On Sunday, June 5, join Slow Food Seacoast for a potluck Sunday Dinner in Portsmouth. The theme of the evening is Bread, Yeast, and Beer.

Paula Marcoux, Edible South Shore magazine’s food editor, will share some great breads with us after an afternoon Bread-Baking Class. (Sorry, that class is full.) After dinner, Paula will speak about the return to traditional baking technologies and techniques (like wood-fired ovens and natural leavening) and some modern developments that benefit bakers.

In addition, Annette Lee and Nicole Carrier of Throwback Brewery will join us to talk about their experience opening a nanobrewery (still in process!) in North Hampton. Striving to create a sustainably produced beer that tastes of this place called New England, they source ingredients from local farmers (including our friends at Brookford Farm in Rollinsford, NH) and local maltsters (e.g., Valley Malt in Hadley, MA). The first artisanal brews that Throwback will be producing have names that pique your interest even before you take that first sip, like Campfire Smoked Porter, Dippity-Do, and Hog Happy Hefeweizen. Speaking of which … the gals will bring along some beer for sampling, yay!  Let’s give them a big show of support as they wait out the final stages of the label-approval process so they can start selling some beer.

Of course it would be lovely if you brought a potluck offering in line with the Bread, Yeast, and Beer theme, but please bring any dish made with wholesome, preferably local, ingredients. Home brewers, bakers, and other lovers of fermentation are especially encouraged to bring some of their creations for dinner and some starters (leaven/sourdough, kombucha, kefir, etc.) to share with people who would like to make their own. Sharing these living foods—and the practice of making them—is fun!

Please bring your own “mess kit” (plate, bowl, drinkware, cutlery, and napkin) to minimize the use of paper goods, waste, and cleanup time. Also please bring your own beverage. If you’ve never been to a Slow Food potluck before, please read About Our Potlucks for more information about what to expect.

DATE: Sunday, June 5

TIME: 5:30–7:30 pm

PLACE: Stoodley’s Tavern, 17 Hancock Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801

DIRECTIONS: Stoodley’s Tavern is part of Strawbery Banke Museum. (Directions to Strawbery Banke are available on the museum’s website.) Please park in the Strawbery Banke Main Visitor Parking Lot at 14 Hancock Street (or along Hancock Street itself). From the parking lot, cross the street diagonally and to right to “Stoodley’s Tavern Education Center” at 17 Hancock Street. Jiggle the latch of the old front door until it opens! We will meet in the room to the left after you enter the front door.

More Info

• Paula’s website, The Magnificent Leaven
• Read more about Paula and her love of wood-fired baking on Boston.com.
• Throwback Brewery’s vision of New England “beer-oir”

Paula Marcoux

Celebrate spring at the Slow Food Seacoast Sunday Dinner on May 1!

Bring a potluck dish that includes spring flowers or other wild edibles to Blue Moon Evolution, a restaurant committed to supporting organic and local food producers. Their newly renovated space is a perfect place to come together and share a meal. After dinner, Nancy Randolph will speak about two books from Just Write Publishers, a Maine-based company that focuses on books of local interest, that are relevant to our evening’s theme:

• How to Fix a Leek … and Other Fresh Food from Your Farmers Markets, by Sandra Garson. Originally written in 1991, the 20-year anniversary reissue comes out on May 1, just in time for the 2011 market season.
• Wild Plants of Maine: A Useful Guide, by Tom Seymour (a guide to Maine’s wild edibles and other useful plants)

DATE: Sunday, May 1

TIME: 5:30–7:30 pm

PLACE: Blue Moon Evolution, 8 Clifford St, Exeter, NH

THEME: Wild Edible Greens & Flowers

Please bring your own beverage. To minimize the use of paper goods, waste, and cleanup time, please bring your own “dining kit” (plate, bowl, drinkware, cutlery, and napkin). If you’ve never been to a Slow Food potluck before, please read About Our Potlucks for more information about what to expect! See you on Sunday!

Slow Food Seacoast invites you to attend the next community “Sunday Dinner” of the new year on Sunday, February 6, at 5:30 pm in Portsmouth. The theme, Not Fast Food!, challenges attendees to rework a common fast food dish the “slow” way, with good, clean, and fair food.

The dinner theme stems from the topic of the guest speaker, Sriram Madhusoodanan, Portsmouth Organizer for Corporate Accountability International,  a nonprofit organization that protects public health by waging and winning campaigns against the corporate abuse of food systems worldwide. Sriram will give us a broad overview of corporate influence on our food system and share examples of efforts to reverse this trend, in the Seacoast and elsewhere.

