The annual Food for Thought Film Festival is coming up on April 11th and 18th. The 2009 festival focuses on several crucial issues: access to clean food and water, human rights, local and sustainable agriculture, and the effects of policy on small American farmers.

Featured Films
Asparagus: Stalking the American Life
Eating Alaska
FLOW

Shorts
Farm to Cafeteria: A Red Hook Lunch
New Amsterdam Market
Hotbread Kitchen

The screenings are free, and will be followed by discussion sessions and a reception.

Thanks for the tip Gabby!

The Prospect Lefferts Gardens Neighborhood Association will be holding their annual meeting on Friday, March 6th at 7:30 pm. The meeting will be at the Church of the Evangel, located at 1950 Bedford Ave, at the corner of Bedford and Hawthorne. The election for the Board of Directors will take place at this meeting, so this is a great opportunity to shape the future direction of this long standing neighborhood organization. All are welcome to attend, but the minimum dues to be able to vote are $5. Here’s a link to the flyer for this event.

** I was just informed that the location has changed. The PLGNA meeting will now be held at Grace Reformed Church at 1800 Bedford Ave, on the corner of Lefferts Ave.

HALLOWEEN HARVEST FESTIVAL
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2008 / 11AM-2PM
THE RED DOOR THEATRE PERFORMANCE OF “THE WITCHES” AT 2PM
FREE / RAIN OR SHINE

AT SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK
32-01 VERNON BOULEVARD @ BROADWAY IN LONG ISLAND CITY
TAKE N/W TRAIN TO BROADWAY IN QUEENS

On Saturday, October 18, 2008 from 11AM until 2PM, Socrates Sculpture Park will present the 8th annual Halloween Harvest Festival. This FREE family and community event celebrates Halloween and the fall harvest with creative activities in the dynamic setting of Socrates Sculpture Park.  Visitors can make Halloween costumes and have their faces painted; listen to live musical performances; participate in games; enter their dog(s) in the 5th annual Canine Costume Contest at 1pm (registration at front gate); try harvest foods from Long Island City café, Sweetleaf; picnic in the Park; or just watch the fun! The 2008 Halloween Harvest Festival also takes place amid the EAF08: 2008 Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition, an exhibition of contemporary sculpture, featuring works by the Park’s fourteen artists-in-residence.

“Superheros” is the theme of the 2008 Festival, with free activities including: Superhero costume making workshops with artists Michael Berens, Carissa Carman, Anna Craycroft, Paul Duncan, Lars Fisk, Juniper Perlis and William Bryan Purcell; live music by the Japanese Action Comic Punk Band, Peelander-Zee; interactive games with Free Style Arts Association; and Transformation! Facepainting by Agostino Arts .

At 2pm, The Red Door Theatre Company will present a special performance of The Witches by Roald Dahl. The play is an adaptation of a children’s book by British novelist Roald Dahl, author of notable favoirties like Charlie and the Chocolate Facory and James and the Giant Peach. A blanket or lawn chair is recommended. The performance is free of charge. For more information about The Red Door Theatre Company.
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Socrates Sculpture Park was an abandoned riverside landfill and illegal dumpsite until 1986 when a coalition of artists and community members, under the leadership of sculptor Mark di Suvero, transformed it into an open studio and exhibition space for artists and a neighborhood park for local residents. Today, it is an internationally renowned outdoor museum and artist residency program that also serves as a vital New York City park offering a wide variety of free public programs.

http://www.socratessculpturepark.org/Special_Events/Special_Events.htm

From Flavorpill:

October 11
The Yard (400 Carroll St)
11 a.m.-9 p.m.
$12

The Gowanus Harvest Festival brings the farm to Brooklyn’s famously industrial canal. Besides locally produced apples, pickles, cheeses (from Saxelby!), breads, and brews (Sixpoint), you can sate your inner child with pumpkin carving, a pie-baking contest, and pony rides. Toss in some live music from the Loom, Polkafinger, and Van Hayride, and you’ve got yourself a doggone county fair. And that’s not to mention the canning and composting stations, demos on urban beekeeping, and info on converting your household to wind power. You know your hoedown is for a good cause when all proceeds from the Harvest Fest go to Just Food.

Note:
Bring your ConEd bill, and you can switch to wind power on-site.

Just in case your CSA produce isn’t fresh and local enough for ya, Slow Food NYC is planning an urban foraging expedition in Central Park next Saturday, led by ethnobotanist Nat Bletter. Come taste red-fleshed apples, rosehips, sassafras, mustard greens, lamb’s quarters, epazote, mugwort, burdock, cornelian cherries, and more. Bring bags for collecting food and a fork for tasting some delicious park salad.

Foraging starts at the NW Corner of 79th St and 5th Ave at 12 noon on Saturday, October 4th (rain date Sunday Oct 5th). Check the Slow Food NYC site for more details on this and other upcoming events.

