There are fewer than 20 community gardens in the City of Austin.  Twenty.  When you look at other cities around the country that are comparable in size with similar demographics, that number is disheartening.  Well, look for that to change.  Last week, the city council voted to approve a resolution supporting sustainable urban agriculture and community gardening.  The resolution directs the City Manager to streamline the process for establishing qualified community gardens and responsible urban farms. What does that mean?

It means encouraging water conservation practices, composting, and non-polluting growing practices.  It means identifying public lands appropriate for urban food production.  And it means working with the city/county Sustainable Food Policy Board to gauge interest and publicize urban agriculture.  For the citizens of Austin, it means that starting a community garden or urban farm just got a little easier.

Sustainable Food Center is partnering with the City of Austin to assist community gardeners in developing and growing organic food gardens on city-owned plots, including park land.  We want to see a community garden in every corner of Austin, with families growing delicious produce to support the health of their children and their neighborhoods.  By assisting groups like the Coalition of Austin Community Gardens, the School Garden Network, and Citizen Gardener, among others, we can help get the word out that food gardening in Austin is not only possible, but strongly supported by our city council and staff.

A special thanks to Mayor Pro Tem Mike Martinez, Councilman Chris Riley, and Councilwoman Laura Morrison for sponsoring the resolution.  With leadership like this, Austin is one step closer to being the food secure and healthy community that we should be!

Anne Rutt of Hosteria Verde is cookin’ up something special. The week after Thanksgiving when you really can’t bear to cook another bite, she’s relieving you of your duties – with THREE special FLAVORS of Austin events with proceeds benefiting SFC’s programs!

Old School Las Vegas Night – Monday, November 30, 2009 – 7:00 -9:00 p.m.
Lounge singer, Miss Suzanna Choffel, along with her her bassist, Tom Benton, will transport guests into a Sinatra state of mind while they play casino games and sip on classic cocktails from The Tipsy Texan, thanks to Makers Mark Bourbon. Then guests will feast on a surf’n’turf dinner accompanied by a wedge salad, truffled mac’n’cheese and a sinful bananas foster bar. This event will take place at Urban Space’s impressive Monarch retail space downtown.

Arabian Nights – Tuesday, December 1, 2009 – 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Austinites will groove to music from DJ Aaron Montez.  DJ Aaron Montez will be spinning international lounge music while, belly dancers and guests will be dancing to his beats.  Everyone will be encouraged to lounge on platform beds & sip Treaty Oak’s delicious rum drink by the Tipsy Texan.  This sexy soiree will be finished with a middle eastern family style feast everyone will be sure to relish. Belly dancing will be performed by Austin’s Sabaya Belly Dance troupe.  This event will also be held at Urban Space downtown.

Lucha Libre – Wednesday, December 2, 2009 – 7:00 – 10:00 p.m.
Austin’s entire Lucha Libre wrestling ring will be moved into the space at 801 West 5^th for this high flying event. Cheer for your favorite QVC Lucha Libre wrestler, sip on Republic Tequila & the Tipsy Texan’s cocktails, and listen to Peligrosa.  Peligrosa is one of Austin’s most popular cumbia DJ group. There will be several taco “stands” serving authentic Mexican cuisine including a paletas ice cream push-cart for sweet treats.

Tickets are (truthfully) selling fast, but you might be able to snag a few here.

Many thanks to Anne and to our partner Matt Swinney of Launch787 for making fantastic fundraising events for SFC such as these possible.

On October 10^th, a particularly chilly and windy morning, Team SFC participated in the Austin inaugural Mamma Jamma Ride Against Breast Cancer.  The ride raised over $500,000, the proceeds of which will be distributed among ten area non-profits, including SFC.  SFC’s The Happy Kitchen/La Cocina Alegre™ offers the only cooking and nutrition class series for breast cancer survivors in Central Texas.

Team SFC sported 6 riders who rode the 13 and 46 mile routes as well as two dedicated cheerleaders who volunteered their time to inspire riders near the end of the course.  More than 500 riders participated in the event.

Photos: L – Half of TeamSFC gets psyched before the ride, R – Riders line up for the start of the ride

Way to go Team SFC!

