Nourishing Wisdom: Articles: Cooking and eating ... for pleasure

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as featured in Times Herald Record, November 24, 2004

Cooking and eating ... for pleasure
by Rita Ross

When we all sit down to Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, we'll savor a luscious meal, enjoy good conversation with family and friends, relax and feel grateful for life's abundance. But why only celebrate nature's bounty during the holidays? Why not slow down, relish the delights of the table, and revel in pleasant company - not just on holidays, but all year round? That's the question asked by a local group that's part of a world, wide organization devoted to a simple premise - if you want a good life, good food is a great way to start.

It's known as the Slow Food movement. To understand its mission, consider the ingredients. Take one part educational outreach and one part culinary club. Combine with a dash each of philosophy, ecology, nutrition and lifestyle. Mix well and voilá! you've got the Slow Food concept. Slow Food aims to revive time-honored traditions such as cooking for pleasure, enjoying leisurely meals and patronizing local farmers, growers and neighborhood merchants.

"It means things like shutting off the TV when you eat dinner, and shopping when you can at a farmers market instead of just grabbing fast-food ingredients in the supermarket," says Gayil Greene of New Paltz, who started the local chapter known as Slow Food Hudson Valley, two years ago. "Our goal is to bring people back to the table," says Greene, who has also worked as a coordinator for a local farm education center. "That's really the glue that keeps families and communities together." While that's not easy to do anymore because everyone is so busy, the rewards are worth it, she says. Greene launched Slow Food Hudson Valley - each chapter is called a "convivium" from the Latin word for "feast" - after hearing about the international Slow Food movement.

THE WORLDWIDE SLOW FOOD movement began in 1986 when Italian journalist Carlo Petrini was outraged to learn that a McDonald's restaurant was opening in Piazza Spagna in Rome. Instead of picking up a protest sign, Petrini took up his pen and wrote articles about the need to support local agriculture and eat healthy, simple food. The world responded enthusiastically, and three years later things really got cooking when he founded the nonprofit Slow Food International.

Now boasting more than 80,000 members in more than 100 countries, the group's aim is to "protect the table from the homogenization of modern fast food and life." Its American offshoot, Slow Food USA, has - what else? - a snail as its symbol, and its mission statement declares that its goal is to counteract "the universal folly of fast life." The local convivium now includes more than 100 members, mostly from Orange, Ulster, Dutchess, Rockland and Putnam counties, although anyone is welcome to join. It usually meets at a member's home or at a restaurant whose chef is a Slow Food advocate.

Members aren't out to endorse an organic lifestyle for everyone, nor do they belittle the urge for an occasional visit to the Golden Arches. And they're definitely not some gang of food elitists, who munch on trendy, expensive food.

SLOW FOOD HUDSON VALLEY has donated members' garden harvests to food pantries, sponsored workshops on how to build a greenhouse, held cooking classes, run fairs and outreach events, and worked with Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs where the public can sign up to buy fresh season fruits and veggies directly from a farm. "We love the idea that you can, for example, make your entire Thanksgiving meal with local ingredients," says Greene. If you eat meat, you can get a free-range turkey raised on a local farm. If you're vegetarian, you can buy squash and pumpkins from a farmers market. And you can pick up a nice bottle of wine that comes from a Hudson Valley vineyard. Laura Pensiero of Red Hook, a registered dietitian and Slow Food supporter, believes the group's "nutrition mission" is important and inspiring.

"Let's face it," she says. "You can hand people a brochure showing them the healthy food pyramid and tell them to eat lots of fruits and vegetables. But they won't want to do it unless the food is fresh and tastes great."

As co-owner of the Trattoria Gigi restaurant in Rhinebeck, she says, "We try whenever possible to buy our ingredients locally." The staff even planted a "Gigi garden" with broccoli, winter squash, cauliflower and other veggies to supplement the restaurant's other fresh ingredients.

Slow Food Hudson Valley members range from farmers to librarians. Mike Biltonen, for instance, runs the family business Stone Ridge Orchard in Ulster County.

"By encouraging people to buy locally, it helps sustain the small agricultural businesses in our area," says Biltonen.

IT'S ALSO A GOOD WAY to network. Farmers, for example, can work with local restaurateurs to grow the food they need for their kitchens. One recent Sunday, several of the Slow Food faithful stopped by Stone Ridge Orchard to pick apples before heading to the Olde Clove restaurant in nearby High Falls for a Slow Food Hudson Valley gathering. Just a few hours later, the restaurant's owner and chef Josh Baur (he's since sold the Olde Clove and is now catering full time) whipped up some of those very same apples into a tasty apple crisp dessert.

"As a chef, it's much better to use local products, from poultry to potatoes," says Baur. "You know you'll get superior quality and taste."

But Slow Food is also about living a good life - and passing it on.

"Slow Food is a lot about tradition," says Greene. "This Thanksgiving, why not ask your grandmother for her prized family recipe? Or try making bread some weekend, or fresh, squeezed orange juice one morning, or whip up an inexpensive pasta dinner and just relax with family or friends some evening."

It's mysterious, she says, but the Slow Food mentality starts to creep into your life in other ways. You realize that life is too short not to savor it.

On the Web

www.hudsonvalleyslowfood.org
www.slowfoodusa.org
www.slowfood.com

Holly Anne Shelowitz Email: holly@nourishingwisdom.com Phone: 845.687.9666