FRESH, the Movie: with Will Allen of Growing Power

There's a new movie, FRESH, by Ana Joanes, that is causing a lot of buzz: here is the trailer. You'll see Will Allen of Growing Power, and (in the film itself) other inspiring food activists, like Joel Salatin. I have to admit, I teared up when I saw this trailer.

I'm not the only one. There's an interview with Ana Joanes over at Cheese Slave, a blog celebrating "the love of cheese. And bacon. And butter. And raw milk. And all those other things we’re not supposed to eat." The author, annmarie at realfoodmedia.com (use the @ sign), says she gets teary-eyed, too, when she sees it.

Reference to FRESH is popping up all over. Click here to go the blog of The Beginning Farmer, where he mentions it, too. And the film showed to sold out audiences last week in Minneapolis, with more screenings coming across the land. Here's a story about Ana Joanes at the Huffington Post. It's exciting, this momentum in the direction of reclaiming our land and local food economies.

Yes We Can..(or we may be on the verge of canning)

I had to laugh when I read Daughter Number Three's recent post about her purchase of a new book and DVD, The Fresh Girl's Guide to Easy Canning by Ana Micka, "which looks to be a really helpful intro to something I may be on the verge of doing." DN3 notes that the book is nicely designed, with graphics by Aleksandra Stancevic of Entropy Design Lab.

I feel like I'm also "on the verge of" canning, though I've yet to plunge those jars into a boiling water bath. I've been slowly gathering the equipment, and have spent some time on canning jar sites, comparing Ball jars – locally made made in Indiana – with Weck jars – from Germany, super cool. (But I have a lot of jars already, so will only need to pick up some lids.)

DN3 goes on: "(I'm thinking of canning spaghetti sauce from all the tomatoes I am theoretically growing.)" Ah yes, the theoretical garden...I know that one well. We have deer who make it really difficult to garden.

In an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, called "Sprout Savings in Your Backyard," Ana Micka says that she strives to produce 120 to 150 jars of homemade soups, tomato sauce and veggies each season, enough for three meals a week during the non-gardening months.

Wow, that's a lot of work – but then you could save time and money in the long run, with high-quality food on hand. I'll be more likely to try a few small batches of jam, with berries from the farmers' market. There's another good guide called The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving that addresses other ways to put up food, too, year round. And my favorite take on traditional food preservation comes from Jessica Prentice, in Full Moon Feast. Jessica helped found Three Stone Hearth, a community supported kitchen (CSK) in San Francisco. Here's a photo of sauerkraut production at Three Stone Hearth, from a blogpost over at Cheese Slave.

I think it's exciting that people are reclaiming home arts around food: gardening, cooking, and preserving. Here's a photo I took last November at the National Museum of American History in Washington D.C., from the days when home canning was getting a big marketing push (compete with cheerful blonde mother and daughter) from the feds.