Looking Forward Columbia

I am slowly, but surely, getting the hang of this working mom thing.  It is not for the faint of heart.  Juggling childcare, (which is piece-meal right now since Jones can't start daycare until June), work, showers (yes, these have to be scheduled now!), laundry, dishes, diapers, breast feeding/pumping, exercise, family-time, couple-time, and friends, is a lot of work, and takes careful balancing of time.  I am so lucky to have a wonderful husband and family to help, but seriously, it's a lot to figure out!

But, with all that said, I am getting better with the time management thing and adjusting to my altered sleep schedule, so hopefully my blog posts will become more regular again. 

Spring is such a fun time in Columbia--so many things going on!  Here are a few I'm looking forward to in the next few weeks:

Springtime at the Garden Festival at Riverbanks Zoo and Botanical Garden: This Saturday from 9-4.  There will be Master Gardeners on-hand to answer your gardening questions--I'm hoping to ask how to (organically) prevent those pesky vine-borers from killing my squash plants this year--and composting demonstrations.  There will also be live music and arts and crafts for the kids.  Free with membership or general admission.

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Assassins at Trustus Theatre: From the Trustus website: "ASSASSINS is perhaps the most controversial musical ever written. This most American of musicals lays bare the lives of nine individuals who assassinated or tried to assassinate the President of the United States, in a historical "revusical" that explores the dark side of the American experience."  Sounds interesting, huh?  The show runs March 25th- April 16th.  James and I will be in attendance on April 7th.

Arts & Draughts
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Arts and Draughts at CMA:  The Columbia Museum of Art hosts this First Friday event one last time before the summer--April 1, 2011.  You can explore open galleries, listen to live music, see a live figure drawing session, and taste beer at the same time--$5 for CMA members and $7 for non-members.  Doors open at 7, music begins at 8.


KD's Treehouse Little Earth Day Celebration: Saturday: April 9th from 10-1, in the parking lot behind KD's Treehouse.  There will be arts & crafts for kids, live music from The Steel Band Project, a local writer book-signing and more!  Fun for the kiddos!

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Slow Food at Indie Grits Sustainable Chef's Tasting Party & Hosted Potluck:
Wednesday, April 13th at 6:30 PM in the All Local Farmer's Market building on Whaley Street- join local chefs dedicated to sustainable and local ingredients for a tasting.  There will also be live music, locally-brewed beers, and wine.  $20 for Slow Food and Nickelodeon members, $40 general admission.

What are you looking forward to in the next few warm spring-time weeks?

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Happy Holidays, School Children of America!

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On Monday President Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Act of 2010 into law.  The law will increase the federal reimbursement for free school lunches by 6 cents a meal at a time when many school officials say they can't afford to provide the meals. The bill will also expand access to free lunch programs and allow 20 million additional after-school meals to be served annually in all 50 states. Most states now only provide money for after-school snacks.

As a former public school teacher, and a current social worker working with homeless families, I can tell you that this is a much needed step in the right direction.  Well done, President and Mrs. Obama!  Read more about it here.

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In other healthy food news, I am currently reading Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life by Kim Severson.  The part I am just finishing is about Alice Waters, arguably the most influential person in starting the Slow Food movement in America, America's modern organic, local food movement and garden-based education in schools.  The idealism of this woman is truly inspiring.  I am excited to read on about the other cooks that saved Severson's life--so far a good read.

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Thursday's Thinking of Food

Hope everyone's having a great week--I am so excited for the impending long weekend, aren't you? James and I are headed to Charleston to visit a dear friend of mine from high school, Austin, and her awesome husband, Collin. We're going to traverse the city, eat really good food, and sun ourselves silly--posts next week!

Exciting foodie information today--here goes:

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*Panera, the national soup, salad, and bread chain, has opened a "pay-what-you-can" store in a suburb of St. Louis. How freakin' cool is that!? The menu is exactly the same at this nonprofit location, but there are no prices. Customers are encouraged to pay what they can, and a price is suggested, but nothing is required. The motto that hangs over the counter of the store reads: "Take what you need, leave your fair share." The store just opened this month, but similar models have worked in the past. Click here to read a Washington Post article on the venture. I first read about the nonprofit Panera store here.

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*A newly-released study published in the journal Pediatrics, indicates that "Children exposed to higher levels of a type of pesticide found in trace amounts on commercially grown fruit and vegetables are more likely to have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder than children with less exposure." Wow. This is the largest study of its kind to date, and it seems pretty well-conducted. The lead author of the study, Maryse Bouchard, Ph.D., states: "Organic fruits and vegetables contain much less pesticides, so I would certainly advise getting those for children. National surveys have also shown that fruits and vegetables from farmers' markets contain less pesticides even if they're not organic. If you can buy local and from farmers' markets, that's a good way to go." And buying organic or from a farmer's market is so easy these days, why not?


