Fairfielders are pretty lucky when it comes to green food. Not only do we have two farmers’ markets that run during the spring,  summer and early fall seasons, but our indoor winter market reopens this Saturday at the Fairfield Theater Company on Sanford Street from 10-2. We have an award winning organic, vegetarian restaurant, Health in a Hurry, offering a wide variety of scrumptious seasonal, locally grown foods to go. Now we’ve got an organic cafe offering exclusively raw foods - the only one in the state. Throw away your preconceptions and read on.

Lisa Storch and Glen Collelo, co-founders of Catch a Healthy Habit Cafe

You can’t miss the Catch a Healthy Habit Cafe as you walk down Unquowa Road because their colorful chalkboard sitting on the sidewalk alerts you to their presence and a few menu items. The cafe’s newness is palpable as you enter; everything is clean and neat yet inviting. I confess to being a newbie to raw foods so I got an education from co-owners Glen Colello and Lisa Storch, who moved the restaurant from West Haven and just opened a week ago. If the first week is any indication of demand, they are going to do well. According to Glen they have ten times more foot traffic here than they had in West Haven.

Why raw is the first things I wanted to know. Didn’t man invent fire for a reason? Hasn’t cooking our food freed us up to evolve into higher order thinkers not constantly worrying about finding or hunting down our next meal? Glen espouses a 100% raw diet because of the greater nutrient value of raw food. According to raw food devotees, foods cooked beyond 120 or 130 degrees lose 100% of their enzymes, which help digest food and make it more bioavailable to us. Sorry, no tofu here.

Grateful Green Smoothie, a well-balanced blend of pineapple, banana and kale

Okay so maybe you buy that and maybe you don’t, what matters is that it’s organic, it’s all house made fresh, some of the ingredients are local, and the food tastes great. The juices and smoothies are unpasteurized and made to order from whole fruit they cut up themselves. I tasted the Grateful Green Smoothie, which is a blend of kale, pineapple and banana, that is just sweet enough, has a nice bit of tang from the pineapple and delivers a slight vegetal flavor to tell you the kale’s there. Well, actually it’s green so it’s screaming to you that something green’s in there, but I guarantee in a blind taste test only supertasters would be able to identify kale as the ingredient. Anybody got a kid who won’t eat vegetables? This could be your secret weapon.

Tomavo, an open sandwich made of onion bread, nut pate, tomato, avocado and Rawmesan

The menu is pretty extensive and offers many mock versions of traditional American restaurant foods like burgers, pizza, pasta and wraps. How do you make a burger that’s not cooked I wondered? A deyhdrator. That warms it up. And how to you make ” onion bread” for dishes like the Tomavo without cooking it? The dehydrator. Glen explained that the onion bread is a flatbread made from a dough that’s spread thin on a cooking tray and then spends 12 hours or more in a dehydrator. He offered me a piece. I looked at the very thin and delicate brown flatbread and immediately thought “cardboard” but boy was I wrong; this is an explosion of savory goodness highlighted by rich onion flavor and excellent salt. What kind of salt do they use? Pink Himalayan rock salt. Well that explains a lot. Go try it yourself and you’ll see what I mean.

They make their own ice cream too and use it in their milk shakes. How do you make raw ice cream? Blend cashews and almond milk, add other ingredients and process it in an ice cream maker. Glen told me that the cashew and coconut oil prevent ice crystals from forming, which results in a super creamy product. Other desserts include pecan cinnamon rolls, cheesecake, caramel apples, macaroons and chocolates. Glen’s “raw” chocolate treats won a universal thumbs up from my whole family. Want to know how he makes them? Check out the video!

Glen made it a point to tell me that their water first passes through a filtration system and then a reverse osmosis filtration system to remove the chlorine and fluoride from the water used in food preparation. Local products used include organic wheatgrass and basil from 2 Guys from Woodbridge, Red Bee Honey from Weston, and organic vegetables and fruits from area farmers’ markets.

