Slow Food Sacramento: Part of the worldwide network advocating for 
good, clean & fair food for all!

May News & Upcoming Events!
  • Chenin Blanc Wine Tasting - May 24
  • Day on the Farm & School Garden Expo - May 15
  • Meet Our Delegates to Terra Madre - Our Chapter Sending 5 People
  • Wondering About Which Tomato Varieties to Plant? Check This Comprehensive List Based on Sacramento Tasting
Read about these and more below....

Find Us At: 
www.slowfoodsacramento.com

Chenin Blanc Wine Tasting
May 24 from 4 - 6 p.m.
Downtown & Vine
1200 K Street
$20/person

Our annual Chenin Blanc tasting is here again! In cooperation with GRAS (Green Restaurants Alliance of Sacramento) we will be sampling the latest releases of our local rock star wine varietal - Clarksburg Chenin Blanc. Chenin Blanc is a perfect wine for the summer: crisp, refreshing, and not too sweet. Come sample and support our local producers.

If you don't know Chenin Blanc, this is where you'll meet some of the best summer wine you're not already drinking! And Clarksburg produces some of the best, according to the likes of Darrell Corti, Jancis Robinson and Gregory Asher. Besides, it's closer than a trip to the Loire Valley or South Africa!

Chenin Blanc Clarksburg AVA is our chapter's nomination to Slow Food's Ark of Taste. The Slow Food California jury has approved the nomination and forwarded it to Slow Food USA.

Day on the Farm & School Garden Expo
May 15 from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Soil Born's American River Ranch
$5/person at the door; Kids under 2 free
 
For the 5th year, Slow Food Sacramento will help sponsor the School Garden Expo held as part of Day on the Farm , the annual family day at Soil Born's American River Ranch.
 
The School Garden Expo features school garden activities for kids and their families. Learn about nutrition, pollinators, soil and water health, worms for composting and more. And again this year, our own Brenda Ruiz will offer demos and tastings of her Plant Parts Salsa.
 
Day on the Farm is a great opportunity to visit Soil Born's American River Ranch to see first hand the amazing work they do growing organic fruits and vegetables. Enjoy family friendly activities, including the farm stand, organic plant sale, farm tours, great food, and more.

Sacramento Forum Draws Over 200 to Discuss Future of School Food
 
Feeding Our Future was a first-of-its-kind regional forum on school food held at Sacramento State University on May 2. Slow Food Sacramento was proud to be a co-sponsor of this event. The forum brought together experts from school nutrition, student health, agriculture, policy and advocacy, and school gardens to discuss ways to improve student health outcomes.
 
"What we really need for a healthy school food future are resources from the federal Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act," said Brenda Ruiz, President of the Sacramento Food Policy Council and Slow Food Sacramento board member. "The partnerships and capacity we developed at Feeding Our Future will hopefully illustrate just how important school food is."

Coming up - School Lunch call to action: Slow Food USA's Food & Farm Policy Task Force is very concerned with the House of Representative's version of the School Lunch bill, HR 5003. Unless it is amended drastically we will be asking you to call your representatives for a NO vote. Our children deserve our respect. Respect requires that we feed our school children good, nutritious food in robust school feeding programs - before school, at lunch, after school, and during the summer. HR 5003, unlike the Senate bill, fails our children. Learn more about how you can help pass a sensible Child Nutrition Reautherization Act here.
Highlights of Recent Events   
Chanowk Yisrael, Charity Kenyon, Janice Daniels.
 
May has been a very busy month for us. First off, Thank You to all our donors on the BIG Day of Giving. We raised nearly $2,500, which will help with the upcoming Farm to Every Fork event, the School Garden Coalition and the Youth Network Academy.  Again special thanks to Nido Magpie Cafe for hosting a special happy hour that helped raise money toward our BIG Dog total. Slow Food board members Chanowk Yisrael, Charity Kenyon and Janice Daniels shown here at the Nido event. 