-Andrea Abel, SFC Board Member

By 8:30am, the canoe glided through the placid waters of Lake Austin, our paddles rhythmically dipping into the water.  Heading toward the Laguna Gloria inlet, my husband and I had the lake almost to ourselves save a few anglers.  Lightly overcast skies made for that ideal November morning Goldilocks temperature – not too hot; not too cold; just right.  A few colorful leaves punctuated the verdant shoreline as we quietly paddled, occasionally flushing wood ducks, mallards, and coots.

By 10:45am, the canoe pulled from the water and secured on top of the car, we headed toward downtown, our hunger growing.  A hankering for Mexican breakfast – without the perfunctory Tex-Mex glop of melted yellow cheese – gave rise to a momentary sadness over the absence of Las Manitas.  I made a mental list of downtown breakfast spots.  “Garrido’s! I wonder if they’re open for breakfast?” I said.

By 11am, we walked into David Garrido’s new contemporary Mexican taquería on the Shoal Creek side of the 360 Condominiums at 3^rd & Nueces, just a block from our final destination of the Austin Farmers’ Market.  The swank restaurant opens for breakfast/brunch at 10am on Saturday and Sunday.  Seated on the patio soaking in a now sunny morning, we soon tucked into the shrimp piña colada taco del día and a generous plate of chilaquiles rojos.  Crispy-crusted shrimp with a briny toothsome bite covered with finely diced pineapple and shredded coconut perched atop a small corn tortilla.  Good thing we each got our own because I wasn’t sharing!  We easily split the chilaquiles, crispy corn tortilla triangles briefly tossed in a red chile sauce with just the right amount of heat topped with asadero cheese crumbles, and two perfectly fried eggs.  Fruit salad, refried black beans, and two thick smoky strips of bacon rounded out the plate.  My last sips of café de olla complete the meal.

By noon, we grabbed our cloth bags and headed to the Austin Farmers’ Market.  Baby turnips sporting luscious, tender tops, bunches of bright red radishes, coffee beans, cucumbers, and red snapper fillets fill our bags as we stopped to chat with friends and banter with our favorite hard-working purveyors of the freshest Central Texas has to offer.  Last stop?  Tacodeli breakfast tacos for the teenager at home who just woke up.

-Andrea Abel, SFC Board Member

Sunday’s inaugural SFC Chef Series presented by La Condesa was AMAZING. A huge “thank you” goes to La Condesa owner, Jesse Herman; the management of details by Alexis Lanman and her team; the media outreach by Elaine Garza; stunning design by Jett Butler and contributions of product from the farmers and food artisans of Austin Farmers’ Market. In addition, chefs Rene Ortiz, Laura Sawicki, Jesse Griffiths, Todd Duplechan, Shawn Cirkiel and Tyson Cole – along with their restaurants’ teams – provided an inventive, delicious multi-course meal that demonstrated just how much bounty and diversity is ours to enjoy in the Central Texas region.

Tyson, Shawn & Laura

Todd Duplechan, Shawn Cirkiel & Patrick Hieger

Please stay tuned for spring SFC Chef Series dates and details! We would  love to have you with us.

Rene Ortiz, Tyson Cole, Todd Duplechan, Shawn Cirkiel and Jesse Griffiths are creating an unprecedented, 5-course tasting dinner paired with drinks on Sunday, November 8th at La Condesa to benefit Sustainable Food Center. A limited number of tickets have gone on sale today. Please join us to raise awareness of, and support for those in our community without access to fresh, local food while partaking in a meal by chefs who demonstrate an outstanding commitment to supporting Austin Farmers’ Market.

Tickets available at: http://sfcchefseries.eventbrite.com

Want to show the world you’re a proud SFC supporter? Get one of these spanking-new iPhone wallpapers, courtesy of FÖDA STUDIO, inc.

We thank La Condesa and all participating chefs, farmers, food artisans and FÖDA STUDIO, inc. for making the upcoming November 8th SFC Chef Series launch possible! Don’t have tickets yet? Click HERE to snag some before they’re gone.

I had the amazing good fortune to attend a dinner last night at Primizie Osteria celebrating the East End restaurant’s second anniversary.  Owners Mark and Lisa Spedale hosted the convivial event which highlighted dishes and techniques garnered during their recent 9-day trip to the island of Sicily and the smaller island of Salina, featuring the bounty of local foods.  The Spedales have been generous SFC supporters and hearty advocates of local farmers and ranchers.