You can eat at the cafe or take your order to go in a biodegradable bag. Catch a Healthy Habit Cafe is located at 39 Unquowa Road in Fairfield and is open seven days a week. Their schedule is Monday-Wednesday from 7 am to 8 pm, Thursday and Friday from 7 am to 9 pm, Saturday from 9am to 9 pm and Sunday from 11 am to 7 pm. www.catchahealthyhabit.com.

You are invited! Catch a Health Habit Cafe’s first event is a meet and greet with raw food chef and author Frank Giglio on Saturday December 5 at noon. Come sample and learn about raw food, make some new friends and chat about food and life. Frank’s Finest Herb/Spice Blends and his book “Raw For All” will be available for sale.

Hosting Thanksgiving dinner can be a mixed blessing. On the one hand you don’t have to travel (read sit in traffic) and get to cook what you like your way. On the other hand juggling cooking, cleaning and preparing can leave even the most avid hostess feeling frazzled. Take a deep breath and consider your options for de-stressing. My favorite is to “farm out” a few side dishes.

Health in a Hurry's Organic, Vegetarian Thanksgiving Side Dishes: Green Bean Casserole, Potato Tartlettes, Stuffed Pumpkins and Roasted Veggie Platter

Health in a Hurry on the Post Road in Fairfield has just released their menu of Thanksgiving side dishes, which are organic, vegetarian versions of classics  made with local ingredients whenever possible. Most dishes can be made to suit the vegan diet. In celebration of their five year anniversary, the restaurant is inviting the public to come in today through Saturday to have a cupcake (chocolate-chocolate or gluten-free coconut) and sample their Thanksgiving menu.

I got a chance to sample all four side dishes with my family at our early Thanksgiving dinner last night and they were a hit. I can’t tell you how liberating it was to just roast some sweet potatoes, make sure the bird didn’t get overcooked and focus on the gravy being cooked to the right consistency and seasoned just right. In the interest of full disclosure, these dishes were leftover from the News Ch. 8 segment I did on a Local Thanksgiving. The turkey, also from the show, is a fresh Whole Foods Market All Natural, Free-Range broad-breasted white, which had amazingly rich dark meat and delighted my three dark meat lovers. No wonder this grower has supplied the White House for almost 40 years!

To place your order, either stop in the store or visit Health in a Hurry’s web site and email chef/owner Sue Cadwell requesting she email you a menu. These dishes are all fully cooked and need only a gentle reheating in the oven. Note: Only reheat the crispy shallots for 5 minutes or they will burn and taste bitter. These are the crunchies you see adorning the green bean casserole in the photo. Deadline for ordering is Saturday, November 21 for pick up November 24 or 25. Please bring your own bags or boxes. Actually bring both!

Sue prepares a wide variety of organic, vegetarian food to go, but customers always look forward to the special fall soups

When Sue Cadwell, chef/owner of Health in a Hurry in Fairfield, says that she prepares seasonal fall soups, she doesn’t mean the kind you grew up eating. Spicy Carrot Yam Soup and Exotic Pumpkin are what she’s talking about. And that’s just the beginning.

Stop in to warm your belly and tempt your taste buds and you’ll find a different soup each day, made fresh according to what’s available locally. If you’re there on Cauliflower Kale day, know the kale was harvested from her garden that morning.

According to Sue, “Moroccan Lentil is one of our most popular soups; customers come in asking for it.” Sue now has two Moroccan cooks on staff so there’s a good explanation for the authentic taste. Indian spices are blended into a house curry which seasons the Mung Bean Dal and the Exotic Pumpkin achieves its uniqueness with coconut milk, fennel, cumin, coriander, ginger, cinnamon and clove with a hint of hot pepper.

Vegetable soups of any kind seem to be the perfect substitute for salads in the fall. Rutabagas? Yes, even vegetables that most people wouldn’t recognize have a place in Sue’s repertoire.  “Rutabagas, parsnips and onions go in the Golden Split Pea” explains Sue.

I had the Tuscan Bean with Spinach last week and couldn’t believe how hearty and satisfying it was on a cool day with a piece of fresh bread. The soup menu changes weekly so I recommend signing up for her emails so you’ll know when the Spicy Black Bean and Roasted Cauliflower soups will be served, or maybe even the Butternut Squash.

