Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Men for All Seasons
Two competing food revolutions are taking place in the US. Our food supply is improving and deteriorating at the same time. Whether in the offerings of grocery stores or the changes in school lunch programs around the nation, America in one regard is sliding further into a fast food abyss and on the other is climbing out into the sunshine by embracing real food.
There is a revolution happening here in our own back yard.
One person choosing to go toward the light is Mikey Azzara, a 27-year-old Lawrenceville native with a bright smile, a cheerful greeting and a passion for connecting people through food. Farmers, grocery stores managers, retail consumers and children are not immune to the spell Mikey casts with his enthusiasm.
Having been a farmer himself , Mikey knows the lay and laws of the land. He has managed an organic farm in Lawrenceville and farmed in Italy during college. He is the founder of the Lawrenceville Mainstreet Farmers’ Market which will open its third season in June on Gordon Avenue in Lawrenceville As well, he is the current program coordinator for the Northeast Organic Farming Association based in Pennington. It doesn’t stop there.
One of Mikey’s “babies” as he likes to call it, is the school garden he started three years ago at the Lawrenceville Elementary School. There, kids get to plant and harvest vegetables that are used in the school lunch program and are trotted out on “Veggie Fridays” for everyone to taste and enjoy. He says the kids love it. They all take an interest in the gardening and get to see what a connection there is to food and where it comes from. And the extra benefit is it makes many of them try vegetables they might not otherwise eat.
Next on Mikey’s efforts were the farmer-chef meetings that took place around the state in 2006. The Northeast Organic Farming Association hosted three regional meetings last year to connect chefs, farmers, food producers and journalists in an effort to embrace New Jersey’s food history and future. Mikey’s input and energy into these events was crucial and more events are being considered to further the connections that were made.
Here's a post to Chef Ann Cooper's website that Mikey wrote in 2005 http://www.chefann.com/blog/?p=123
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Within the past three years, Gary Giberson, executive chef at the acclaimed Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville has slowly but surely moved the school toward healthier options, removing drinks with high fructose corn syrup and replacing them with freshly made lemonade and a Mexican-inspired mint/cucumber/lime concoction that the students love among other things.
He has also formed relationships with area farms by buying seasonal products such as corn and blueberries often better priced than produce that has been shipped across the country from California or Florida. Giberson reaps the benefit of local farms in the winter by blanching and freezing many in-season products in the fall and then uses them in the dead of winter for use in muffins, casseroles and stews.
With the blessing of their food service provider, the Lawrenceville School is able to branch out beyond the company’s usual distribution choices and create other avenues of access to fresh, local products. It is a win-win situation for both the school and the farms, not to mention the students and the faculty who dine at the school.
There is a revolution happening here in our own back yard.
One person choosing to go toward the light is Mikey Azzara, a 27-year-old Lawrenceville native with a bright smile, a cheerful greeting and a passion for connecting people through food. Farmers, grocery stores managers, retail consumers and children are not immune to the spell Mikey casts with his enthusiasm.
Having been a farmer himself , Mikey knows the lay and laws of the land. He has managed an organic farm in Lawrenceville and farmed in Italy during college. He is the founder of the Lawrenceville Mainstreet Farmers’ Market which will open its third season in June on Gordon Avenue in Lawrenceville As well, he is the current program coordinator for the Northeast Organic Farming Association based in Pennington. It doesn’t stop there.
One of Mikey’s “babies” as he likes to call it, is the school garden he started three years ago at the Lawrenceville Elementary School. There, kids get to plant and harvest vegetables that are used in the school lunch program and are trotted out on “Veggie Fridays” for everyone to taste and enjoy. He says the kids love it. They all take an interest in the gardening and get to see what a connection there is to food and where it comes from. And the extra benefit is it makes many of them try vegetables they might not otherwise eat.
Next on Mikey’s efforts were the farmer-chef meetings that took place around the state in 2006. The Northeast Organic Farming Association hosted three regional meetings last year to connect chefs, farmers, food producers and journalists in an effort to embrace New Jersey’s food history and future. Mikey’s input and energy into these events was crucial and more events are being considered to further the connections that were made.
Here's a post to Chef Ann Cooper's website that Mikey wrote in 2005 http://www.chefann.com/blog/?p=123
____________
Within the past three years, Gary Giberson, executive chef at the acclaimed Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville has slowly but surely moved the school toward healthier options, removing drinks with high fructose corn syrup and replacing them with freshly made lemonade and a Mexican-inspired mint/cucumber/lime concoction that the students love among other things.
