THE NATION magazine that just came in today’s mail features essays by Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, and Anna Lappé . As you may know from previous posts, I am food activist. Can’t wait to read this.
Through a glass tile in the sidewalk in front of Murray’s Cheese on Bleecker Street, you can glimpse an underground cave where cheese is aging. Tuesday night I was invited to tour the caves and sample delicious product. A group of us were given red chef’s coats and hair-nets to prepare for a subterranean tour by the store’s affineur* Mike Anderson. There is so much to learn about cheese after it’s made and before it’s sold, that an hour down below was not enough. Upstairs we got to taste the wares, including the most luscious, buttery Sweet Grass Dairy Green Hill and nutty, textured Uplands Cheese Company Pleasant Ridge Reserve.
Here are some of the photos I took, including one from the vantage point from within the cave, looking up to the street. (I know what you’re thinking. No, you can’t see up someone’s skirt from down there.)
08-18-09: Caciocavallo
08-18-09: Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog
08-18-09: Castelmagno
08-18-09: Penterman’s Marieke Gouda
*Affineur = One who ages cheese and purveys it, or colloquially, cheese babysitter.
Last January I celebrated my birthday at Blue Hill at Stone Barns Farms, the sister restaurant to our own local Blue Hill (in the West Village), where the first couple dined last night before attending an August Wilson play, for a New York City “date night.”
Here’s an excerpt from my previous post on Blue Hill:
....I celebrated my birthday a couple of weeks ago with a multi-course banquet at the Blue Hill farm-to-table restaurant on Stone Barns Farm. (You may recall that I visted the farm last summer.) Every meal is personalized based on your tastes, allergies, etc. and the ingredients come directly from the surrounding farm or local suppliers. That night, the waitstaff was particularly proud of their winter-harvested beets because of the sugars that concentrate at this time of year. My favorite courses included the sunchoke soup and the gnocchi with wild mushrooms and ice spinach, along with a dessert accompaniment of chocolate-mint herbal tea.
Eating local/ organic/ or homemade feels more like self-improvement or even indulgence than it does changing the world. What a simple way to start taking action! Demand it, buy it, serve it, and talk it up….
Not an important film, but a fun one for foodies. A Touch of Spice by Tassos Boulmetis was a hit in Greece and is now playing at New York’s Cinema Village. After seeing it, I rushed out to Kalustyan’s in Curry Hill to refresh my spice collection.
Plot summary from IMDb:
“A Touch of Spice” is a story about a young Greek boy (Fanis) growing up in Istanbul, whose grandfather, a culinary philosopher and mentor, teaches him that both food and life require a little salt to give them flavor; they both require… A Touch of Spice. Fanis grows up to become an excellent cook and uses his cooking skills to spice up the lives of those around him. 35 years later he leaves Athens and travels back to his birthplace of Istanbul to reunite with his grandfather and his first love; he travels back only to realize that he forgot to put a little bit of spice in his own life.
Last year SnagFilms bought indieWIRE, the host of my blog, Week of Wonders. While doing research for this post, I found that one of the best films I’ve seen on the subject, The Future of Food, is now in the SnagFilms library! Very exciting! I highly recommend it. Deborah Koons Garcia (widow of Jerry) looks beyond the dinner table to the corporate sources of the food supply, and then offers alternatives. Here is the film:
Also on Snag are Supersize Me wherein filmmaker Morgan Spurlock eats only at McDonald’s for a month, and Peter Jennings Reporting: How to Get Fat Without Really Trying which I haven’t seen, but sounds intriguing.
From my call-out to filmmakers to send word of their related work, I heard from Nina Gilden Seavey whose award-winning A Short History of Sweet Potato Pie and How It Became a A Flying Saucer has played in several festivals. Seavey says, “It comes at the issue of food, creativity, and aging from a very unique perspective.” The film continues to screen at food film festivals and African American film festivals, as well as cultural and comedy events.
I haven’t seen Food Fight by Chris Taylor, but the film’s website has lots of links to great organizations.
I really enjoyed Taggert Siegel’s The Real Dirt about Farmer John when it was released. Check out that website, too.
On a personal note, I celebrated my birthday a couple of weeks ago with a multi-course banquet at the Blue Hill farm-to-table restaurant on Stone Barns Farm. (You may recall that I visted the farm last summer.) Every meal is personalized based on your tastes, allergies, etc. and the ingredients come directly from the surrounding farm or local suppliers. That night, the waitstaff was particularly proud of their winter-harvested beets because of the sugars that concentrate at this time of year. My favorite courses included the sunchoke soup and the gnocchi with wild mushrooms and ice spinach, along with a dessert accompaniment of chocolate-mint herbal tea.
Eating local/ organic/ or homemade feels more like self-improvement or even indulgence than it does changing the world. What a simple way to start taking action! Demand it, buy it, serve it, and talk it up. The films I’ve recommended are an inspiration to get informed and then get involved.
Next Topic: Safe and clean WATER
CALL OUT TO FILMMAKERS: Please write me at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if you’re working on a film or have one finished on the topic of WATER, so I can include it in the next column.
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