The summer fruit and produce is gone it’s true, but it has been replaced by fall’s bounty. Cooler temperatures invite us to turn on the oven to roast some vegetables and bake some apples. Have you taken the Eat Local Challenge yet? It’s simply and invitation for you to find fun and delicious ways to add more local foods to your family’s weekly menu.  Read on for a few FRESH ideas.

1) Pick from your own backyard garden. Do you have some broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale or lettuces still growing? Add them to any meal to make it a CT Grown feast.

2) Go foraging for free food! Does your neighbor have an apple tree in their backyard that’s full of ripe fruit? Offer to help them pick it in exchange for a share.

3) Shop at a local farmers’ market or farm stand and stock up for the week. Fairfield’s Greenfield Hill and Brick Walk farmers’ markets run on Saturdays and offer a wide variety of CT Grown produce, fruit and artisan made foods. The Double L Farm Stand in Southport offers an eclectic mix of produce and fruit. Visit the Fairfield Green Food Guide’s Buying Guide for hours and locations of all Fairfield County farmers’ markets.

4) Shop at a farm and vote local with your dollars. Sport Hill Farm in Easton sells their organic produce, eggs, Wave Hill bread and honey at the farm on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10-6 through the first frost (closed 10/24 for a private party). Sherwood Farm on Sport Hill Road in Easton offers a wide variety of just-picked produce from their fields and fruit from CT orchards at their four-season farm stand that’s open seven days a week through the first frost. Free-range eggs will remain available through the winter. Visit the Fairfield Green Food Guide’s Buying Guide for farms in your area.

5) Visit a farm to pick-your-own. It’s apple picking season and Beardsley’s Cider Mill and Orchard in Shelton is a great place to pick-your-own because they grown over 25 types of apples, some of which are heirloom varieties. Their farm- made fruit and pumpkin pies, cheesecake, cider donuts, cookies and cider are available for purchase in the store. Bring cash or a check for the pick-your-own apples.

6) Buy from a local specialty or independent grocer that makes it a point to carry locally grown and produced food. Palmer’s Market in Darien, Fairfield Cheese Company and The Pantry in Fairfield, and Walter Stewart’s Market in New Canaan carry local fruits, vegetables, breads, cheeses, honey, artisanal and prepared foods.

7) Dine at a restaurant that sources local and organic ingredients. Health in a Hurry in Fairfield, The Dressing Room and the newly minted Le Farm in Westport, Bloodroot in Bridgeport, Cobbs Mill Inn in Weston, David’s Catering and Napa & Co. in Stamford, and Woodway Country Club in Darien all cook with the seasons using fresh, local ingredients.

8) Buy CT Grown foods online for home delivery. Order online from CT Farm Fresh Express by noon Tuesday for a Friday home delivery. You pick what and how much CT-grown food you want from their online store and they deliver it to your door. No minimums, no membership fees and no ongoing commitment. Leave a cooler with ice packs on your doorstep if you won’t be home to receive the delivery.

9) Join a winter CSA (Community Supported Agriculture program). Gazy Brothers Farm is offering a 6-week winter CSA, which is a share in the farm’s late fall and early winter harvest, and is available for pick up at the Greenfield Hill farmers’ market on Saturdays as well as other Fairfield County farmers’ markets where they are a vendor.

10)   Buy some Connecticut wine directly from a winery or wine shop that carries local wine like Harry’s Wine & Liquor in Fairfield. Some standouts from the Connecticut Wine Festival were Sharpe Hill Vineyard’s Ballet of Angels, the award-winning wines of Hopkins Vineyards, Miranda Vineyard’s Seyval Blanc and Woodridge White, Land of Nod’s Bianca, Taylor Brooke’s Traminette and Connecticut Valley Winery’s Chianti and port-style Black Bear.

