Slow Foods and the People Who Love Them...

There's an interesting grassroots foodie trend afoot called the Slow Food Movement. (You can check out the facts at Wikipedia for the quick lowdown on slow food. But then, if you're that impatient, this movement might not be for you.)


Anyway, it intrigues me, because it involves so many of the things I believe in: organic, local food, as true to its source as possible, made from scratch, preservative-free. A healthy celebration of sustainable farming practices and humane food processing. Right now, I feel like an admirer from afar, similar to a geek in love with an accomplished celebrity I cannot hope to meet because with 2 kids under 5, no nanny, no housekeeper, and no place to put a vegetable garden, let alone raise goats, I'm a little overwhelmed at the thought of starting ALL my food from scratch. I don't have time to drink 8 glasses of water a day, let alone bake my own bread. But I'm willing to follow along as best I can, and definitely think its a trend worth pursuing.


One of the best parts of the slow food movement is eating locally-produced food, and there are "Eat Local" events all across the country in September. I'd encourage you to download the "Eat Local" scorecard from the Eat Local website and see if it's possible to get your food a little more close to home. Not only is it better for the earth, but--from a strictly hedonistic standpoint, which is the best argument when dealing with gastronomes--it generally tastes far superior to generic, dumbed-down-for-masses food that has been deliberately bred to withstand long journeys from its origin at the cost of its flavor.


One great thing I've recently discovered is Sparkman's Cream Valley milk, which I get at Harry's Farmers Market in Marietta (which means pretty much any Whole Foods or Harry's Farmers Market in the greater Atlanta area will have it). It's local and tastes GREAT. I've been making special trips over to Harry's just for milk since I've discovered it. Yes, it costs more--$3.99/half-gallon where I am--but...


/start rant/

Quality costs. For lack of a better term, we have Wal-Marted ourselves into some seriously dangerous territory by demanding quantities of food at low prices--prices that, perhaps, have not realistically kept up with inflation. To get those prices, food producers have sacrificed quality for quantity, and suddenly there are tainted food scares abounding, and a desperate struggle to quash the tainted food source when it is discovered--a search made more impossible by the fact that one single food can come from so many sources it's hard to know where the food was tainted or how. While the FDA (another rant for another time, the FDA) has decided it's perfectly okay to allow growth hormones and steriods into our dairy and meat sources, it isn't okay with me. I'm always a bit leery of anyone playing God simply to make a better financial bottom line, especially when it comes to my health and my family's health. So will I pay more for food that is thoughtfully produced by people who are vested in their community and the quality of their products, for dairy and meat that is hormone-free? You betcha. And though I'm not a fan of prosletyzing, I am going out on a limb here to say you should, too. Food is so many things, but one major responsibility of food is to provide our bodies a first, natural line of defense against disease, to support the body and help it function properly. It is so important, so scrimp somewhere else, but buy good quality food.

/end rant/

So I challenge you--how local can you go?

A couple good books on the subject:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith & J.B. McKinnon
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

“Enchant, stay beautiful and graceful, but do this, eat well. Bring the same consideration to the preparation of your food as you devote to your appearance. Let your dinner be a poem, like your dress.”

~Charles Pierre Monselet

Baptist Chardonnay...

There's a great feature in the Atlanta Journal Constitution today on sweet tea. If you can, it's worth picking up a copy of the paper, because not only is there a great history of this beverage, but lots of sweet tea recipes (of course some of them have alcohol--you are in the South, y'all...) and--of particular fun for me--a wee little article on the literary history of sweet tea in the South. A yummy read all around. I would highly recommend checking out the recipe for Magnolia Grill's Sweet tea-Brined Pork Chops which looks especially yummy.

One of my personal pet peeves when it comes to iced tea is that nasty unsweetened iced tea plopped down in front of you with a little holder of sugar packets, Splenda and Sweet-n-Low. Any idiot knows that it is IMPOSSIBLE to properly dissolve sugar granules in a cold glass of tea--they all just swirl to the bottom and clump there in a sullen little heap. The result? A completely unsweetened glass of tea until you get to the last swallow, which is just a few drops of tea and a mouthful of grainy sugar. Oh, yum. Of course, on the other side of the spectrum is that proper sweet tea is served in most places in the South, but it is so sweet you can feel it candying the enamel on your teeth. There is very little difference between it and pancake syrup. Now for many Southerners, this is not a problem, but a bonus. Me, I prefer a little nuance with my sweet tea; a melding of sweet flavor and tea flavor. A balance.

One great solution I read about in the AJC article is found at Watershed in Decatur, GA--the restaurant at the very top of my "I Must Eat Here Before I Die" list. The restaurant serves their tea unsweetened, BUT they serve it alongside a chilled mini-carafe of mint-infused sugar syrup--how ingenious is that? I love that idea. I may steal it for my home parties.

Meanwhile, here's my recipe for sweet tea. It's evolved over the years from my original version of sweet tea, which I learned from my East Coast mother. That version involved a gallon of water, 4 regular-sized tea bags and 1/4 cup of sugar. The result was somewhat reminiscent of barely sweet dishwater. My Georgia-born-and-bred husband was NOT amused. To save our then-brand-new marriage, I quickly learned a proper version of sweet tea that please most palates--at least Southern palates, anyway:

Fill a pot with 3-4 cups of water and bring to a boil. Add 5 family-sized Luzianne brand tea bags (you can use other brands, but Luzianne really is the best.) At the same time, dump in 1 cup of granulated sugar, and stir it around a little bit to get the brewing started and dissolve the sugar. Let it sit for a good long while--about the amount of time it takes to feed, clean up, change and corral 2 children under three into their beds for a nap--maybe a little less if your children are true hellions. Pour the resulting strong, sweet tea syrup into a 3-4 quart pitcher and fill it up the rest of the way with cold water (add a bit of ice if you need to speed the chilling process to have it ready by dinner). Chill until there is a filmy layer of condensation glistening on your pitcher. Serve over ice--straight for many Southerners, but I prefer a good splash of fresh-squeezed lemon juice in mine.

And there you have it. Drink up, y'all.