More specifically, Sriram will speak about Corporate Accountability International’s Value [the] Meal campaign, which is dedicated to reversing the global epidemic of diet-related disease by challenging the fast food industry to curb its marketing of unhealthy food to children. Foremost, the organization is calling on fast-food giant McDonald’s to Retire Ronald [McDonald] once and for all.

DATE: Sunday, February 6, 2011

TIME: 5:30–7:30 pm Potluck Dinner (please remember to BYOB and BYO dining kit as described in About Our Potlucks!)

PLACE: Stoodley’s Tavern, 17 Hancock Street, Portsmouth, NH

DIRECTIONS: Stoodley’s Tavern is part of Strawbery Banke Museum. (Directions to Strawbery Banke are available on the museum’s website.) Please park in the Strawbery Banke Main Visitor Parking Lot at 14 Hancock Street (or along Hancock Street itself). From the parking lot, cross the street diagonally and to right to “Stoodley’s Tavern Education Center” at 17 Hancock Street. Jiggle the latch of the old front door until it opens! We will meet in the room to the left after you enter the front door.

THEME: Not Fast Food! Try to remake a common fast food dish the slow way, or prepare a dish the way that it might have been prepared before fast food made it ubiquitous. Burgers and fries are a starting point … be creative, and please try to include at least one local ingredient in your dish!

MORE: If you have any suggestions or questions, please send us an e-mail.

More Info

• To find out more about Corporate Accountability International, click here.
• To learn how McDonald’s aggressive marketing of junk food makes kids sick, click here.
• To add your name to the petition to Retire Ronald, click here.
• To find out more about Slow Food Seacoast events and potlucks, click here.

WHAT: 1st Annual Seacoast Community Eat-In

WHEN: Sunday, Sept. 12 at 5:30 pm

WHERE: UNH campus behind Demeritt Hall

MORE INFO: UNH Slow Food

Join UNH Slow Food on Sunday, Sept. 12 at 5:30 pm for the first annual Seacoast Community Eat-In.

This potluck event is free and open to the public and will be held on the UNH campus behind Demeritt Hall, just off Main Street in Durham. Bring a favorite dish to share with your friends and neighbors. Please visit the UNH Slow Food website for more details, including directions.

We had such a great time at the Blue Moon Market & Café (8 Clifford St., Exeter, NH) last spring that we are happy to be heading there once again. This year, participants can sign up for a special cooking class (preregistration and fee required) before the potluck. The potluck will feature dishes prepared during the class, and the meeting will feature some thoughts from Kathy about growing, preparing, and eating greens.

4:00 pm Class: Cook Your Greens and Eat Them, Too! with Blue Moon Chef/Owner Kathy Gallant. You must register in advance for this class by sending an email to Alison. A few spots are still available; $15 per person. Read about this event on the Slow Food Seacoast website.

5:30 pm Potluck Dinner: The theme is … greens! (What else?) Please remember to bring your own dining kits … read About Our Potlucks on the Slow Food Seacoast website.

6:30 pm Meeting: We’ll quickly announce upcoming events (like the 4th Annual Slow Food Seacoast Down-on-the-Farm Picnic on August 1—details to come!), and Kathy will share some thoughts about growing, preparing, and eating greens.

Slow Food Seacoast’s next event is the May potluck, which will be held in conjunction with members of UNH Slow Food (campus chapter) and the Great Bay Agricultural Resource Network, a group of producers who are making connections within their community to share equipment and resources.

As always, please bring a potluck dish to share and your own dining kit and beverage, but please note: No alcohol is allowed in UNH buildings. Please read About Our Potlucks if this will be your first Slow Food potluck.

The event summary is below; click through to the May 2 Potluck page for details galore!

Sunday, May 2: Slow Food Seacoast–UNH Slow Food Potluck & Meeting in Durham

DATE: Sunday, May 2

TIME: 4 pm optional FREE workshop, Herbs for Food and Medicine with John Forti, 5:30–7 pm potluck dinner, with members from UNH Slow Food and Great Bay Agricultural Resource Network

PLACE: Barton Hall, Thompson School, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH

THEME: spring herbs

DIRECTIONS and DETAILS: May 2 Potluck

Hope you’ll be joining Slow Food Seacoast for its public potluck supper on March 7th. Bring a dish to share and your own reusable dinnerware, and share in a feast created by the whole group. After the meal, Erika Zollett, a marine scientist in fisheries management as well as proprietor of the sustainability consulting business Green My Restaurant, will be speaking on the topic of Sustainable Seafood. Discussion about seafood that’s both sustainable and slow will follow!