There’s big news in the local/sustainable restaurant space. LeFarm, a true farm to table restaurant run by chef/owner Bill Taibe opens on October 7 for lunch and dinner. Bill Taibe is well known as the chef from Napa & Co. in Stamford, which is an award winning restaurant built around the farm to table philosophy. Arik Bensimon took over as executive chef in July.

LeFarm is located at 256 Post Road East, Westport and is taking reservations by phone. Call 203.557.3701 to make a reservation during their current schedule: serving lunch Wednesday thru Friday from 12pm until the mid-afternoon. Dinner will be served Wednesday thru Saturday 5pm till 9:30 or so.

From the restaurant’s web site:

“Our goal is to support our local farmers here in Connecticut as much as possible, but sometimes we may have to cross state lines to find what we need. One thing we can promise is that your dinner with us will be meticulously sourced and simply prepared.

Our wine selection will be affordable, educational, and chosen with the evening’s menu in mind. We welcome you to bring wines from your own collection, however a nominal fee ($20) and small taste for the chef is required.”

more….

“These are the Farmers and Artisans who make our mission possible.

Urban Oaks Organic Farm, New Britian C.T. urbanoaks.org
Holbrook Farm, Bethel C.T. holbrookfarm.net
Millstone Farm, Wilton C.T. millstonefarm.org
Maple Hill Farm, Redding C.T.
Webb Mountain Farm, Monroe C.T.
Artisan Made Northeast, Southbury C.T. artisanmade-ne.com
John Boy’s Smokehouse, Pound Ridge, N.Y. johnboyssmokehouse.com
Plowshares Coffee Roasters, New York, N.Y. plowsharescoffee.com
Sono Baking Company & Cafe, Sono, C.T. sonobaking.com”

I’ll be back with more after an interview and a meal! Let me know your thoughts.

by Eileen Weber

There is a food revolution underway and it includes what your kids eat at school. Lunchtime in the cafeteria has been a hot topic in recent years regarding our children’s health. Obesity and juvenile diabetes rates are skyrocketing. Our children may not outlive us, but instead die young. And, the chicken nuggets and mystery meat on the lunch line may be the biggest reason for this.

Chef Ann Cooper, the Director of Nutritional Services for Boulder Valley School District in Colorado is  a strict, and formerly of Berkeley, Calif., has recently teamed up with Whole Foods Market for a “School Lunch Revolution.”

To Cooper, know as the “Renegade Lunch Lady”, the most important challenge is to change the School Lunch Program. She has been an innovator in changing what cafeterias serve-from high processed foods to organic and natural foods. While she admits changing the school system will take funding, she sees it as a pay now or pay later Catch-22. Either we put the necessary funding into school nutrition so our kids are healthy, or we pay for it later with disease, untimely death and that ultimately puts the burden on the healthcare system.

“The government has spent $147 billion on healthcare,” she said. “So the government is already picking up the tab even in this economy for our bad health. The school lunch is not a dumping ground but a health initiative and should be seen as preventive medicine.”

Cooper strongly supports the idea that if kids learn how to eat in a healthy way in school, they will carry that home. With her consulting firm Lunch Lessons, LLC, and her non-profit organization F3: Food Family Farming Foundation, working in conjunction with Whole Foods Market seemed like a no brainer. Her F3 Foundation has also started a web portal for schools to access fresh recipes and tips on how to make a school lunch more nutritious at TheLunchBox.org.

One lunch recipe is for a bean burrito. It calls for eight ingredients which include brown rice and salsa with the option to make it from scratch. Even an old stand-by like grilled cheese calls for whole wheat bread. Simple ingredients, simple recipes.

Part of Cooper’s drive to change the school lunch is making school food, cool food. But how do we do that?

“In the same way we made it uncool,” she said of the heavy marketing and advertising on American television. “We’ve had successful initiatives to get us to stop smoking or wear seat belts. We need to put that kind of effort into eating whole, healthy foods.”

Cooper’s philosophy is in line with another health food maven, Michael Pollan, renowned author of such titles as The Omnivore’s Dilemma: An Eater’s Manifesto. Pollan has been quoted in numerous publications as well as his own that we need to drastically rethink our food system. And when it comes to school lunches, Pollan is very assertive in his opinion.

