicals are in this food? Has it been genetically modified? Was this head of lettuce sprayed with pesticides in the field? Was the soil treated with chemical fertilizers? Were the farmhands paid a decent wage? Slow Food, along with other organizations, works to bring such information to the public and to defend the public’s right to know.
Culture is another element in any civil rights movement. The defense of food culture was the foundational mission of Slow Food. The name refers to traditional cooking as opposed to fast food and its variants: takeout, supermarket prepared meals, frozen dinners, energy drinks and meals in a can. Perhaps all of these have their place, but it is all too easy for convenience, and the all too instant gratification of salt and fat, to overwhelm more considered approaches to nutrition and cooking.
When you buy groceries you are buying into a way of life and an economy that sustains it. What kind of life do you choose? Shouldn’t you make an informed choice, or at least have access to information that makes such a choice possible? When you prepare a meal you are participating, or not, in traditions and forms of knowledge that can go back centuries. In our heterogeneous, fast-paced society, tradition is always under threat.
Food deserts have developed in communities throughout this country, and there should be none. Children are developing diabetes and morbid obesity and they should be healthy and active. We should do better.
This is the big picture, the backdrop to our Slow Food potluck dinners, lectures, and outings, and to the many civic, cultural and political events which we support as a clearinghouse for food advocacy. Your membership will support such work, and it will be one way, among others, to support a movement for food rights.
Slow Food Huntington: Why Join, Why Now?
Upcoming Events
1) Sustainable Long Island Conference on Friday- http://sustainableli.org/events/annual-conference-2013/
2) Farmingdale State College Horticulural Event; Products From the Garden 4/13/13
http://www.farmingdale.edu/academics/business/ornamental-horticulture/gardprodeventposter.pdf
3) Book Signing and author events, Saru Jayaramen: Behing the Kitchen Door
4/15/13 at Book Court- reading and discussion http://www.slowfoodnyc.org/event/sfnyc_book_club_behind_kitchen_door_saru_jayaraman
4/17/13 at Colors restaurant
http://dream13press.com/?p=744
4) How to Build a Raised Bed Workshop 4/20/13 from 1-4pm
Fox Hollow Farm in S. Huntington
http://www.foxhollowfarm.com/docs/Fox-Hollow-Farm-SPRING-WORKSHOP-SERIES-2013-1.pdf
5) Green School NYC 2013- Spring Conference and Resource Fair
4/20/13 10am- 4:30pm
http://greenschoolsnyc2013.eventbrite.com/#
6) NY Green Festival at Jacob Javits
4/20/13 – 4/21/13
Stephen Ritz will be presenting on 4/21/13 See his TEDx Talk here: ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcSL2yN39JM)
http://inhabitat.com/nyc/event/new-york-city-green-festival/
7) Slow Food Huntington Dinner 4/21/13
all ready posted as event
8) Earth Day 4/22/13
see events happening in and around the city all week
http://www.earthdayny.org/events.html
9) Natural Nurse Chinatown Walk- 4/28/13 http://articles.healthrealizations.com/NaturalNurse/2013/04/08/Natural-Nurse-s-China-Town-Herb-Walk.aspx?SubscriberEmail=bhavani@ieatgreen.com
10) Family Time in the Kitchen: Cooking Demo with Bhavani
5/1/13 The Waldorf School of Garden City 7pm
http://www.waldorfgarden.org/uploaded/fliers/jaroff.pdf
FROM THE OUTSIDE IN: Sustainable Futures for Global Cities and Suburbs
A Conference at Hofstra University
Thursday-Saturday, March 7-9, 2013
Register at: HOFSTRA.EDU/SUSTAINABLEFUTURES
From the Outside In: Sustainable Futures for Global Cities and Suburbs is a three-day conference focusing on the sustainable futures in global city-regions, taking the suburbs as its starting point and working its way inward to the city center.
Join academics, practitioners, and community leaders for an interdisciplinary discussion about sustainability that bridges the environmental, economic, and social spheres within complex urban regions.
