Rice + beans + What’s on Your Plate? + cute babies + curious kids + rainy fall afternoon = Kids Day at the Brooklyn Kitchen

A crowd of families and foodies gathered at the Brooklyn Kitchen to watch What’s On Your Plate? last Saturday.

The Brooklyn Kitchen, for those who don’t know, is actually three operations:

The Meat Hook is a full service butcher shop
The Brooklyn Kitchen Labs is their new kitchen and laboratory offering cooking classes
The Brooklyn Kitchen proper is a kitchen wares shop

At our WOYP? event we heard from The Meat Hook’s Brent Young, who told us about The Meat Hook’s philosophy, and the pork tenderloin we’d be having for lunch. The Meat Hook is all about sustainable meat — they buy only whole animals from small farms, make sure the living conditions at farms are humane, and use every part of the animal. After the screening and a word from Brent we enjoyed our lunch at the Labs.

P.S. Upcoming classes at The Brooklyn Kitchen Labs include a Holiday Cookie workshop, sourdough bread, and pickling. Sweet.

If you are around Washington Square Park this Saturday, expect to see swarms of food-growin’ and policy-changin’ folk in the neighborhood.

It’s the NYC Food and Climate Change Summit — a convergence of “family farmers, community gardeners, concerned citizens, activists, advocates, parents food experts, policy makers, environmentalists, nutritionists, educators, urban planners, urban designers, government, community, business and civic leaders, educators, elected officials, city government leaders.”
In other words, our peeps!

The event is particularly genius because it bridges food politics and climate change. We know how important it is to imagine solutions and strategies that merge these issues — and this is a great opportunity to get food activists and climate change activists together in the same room. Literally.

WOYP will be there, along with our partners Just Food, Small Planet Institute Founder Anna Lappe, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. In addition to talks, panels, info sessions and other conference type occurrences, there will be a food drive and sustainable bagged lunches.

You can follow the action at their Twitter page. And we’ll report back on all the juicy details.

Slow Food USA: getting the big guns to listen to the slow foods movement
Hint: it has to do with money

Foodpolitics.com on taking Kellogg to court
Kellogg claims Cocoa Krispies increase immunity. San Francisco District Attorney says “Nuh-uh.”

From the Denver Post: the great chocolate milk debate
Many opinions in the Colorado public schools over what to serve for lunch

From Change.org: healthy food for all
Use of food stamps at farmers markets is on the rise in New York City

Irish Times article on AIDS and world hunger
Why AIDS is a hunger issue, and hunger is an AIDS issue.

From Asbury Park Press: Is Urban Foraging an oxymoron?
Eating only what you find in Portland Oregon

Story from Bike Portland on a bike-powered RV
Brian Campbell has been living in a his RV-bike creation for 30 years.

Slow Food USA on gardening rehabilitation
Prisons across the country grow vegetables and stock food pantries.

From Center for a Livable Future: Just say no to drugs in you meat
New legislation would keep antibiotics out of livestock feed

World AIDS Day 2009

Imagine you have only enough money to pay for food or your anti-retroviral HIV medication.
If you chose the medication, your body weakens from lack of nutrition, and your immune system is compromised.
If you chose food, you do not have the necessary medicine to fight the HIV in your body. Your immune system is compromised.

The correlation between hunger and HIV infection is striking. In Sub Saharan Africa, where over 60% of HIV positive people live, access to food is unstable for a majority of people. When food is available often it is not nutritious and doesn’t provide protein or vitamins. Prolonged droughts due to climate change means a less dependable source of food. And rising global food prices means food is increasingly too expensive to buy.

Because of poverty, lack of access to food, and sporadic harvests many people have to choose between food and anti-retroviral medication. For those living with HIV, who actuall need 10% more calories to survive, this is a desperate situation. Not only does one need enough food to maintain a healthy immune system, but HIV medications must be taken with food in order to minimize side effects.

This reality is overwhelming. It reminds us of the interconnections between poverty, food security, health and justice. Just as in our own country access to health care and healthy food is too often available only to upper classes, on a global scale access to food and health is similarly available only for those who can afford it.

Yet, we should remember that fighting for an overhaul of our national food system will have international effects. If we can keep food out of our gas tanks, and change the way we eat, where we get our food, how it is grown, and who owns the patents to our seeds, we will help to change the global food paradigm.

So let’s keep fighting.

The New Yorker magazine recently released its 2009 Food Issue.
As our country engages in a collective discussion on food politics, local foods, and healthy eating, I was curious to see what one of the best sources on food writing would have to say about eating sustainably in NYC.

Would they discuss President and Michelle Obama’s date night at Blue Hill (a West Village restaurant that serves creative local foods)?

How more and more New York City restaurants are cooking locally and sustaibably —  reaching out to local farmers  and serving seasonal ingredients?

How the best and most innovative cooking these days is coming from sustainable and local foods restaurants?

Or how farmers markets are changing the way New Yorkers eat?

I opened up the issue and  . . .
Nothing. Not a word on local foods, sustainability, or our changing culture of cooking and eating.

What’s up New Yorker? Haven’t heard the news? Are you trying not to be relevant?

The folks over at The New York Times are more savvy and tuned in. On their blog, Green Inc.. they write about food politics and other environmental issues. Check out this post about young chefs doing sustainable cooking.

Link Buffet November 10, 2009

Chow down.

A message from Vandana Shiva and the Center for Food Safety
In response to Monsanto’s bizarre claims of decency, author, activist and leader of the Slows Foods Movements Vandana Shiva tells what impact Monsanto has really had on small farmers.

From Sustainable Table: tips from the author of The Dorm Room Diet
Author Daphne Oz discusses how to adjust to college cafeteria eating  and make smart food choices while in school.

Michael Pollan’s new book for younger readers — review from Slow Food USA
Michael Pollan has a new book out! Run! It’s actually a revised version of The Omnivores Dilemma, written for the  middle school aged reader.

Small slaughterhouses may catch a break – Slow Food USA
Good news for small slaughterhouses — pending legistlation allows them to ship over state lines.

Worms eat my garbage — Slow Food USA
You’ve asked yourself:  I know composting is the bees-knees, why how can I do it in my very small apartment? The answer, my friends, is WORMS. Slow Food explains how to build a worm bin that will get the job done.

The Sixth-Grade Kitchen Orientation at the Edible Schoolyard
With fall here and winter coming, sixth graders at the Edible Schoolyard turn their attention from the garden to the kitchen.

Solar One says: Give us Your Leaves!
Our partner organization Solar One has a new plan to get leaves from your yard to NYC community gardens. Read about it.

Chef Ann Cooper, fixing our food system and reeling in your dinner: podcasts from Heritage Radio Network
Give a listen to these food podcasts from Heritage Radio Network: Edible Communities with Chef Ann Cooper (10/14/09), Fixing our National Food System (11/2/09), The Main Course (10/25/09) and Catch It Cook It Eat It (10/17/09).