“School lunches have nothing to do with nutrition,” he said in a May 14^th interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! “We feed our kids cheap ground beef, cheese and corn products. They eat chicken nuggets and Tater Tots. We’re teaching our kids how to be fast food consumers. It’s not about health and it needs to be about health.”

But with all this talk about the “catastrophe of the American diet”, as Pollan puts it, school lunches are starting to change ever so slowly. According to a New York Times article dated August 10^th, the price of the school lunch has gone up to accommodate the cost of fresh foods. There are now vegetarian dishes as well as those offering locally grown produce. While the majority of food choices available are still highly processed, it’s still a step in the right direction.

But when it comes to packing your own lunch from home, there may be another way to get your kids to eat healthy food.

“Have your kids be part of the process,” says nutritionist Patricia Restrepo of Key Biscayne in an August 2^nd article in the Miami Herald. “Making fun things with them helps. Kids who have never touched a vegetable will suddenly eat them.”

Laptop Lunches, bento-ware for everywhere

If, as Chef Ann Cooper says school food can be cool food, it’s even better if their lunch box is fun too. There are plenty of alternatives to the hum-drum lunch box. Laptop Lunches makes everyday a trip to a Japanese restaurant. Designed like a bento box, little compartments leave room for a variety of different foods. In much the same way, the Dutch manufactured Oots lunch boxes are BPA, lead, and

Oots Lunch Box

phthalate-free containers that all snap together, including a thermos that can be stacked on top.

But the food we put in that lunch box needs to be healthy as well. “Unfortunately, a lot of parents get what they think is healthy when it’s really not,” said Sue Caldwell, owner and chef at award-winning Health In A Hurry. She says she often hears moms complain that they wish they could get their families to eat the organic, natural foods like the dishes she prepares in the store.

Caldwell said that while her clientele is extremely diverse, she does see parents coming in for the cookies and the wraps to put in lunches. “As the School Lunch Program ekes along,” she said of what strides have been made to change the system, “I think the prepared food market is going at the same snail’s pace.”

When it comes to health and nutrition, the tides seem to be turning in the school system. But it took obesity and disease to get us to sit up and take notice. We have the choice between healthy and unhealthy food on a daily basis. So the next time you shop, what choice will you make?

From left to right, guest Michelle McCabe, Hostess Analiese Paik, and Bill Duesing of CT NOFA

Guests panelists Annelise McCay, Amie G. Hall, Sue Cadwell, Janak Desai, Ken Kleban, Bill Duesing and Deb Marsden

I had a few requests during the event for a list of panelists and exhibitors at the FRESH screening at Pequot Library on Wednesday, August 12 so here they are. These respected members of the  local-sustainable food movement took the time to serve as panelists and/or exhibitors, and also helped spread the word to their contacts, members and customers, resulting in a sold out audience of 200! Check out the pics below to see what a great time everyone had.

Panelists:

Moderated by Analiese Paik, Founder Fairfield GreenFood Guide

1. Bill Duesing, Executive Director of CT NOFA
2. Sue Cadwell, Chef/Owner Health in a Hurry
3. Deb Marsden, Founder CT Farm Fresh Express (CTFFE)
4. Environmentalist Janak Desai and Ken Kleban of Kleban Properties, co-founders of Fairfield’s Farmer’s Market at the Brick Walk
5. Annelise McCay, Founder Sherman School garden, and Amie G. Hall, Holistic Health Counselor and Cooking Coach, Founder Fairfield Ludlowe and Fairfield Woods Middle School square food gardens

A special thank you to Amie G. Hall for finding videographer Janet Luongo, literally at the 11th hour, to tape the event for publication on YouTube and screening on public access television. Janet, thank you so much for enabling us to share this event with so many more people.

A huge thanks to our host Pequot Library. The auditorium and Community Reading Room are such beautiful and spacious rooms that we were all quite comfortable despite our numbers. One of our guests was a blogger from Brooklyn and he posted about the  fine venue and their rather forward thinking leadership.

