Slow Food Austin reconnects people with the food they eat. Our
educational initiatives, social activities, fundraising events, and
community volunteer projects inspire respect for where food comes from
and awakens true pleasure in eating. To learn more about Slow Food
Austin and become a member, visit our website!
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Hi,
Last year I decided to approach February as the month of LOVE. It is also the month of Chocolate if you hadn't noticed. My intention is to highlight love in all aspects of my life. I want to welcome you with me in this intention for February 2012. Here are some Slow Food ideas:
- Show your love for farmers at the local farmer's markets.
- Share love with friends and family over a delicious meal prepared together from scratch.
- Express your love with delightful treats like local or fair trade chocolate or homemade sweets.
- Experience love for your community by volunteering or attending socially relevant events related to local food.
- Love & learning go hand-in-hand at Slow Food Austin's monthly happy hours, slow sessions, and seasonal farm tours. You'll love these events because you get to learn about food by experiencing the pleasure that food provides in our lives.
If you love Slow Food Austin already, you'll love us even more as we expand our events to offer family cooking classes, Slow Suppers, more delicious dinners, and ongoing educational tasting events in 2012....more details to come. Don't miss out- come enjoy some chocolate with us this month!
With Love,
Sara Weber
President
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Slow Session - The Mighty Cocoa Bean
Date: Wednesday, February 8th,
Time: 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Location: Gallery Black Lagoon
4301 A. Guadalupe Street, Austin TX, 78751
(Parking is available in the shared parking lot with The Parlor Pizza Restaurant next door, as well as 70 parking spots below the office building directly behind the gallery.)
Please RSVP to Chelsea Staires
Spark your romance with chocolate just in time for Valentine's Day as Austin foodpreneur Tom Pedersen of Austin's wonderful Cocoa Puro teaches us all about chocolate. This Slow Session will include:
-A presentation from Tom about how cacao is grown
-Discussion on the look, feel, and taste of the bean itself
-A demonstration of how to make rough chocolate
-Information on where you can find ingredients for chocolate here in Austin
And tastings of white, milk, and dark chocolates as well as Cocoa Puro's famous Kakawa Cocoa Beans!
Here is a little about Tom Pedersen:
I have an art/music/writing background. I'm self trained in the culinary world. I always wanted my own business and had a passion for great food. I wondered what made chocolate tick, learned it was the bean, got some from the President of a Venezuelan chocolate company, and experimented until I created Kakawa Cocoa Beans. I tried them out on friends then brought them to the downtown Austin farmers' market and sold out our first day. They were selected for the Saveur 100, editors' favorites from around the world, and received other local and national praise. That encouraged us to build a small family artisan business, concentrating on creative products from fine flavor cocoa beans.
Cocoa Puro
Kakawa Cocoa Beans
Pure Whole Bean Chocolate
Cocoa Puro |
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February Slow Food Happy Hour
Thursday, February 16th
5:30pm-8pm
Foreign and Domestic
Slow Food Austin's Monthly Happy Hour will be Thursday, February 16th at Foreign & Domestic 5:30-8pm featuring a special charcuterie menu prepared by Chef Ned Elliott and a $5 Slow Drink Menu featuring beer from St. Arnold's Brewery.
Please dress appropriately, there is limited indoor seating.
*A portion of the proceeds will benefit Slow Food Austin
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Kallari Chocolate Tasting and Educational Presentation
Date: Sunday, February 26, 1:00 - 3:00 pm
Location: Center 61, 2921 E. 17th Street in East Austin 78702
Tickets: $10 for Slow Food members; $15 for non-members
Seats are limited - Buy Tickets Here
Proceeds benefit the Kallari Association
Learn Regional Flavor Profiles from Cocoa Seedlings to Chocolate Bars:
Experience the world through dark chocolate in this blind tasting. Participants will savor gourmet chocolates from around the world during the session, meanwhile developing sensory control of the palate and texture identification. The audience will gain familiarity with the numerous stages in cocoa production and bean preparation from an Amazon cocoa grower. Then, Judy Logback, an experienced chocolatier, will share information about the regional flavors of cocoa beans, the process involved in chocolate making, and the economic impact of the world's third most important commodity. Chocolate bars processed nearby the cocoa groves will be matched up against the top rated leading gourmet, fair trade, and organic dark chocolates in a blind tasting that will challenge even experienced chocoholics. The cacao beans for Kallari Chocolate are a blend of several varietals, with the main flavor attributed to the Cacao Nacional de Arriba bean. In 2004, these rare beans were singled out by the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity as a Presidium heirloom varietal |
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Free Cheese! Antonelli's 2nd anniversary...