He has also formed relationships with area farms by buying seasonal products such as corn and blueberries often better priced than produce that has been shipped across the country from California or Florida. Giberson reaps the benefit of local farms in the winter by blanching and freezing many in-season products in the fall and then uses them in the dead of winter for use in muffins, casseroles and stews.
With the blessing of their food service provider, the Lawrenceville School is able to branch out beyond the company’s usual distribution choices and create other avenues of access to fresh, local products. It is a win-win situation for both the school and the farms, not to mention the students and the faculty who dine at the school.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Why I Got Involved
Community. That seems to be an emphasis for many people who think about the food they eat. The community they live in, the land they live on or near. It seems to ring true for many people that the sense of community and enhancing it, embracing it and strengthening are all reasons to get involved in local food system issues.
When I helped to start our local community farmers' market, I was relatively new to the area we lived in. Four years later, I feel rooted there and have now lived there longer than I've ever lived any place in my life. The market when it is open (almost half the year on Saturdays, May to October) is a place to see your next door neighbor, or your friend who you never seem to get to have coffee with or the place to while away a summer morning and pick through the stalls, choosing what entices you to cook that day.
The relationships I've formed through the farmers' market continue to grow each season and will be broadened as this new initiative takes root. We will establish a system in New Jersey for farms to sell to school directly. I promise.
www.westwindsorfarmersmarket.org
When I helped to start our local community farmers' market, I was relatively new to the area we lived in. Four years later, I feel rooted there and have now lived there longer than I've ever lived any place in my life. The market when it is open (almost half the year on Saturdays, May to October) is a place to see your next door neighbor, or your friend who you never seem to get to have coffee with or the place to while away a summer morning and pick through the stalls, choosing what entices you to cook that day.
The relationships I've formed through the farmers' market continue to grow each season and will be broadened as this new initiative takes root. We will establish a system in New Jersey for farms to sell to school directly. I promise.
www.westwindsorfarmersmarket.org
Friday, February 16, 2007
NOFA-NJ Winter Conference
http://www.nofanj.org/WC07main1.htm
I was a participant in the NOFA-NJ Winter Conference held at Cook College in January. Among the topics I shared my ideas about were the farm to school program currently being developed with the West Windsor-Plainsboro School district and their food service provider, Sodexho.
Farms across the state are expressing interest in learning more about this project, which hopes to bring New Jersey grown produce into New Jersey schools. Currently, a processor is being sought to turn local produce into food service quantity, value-added products to enhance the school lunch programs in each county.
We are hopeful that this effort will result in a win-win situation for all: the kids getting fresh, local products into their school lunch, the farms knowing that there will always be an end-user to buy from them each season (the schools will always need to feed kids) and the local economy, which will benefit from the cycle.
Stay with us as we grow this program. And please let us know if you are interested in learning more or can share a suggestion. We have posted this blog to open up the conversation with people we have not yet met.
I was a participant in the NOFA-NJ Winter Conference held at Cook College in January. Among the topics I shared my ideas about were the farm to school program currently being developed with the West Windsor-Plainsboro School district and their food service provider, Sodexho.
Farms across the state are expressing interest in learning more about this project, which hopes to bring New Jersey grown produce into New Jersey schools. Currently, a processor is being sought to turn local produce into food service quantity, value-added products to enhance the school lunch programs in each county.
We are hopeful that this effort will result in a win-win situation for all: the kids getting fresh, local products into their school lunch, the farms knowing that there will always be an end-user to buy from them each season (the schools will always need to feed kids) and the local economy, which will benefit from the cycle.
Stay with us as we grow this program. And please let us know if you are interested in learning more or can share a suggestion. We have posted this blog to open up the conversation with people we have not yet met.
Why School Lunch Programs Have Changed
When public schools started to contract out their school lunch programs, relieving themselves of the need to pay for labor, insurance and everything else involved in a school lunch program, they gradually turned over all decision making processes to the food service providers who offered a full range of products. Where that has led is a system where the customer (the school district, the tax payer and the families whose children go to the schools) have not been asking the provider for better food and have instead, allowed the food provider to dictate what they would buy and from whom. This has to change. If I go to a car dealership and tell them that I want to buy a green car, the dealer will find me a green car if I have the money to pay for it. Why are we accepting low quality food in our schools and not asking for a better product? Economy of scale is not allowed to be the answer. Let's find the solutions.
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