For those who’d like to prepare a seafood dish with a view toward sustainable sourcing, Erika has a few recommendations. “For fish that qualify as both sustainable and somewhat local, I would suggest Gulf of Maine shrimp, farmed mussels, clams (farmed is better), farmed scallops, or line-caught haddock.” She says. She also invites everyone to have a look at Seafood Watch, a site created by the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Check out our Events page for details about this Sunday’s potluck, and please take a moment to read About Our Potlucks if you’ve never attended before!

On Nov.4, 2007, Slow Food Seacoast brings back a popular event for its second year — The 100-Mile Thanksgiving Potluck! All are invited to accept the challenge of sharing a potluck fest of Turkey Day traditions in which all dishes feature ingredients grown within 100 miles of Portsmouth, NH.

The public is invited to a 100-Mile Thanksgiving Potluck Dinner at the Portsmouth Pearl , 45 Pearl Street, Portsmouth, NH, from 5:30 – 8:00 PM. Slow Food Seacoast will serve up two locally raised roasted turkeys, and attendees are invited to bring potluck contributions featuring food grown or raised within a few hours of the Seacoast. Come witness the abundance and enjoy the taste of home. Conversation and celebration are on the program. Taste locally raised domestic and heritage-breed turkeys side-by-side and savor the autumn flavors of home-cooked dishes from soups to desserts. Seacoast Eat Local will present information about its upcoming Holiday Farmers’ Markets. The evening will include a live musical performance by Cynthia Chatis, who will share songs celebrating the harvest season.

All ages are welcome to join in the feast. Guests are asked to contribute a potluck dish to serve at least 10 portions, and to bring their own place settings and beverages (no alcoholic beverages at this event, please). Admission is free, but Slow Food Seacoast will be accepting voluntary suggested donations of $5 per person, $4 of which will be donated to the Seacoast Family Food Pantry and $1 to Slow Food Seacoast. Seacoast Family Food Pantry is one of the oldest charitable organizations in the state, initially chartered in 1816, and serves over 300 families and individuals from Portsmouth and surrounding communities.

The Portsmouth Pearl, a restored 1868 Church with a distinguished history as the earliest African-American church structure in New Hampshire. The Pearl’s century and more of positive social change provide the ideal venue for friends to meet, eat, and discuss ways to find and grow good, clean, and fair food right here in our home region.

Additional resources:

• Slow Food USA
• Slow Food Seacoast
• 100-Mile Diet
• Seacoast Eat Local
• Seacoast Family Food Pantry
• Local Harvest
• Plimoth Plantation (Thanksgiving History and recipes)
• Portsmouth Pearl

For the next Slow Food Seacoast potluck and meeting, on Sunday, March 4th, we’ll be exploring flavors of the Emerald Isle. This theme was chosen in honor of the approaching St. Patrick’s Day, as well as the strong influence of Irish culture brought to New England over its entire history.

For many, the phrase ‘Irish food’ conjures a bad reputation for blandness and monotony. Certainly, for many decades, the potato monoculture, poverty, and privation determined much of the national diet, a fact which contributed to the idea that Irish food was not rich or varied.

Here in the United States, many of us are familiar with the supposed classic Irish meal of corned beef and cabbage - but that’s really an Irish-American dish, a variant on a traditional bacon and cabbage mixture. It seems that immigrants to the United States could not find the fatty, salt-cured, thick-sliced bacon of the old country, and substituted the corned beef found at Jewish butcher shops in East Coast cities. This new combination became the basis for the New England boiled dinner.

But Irish food is not all potatoes and cabbage. There are some wonderful things to be found if one looks more deeply into the culture and its food history.

To allay any fears of a table full of soda bread and Guinness (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), here’s a look at some Irish food history and recipe sites, which may inspire you to explore a food culture shaped by history and economics, grassy dairylands, rocky soil, the produce of a cool moist climate, and abundant fish from the oceans.

Cultures across the world have long been fascinated with the idea that food can not only help us express love, but might even be able to act on our systems to get us in the mood for romance. Science lends only some very small support to the idea, but that doesn’t stop us from enjoying the rich, flavorful, and luxurious foods considered to be aphrodisiacs. Tonight’s Slow Food meeting features a “Foods of Love” potluck, in honor of the month of St. Valentine. For some of the most commonly identified aphrodisiac foods, consult Amy Reiley’s website Eat Something Sexy. You can sign up for an Aphrodisiac of the Month e-mail from Ms. Reiley! Thanks to Jim for letting us know of this fun resource.