Items on the Local Specials Menu include both traditional Sicilian preparations and Sicilian-inspired creations.  Each dish sampled offered flavor layers that work perfectly together making each bite a fork symphony.  “Primizie Osteria will offer the Sicilian menu through the end of this year and showcase another Italian region starting in January,” said Mark.

The Spedales commitment to palate-tantalizing preparations while feting the pure flavors of the freshest of fresh ingredients shone through last night.  Steaming bowls of Zuppa di Pesce were presented family style accompanied by toothsome garlic focaccia, perfect for lapping up the luscious Limoncello broth.  Gulf seafood from San Miguel Seafood featured prominently throughout the evening.  In this case, Gulf head-on plump shrimp, grouper and red snapper snuggled beside tender bits of calamari, black mussels, and little neck clams- all enveloped in that complex broth.  Garnishing the dish were chewy yet crisp, thin, deep-fried lemon slices that cleansed the palate between bites.

My lucky dining companion (i.e., my husband) and I continued with seafood entrees once again featuring Gulf fish from San Miguel Seafood.  I delighted in a perfect pan roasted Gulf Scamp grouper over a seared chickpea fritter – crisp on the outside, creamy inside, slices of flavorful Italian cucuzza squash, scattered Sicilian green and black olives, and dotted with earthy squid ink.

Sauteed Gulf red snapper was the centerpiece of my husband’s entrée surrounded by blood orange supremes, braised fennel, caramelized Italian onions, and bacon-wrapped fried potatoes.  The light flavors lyrically played with one another, but those dang bacon-wrapped potatoes stole my heart.

Farther down the table, I spied a fellow diner raising to his mouth a perfectly pink Loncito’s lamb chop.  This smart man obviously did not want to risk missing a morsel using mere fork and knife.

Others tucked into rosemary roasted young heirloom half chicken and a simple penne pasta tossed in a pomodoro sauce and topped with generous slices of aubergine golden fried in Texas Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Lisa shared with me a taste of her Spaghetti con Bottarga, dressed in Texas Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Italian parsley, peperoncino, caramelized garlic, Salina Island fried caper berries and shaved Sicilian salt cured tuna roe.  The couple brought back from Italy the tuna roe, an item I had never before sampled.  It had a surprisingly delicate texture and was flavorful without being overly salty.

Mark prepares house made Italian Sausage using a family recipe.  Lisa pointed out the formidable, bright red painted sausage grinder perched on a ledge in the corner of the restaurant.  Fondly referred to as “The Pig”, the Spedales found that this relic of a grinder out-performed any of the newer varieties they encountered.

Dessert was a melt-in-your-mouth semolina almond cake topped with toasted almond gelato and flavorful chocolate-dipped honeycomb; a pistachio cannolo served on the side.  The honey and comb are sourced from Livingston, Texas with the resulting chocolate-honeycomb combo the creation of Mark and Primizie’s pastry chef.

The meal ended with Limoncello toasts to Mark, Lisa, and executive sous chef Chris Dragna.

The beauty of a Primizie meal is to rise from the table with a palate that has been stimulated by a beautiful marriage of flavors along with a belly that has been generously sated but not stuffed.  Food Heaven a la Siciliana. 

I do want to note that Primizie offers close proximity to downtown, patio dining, reservations, and ample parking – a real plus for central city dining.

Thank you Mark and Lisa for sharing your gifts while supporting so many area producers. 

Featured Local Products used by Primizie:

Wateroak Farm – Full Quiver Dairy Farm – San Miguel Seafood – Pedernales Valley Farm – Texas Olive Ranch – Burgundy Beef – McCall Creek Farm – W Farm & Ranch – Pure Luck Far and Dairy – Loncito’s Lamb – Texas Quail Farm – Animal Farm – G & S Groves – Oak Hill Farms

After having spent an evening with SFC at the FRESH screening hosted by Boggy Creek Farm and sponsored by Alamo Drafthouse Rolling Roadshow, Edible Austin, the Front Porch Project and many others who shared their time and talent, guest Mindy Cooper had an idea.

Susan and Mindy Draw the Lucky Winners!