*The Big Shebang at City Roots, Columbia's urban farm, last weekend was really fun! There were local artisans selling their wares, a potluck lunch sponsored by Slow Food Columbia-all dishes included at least one local ingredient, and City Roots was giving farm tours. There was also plenty of locally grown produce, herbs, and plants for sale. I got some basil:

which I later turned into a homemade pesto to go on toast with mozzarella for my sister's baby shower last Sunday:

City Roots also has a tilapia tank and free range chickens, along with their 30 varieties of vegetables and fruit.

Go visit City Roots--the Farm Store is open Monday-Friday 9- 5:30 and Saturday 10-2.


*And, if you're planning a cookout for Memorial Day-here's a deal for you: get a FREE bottle of Earth Fare Organic Ketchup with any $5 purchase and this coupon.

Have a great weekend! I would love to hear what you're doing for the holiday.

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The Big Shebang at City Roots This Weekend

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If you are in Columbia this weekend, you should definitely check out City Roots' "The Big Shebang!" The folks at City Roots, (Columbia's new urban farm), describe the event as "a celebration of the nationwide resurgence of local and handmade goods."

There will be local craft vendors, a potluck of local food, (anyone can bring something--just make sure at least one ingredient in your dish is local!), and local music by way of a drum circle. The potluck is sponsored by Slow Food Columbia. There will also be a farm tour of City Roots at 1 pm.

Click here to see the event Facebook invitation, which lists some of the craft vendors who will be there.

The event will be from 11 am- 2pm at City Roots, located at 1005 Airport Blvd.

Have a great weekend! I will be attending USC baseball games tonight and tomorrow night--we're playing #1 Florida for the SEC Championship--we lost last night in a heartbreaker, 3-2. Then, I will be cooking and decorating for my sister's baby shower that is going to be at my house Sunday afternoon. (I hope to make it to the City Roots event too!)

How are you spending your weekend?

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Thursday's Thinking of Food

Happy Thursday everyone! I don't know about you, but I am sooo ready for the weekend--this has been a really busy week at work. AND-this is my last week in the HHAC Biggest Loser competition! We have our final all-team weigh-in and challenge this Sunday. The challenge is to run a 2-mile loop around the gym, with the last 1/2 mile being a long, pretty steep hill up to the finish line--wish me luck!

Ready for some food facts and opportunities for action?
Here you go:

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*First, for all of you Columbians, the next Slow Food Columbia meeting will be held Monday, April 19th at 6:30 pm at City Roots. Slow Food is a national movement that seeks to create dramatic and lasting change in the food system by reconnecting Americans with the people, traditions, plants, animals, fertile soils, and waters that produce our food. Sounds good, right? I can't make the meeting this month, but hope to next month; they meet every 3rd Monday. Click here to check out the Slow Food Columbia blog.

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*I received my Humane Society Legislative Fund newsletter, Humane Activist, in the mail this week. (As a teacher of Social Policy, I do take policy issues very seriously and tend to think that all citizens should..I used to be one of those people who said "politics is just not my bag," but I think it's our duty as Americans to make it "our bag." Not only for ourselves, but for those who can't advocate for themselves). [cue soap box dismount].

Anyway- on the back of the newsletter they have a section called AYES & NAYS, where they applaud groups and legislators for taking action in the interest of animal well-being, and reveal unsavory practices by others. An exciting "AYE" this month states that "Wal-Mart has confirmed that all of its private label eggs in the US, sold under the Great Value brand are cage-free. And Hellman's has announced that its Light Mayonnaise product in North America will contain 100 percent cage-free eggs--and that it aspires to switch over all its mayonnaise once cage-free eggs become more available." A small step, but bravo for big companies taking any step towards more humane treatment of animals!

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*zpizza was voted the winner of the 2010 Libby Award from peta2 for the Most Vegan Friendly Restaurant! If you haven't tried zpizza, you should. They have so many healthy options-gluten-free, vegan, organic, vegetarian, whole wheat...and they have meat for meat-lovers as well. Columbia's zpizza, located on Gervais St., runs specials all week long; become a Fan on Facebook to get all the latest offers.

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*Don't let big food control what you eat! CREDO Action urges us to do something: "America's supermarket bounty is deceiving. Of those hundreds of brands on grocery store shelves, the vast majority are owned by a handful of industrial food companies like Kraft, Conagra and General Mills. But there was nothing inevitable about this kind of corporate control of our food. Decades of deregulation and governmental inattention to industrial consolidation brought us our broken food system, one that features non-stop food safety recalls, an obesity epidemic and the hollowing out of rural America as family farmers are forced to sell out to corporate interests."

Click here to find out more about the initiative to rethink food in America and sign a thank-you letter to Attorney General Holder and Secretary Vilsack for taking seriously the concerns of family farmers, rural advocates and consumers by holding workshops that address the lack of competition and excessive market concentration in our food and agricultural sectors.

