Several weeks ago, I gave money to a Kickstarter campaign to support the website Civil Eats. The site provides news and special interest stories around food, farming, and activism and I wanted to help it continue.
Their campaign was successful, so this resource will be around for a while. It seems right to share news from it occasionally. This morning, I read about a meal hosted by the James Beard Foundation. JBF is an organization perhaps best known for giving awards for excellence to chefs and restaurants, but it is much more than that. Their mission is "to celebrate, nurture, and honor America's diverse culinary heritage through programs that educate and inspire."
Recently, they hosted a dinner prepared both physically and philosophically by Chef Maria Hines, chef-owner of Tilth in Seattle. When asked to cook for this dinner, Hines saw a chance to weave food policy into her menu and named each course for a pending piece of food and farming legislation. The food was inspired by the bill. You can read the full article on Civil Eats.
What struck me in the article was a reference Chef Hines made to a food policy boot camp she attended, put on by the Foundation. These boot camps bring together 15 chefs for three days to gain media and advocacy skills needed to improve our food system. Chefs have direct ties to food and farming issues, so who better to take a lead in fighting for better policies? If you know a chef who cares deeply about food and demonstrates that care on their menu (and I do!), consider forwarding the boot camp link to them. We can't have too many chefs pushing for change -- the more the merrier!
I grew up in a small town in New York that was rural and agricultural. It was also an hour and a half drive from Manhattan, something people sometimes have a hard time picturing. But it's true: Less than two hours from the big, wicked city, my small town (the village had 6,000 people when I was in high school) was filled with pick your own apple orchards; dairy farms being run by the seventh generation of the same families; 12,000 acres of the best soil on earth, mostly planted to onions; and a bustling fall tourist industry fueled by apple picking, apple cider, hay mazes, and pumpkin patches.
I worked in one of the orchards for two or three years, pulling cases of cider out of a refrigerated truck and collecting thousands of dollars in a single day from city dwellers who had come for their annual day in the country. I even had NYC taxis come through my line occasionally!
So I know that tourism based on farms and food can work. Heck, I participate in it wherever I go. I visit farmers markets and specialty food shops and haunt Yelp for restaurant recommendations any time I travel.
This all leads up to my being very excited for tomorrow! Travel Oregon, the state office of tourism for our neighbors, are putting on a series of tourism workshops for the Oregon part of the Wild Rivers Coast. There are some great topics (Wednesday is bicycle tourism, for instance, and there are tourism marketing workshops early next year), but tomorrow I'm heading to Gold Beach for eight hours of training in Culinary- and Agri-Tourism!
Thanks to our location at the north end of the Redwood National and State Parks, a steady stream of people drive through Del Norte County. A lot of them, unfortunately, drive straight through without stopping for more than a short hike and a quick stop at one of the visitor centers. We have more to offer than the magnificent redwoods and I think our food and farms are one of our developing attractions. I'll spend tomorrow listening and learning and hope to return to our part of the Wild Rivers Coast with some thoughts about attracting more tourist time, attention, and dollars on our food system.
I think that most people know about the Master Gardener program organized by Cooperative Extension offices around the country. It's a great program: serious gardeners get training in a wide variety of horticultural topics and then share that knowledge with their community through a mandatory number of volunteer hours in the year after the course.
Well, now Humboldt County Cooperative Extension is offering a Master Food Preserver course! You read that correctly. Coop Extension will be teaching a nine-week course starting February 4th and running every Saturday from 9 to 3pm through March 31st. The course will cover jam and jelly making; drying; canning; pickling; freezing; and food safety.
Once students are awarded their graduation certificates, they are required to provide 40 hours of volunteer service teaching preservation skills to the community. Although the letter to potential applicants states that these hours must be performed in Humboldt County, I've spoken with Deborah Giraud and she would be thrilled to have some Del Norte folks do volunteer service right here.
If you're interested in applying for this wonderful learning opportunity, you can find more information and the application forms here. Let us know if you plan to attend -- maybe we can help set up a Del Norte car-pool for the classes!