Exhibitors:

1. Pequot Library
2. Fairfield Green Food Guide
3. CT NOFA
4. CT Farm Fresh Express
5. Health in a Hurry
6. Fairfield Farmers’ Market at The Brick Walk
7. Fairfield Edible School Gardens
8. CT Farmland Trust (at CT NOFA table)
9. Bluebelle Muffins, Jerri Graham
10. Organic Gardening Simplified, Nick Mancini
11. The Double L Farmstand, Lloyd Allen
12. Aspetuck Land Trust, David Brant and John Hamlin
13. Sport Hill Farm, Patti Popp
14. Fairfield Earth Day Committee & Clean Energy Commission, Larry

Nick Mancini's organic vegetables at the FRESH screening

I announced an Eat Local Challenge at the FRESH screening on Wednesday night, inviting attendees to pledge to eat more local food. You set the bar where you feel comfortable. Whether you’re a newbie or already well on your way to eating locally and sustainably, think about one more thing you could do. Stop in a farm stand on the way home? Buy local cheese at a farmers’ market or specialty shop?

10 Ways to Eat FRESH is designed to help you find that “one more thing”. The Challenge doesn’t end; it’s a new way of eating. Email me at info@fairfieldgreenfoodguide.com to add your name to the growing roster of  Challenge participants. You’ll receive a special monthly e-newsletter providing you with new and interesting ways to eat locally and sustainably and are invited to submit comments about how taking the Challenge is changing the way you eat.

10 Ways to Eat FRESH

Click here for printer friendly version (pdf)

1)      Pick from your own backyard garden. Do you have some tomatoes, fresh herbs or lettuces growing? Add them to any meal to make it a CT Grown feast. If not, consider starting a fall garden, even if it’s just a few containers.

2)      Go foraging for free food! Raspberries and blueberries are in season and you can find them in your neighbor’s backyard (ask first) or along the roadside. Be sure to wash well. Ask your local school garden if they’ll trade volunteer hours for picking rights.

3)      Visit your local farmers’ market or farm stand and stock up for the week. Fairfield’s newest farmers’ market at the Promenade at The Brick Walk features live music from 9-12 and an ever-growing list of vendors. The Double L Farm Stand in Southport offers an eclectic mix of produce, fruit and artisan foods ranging from foraged berries to local, organic pies on the weekend. Visit the Fairfield Green Food Guide’s Buying Guide to search for farmers’ market and farm stand locations and hours in your town.

4)      Visit a farm and vote local with your dollars. Sport Hill Farm in Easton supplies local families with CSA shares, The Unquowa School with organic food for their cafeteria, and is hosts a Summer Farm Camp. A wide variety of local, organic produce, eggs, bread and honey can be purchased at the farm Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10-6. Ask Patti about upcoming events or visit their events page online at www.sporthillfarm.com.

5)      Go to a farm to pick your own. The CT State Dept. of Agriculture and pickyourown.org both offer extensive lists of pick your own farms and it’s really a fun family outing. Crops available for picking right now include blueberries, corn, peaches and tomatoes. Jones Family Farm in Shelton offers blueberry picking from 9-5:30 Tuesday thru Saturday. Please call (203) 929-8425 the morning you’re picking to hear that day’s crop report.

6)      Buy from a local specialty or independent grocer that makes it a point to carry locally grown and produced food. Palmer’s Market in Darien, Fairfield Cheese Company and The Pantry in Fairfield, and Walter Stewart’s Market in New Canaan carry local fruits, vegetables, breads, cheeses, honey, artisanal and prepared foods.

7)      Eat at a restaurant that sources local ingredients. Health in a Hurry and Café Lola in Fairfield, The Dressing Room in Westport, Bloodroot Vegetarian Restaurant in Bridgeport, Cobbs Mill Inn Restaurant in Weston, David’s Catering and Napa & Co. in Stamford and Woodway Country Club in Darien all make it a point to source fresh, local ingredients.

