Local Foods, Local Chefs Program Kicks Off October 1:  Arlington restaurants to feature locally-grown food

Throughout the month of October, dine at participating Arlington restaurants and enjoy a meal made with locally grown and raised ingredients. Supporting local vendors strengthens our local economy. But supporting local farmers goes even further. You’ll be helping to keep farmland in production and your food is fresher — often picked just the day before.

Event kickoff: October 1

Join the Local Foods, Local Chefs Kickoff October 1, 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Whole Foods Market, 2700 Wilson Boulevard, where you’ll enjoy some tastings and get a chance to meet local vendors, farmers, and chefs. In addition, learn more about the benefits of local foods at a book talk and signing with Diane A. Welland, author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Eating Local.

Participating restaurants:

Each of the Arlington restaurants below will feature meals made with locally-grown ingredients throughout the month:

•   Busboys & Poets, 4251 S. Campbell Ave.;

•   Domasco Trattoria Moderna, 1121 N. 19^th St. (inside Hotel Palomar)

•   Eventide Restaurant, 3165 Wilson Blvd.

•   Pete’s New Haven Style Apizza, 3017 Claredon Blvd.

•   Restaurant 3, 2950 Clarendon Blvd.

•   Santa Fe Café, 1500 Wilson Blvd.

•   Silver Diner, 3200 Wilson Blvd.

•   Sweetgreen, 4075 Wilson Blvd.

•   Whole Foods Market, 2700 Wilson Blvd.

•   Willow Restaurant, 4301 N. Fairfax Dr.

And more…

Learn more about the program>>>

For more information, call 703-228-6417 or visit the project web page.

Local Foods, Local Chefs is sponsored by Arlington County, Virginia Cooperative Extension, and Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment.

From the Virginia Cooperative Extension:

(This joint VCE – ACOAN workshop is for community gardens organizers.  It is for new and established community garden organizations, neighborhood associations, DOD and local government recreation programs, non-profits, schools staff and volunteers, service clubs, and Extension professionals.)

Have you thought about starting a garden within your community next year?

Is sustainable urban agriculture an interest of yours?

Are you looking for ways to get your neighborhood, family, workplace or classroom connected to the land?

Is local food production or food security a concern of yours?

If so, join us for a free workshop entitled

“Building Communities Through Gardening” on

Tuesday, October 18th from 8:30 a.m. until 12:00 p.m.

at the

Fairlington Community Center,  3308 S. Stafford St., Arlington VA 22206

Pass the Word!!

Come learn more about starting and managing your garden, receive valuable resources and checklists, and learn about best practices from your neighbors in the Arlington and Alexandria communities.  Please click on the link below for a flyer with more information.  Please RSVP to alexcoan@gmail.com to sign up for this workshop.

VCE Flyer “Building Communities Through Gardening”

We look forward to seeing you on October 18th!  Please contact me if you have any questions.

The DC Field to Fork Network, as a collaboration and conversation between many organizations that are helping to change the way that Washington, DC thinks about, acts upon and approaches food, has been a crucial part of holding together this community, educating people about gardening, food, nutrition and cooking. The Network is a cornucopia of organizations, from community gardeners and mentors, to educators for youth and elderly about nutrition, gardening and cooking, to advocates for food security and food access within the District. Everyone plays an important role in carrying out our mission in Washington, DC and due to this work, people are more well educated about food and healthy choices, community gardens have been thriving in spaces which were once  abandoned lots, and residents are pushing for more positive change.

Washington, DC has certainly been making strides in these aforementioned arenas due to this grassroots, “bottom-up” social movement, as are many other cities, towns and regions throughout the United States. However, it is a well-known fact that many locale still have serious obstacles in the form of policies and ordinances which are sometimes still used to hinder such progress in the area of cultivating local foods, communities and education about gardening, human well-being and social justice. Community and private garden initiatives are sometimes made to cut short their operations due to some “legality”.

Recently, one unfortunate turn of events is threatening the work of a local teacher and gardener in Memphis, Tennessee. Though this event is certainly outside the local scope of the Washington Metropolitan region, it hits home in the hearts of many who have met similar obstacles here in our region. Urban gardening is something which many are pursuing whether to supplement the family’s diet or income, and is a topic which continues to grow more ubiquitous in the awareness of the general public.  Culturally, farming and urban gardening is resurfacing in conversation as being an integral part of our heritage and is a part of the cultural fabric which ties us together as communities and as a whole with the natural world.

So why are people still going to jail or being charged of breaking town and city ordinances over the issue of their garden? This is a serious question that we need to engage with if we are to continue to push for change on the local, state and national level in the ways that we view our cultivation, production and consumption of foods.

In this recent case of injustice, Adam Guerrero, a math teacher at Raleigh-Egypt High School n Memphis, Tennessee, has been working on growing a garden, composting, vermiculture, and keeping bee hives at his home. He does this in addition to being a full time math teacher. Coming to his help are three students from the school, who have been mentored (after school) by Mr. Guerrero and have been learning and helping with the gardening, vermiculture and bee keeping that is going on. What a great instance of education and mentorship of young people that is going on outside of the school classroom! However, Mr. Guerrero has been ordered to take apart his garden as he has been cited for being a “public nuisance”.