She was marking a milestone birthday in September, and thought, “why don’t I celebrate my birthday by raising funds for a cause I care about?” Mindy rallied friends and supporters, garnering many raffle-prize donations from local businesses such as Paula’s Texas Spirits and Greenling. She encouraged her guests to bring a prepared dish made from as many local, seasonal ingredients as possible.

Sunday was a beautiful, mild evening and we all enjoyed lots of locally grown food and fellowship under the trees at LandInteractive.

Enjoying Themselves AND Benefiting a Healthy, Local Food System!

Let’s review, class: What have we learned at Mindy’s party?

a) raising hundreds of dollars to benefit those in our community without access to fresh, affordable food is fun and relatively easy.

b) SFC’s mission is the perfect cause with which to rally your troops, because EVERYONE eats – and more of us are beginning to care about where our food comes from every day.

c) When SFC rocks your birthday, cocktail, office or pirate party, you WIN.

d) All of the above.

(Answer: D!)

A huge thanks goes to Mindy Cooper and her generous guests, Sara Partridge, U-Clique Studio, all the local businesses who donated!

To tax or not to tax?

That is the latest buzz surrounding the beverage industry. The “soda tax,” as it has been nicknamed, would tax sugary beverages such as sodas, some juices and sports drinks to dissuade Americans from consuming them. And why a soda tax? Health advocates around the country from California to New York worry that the widespread consumption of sugary beverages are adding to the diet-related disease epidemic (little, if any, of these products contain any nutritional value). A recent study published by the California Center for Public Health Advocacy and a policy research group at UCLA found that 41 percent of children (ages 2 – 11), 62 percent of adolescents (ages 12 – 17) and 24 percent of adults drink at least one soda or other sugar-sweetened beverage every day. Regardless of income or ethnicity, adults who drink one or more sodas or other sugar-sweetened beverages every day are 27 percent more likely to be overweight or obese. Even the American Heart Association is urging people to reduce their intake of sugary foods and beverages in order to lower the risk factors for heart disease.

But would such a tax even work? Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, thinks that such a tax would have “a modest effect on consumption but would generate billions of dollars that could be used to mount public health campaigns.”

Of course all of the buzz has left the beverage industry on the defensive. When Muhtar Kent, the chief executive of Coca-Cola, was asked about the tax, he responded by calling it “outrageous.” He went on to say, “I have never seen it work where a government tells people what to eat and what to drink….It if worked, the Soviet Union would still be around.”

The beverage industry created an organization called Americans Against Food Taxes. On its Web site, nofoodtaxes.com, the group calls itself “a coalition of concerned citizens” opposed to “the government’s proposed tax hike on food and beverages,” including soda and juice drinks. The New York Times reported that calls to a media contact listed on the site reach the American Beverage Association, an industry organization whose board is made up of top executives from the major soft drink manufacturers.

Hmmmmm. Concerned citizens or corporate interests?

What I especially find interesting on the Americans Against Food Taxes website is the emphasis on education: Even the science shows that education, not taxation, is the key to reducing obesity and improving public health. However, time after time, the food and beverage industry has influenced the educational resources and campaigns available to the public regarding healthy living. Take for example the USDA Food Guide Pyramid—the food, meat and dairy industry fought tooth and nail regarding what it would “allow” the USDA to recommend consumers eat. And with all of the research that supports the health benefits of breast feeding to baby and mother, have you ever wondered why there is not a nationwide campaign (a la “Milk Does a Body Good”) that promotes breast feeding? Something tells me that the infant formula companies have something to do with this.

 I’d like to refer back to Mr. Kent’s quote regarding government involvement. What puzzles me is the notion that the government does not already tell us what to eat. Between 1995 and 2006, the USDA awarded over $1.2 billion in corn subsidies in Texas alone. Essentially the government is telling us what to eat by artificially lowering the cost to produce corn which then, in turn, contributes to the thousands of processed foods that use corn as an ingredient.

Other opponents of a soda tax argue that it is a regressive tax that would unjustly burden the poor. On the contrary, any funds generated could be directly invested in education to promote healthier lifestyles.

So, I’ll leave it there….unresolved for you to ponder…to tax or not to tax?

To read more, visit these sites:

www.foodpolitics.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/business/17soda.html?ref=business

 http://farm.ewg.org/farm/region.php?fips=48000

http://www.nofoodtaxes.com/

 http://www.slate.com/id/2228713/pagenum/all/#p2