8)      Buy CT Grown foods online for home delivery. Order online from CT Farm Fresh Express by midnight Tuesday for a Friday home delivery. You pick what and how much CT-grown food you want from their online store and they deliver it to your door. No minimums, no membership fees and no ongoing commitment. Leave a cooler with ice packs on your doorstep if you won’t be home for delivery.

9)      Get some local seafood straight from the source. Take a drive to Stonington to buy some scallops, shrimp or fish right off the fishing boats or at Stonington Seafood Harvesters on 5 High Street in Stonington, which is open Monday through Friday from 8-5 and Saturday form 9-12. Ask for the prized Bomster scallops - you can’t get fresher or more delicious scallops because they’re flash frozen on the boat within hours of being shucked. Bring your cooler.

10)   Buy some Connecticut wine directly from a winery or wine shop that carries local wine like Harry’s Wine & Liquor in Fairfield. Some standouts I tasted at the Connecticut Wine Festival were Sharpe Hill Vineyard’s Ballet of Angels, the award-winning wines of Hopkins Vineyards, Miranda Vineyard’s Seyval Blanc and Woodridge White, Land of Nod’s Bianca, Taylor Brooke’s Traminette and Connecticut Valley Winery’s Chianti and port-style Black Bear.

Eat Local, Eat FRESH, and Eat Well.

by Eileen Weber

Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms. Photo courtesy Ripple Effect Productions, producer of FRESH

Joel Salatin is a religious man. He is a believer that nature should be left to nature. But above all else, he is a farmer. Going against the tide of industrialism where hormones and antibiotics are fed to livestock, he lets his chickens have their “chicken-ness” and his pigs have their “pig-ness”. They roam free to peck and forage as they please across Salatin’s rolling hills of Polyface Farms in Swoope, Va. By some, he is considered a lunatic. For others, he is a genius.

Will Allen of Growing Power Inc., a recipient of the 2008 MacArthur Genius Award. Photo courtesty Ripple Effects Productions, producer of FRESH

Mr. Salatin is not alone. There are others who have the same core values he does. Will Allen, a former basketball player and subsequent marketing manager, is an urban farmer in Milwaukee, Wis. growing vegetables without any chemicals or fertilizers on only three acres of land. His secret is compost and he’s not shy about grabbing a fistful to make his point. After being gored by one of his hogs with the resulting infection resistant to scores of medication, Russ Kremer, a farmer in Frankenstein, Mo., is now a proud and sought after hog farmer. He took the extreme measure of exterminating his herd to begin anew, swearing off antibiotics and hormones.

Russ Kremer, founding member of the Heritage Acres Pork Cooperative which raises “Certified Humane Raised and Handled” hogs. Photo courtesy Ripple Effect Productions, producer of FRESH.

We can see these farmers in their fight against an industrialized food system in the highly acclaimed film FRESH. Last night, the Pequot Library in Southport held a viewing of the movie, a film produced and directed by Ana Sofia Joanes. There was a panel discussion afterward and close to a dozen local exhibitors displayed their wares in the library’s adjacent Reading Room.

The event was the brainchild of Analiese Paik, Founder of Fairfield Green Food Guide. With the idea and her enthusiasm, she approached Dan Snydacker, Executive Director of the Pequot Library. The efforts of six tireless weeks of work paid off. There was a huge turnout. While the seating could only accommodate 200 people, there was a wait list for the event and some were turned away at the door. What a clear indication of how important an issue food is to this community.

The film’s subtitle says it all: “New thinking about what we’re eating.” But is it really new? The film celebrates the environmentally aware farmers, Salatin, Allen and Kremer being prime examples. But what each of these men has achieved is not a novel concept. Letting nature be nature without the use of chemicals is an age-old farming technique. Let the grass grow. Let the cows and chickens roam free. Let their manure fertilize the grass so it can grow some more. The cycle of life continues.

“We’re farming grass,” said Salatin of how he sees its role in farming animals. “If we take care of the grass, it will take care of us.”

Michael Pollan, author of such agriculturally provocative titles as The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, inserted his own commentary in the film. “Industrialized food is cheaper but nutritionally deficient,” he said as scenes of well-known brands in a supermarket’s freezer aisle flicked across the screen. “The more processed it is, the less nutritious.”