Antonelli's Cheese Shop, locally-owned and operated by John and Kendall Antonelli, will celebrate its two-year anniversary on February 11, 2012. To commemorate this cheese-y day, as well as thank customers and partnering wholesale restaurants, Antonelli's Cheese Shop is giving away free cheese plates around town from February 6-10. While supplies last, the following restaurants will be participating: Monday, Feb.6th: Haddington's - Free Cheese Plates starting at 5pm Snack Bar - Free Cheese Plates starting at 5pm Tuesday, Feb.7th: 24Diner - Free Cheese Plates starting at 5pm FINO - Free Cheese Plates starting at 5pm Hopfields - Free Cheese Plates starting at 5pm Wednesday, Feb.8th: Bartlett's - Free Cheese Plates starting at 5pm Fion Wine Pub - Free Cheese Plates starting at 5pm House Pizzeria - Free Cheese Plates starting at 5pm Thursday, Feb.9th: Chez Zee - Free Cheese Plates starting at 5pm Max's Wine Dive - Free Cheese Plates starting at 5pm The Steeping Room- Free Cheese Plates starting at 5pm Friday, Feb.10th: Coal Vines - Free Cheese Plates starting at 5pm The Seedling Truck (East Side Drive In, 1001 E 6th) - Free Cheese Plates starting at 6pm From Monday 2/6 through Friday 2/10, order an Antonelli's Cheese item from any of our wholesale clients listed below.Bring your receipt to the Cheese Shop the week of 2/11-2/18 for 5% off your purchase. Or bring in up to three receipts for a max of 15% off. Wholesale clients who currently have their cheese include 24 Diner, Asti, Bartlett's, Bistrot Mirabelle, Chez Zee, Coal Vines, Dolce Vita, Easy Tiger, Fino, Fion Wine Pub, Frank, Haddington's, Hopfields, House Pizzeria, Hotel St.Cecilia, Lenoir, Lick, the Mansion at Judge's Hill, Max's Wine Dive, Salt Lick Cellars, the Seedling Truck, Snack Bar, the Steeping Room, Truluck's Arboretum, Truluck's Downtown, Vince Young Steakhouse, Vino Vino, and Violet Crown. Additionally, don't forget about the specials offered at Dive Bar, Star Bar, and Gibson on Wednesday nights. Buy a bottle of wine and get a free cheese plate! |
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Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association 2012 Conference
Date: February 17-19, 2012
Location: Mesquite, Texas
Mesquite Convention Center at Rodeo Center
Once again farmers, ranchers, gardeners (and consumers too) from across Texas will gather for another terrific educational and networking opportunity!
Conference Schedule
Volunteering opportunities: Volunteers are expected to perform 12 hours of volunteer work. Hours of volunteering are balanced as much as possible with opportunities to attend sessions. To volunteer, please contact Carol Moss at mossgathers@gmail.com.
- Get noticed while supporting local producers! |
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Upcoming Events
Mark your calendars for these upcoming Slow Food Austin Events - and stay tuned to our newsletters, website, Facebook and Twitter for more details!
Slow Sessions:
March 14- Slow Trailer Food- Tiffany Harelik, Trailer Food Diaries
April 11- Refrigerator Pickling- Kate Payne, The Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking
Saturday, April 14th: Slow Food Austin and Whole Foods Market Crawfish Boil and discussion on Sustainable Crawfishing
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Film Screening coming up...
Mark Your Calendar: Friday, March 16, 6-9 pm, National Film Debut at Green Gate Farms
"Our Land," a new series of short web-films from the creators of "The Greenhorns" documentary film will debut in Austin on the side of the big red barn at Green Gate Farms. Join director Severine von Tscharner Fleming and producers Jordan Kinley and Lucas Patzek for a screening of several episodes. Each episode introduces us to a particular story about building the new farm economy in the shell of the old one. Stay for a dialogue with the filmmakers and a young farmer mixer over a spread of delicious locally-produced food, drink and live music. Suggested $25-50 donation for those who can afford to support young farmers. More info at The Greenhorns website:
http://www.thegreenhorns.net/events.html
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Foodways Texas Symposium
2012 Foodways Texas Symposium
March 23-25, 2012
Austin, Texas
Tickets On Sale now - more information here!
$225 Members
$250 General Public
$85 Panels Only (no meals) limited availability
Over the course of 2 1/2 days during Texas Preserved , the second Foodways Texas symposium, attendees will explore the ways we preserve Texas (as a region, as an idea) in our food and the ways we preserve food in Texas. We'll talk about preservation in our pastures, on our farms, in our kitchens, and in the stories we tell around the dinner table. We'll discuss what we literally preserve in the mason jars in our cupboards and witness some of those preservation techniques. The weekend's sessions will include a broad range of topics faithful to our theme, including a canning demo by Confiturasowner Stephanie McClenny along with a little history regarding fruits and vegetables unique to Texas. We'll hear from the folks behind the Shrimp Boat Projects out of Houston, and a group of intrepid Austin historians out to collect stories from iconic restaurants around the state. Saveur photographer Penny De Los Santos will discuss photography as a preservative medium. Experts from around the state will update us on this historic drought and its effect on different segments of our food economy, while an expert panel of craft brewers will discuss the world of Texas breweries and help us launch our Craft Brewery oral history archive. Along the way we'll sample artisanal wares from all across the state of Texas.
Registration includes lunch and dinner on Friday and Saturday as well as a Sunday Chuck Wagon Brunch from Tom Perini of Perini Ranch Steakhouse. Chefs for the weekend include Justin Yu of Oxheart Restaurant in Houston cooking up the week's catch from Louisiana Food's Total Catch Market, and Sonya Cote of East Side Showroomand the upcoming Hillside Farmacy in Austin who will treat us to an 1840s farm dinneronsite at Boggy Creek Farm in east Austin.
Plan to be well-fed and satisfied when you trek back home on Sunday.
As part of your benefits as a member of Foodways Texas, you will be able to purchase tickets in advance of the general public and at a discounted rate.
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Slow Food Austin is looking for board volunteers!
Slow Food Board Opening - Treasurer
Are you (or someone you know) someone with an accounting background and strong business acumen, who also possesses a passion for reconnecting people with the food they eat, inspiring respect for where food comes from and awakening the true pleasure in eating? It is a unique combination for sure, but that is who we are looking for to apply for our Treasurer position. Responsibilities include approx. four hours per month of keeping our accounting up to date, managing cash flow, monitoring sponsorship levels, and preparing any financial reports necessary for Board presentation and annual reporting.
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