For 379 years, the Seacoast community has supported Tuttle’s Farm in Dover, NH—the oldest continually operating family farm in America—but the Tuttles are ready to pass the reins. They’ve enlisted the help of the New Hampshire Institute of Agriculture and Forestry (NHIAF) to help put the farm into the hands of those who will both respect the history and tradition of the land and shepherd it into the future.

On March 19 from 12 noon to 9 pm, NHIAF and Tuttle’s Red Barn will host TuttleFest: a day dedicated to supporting and celebrating the tradition of small family farms. Food from the Seacoast will be served up to the accompaniment of live local bands; llama rides and other child-friendly activities will engage the next generation in local agriculture, up close and personal!

Many local organizations will be represented at TuttleFest—including the Green Alliance and some of its business partners. Come join the fun while raising money and awareness about the importance of family farms to their communities, in the Seacoast and beyond.

DATE: March 19, 2011

TIME: 12 noon–9 pm

PLACE: Tuttle’s Farm, 151 Dover Point Rd., Dover, NH

FEE: $10/adult, $5/student, $5/Green Alliance member; children free!

MORE INFO: Call NHIAF at 603-534-5292, send an email to NHIAF, or visit the Tuttle’s Red Barn website.

CALLING ALL FARMERS, FISHERS, RANCHERS, CHEFS, AND CONSUMERS WHO VALUE GOOD, CLEAN, AND FAIR FOOD: You’re invited to Terra Madre “Taste of Place”: A Slow Food Seacoast Social at The Press Room in Portsmouth on March 10!

Come celebrate our shared roots with great local food and fun! Learn more about Terra Madre, known as the “farmers’ United Nations”, from local delegates who represented the Seacoast region at the Terra Madre conference in October 2010: John Forti of Slow Food Seacoast, Jean Jennings of Meadow’s Mirth, and Evan Mallett of Black Trumpet Bistro. These Seacoast representatives joined more than 5,000 delegates from 150 countries at the Olympic Stadium in Turin, Italy, to discuss how to create new economies and artisanal products around local agriculture, horticulture, and fisheries.

DATE: Thursday, March 10, 2011

TIME: 5–7:45 pm

PLACE: UPSTAIRS at The Press Room, 77 Daniel Street, Portsmouth, NH

MORE: Click here for more details about Terra Madre “Taste of Place”: A Slow Food Seacoast Social.

Admission to this informal social event is free! Light appetizers will be provided by Black Trumpet Bistro, and local music will entertain us. Please patronize the cash bar to thank The Press Room for hosting this event.

More Info

• Slow Food Seacoast
• U.S. Terra Madre Network
• The Press Room

This fall, enjoy films on food themes on three Friday evenings in Exeter! FRESH the Movie on October 22, The Botany of Desire (from Michael Pollan’s book of the same name) on October 29, and The Natural History of the Chicken on November 5.

For times and locations, see the poster below (click to open PDF):

Last year saw the first of what has become an annual event: The NH Fish & Lobster Festival (fondly referred to as “Fishtival”). The number of attendees at the inaugural event blew away all projections, so this year’s organizers are gearing up for an even bigger and better day of celebrating our local fisheries and fisherpeople.

The day’s events will feature the popular seafood tastings (freshly-landed local seafood prepared by Seacoast chefs)  along with games, music and more. Tour a local fishing boat, learn how to identify and prepare local fish, watch an on-location cook-off competition, investigate the Gulf of Maine ecosystem, sing a song, and hear a tale or two.

WHAT: NH Fish & Lobster Festival

WHEN: Saturday, September 25, 12 noon to 4 pm

WHERE: Prescott Park, Portsmouth

COST: Admission and educational activities are free; pay for tastings

MORE INFO: NH Fish & Lobster Festival on the Prescott Park website.

VOLUNTEERS: If you’d like to volunteer for the 2010 event, see what’s needed and register online using this nifty form created with Google docs! Or, email the NH Fish & Lobster Festival organizers to receive further instructions.

This September, Slow Food Seacoast is planning an exciting and elegant educational component to the Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) Heirloom Harvest Barn Dinner to demonstrate what RAFT really means and why it’s an important initiative. Our hope is that diners will take away from this fabulous fine-dining experience a full tummy, a contented smile, and an appreciation of not only what RAFT is but also what it means.

The goal is to bring each diner’s attention back from the plate to the chefs in the kitchen, to the farmers in the field, and to those who have come before as a way of connecting the dining experience to the significance of the “at-risk” produce varieties featured in the RAFT Alliance and, hence, on the Barn Dinner menu.

Diners approaching the barn at Meadow’s Mirth/Berry Hill Farm for the 4 pm cocktail hour will be greeted by tables displaying the very RAFT varieties that will grace their dinner plates an hour later. They can learn where those produce were grown and by whom, why those produce are historically interesting or significant, and who will be preparing that food for the dinner. RAFT seeds also will be available as give-aways to attendees, who can learn how to save the seeds from one year’s harvest for the next year’s planting—which is not only a frugal practice but also an essential step in preserving the best heirloom varieties.