In honor of Compost week, we hosted a fabulous bike tour -- Cycle the Food Cycle -- on May 2 of various restaurants composting their food waste. We also promoted our chapter at the ReSoil Compost Awareness event on May 7. Feeding our Future was a big success on May 2 (reported on above) with over 200 in attendance. And way back on April 12, we were pleased to help sponsor the screening of Open Sesame: The Story of Seeds. Special thanks to Food Literacy Center for again assembling a fabulouse series of films and events to showcase the role of food in our lives. 
Meet Our Chapter Delegates to 
Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, 
Turin, Italy - Sept. 22-26

It's official! Slow Food Sacramento will be represented by five delegates to Terra Madre, the international gathering of food producers, chefs and other food experts. Together they will share the table and share ideas on how to improve world food systems. 

Cinnamon Vann is our leadership delegate chosen from among our board and other food leaders in the community. Cinamon is the workhorse behind our Snail of Approval awards that now recognizes more than 65 restaurants, producers and supporters of the Slow Food mission in Sacramento. "I'm very excited to represent Slow Food Sacramento and our Snail of Approval program at this year's Terra Madre," she said. Read more about Cinamon. 
 
Ed Roehr is our community food representative. Ed is co-owner of Magpie Cafe and Nido as well as a big advocate for the Slow Food mission. "I am passionate about making restaurants more equitable work environments and serving local foods grown in the area," he said. Read more about Ed.

Learn more next month about our additional three delegates: Brenda Ruiz (School Gardens and Youth Projects Director and Slow Food California Policy Committee Chair); Chanowk Yisrael (Slow Food Youth Network and our delegate to We Feed the Planet); and, Lisa Frank (graduate of the University of Gastronomic Sciences and instigator of Slow Beer California). We have never had so many delegates attend the largest international gathering of Slow Food members and supporters.

Fundraising for travel stipends Expect to hear more about our Sacramento delegates in upcoming newsletters. We would like to provide a minimum stipend of $1,000 to help offset airfare and miscellaneous costs.  We'll be doing some fundraisers and sending links, so you can make a contribution in whatever sum works for you. Thank you for helping ensure that a broad spectrum of leaders is able to represent us at Terra Madre. 
Best Local Tomato Report

If you have attended any of our recent tomato tastings, you have met Chuck Rickard. Now he has compiled the Sac Tomato Report from his six years of local tomato and pepper tastings. More than 300 people participated in the tastings that cover more than 100 varieties of tomatoes. Want to know the best tasting, sweetest, our Slow Food Board member Karen Auwaerter told us, "I just bought my tomatoes and this report was very helpful."

Governor Report - May 2016
 
My Slow Food USA blog is posted: At the end of April I had a chance to represent Slow Food USA at the Sustainable Food Trust's Conference on the True Cost of American Food. My Slow Food USA blog about the experience is here. We made new connections, especially with activists working on food justice issues in the Central Valley and look forward to working together to bring good, clean, and fair food to all.
 
Slow Food International Council meeting next up: In a week I am off to Italy to represent Slow Food USA at the Slow Food International Council meeting in Brindisi. My fellow councilors are three member of the Slow Food USA Board of Directors:  Matt Jones (Denver), immediate past Chair, Kathryn Underwood (Detroit), and Joel Smith (Chicago). We'll be reporting on the rollout of Slow Food USA's new strategic plan and working on strengthening our strategic partnership with Slow Food International. I look forward to visiting friends from all over the world - some of whom have visited us here in Sacramento.  I will be sending posts to the Slow Food Sacramento Facebook page, so you can follow along. After the next International Congress, I will ask Slow Food USA to nominate another leader to replace me. It's an opportunity of a lifetime.

Charity Kenyon
Slow Food USA Governor
Central Valley California Region & International Councilor
Slow Food Sacramento | www.slowfoodsacramento.com
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