From: "Local Food Ideas" <gtalocalfood@gtalocalfood.ca>
Date: September 15, 2008 5:11:29 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Local Food Ideas List" <localfoodlist@gtalocalfood.ca>
Subject: [Local Food Idea List] Energy Smackdown teams compete in
Locavore Banquet
Reply-To: <gtalocalfood@gtalocalfood.ca>
Energy Smackdown teams compete in Locavore Banquet
Thu Sep 11, 2008, 02:00 PM EDT
Medford Transcript - Medford,MA,USA
http://www.wickedlocal.com/medford/news/x2090105188/Energy-Smackdown-teams-compete-in-Locavore-Banquet
Medford - A group of New Englanders have found a unique and
meaningful way to celebrate the harvest season.
The Energy Smackdown™, a project of the BrainShift Foundation, is
hosting its annual Locavore Banquet from 4 to 6 p.m. on Sunday, Sept.
14 at First Parish Church in Arlington Center. This year, the
banquet will feature teams from Arlington, Cambridgeand Medford,
competing to prepare and serve dishes made from locally-sourced
ingredients.
The typical American diet consists of foods that are energy
intensive to grow, process, package and transport. For example, most
Americans live within 60 miles of an apple orchard, yet the apples
they buy at the grocery store have traveled, on average, more than
1,700 miles from the orchard, according to the Leopold Center for
Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University.
As a result the agricultural system is responsible for more carbon
emissions than cars or lights being turn on. According to a study
bythe New Economics Foundation in London, eating locally directly
supports our local communities. A dollar spent locally generates
twice as much income for the local economy. When businesses are not
owned locally, money leaves the community at every transaction.
“The Locavore Banquet is about our local community coming together
to share a meal that is prepared with our global community in mind.
It highlights the importance of natural foods obtained from local
sources to the larger question of energy independence and
sustainability,” explained Donald Kelley, executive director of the
BrainShift Foundation. Participants are expected to go away with a
greater awareness of the impact our food choices have on energy,
environment, health and community.”
Each team will prepare and present a meal that includes an
appetizer, a main course, two side dishes, a salad, a dessert and a
beverage. One dish must include meat or fish, one dish must contain
home-grown produce from the garden of a team member and one dish
must have an ingredient imported.
Dishes will be judged according to the quantity of greenhouse gases
produced in creating the ingredients, as well as taste, and
presentation.
The judges will be Jamey Lionette owner of Lionette’s Market in the
South End of Boston and Alison Arnett former restaurant critic for
the Boston Globe. Local chefs, Bob Sargent of Flora Restaurant
(Arlington), Julia Shanks of Julia Shanks Food Consulting
(Cambridge), and Vittorio Ettore of Bistro 5 (Medford) will guide
the teams as they prepare their menus, offering advice on combining
tastes and preparing fresh, in season food.
The teams, however, will be responsible for doing the preparation
and cooking of the dishes. This was important to Rosemarie Cerundolo
when considering where she would get the meat for the dish she was
preparing. Used to simply going to the market for a ready-to-cook
cut of meat, she took pause at the idea of preparing a freshly
butchered, whole chicken from the local farm.
“My husband’s family has a farm in Italy and eats off the land,” she
said. “They butcher and prepare their own meat. But I can’t imagine
it.”
The banquet is designed to be sustainable in more ways than food.
Participants are asked to travel to the event by public
transportation, bike or carpooling. And they are asked to bring
their own plates, cups, utensils, and cloth napkins.
Whole Foods is providing backpacks to each family to make it easier
to transport reusables. The company is also helping with recycling
and composting for the event. When asked about the “bring-your-own-
dinnerware” rule, Laurel Kayne of Arlingtoncommented, “I would be
lying if I told you I was totally gung-ho. (But) this whole contest
is about trying new things and seeing how un-crazy they might be.”
Whether it is getting to know the local farmers, sharing rides to
work with neighbors or participating in a food co-op, the
participants have commented on a special camaraderie that has
developed.
Kayne said it this way, “If the Energy Smackdown™ was all about
individual action, without the team aspect and the challenge events,
it wouldn’t be nearly as compelling or rewarding.”
TheEnergy Smackdown™, a program of the BrainShift Foundation with
sponsorship from National Grid, Nstar, Mirant, Northeast Energy
Efficiency Partnerships, The Henry P. Kendall Foundation, challenges
and supports participating Massachusetts households, and
organizations, to reduce their own energy consumption as well as the
energy consumption of others. In doing so, participants engage the
public-at-large on the critical issue of climate change and what
concrete things citizens can to do to reduce their own energy
consumption.
Event sponsors for the Locavore Banquet are Whole Foods Market and
Lionette’s Market.
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“There is no love sincerer than the love of food.” George Bernard Shaw