But many people, especially those in urban areas considered a “food desert” because local produce is not available, will buy the cheap food. In a tough economy, having any food on the table is better than having none. So many kids grow up eating little if any vegetables that don’t come with a colorful box top and a plastic toy.

Karen Parker, Co-Director, Growing Power Inc. Photo courtesy Growing Power, Inc.

That was the case for Karen Parker, Co-Director of Growing Power, Inc., the organization founded by Will Allen in urban Milwaukee. She admitted that she and her kids ate whatever came from the closest drive-thru without ever buying much in the way of fresh produce. After working with Allen, she has changed her tune.

“I used to say, ‘That’s too fresh! My food don’t have a name!’ But now it does,” she said of Allen’s first attempts to get her to eat the different varieties of vegetables he grows.

Too many Americans buy processed food on a weekly basis and eat at fast food chains. As a result, there is an epidemic of obesity and diabetes in this country. Slowly but surely, that trend is starting to shift. But that shift begins within each community.

Sue Cadwell, Chef/Owner of Health in a Hurry with Analiese Paik, Founder of Fairfield Green Food Guide

“We are the local food movement,” said Sue Caldwell, owner of Fairfield’s Health In A Hurry restaurant and one of last night’s panelists. “The biggest message in Fresh was showing the labels with that long list of ingredients. They kept talking about food, food, food. But that’s not food.”

“We don’t need to teach kids how to read labels,” said panelist Amie Guyette

Amie Hall, Holistic Health Counselor and Cooking Coach, and founder of Fairfield's middle school Square Foot Gardens

Hall, Holistic Health Counselor and Cooking Coach working with the Fairfield district middle schools, “because there are no labels to read when you grow your own food.”

So grow your own vegetables. Have pots of herbs. Plant flowers and let the butterflies come. Eat locally and eat fresh. As Analiese Paik said of the resources available in Connecticut, “There’s no excuse for not eating locally.”

Indeed. No excuse.

If you haven’t yet had an opportunity to sample the fine, award-winning wines of Connecticut’s vineyards, the two-day Connecticut Wine Festival taking place this weekend in Goshen is a great way to taste wine from 19 vineyards with a minimal commitment of time, travel and money. Connecticut wines range in style from dry, barrel fermented Chardonnays, Cabernet Francs, Rieslings and Merlots to fruitier, sweeter whites, reds and late harvest Vidals, Vignoles and fruit wines. You might be surprised to learn that the #1 selling white wine in New England is the semi-dry Ballet of Angels from Sharpe Hill in Pomfret.

Admission includes a commemorative festival wine glass and tote bag, 20 wine tasting tickets, specialty food samples, entertainment, the opportunity to purchase bottles/cases of wine and artisan crafts. Additional tasting tickets are available for purchase at the festival.

Entertainment includes the Shawn Taylor Duo, the Jerrod Cattey Double Trio and more.

Festival Hours: Saturday, August 1st from 12pm-7pm and Sunday, August 2nd from 12pm-6pm. The Goshen Fairgrounds are located approximately ½ mile south of Goshen center on Route 63. http://www.goshenfair.org/directions.htm Parking is free.

Ticket Cost: $25 daily, at the gate, for general admission, $10 daily for designated drivers and those under 21. A two-day ticket is available for $40. Tickets may be purchased in advance at a discounted daily rate of $20 from the following CT Vineyards:

Jones Winery, Shelton, CT
White Silo Winery, Sherman, CT
Hopkins Vineyard, Warren, CT
Sunset Meadow Vineyards, Goshen, CT
Miranda Vineyard, Goshen, CT
Land of Nod, Canaan, CT
Rosedale Farms & Vineyard, Simsbury, CT
Gouveia Vineyards, Wallingford, CT
Priam Vineyards, Colchester, CT
Sharpe Hill Vineyard, Pomfret, CT
Jonathan Edwards Winery, North Stonington, CT
Chamard Vineyards, Clinton, CT
Bishop’s Orchards Winery, Guilford, CT