Salone del Gusto!

The Italian Market includes food from every region of Italy.

Coinciding with Terra Madre, Salone del Gusto is a fantastic food fair offering international and Italian food and drink to taste and purchase. Organic and locals foods in abundance.The Salone is open until 11:00PM, and for the past two evenings, I’ve eaten my dinner here. I’ve sampled delicious cheeses, Limoncello, cookies infused with saffron, handmade lorighittas in tomato sauce from Sardegna, lardo, gelato, oysters from Holland and the famous Barolo of Piedmont. Qui, ho mangiato bene!*
(Here, I have eaten well!)

Stringing tomatoes for winter.Making traditional handmade lorighittas from Sardegna.

Making traditional handmade lorighittas from Sardegna.

Traditional handmade Polese Lorighittas from Sardegna.

Local arrosto di maiale.

An beautiful array of - and delicious! - microgreens.

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Terra Madre 2010

The fourth biennial celebration of Good, Clean and Fair food – and Mother Earth – has begun!

Beautiful faces and vibrant colors light up the massive hall. 5,000 attendees are expected for the four-day event.

On Thursday October 21, indigenous people from around the globe participated in a rousing opening celebration that included music and messages delivered in native dress and languages. “The Olympics of Slow Food” seems an accurate description of the ceremony held that evening in the Palasport Olimpico Isosaki in Torino, Italy.

“La conferenza” convenes in the Palasport with an assembly of participating countries’ flags.

Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food and Terra Madre, encouraged delegates to honor the women, elders, natives and farmers that are important pillars of our Slow Food community and reminded us of our responsibility to Terra Madre.

Carlo Petrini spoke with passion about the meaning and consequences of our work here at Terra Madre.

The four-day event offers workshops, exhibits, regional meetings and world music at the Lingotto Oval. Topics include: Biodiversity & Ecosystems, Sustainable Education, Safeguarding Our Coastal Environment, Sustainable Packaging and GMOs. Speakers present in their native tongue with simultaneous translations into eight languages.

Ciao Torino!

I’m excited and proud to have been chosen as a delegate to represent Slow Food South Bay (SFSB) at Terra Madre in Italy this month.

On October 21, more than 5,000 representatives from around the globe will meet in Turin, Italy, for the fourth biennial Terra Madre. The five-day conference coincides with the Salone del Gusto international food fair. Farmers, artisan producers, chefs, educators, youth and musicians will convene to promote sustainable local food production in support of Slow Food’s tenets of good, clean and fair.

Torino, Italia

I’ll join SFSB Board Chair Peter Ruddock and three leaders from our East Palo Alto food community Collective Roots – Anne Evans, Reverend Bob Hartley and Eron Sandler – at food workshops, lectures and forums. I plan to report back to you with Terra Madre “news you can use.”

     Welcoming guests at our Collective Roots benefit, Donato Enoteca

I’ve been preparing for the trip ever since this summer when I was chosen as an advocate. As vice chair of SFSB, I co-chaired our Terra Madre committee that staged a successful August benefit at Donato Enoteca to collect travel funds for our colleagues from Collective Roots. I’ve been taking Italian lessons from a wonderful teacher, Irene Corazza, to brush up on my verb tenses. I just finished reading Carlo Petrini’s book about the history of Terra Madre. And I’ve built a new website – Champion Organic Communications – focused on sustainability.

As a communications professional with more than 20 years in the business, I plan to bring back stories and photos from Terra Madre to our community. I’ll share everything locally and beyond through social media and my new website.

I’ll be blogging and tweeting from Italy, so please check for the latest at ChampionOrganic.com, subscribe to my RSS feed and follow me on Twitter @ChampionOrganic. You can participate in Terra Madre, too, through the open forums.

More soon from Torino!

Outstanding in the Field

“26 miles across the sea
Santa Catalina is awaitin’ for me
Santa Catalina the island of
Romance, romance, romance, romance…“

– The Four Preps, 1958

Cruising back in the gathering darkness from our secret cove adventure to the bright lights of Avalon harbor, our fellow Slow Foodies sang us home.

The Secret Cove, Catalina Island

Earlier that evening, upon landing at the cove, we shared creative appetizers: roasted beets, Humboldt Fog and satsuma tangerines plus Dungeness crab, fennel and fava beans on toasts, paired with a delicious Sauvignon Blanc from Rusack Vineyards.

Jim Denevan and Captain John, with white seabass

Glasses in hand and toes in the sand, we were welcomed by Outstanding in the Field Founder Jim Denevan, who explained that Outstanding in the Field is a moveable feast and a “restaurant without walls.” Denevan conceived the culinary adventure 11 years ago as a way to “connect eaters to the land and the farmers and artisans that cultivate it.”

120 Slow Foodies gather at the table

We listened as Captain John, Afishionado, described the sustainable fish we were about to enjoy.  Then, anticipating the feast to come, we made our way along the beach to the dinner tables, set for 120, forming a graceful curve along the shore.

Chef Stone, Peg and OITF Founder Jim Denevan.

Celebrity chef Curtis Stone, of “Surfing the Menu” fame, created our farm-to-table dinner from two local fishes and vegetables provided by two mainland SoCal farms, Weiser and McGrath Family Farms.

We began with a salted sea bass soup followed by a bright yellowtail ceviche, an excellent white sea bass with tomato, olives, pepper and capers and medley of roasted vegetables, paired with Rusack Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Dessert was the refreshing “Eaton Mess” – lemon curd, vanilla meringue and fresh berries, perfectly matched with Soul of the Vine dessert wine.

An exceptional evening in a special place...

Sated, we ambled back to our waiting boats as night fell along the quiet beach.

An Outstanding evening – in every way!