Not convinced?-- watch Food, Inc. Or, click here to read First Lady Michelle Obama's call to "entirely rethink the products that you're offering, the information that you provide about these products and how you market those products to our children."

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*And finally, Earth Fare in Columbia has just announced that as of April 22, 2010 they are eliminating all plastic bags from their store. And, the first 200 people through the door on April 22nd receive a free reusable market tote! Click here to read the Top 5 Reasons Earth Fare is kicking the plastic bag habit.

And that, my friends, is my Thursday's Thinking of Food. Have a wonderful weekend!

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Thursday's Thinking of Food

Food News this Week--and I want to hear YOUR opinions on some of this stuff!

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*Should Happy Meal toys be banned from your child's fast food meal? That very question is being examined in Santa Clara County, CA. (Incidentally, this is the county where I taught school when I lived in CA--you know, the same one that I mentioned served sushi as a daily option on the public middle school lunch line--I loved it there!) Anyway-"Ken Yeager, the Santa Clara County Supervisor, presented a law at yesterday's county board meeting to ban toys given away with unhealthy food. He believes the toys are used to encourage children to eat fatty, sugary, high-calorie meals that can lead to childhood obesity, according to the Silicon Valley Mercury News." What do you think? Is it the toys that make the kids eat unhealthy? Would the parents take the kids to the unhealthy restaurants even if there were no toys in the meals?

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Healthy Carolina Farmers Market at USC

*The State paper ran an article Sunday called "The greening of SC: Local food crops up." The article mentions the All-Local Farmer's Market as well as the Healthy Carolina Farmers Market at USC, as well as highlighting some local farmers. I am so excited to see South Carolinians embracing such change and growing (no pun intended) such an important local market for food.

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*Are School Lunches Worse Than Fast Food? Earth Fare's blog, Tomato Talk, addresses this question in yesterday's post. Pretty disturbing answers point to yes--did you know currently schools only have about $1 per student to spend on actual ingredients for lunches. Meat that KFC won't buy because it's from "old birds" is being put on school lunch trays! What!? This should outrage parents--and anyone who cares about kids. And it should also outrage us as tax-payers--why, in a country where we have a huge obesity epidemic and we're spending billions of dollars on illnesses related to obesity, are we feeding our kids crap and calling it lunch?


BUT...we can do something about it right now...Slow Food Columbia's recent blog post reminded me recently that we can contact our legislators and ask them to Strengthen the Child Nutrition Act by investing in healthier food, strengthening nutrition standards and linking schools to local farms. Click here to e-mail your representatives asking them to support helping schools serve healthier food.

*Health Care reform includes a provision requiring chain restaurants and vending machines to include calorie counts. Love it--I think this is really powerful and important. What do you think?

*Local restaurants are Going Green by recycling cooking oil. Midlands Biofuels, in Winnsboro, is using waste cooking oil, (Waste Vegetable Oils or WVOs), to make biodiesel fuel. Click here to see a video about this cool endeavor...local restaurants participating include Kristian Niemi's Rosso and Gervais & Vine. Click here to see a more comprehensive list of local participating restaurants and businesses.

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*And finally, I am reading the book The Butcher and the Vegetarian: One Woman's Romp Through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis, and though it took me a minute to get into...I am really enjoying it now. I also really enjoy the author, Tara Austen Weaver's, award-winning blog, Tea and Cookies.

Whew--that is a lot of information. I would love to hear from you on these issues...

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Chipotle- Slow Food. Fast.

So, I'm currently reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, and as I was reading tonight I read "Chipotle is one of the only national restaurant chains claiming to obtain a significant portion of its pork from animals that don't come from factory farms."

It just so happens that a Chipotle Mexican Grill opened in Columbia just last week...I had no idea about their mission, "Food with Integrity." Very cool. When I looked up Chipotle, I learned that they represent a return to organic and sustainable farming; they use only antibiotic-free, naturally-raised chicken and pork and 50% of their beef is raised this way. Chipotle calls their menu items "Slow Food. Fast."

I have not yet visited Chipotle, but this certainly makes me more excited to do so. Here, Steve Ells, the founder and CEO of Chipotle speaks about his company's mission on Nightline:


And here's an article that discusses Chipotle's intention to install solar panels in 75 of its restaurants. If only other restaurants would take notice that you can be environmentally-friendly and serve meat that wasn't raised and slaughtered on factory farms...and still make a profit, too. If only the American public was more educated about factory farms and demanded better for animals, ourselves and our children.

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Chipotle's website advertises Food, Inc. View the trailer here. I haven't seen this film yet, but I really want to.

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And, Fresh is coming to The Nickelodeon on Tuesday, February 9th at 6 PM. See a trailer for Fresh here.

Staying true to my promise to be more aware of what goes into my body and where it comes from, I am really interested in the Slow Food movement and educating myself about our American food sources.

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Columbia has a Slow Food chapter, whose mission is to support the movement of Good, Clean and Fair Food. Check out the Slow Food Columbia blog here.

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