In the barn, displays will illustrate the many connections underlying the dinner. They will feature photos of the 2010 RAFT Grow-Out farmers, chefs, and produce varieties, accompanied by relevant quotes (from farmers and chefs) as well as descriptions and the significance (historical, agricultural, and gastronomical) of the varieties to us New Englanders. In other words, why have people in New England bothered to save these seeds, grow these crops, eat these foods … then start the process all over again for generations? And in this so-called modern age, why should we continue to do so?

Slow Food Seacoast and co-organizers of the Heirloom Harvest Barn Dinner are excited to collaborate on this project and look forward to making the event successful in so many ways! Visit the Heirloom Harvest Barn Dinner page for event details and purchase your tickets.

WHAT: 2nd [Annual?] Barrington Natural Heritage and Agriculture Fair

WHEN: Saturday and Sunday, August 28 and 29, 10 am to 4 pm (rain or shine!)

WHERE: Warren Farm, 30 Warren Road, Barrington, NH

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Barrington Natural Heritage and Agriculture Fair website

The 2nd [Annual?] Barrington Natural Heritage and Agriculture Fair will be held on August 28 and 29 from 10 am to 4 pm (rain or shine!) at Warren Farm, a full-time working farm in Barrington, NH.

Start the day with a hayride on a wagon pulled by an old-fashioned mule team from the parking area to the fairground! The Barrington Recreation Department will host family-oriented old-time games, and local farmers will show off their animals and be available to answer your questions. Purchase local goods at the on-site farmer’s market featuring high-end local artisans, maple ice cream and maple cotton candy from Sugarmomma’s Maple Farm, breads and other goodies from Forty-Five Market Street Bakery, breakfast and lunch foods from Figtree Café, fresh fish sandwiches from Seaport Fish, and more. Local musicians will be playing for the crowd on both days.

A few more highlights are scheduled:

• John Carroll, famed advocate and author of local agriculture, will speak at 12 noon on Saturday.
• Scott Young will lead nature walks on the 244-acre farm at 1 pm both days. Learn about turtles, frogs, snakes, dragonflies, birds, and more!
• Beekeeper Amy Antonucci will talk about her work with bees on Sunday.
• Peter Yarenski and friends will play fiddle music and jam with other local musicians on Sunday.
• Many educational booths will inspire and propel you towards community sustainability!

The fair organizers need VOLUNTEERS to help before and during the fair (setup, parking) and afterward (cleanup). If you would like to help put on a great local event, contact Heather Warren.

ALSO, Amy Pollard would love to have VOLUNTEERS join her at the Slow Food Seacoast table to talk to fairgoers about good, clean, and fair food. If you can spare an hour or a few, please email Slow Food Seacoast with “I Want to Volunteer” in the subject line.

See you there!

The consensus is that the 4th Annual Slow Food Seacoast Down-on-the-Farm Picnic was a great success! More than 80 people—singles, couples, and families—joined Slow Food Seacoast at Dalton’s Pasture, the Rowells’ homestead in Nottingham, NH, to learn about permaculture, homesteading, and living simply and to enjoy a lovely summer afternoon with like-minded people.

Host canines Finnegan and Sparky greeted each arriving party at the Welcome tent. On Saturday, Peter Rowell had prepared a pot of baked beans and cooked it in a fire pit overnight, so just after 12 noon, he unearthed it with a crowd watching to see whether they were going to be edible. Luckily for us, they were very much so, and they joined the rest of the delicious dishes on the potluck table!

After lunch, Lauren Chase-Rowell led her largest tour group ever around her farm, introducing them to permaculture principles along the way—how to not disrupt the site’s ecology, work efficiently, and use resources wisely. Next, John Forti led a wild and medicinal edibles walk on the property while Peter simultaneously showed a group his “chicken tractor” designs for keeping his pastured chickens safe in the field.

This event could not have taken place, never mind have been successful, without the planning and communications expertise of the Slow Food Seacoast board: Alison Magill, John Forti, Jenny Isler, Amy Pollard, Erin Jenkins, Pam Angulo, and Laura Spelke. (A few years of farm picnic experience doesn’t hurt!) In addition, the board extends a heartfelt and humongous thank-you to everyone else who helped make the event a success:

• Our most gracious and hospitable hosts, Lauren Chase-Rowell and Peter Rowell, who allowed us to march on their mulch, trample their thyme, and cackle with their chickens.
• All of the Slow Food Seacoast board members, chapter members, and other volunteers who collectively performed as planners, site-scouting crew, event-day signage team, set-up crew, sound engineers, food tent crew, kid’s activities director, event photographer, and clean-up crew.
• Daryl and Douglas, who staffed the Northeast Organic Farming Association, New Hampshire Chapter (NOFA-NH) table.
• Jenny Isler, who staffed the Seacoast Community Garden Network (SCGN) table.
• Heather Fernald, who staffed the Seacoast Eat Local table.
• Amy Antonucci and Steve Dimond, who staffed the Greater Seacoast Permaculture Group table.