Please read more about this case through the Tree Hugger Blog (linked to in the above paragraph) as well as an article published by the Memphis Flyer on September 15, 2011.  One way you can help is to read and sign the petition that will be sent to the judge who will hear Guerrero’s case later this week. Other suggestions about how you may be involved are listed at the bottom of the Tree Hugger blog article.

Keep on gardening!

Thursday: Urban Ag on the Move!

Our 3rd annual film screening fundraiser Urban Agriculture on The Move! A Film and Food Event is coming up on August 11th! We’re cooking up lots of local fare this week and are excited to share it with you.

Doors open and refreshments served at 6:30 pm. Film screening will start promptly at 7:30 pm, with discussion to follow. It’s at the Letelier Theater, located in the Georgetown neighborhood at 3251 Prospect Street, NW, Upper Courtyard.

Buy your tickets now and then let us know you’re coming on Facebook.

We’re still looking for a couple of last-minute volunteers – please reply here in an email if you’re interested!

And many thanks to our sponsors, including: Silver Spring Farmer’s Market, Mount Pleasant Farmer’s Market, Wegmans, Trader Joe’s, Harris Teeter, GLUT Food Coop, Whole Foods, Barrel Oak Winery, and St. Stephen’s and the Incarnation Episcopal Church.

Farm to School Webinar

August 9, 2011

Don’t forget to register for our next webinar, which will discuss the toolkits and other resources we are developing for National Farm to School Month in October:

http://www.farmtoschool.org/webinars.php

Liesel Flashenberg – “Enjoy more and better family meals.”

From the husband of the late Liesel Flashenberg:

August 3, 2011 is the first National Family Meal Day, created to honor our Founder, Liesel Flashenberg. In the year since Liesel died, we have repositioned Through The Kitchen Door and successfully begun our FREE National Replication Program. While this was her goal for the organization, Liesel’s goal for each of us was to “Enjoy more and better family meals.” She knew that frequent family meals help young children develop positive life skills. Research also shows that children who have more family meals have less drug and alcohol abuse, better academic performance and fewer early pregnancies. Let me know if you’d like to see our summary of research about the benefits of family meals.

Participation in National Family Meal Day is easy. Just get your family together and have a shared meal. It would be best if you can all participate in the cooking and preparation of a healthy meal, but that’s not always possible. Sharing prepared foods or going out together to a restaurant are also fine ways to celebrate this day. It’s the togetherness, conversation and support that develop during the meal that are the real treats.

If you run a restaurant, National Family Meal Day can be a great opportunity to either thank your family customers with something special or reach out to new customers. Let us know of any special “deals” you make for National Family Meal Day and we’ll help spread the word.

We do ask you to let us know about your National Family Meal Day plans and experiences. Tweet us at @kitchendoor, or just send us an email at dan@kitchendoor.org

Here is a great article written by shannonbshea on the DC Food For All blog. [Crossposted from DC Food For All]

“Eating local” is nothing more than a turn-of-phrase without defining the word “local.” Although some corporate natural foods stores label blueberries from Northern New Jersey as local to D.C., most agricultural advocates define local as grown or otherwise produced within 100 miles of the buyer. This range is often referred to as a region’s “foodshed.” Thankfully, we here in the D.C. Metro region have a plethora of choices for local agriculture, whether produce purchased from a nearby farmer or grown in a community garden. To help people in the region find options near them, Ecolocity D.C. maintains the D.C. Foodshed Map.

The D.C. Foodshed Map is an easy-to-use resource based in Google Maps that covers sustainable food resources within 100 miles of NW D.C. It lists a variety of resources, including both distribution channels and sources of food. Categories include:

- Farmers’ markets
– Community gardens
– Local farms, especially those that have Community Supported Agriculture programs
– Grocery co-ops
– Food justice and sustainability organizations
– Gardening businesses and resources, such as sources of mulch
– Restaurants with a focus on sustainable and local food

Although the D.C. Foodshed Map is an invaluable resource to D.C. residents, it also provides a wealth of information to those in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs. It even includes resources as far out as Baltimore and Pennsylvania. To serve people of all income levels, it also provides information on food banks and which farmers’ markets accept WIC, SNAP and other food stamp programs.

Users can browse the map in multiple ways. You can click and scroll into your local area to see the nearby resources. You can also scroll through the list of entries, which are sorted by organization and in alphabetical order. If you save the Foodshed Map into My Places on Google, you can look up a particular address and view the surrounding points of interest. Users with Google Earth or other mapping software can even download the data as a KML file and view it in that platform.

If an organization or place is missing, users are welcomed and encouraged to add to the map. There is a form on the Food Map page on the Ecolocity website, where users can enter in the name, type, description, address and much more about the organization. The entry is then uploaded the next time the administrator (me) updates the map, which is approximately once a week. If there is a correction needed, please email me to fix it. As the map has a database back-end, I can also add large numbers of entries at a time, such as government data. Please let me know if you have access to such data sets.