East New York Farms is a really cool program in a neighboring neighborhood. It’s a community-based group that brings together neighborhood gardeners, local entrepreneurs, youth leaders, and regional farmers to create a vibrant public market. The ENY Farmers’ Market will be celebrating its 10th Anniversary with a street fair today on New Lots Avenue, between Hendrix and Jerome Streets. The Anniversary Celebration will feature live performances by local groups including Lyrical Artist, the Gowanus Wildcats, and Non-P. There will also be free ice cream from Ronnybrook Dairy Farm, face painting, a cooking contest, a storytelling and crafts station, health screenings, raffles, and giveaways. The fair is on Saturday Sept 20th from 9am to 5pm, but if you can’t make it today, you can still stop by the market some other time. They’re open every Saturday from 9am - 3pm through November 15th, on New Lots Ave and Schenck.

from Sustainable Flatbush

The 4th Annual Green Brooklyn…Green City Conference, coordinated by the Center for the Urban Environment, is New York City’s largest showcase of green and sustainability issues, programs, and products. A full day fair and symposium, Green Brooklyn…Green City brings together the community, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies to share ideas with the public about how to live greener in our everyday lives.

Thursday, September 18, 2008, 11:30am - 5:00pm
Brooklyn Borough Hall
Free and Open to the Public

Green Brooklyn…Green City 2008 will feature workshops and discussions led by several of the city’s preeminent leaders in sustainable design, green manufacturing, transportation alternatives, energy efficiency, environmental education, and sustainable food.

Member tip: pickle workshop and festival on Sept 14th . Thanks Gabby!

Throughout history, on every continent, humans have been pickling as a way to preserve food in times of plenty and to ensure proper nourishment long after harvests have been exhausted. Today, refrigeration and a global food system have made pickling all but disappear from our kitchens and memory. Luckily we are slowly coming back to our senses — literally. Fresh, seasonal food is back in vogue and so is preserving it! This workshop covers the basics of the art of pickling and shows you just how simple it is to transform any vegetable into a mouth-watering delicacy.

The workshop will be conducted by food and media educator Martha Ma. Martha is Founder and Executive Director of Nani Ola Productions, which uses multimedia to promote local and sustainable agriculture, clean healthy eating, environmentally and socially conscious lifestyle, media awareness and active citizenship. Martha is also a Certified Holistic Health Counselor, and a Community Chef with Just Food.

Martha will discuss the history of pickling, explain basic fermentation and how it works, and address the health benefits of fermented foods. Then she will demonstrate four different pickle recipes and techniques, including sauerkraut, kimchee and miso pickles, and a vinegar-based pickle using produce from the farmer’s market. Light refreshments will be served and samples of Martha’s pickles will be available.

After Martha’s presentation, the program hosts will lead the group to the Eighth Annual NY International Pickle Day on Orchard Street between Grand and Broome Streets in Manhattan’s old Pickle District.

Here are the workshop details…

THE PLEASURES OF PICKLING
Date: Sunday, September 14, 2008 from 12 - 3 pm
Cost: $25 Members, $30 nonmembers; limited to 20
Location: Culinary Center at the Whole Foods Bowery, 95 East Houston

Lots of local food events this weekend!

Skip the Fancy Food Show in Manhattan and check out Brooklyn’s own UnFancy Food Show instead. This event was started last year by a couple of food industry veterans as an organic response to the expensive, marketing-driven show at the Javits Center. This year nearly 20 producers will be on hand, including Vermont cheesemakers Jasper Hill Farm, Mast Brothers Chocolate from Williamsburg, Sixpoint Craft Ales from Redhook, Wheelhouse Pickles , and Bronx Bee Honey. It’s this Sunday at the East River Bar from 12 to 6.

Also on Sunday is the 3rd gathering of the New Amsterdam Market, an organization working to establish a public, indoor, year-round regional market at the Seaport in Manhattan. An assortment of over 50 vendors will be there including Hudson Valley Fresh, Flying Pigs Farm, and Saxelby Cheesmongers. It’s happening from 11 to 4 at New Market Square.

Check out this film shot by local cinematographer (and PLG CSA member) Liz Dory. If you can’t make it to the screening tomorrow afternoon, the documentary will have its broadcast premiere on HBO later this summer, so you can catch it on July 28th at 8pm.

“The Recruiter”
Cinema Village
22 East 12th Street
(212) 924-3636
Showtimes: Wed., May 28th and Thursday, May 29th - NOON, 1:30p.

** 2008 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL - OFFICIAL SELECTION **

The Recruiter takes viewers to a Louisiana coastal community, where we witness firsthand one recruiter’s intense struggle to enlist new soldiers into the U.S. Army. The film offers a glimpse of the human drama surrounding recruits’ decisions to enlist through its remarkable central character: the charismatic Sergeant First Class Clay Usie, one of the most successful Army recruiters working in America. Sgt. Usie firmly believes that every American should serve, and that it is his mission to recruit new soldiers from his hometown of Houma, LA. Among the young people on whom Sgt. Usie sets his sights are Lauren, Matt, Bobby and Chris, four teenagers with different reasons and rationales for joining the Army.

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