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Food for Thought: The Slow Food Orange County Newsletter, January, 2011
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Join the Slow Food Movement!We invite you to join the Slow Food movement! Slow Food Orange County is working hard to preserve and protect local foods and food traditions. Our convivium plans events and programs in places across Orange County-anywhere from community gardens, taste education dinners, and farm tours-join the network and become active in planning and participating in these diverse initiatives. Click here for Benefits of Membership or send us an email if you have questions.
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Mexican Masa and More with Gabbi Patrick, Chef/Owner of Gabbi's Mexican Kitchen in Orange - Great Success!
On December 5th Chef Gabbi Patrick of Gabbi's Mexican Kitchen in Old Towne Orange treated to us on a class at Sur La Table on the making and many uses of masa, from which all the proceeds, a little over a $1000 went to aid the Grain Project of Santa Ana. This hands-on course demonstrated how to prepare and flavor a variety of masas which include: Nixtamal, Masa Harina, and Blue Corn Masa which was then incorporated into empanadas, panuchos, sopes and other masa based dishes. Below is a recipe that Gabbi wanted to share with Orange County Slow Food members from the class.
Cochinita Pibil
Serves 8-10
Ingredients
3 pounds pork butt
Salt and pepper to season
4 Tablespoons Gabbi's Achiote Rub
1/4 cup orange juice
1/8 cup lime juice
6 garlic clove
1 cup water
4 banana leaves
Directions
Trim excess fat from pork butt. Season pork with salt and pepper. Mix Achiote Rub with the juices of the orange and lime. Add the water. The rub should be thick enough to coat the entire pork butt.Line the baking dish with 2 banana leaves. Place pork in the baking dish, apply the Achiote mixture. Marinate meat for 4-6 hours.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toss pork with a little olive oil before you place in the oven.Place garlic cloves into the dish, use the rest of the banana leaves to wrap the pork. Cover the baking dish with foil. Bake for 3 hours or until the temperature of the meat is 170 degrees.
Our event with Chef Gabbi Patrick raised over $1000 for our partners, the Grain Project. Besides running the Jerome Community Garden in Santa Ana, the Grain Project managed the Santa Ana Farmer's Market for several years until it was closed down for lack of funding. Currently, Lara Montagne of the Grain Project does consulting on behalf of the Grain Project for other farmer's markets, allowing them to benefit from the knowledge she amassed during her time as a market manager. The $1000 raised by Slow Food OC will pay for their consulting services for another non-profit, Orange Home Grown. Orange Home Grown formed with the intent of opening a Saturday farmer's market in the city of Orange. Their dream is becoming a reality on the grounds of Chapman University (in a former orange packing plant!) in the spring. Thanks to Chef Gabbi and your support, two local nonprofits have benefitted and Orange County will be one step closer to another (much needed) weekly farmer's market! To read more about the Grain Project, visit their website. And for more information about Orange Home Grown, visit their website.
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 "The Self Reliant Household": Potluck and Discussion
Featuring Urban Homesteading Blogger Erik Knutzen
January 23rd, 2-5pm
Seed People's Market, The Camp, 2937 Bristol Street, Costa Mesa
Tickets are $10. CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW
Erik Knutzen blogs at www.homegrownevolution.com and is the co-author, with his wife Kelly Coyne, of The Urban Homestead (Process Media 2008) and the upcoming Making It: Radical Home Economics for a Post-Consumer World (Rodale 2011). Erik also writes for magazines, including Make and Urban Farm. He has become increasingly interested in the concept of urban sustainability since moving to Los Angeles in 1998. Since that time, he has converted a 1920 hilltop bungalow into a mini-farm, and along the way has explored and written about the traditional home arts of baking, pickling, bicycling and brewing.
During his talk, he will give a review of the new home economics, everything from chickens to vegetables, to bees to booze, what plants he's grown and what plants he's killed. He will discuss specific living strategies gained from his experience, review the economics of this lifestyle and talk about the concept of "citizen science" in regard to crafting a more thoughtful, sustainable and sensible home.
Bring a dish to share, and don't forget to bring the recipe if you'd like to be included in our forthcoming Slow Food Orange County cookbook. In addition, please bring your own table setting, including plates, napkins, silverware and glassware.
Seed People's Market will also be holding a book signing with Erik prior to the 2pm talk.
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Community Farmers' Dinner at Sage Restaurant in Newport Beach
Date and time: Sunday, February 20, from 4 - 7 p.m.
Location: Sage Restaurant
2531 Eastbluff Drive
Newport Beach, CA 92660-3504
Price per person: $75 (includes tax and gratuity)
Their colorful tables are surrounded by an equally colorful crowd at farmers' markets all over the Southland. Alex Weiser of Weiser Family Farms, in Tehachapi and Lucerne, presides over an endless array of tiny, jewel-toned potatoes, purple and lime cauliflower, gleaming parsnips, and French melons. In his trademark straw fedora, he's seen hobnobbing with star chefs like Mark Peel, Suzanne Goin and Ray Garcia. Peter Schaner of Schaner Family Farms in North San Diego County, tells the market folks about his Guinea hens and Rhode Island reds with understated pride, at tables laden with a rainbow of beets, Meyer lemons, and blood oranges.
Chef Rich Mead of Sage Restaurant in Newport Beach has featured the produce of Weiser Family Farms and Schaner Family Farms prominently on his menu for years, and has invited both farmers to attend February's Slow Food OC event at Sage Restaurant on Sunday, February 20, from 4 - 7 p.m.
The dinner, held on the patio (if weather permits), is open to both members and non-members, and will consist of four courses featuring the sustainably-grown, strikingly rare and heirloom produce from each farm, plus sustainable seafood and locally-raised meat or poultry. An optional wine pairing for each course can be sipped for a small additional cost.
By championing the local farm, regional cuisine, and sustainable practices these last twenty years, Slow Food has revitalized the way we eat now. At the communal table, talk may range from seed banks to school gardens to solar ovens, but everyone meets under the banner of the delicious and the belief that growing, preparing, and eating good food together is a rewarding and effective way to organize a community. Come taste how good the Slow life can be.
You can purchase tickets here.
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Mark Your Calendars - Introduction to Permaculture with Dr. Bill Roley on March 20
 The Introduction to Permaculture class will be an overview of permaculture design, using the five fingers of permaculture: combining food, waste, water, energy and shelter into a full circle solution for environmental health. Dr. Roley will show some case studies of village design and use some hands-on exercises to illustrate these principles.
Dr. Bill Roley is the director of the Permaculture Institute of Southern California. He is an applied ecologist, environmental instructor and consultant. He designs strategies to improve sustainable resources for homes, organizations, governments and business. He combines the disciplines of anthropology, biology, architecture, engineering, agriculture, and ecology to address modern challenges of providing for human needs while maintaining ecosystem health. He has consulted and presented internationally on how to incorporate these multifaceted concepts into working sustainable systems. His courses at universities and colleges link the social and environmental sciences into an integrated pattern. His teaching and design work at the John Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies at California Polytechnic University is a graphic example of this interdisciplinary work. He heads up the Ecological Restoration certificate program at Saddleback College and teaches biology at Soka University.
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 Slow Recipes Submissions Wanted!
Make your favorite recipe a part of the first Slow Food OC Cookbook.
Let's make the Slow Food Orange County cookbook a reality! Do you have a holiday recipe you would like to share? A special dish featuring the best produce Southern California has to offer? Please send it to chair@slowfoodoc.org. Ultimately our collected recipes will be published and sold as a fundraiser for SFOC.
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