• Amy Winans and Dan Winans, who organized the UNH EcoGastronomy table and Italian food tasting.
• Ali, who helped staff the Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) heirloom and wild edibles info and tasting table.
• Michael Sterling—who never appears in photos because he’s always behind the camera!—for taking pictures at the event. Check out our latest Flickr photo sets when you have a chance.
• Deb Locke of Sugarmomma’s Maple Farm, who donated the cutest and most delicious maple candies as prizes for the children’s activities.
• Everyone who talked up the event, handed out flyers, forwarded emails, or shared Facebook updates with people who otherwise might not know about Slow Food Seacoast and this wonderful annual event. (Thanks for getting the word out!)
• All the attendees who dared to venture out of Portsmouth … and drive down 3 miles of sometimes washboard dirt road to get to the property. (Wasn’t it so worth it?)

Are you—or do you aspire to be—a gardener? The Seacoast Community Garden Network (SCGN), brainchild of Slow Food Seacoast’s very own membership coordinator, Jenny Isler, is now a live, interactive website of resources for gardens and gardeners. It’s a place to make connections:

• See what community gardens (more than 30!) in the Seacoast area are doing.
• Find or list a community garden plot, gardeners, or supplies.
• Share problems, solutions, and achievements.
• Get help starting a community garden.

You don’t even have to be a community gardener to benefit from the wonderful  SCGN website, because anyone can

• Learn about composting, companion planting, canning, and more from the growing list of gardening resources.
• Consult the Calendar for an array of events related to gardening and sustainability and the Free Classifieds.
• Contribute to the Compost Pile.

If you want to respond to a Free Classified ad or participate in the Discussion Forum, you’ll have to register; but it’s quick (I just did it in about 30 seconds) and FREE, so why not check it out?

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For those of us who weren’t working behind the scenes for the past 4 or 5 months, building the framework for and decorating the virtual walls of this nonprofit interactive online community, SCGN seems to have have sprung straight from seed packet to vigorous seedling. But in reality, SCGN is an idea that has been germinating for a long time.

As long as 4 years ago, Jenny and fellow community garden coordinator Gail Wingate talked about connecting gardeners. They noticed that community gardens operated in isolation but faced many of the same problems—and as a result, each one was reinventing the wheel to solve them, duplicating efforts and wasting time that could be better spent working in the garden or enjoying the harvest! Their deep passion for vibrant community, local food resources, and the environment fueled their dream of making the Seacoast community garden movement stronger by bringing together the wisdom, experience, and vision of many gardeners.

Eventually, technology caught up with Jenny and Gail’s vision. A grant from the New England Grassroots Fund provided seed money, and the intrepid pair called together more than 20 community leaders to help define their vision. Bringing the vision to life were gifted community gardeners, artists, and Joomla! gurus Kathy Lombard and Donna Chick. Together, the four women met regularly from winter into spring, and the SCGN website went live on May Day, just in time for spring planting.

The resulting SCGN website—open-source construction, and free to anyone to use—features everything the focus group envisioned and more. And just like a garden, SCGN is self-managed: Anyone and everyone can contribute, update, and post to their heart’s content—planting their own seeds! Each community garden can create a Garden Page and even use it as their own website. Folks without a community garden (for now!) can contribute to the general forums and learn from the wonderful resources that the site provides.

Since Jenny and Gail’s initial conversation 4 years ago, the number of community gardens on the Seacoast has blossomed from 3 to more than 30. Many more gardens are yet to come, and SCGN is the place to learn, support, connect and share as our community garden movement grows stronger—together. Stop by the SCGN website to see what’s growin’ on!

Via Seacoast Eat Local:

The 3rd annual Barrington Farm Tour Day is tomorrow, June 27, 2010. Eight farms will be open to visitors from  10am to 4pm. Visit the Seacoast Eat Local blog to see who’s participating and download a map.

Michael Pollan—author of best sellers including The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World and The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals—has given us a yet another great resource for learning about food: a short list of books that any Slow Foodie would enjoy. The source material for his article in the June 10, 2010, issue of New York Review of Books is a wonderful starting point for what could become quite a long reading list.

I just blogged about the article on Simply Good Food Blog under the same title (A Slow Foodie’s Reading List) … stop by if you’d like to read along.

Feel free to add your own favorite titles, on either blog! I’ll compile a master list to be posted at a later date on Simply Good Food Blog and on the Slow Food Seacoast website.

Resources

• Read “A Slow Foodie’s Reading List” on Simply Good Food Blog
• Read “The Food Movement, Rising” at the New York Review of Books
• Learn about Slow Food International
• Learn about Slow Food USA
• Visit the Slow Food Seacoast website
  

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What are some of your favorite books about food, the slow movement, or a related topic? Share yours in the Comments!