Sustainable Futures Conference
Hofstra Cultural Center
243 Gallon Wing
113 Hofstra University
Hempstead, NY 11549-1130
For more information, please contact the Hofstra Cultural Center at 516-463-5669
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Tagged agriculture, climate change, distribution, environment, farming, future, grass roots, hofstra university, organic, planning, suburb, sustainability, sustainable, urban
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Slow Food Huntington Elections
We are moving forward with the elections for our board. If you are interested in taking a position, we would like to invite you to an informal meeting this Saturday, March 2nd, at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington. Please consider joining the board of this wonderful, local community organization. Without the willingness of others to take charge, we fear that the future of this chapter will be not be able to continue. For more information about Saturday’s meeting, please email me at Bhavani@ieatgreen.com.
Thank you, and I look forward to growing Slow Food Huntington with all of you!
Cheers, Bhavani
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Slow Food Huntington is having Elections!
After 6 years of co-chairing Slow Food Huntington, Ann Rathkopf is ready to pass on the torch! I will stay on, to help in the transition, but we are looking for members in good standing, who would like to see Slow Food Huntington grow and prosper! We have newly adopted by-laws, and are looking to fill the positions of Co-Chair, Secretary, Treasurer, Membership Chair, and Communication Chair. If you are interested in becoming more involved in our wonderful, local chapter of Slow Food, please send in your nominations now (you can nominate yourself!) to Bill, at whitcombbj@whitsons.com
We will be voting sometime next month. Stay tuned for more info on the elections!
Thank you, and I look forward to growing Slow Food Huntington with all of you!
Cheers, Bhavani
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2012 No Farms, No Food Rally
2012 No Farms No Food Rally
in Albany
When: February 15th, 2012
Where: State Capitol in Albany
Join American Farmland Trust, along with farmers, food advocates, local officials, environmentalists and other New Yorkers at the State Capitol to urge state leaders to support funding and legislation that protects farmland and the environment, increases the availability of nutritious food grown in New York and strengthens the farm and food economy. Busing available from NYC with registration!
Click here for more information
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The $5.00 Challenge
At the home of Bhavani and Joe Jaroff, Slow Food Huntington hosted a successful event to Challenge the “status quo” of the “Value Meal”
We joined Slow Food USA in their national campaign to Challenge the “Value Meal”. For less than $5.00 per person, we put together a full vegetarian buffet which was enjoyed by all.
The menu consisted of 2 soups, a Cold Green Gazpacho Soup and a Hot Minestrone Soup, 2 Appetizers, Hummus and Guacamole with pita and corn chips and 2 entrees.
The first entree was gluten free Rice Noodles with Pesto with basil from Bhavani’s garden, Make your own Black Bean Fajitas with beans that were soaked and cooked with kombu, Mexican Brown Rice with Roasted Non GMO Corn, and Fresh Mixed Green and Arugula Salad (also from the garden) with Organic Goat Cheese on the side.
For dessert we enjoyed some Gluten Free Banana Bread and Carrot Cake. Everything was made that day by members of our chapter!
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Welcome to Slow Food Huntington
Welcome to Slow Food Huntington, the Huntington chapter of Slow Food USA. Our chapter encompasses Western Suffolk and Nassau counties.
Slow Food is a member-supported, non-profit organization devoted to creating a more sustainable and nourishing Food System. We envision a world where Good, Clean and Fair food is a reality for everyone.
For Slow Food, the idea of Good means enjoying delicious food created with care from healthy plants and animals. The pleasures of good food can also help to build community and celebrate culture and regional diversity.
When we talk about Clean food, we are talking about nutritious food that is as good for the planet as it is for our bodies. It is grown and harvested with methods that have a positive impact on our local ecosystems and promotes biodiversity.
We believe that food is a universal right. Food that is Fair should be accessible to all, regardless of income, and produced by people who are treated with dignity and justly compensated for their labor.
This change that we seek to inspire includes a transformation in food policy, production practices and market forces, to ensure equity, sustainability, quality and pleasure in the food we eat.
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