Tag Archives: Slow Food Seattle

Slow Food Seattle Books: September 8 – Food for All: Fixing School Food in America by Janet Poppendieck

Food for All: Fixing School Food in AmericaOur September book club selection is Food for All: Fixing School Food in America by Janet Poppendieck. RSVP on Facebook too!

We’ll be meeting from 6-7:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 8th. Roy Street Coffee and Tea is located at 700 Broadway East. Limited free parking is available in the lot below. This will be an active, open conversation and all are welcome – please come even if you haven’t had a chance to finish the book!

How did our children end up eating nachos, pizza, and tater tots for lunch? Taking us on an eye-opening journey into the nation’s school kitchens, this superbly researched book is the first to provide a comprehensive assessment of school food in the United States. Janet Poppendieck explores the deep politics of food provision from multiple perspectives–history, policy, nutrition, environmental sustainability, taste, and more.

Drawing from extensive interviews with officials, workers, students, and activists, she discusses the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs and turns a critical eye on the “competitive foods” sold in cafeterias. How did we get into the absurd situation in which nutritionally regulated meals compete with fast food items and snack foods loaded with sugar, salt, and fat? What is the nutritional profile of the federal meals? How well are they reaching students who need them?

Opening a window onto our culture as a whole, Poppendieck reveals the forces–the financial troubles of schools, the commercialization of childhood, the reliance on market models–that are determining how lunch is served. She concludes with a sweeping vision for change: fresh, healthy food for all children as a regular part of their school day.

Janet Poppendieck

Janet Poppendieck

Janet Poppendieck is Professor of Sociology at Hunter College, City University of New York. She is the author of Free for All: Fixing School Food in America; (University of California Press, 2010); Sweet Charity? Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement (Penguin, 1999); and Breadlines Knee Deep in Wheat: Food Assistance in the Great Depression (Rutgers University Press, 1985).

“In her extraordinarily well-thought-out, beautifully written, sympathetic, and compelling book, Jan Poppendieck makes clear that Free for All has two meanings: how pressures to reduce the cost of school meals put our children’s health at risk, and how best to solve this problem–universal school meals. Anyone who reads this book will find the present school lunch situation beyond unacceptable. Free for All is a call for action on behalf of America’s school kids, one that we all need to join. I will be using this book in all my classes.”–Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics

Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast with Hank Shaw on July 28

Hank Shaw

Hank Shaw, author of "Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast"

The Pacific Northwest has a rich bounty of flora and fauna to offer from land, sky, and sea. Foraging, gleaning, hunting, fishing, crabbing, clamming… not just for the hardcore outdoorsy-crowd anymore. Join us on Thursday, July 28th at 6pm, for an evening with Hank Shaw, author of Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast. Hank will share his adventures in the field and in the kitchen with a talk on wild foods and book signing. Special guest, Chef Robin Leventhal (formerly of Crave & Top Chef), will also be on hand, serving up some delicious appetizers inspired by Hunt, Gather, Cook. Kevin Cedergreen of Cedergreen Cellars, Cole Sisson of Hestia Cellars, Melissa Peterman of Elsom Cellars, and the fine folks from McCrea Cellars will be pouring some fantastic Washington wines.

RSVP on Facebook too!

When: Thursday, July 28th at 6pm

Where: Wine World, 400 NE 45th St. Seattle, 98105

Tickets: $15/person (includes wild foods talk by Hank Shaw, wine tasting, and appetizers).

Brown Paper Tickets

Readers to Eaters will have Hunt, Gather, Cook available for purchase and Hank will be signing copies at the event.

Co-sponsored by: Slow Food Seattle, Readers to Eaters, and Wine World.

For a review of Hunt, Gather, Cook by Seattle Weekly’s Voracious contributor, Sonja Groset, check here.

For Hank’s perspective on the book, check out this post.

About Hank Shaw:
Hank Shaw is a New Jersey native who worked as a political reporter for various newspapers for 18 years until becoming a full-time food writer, outdoorsman and cook in 2010. A forager and angler since he could walk, Hank began hunting in 2002 and has never looked back. He hunts or fishes for all the meat he eats at home, and foraged foods form a daily part of his diet. Hank runs the wild foods blog Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, which has twice been nominated for a James Beard Award. He won the International Association of Culinary Professionals award for Best Blog in 2010 and 2011, and his magazine writing has appeared in Food & Wine, Organic Gardening, Field & Stream, as well as many other publications.

Hunt Gather CookAbout Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast:
If there is a frontier beyond organic, local, and seasonal, beyond farmers’ markets and sustainably
raised meat, it surely includes hunting, fishing, and foraging your own food. A lifelong angler and forager who became a hunter late in life, Hank Shaw has chronicled his passion for hunting and gathering in his widely read blog, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, which has developed an avid following among outdoor people and foodies alike. Hank is dedicated to finding a place on the table for the myriad overlooked and underutilized wild foods that are there for the taking if you know how to get them.

In Hunt, Gather, Cook, he shares his experiences both in the field and the kitchen, as well as his extensive knowledge of North America’s edible flora and fauna. With the fresh, clever prose that brings so many readers to his blog, Hank provides a user-friendly, food-oriented introduction to tracking down everything from sassafras to striped bass to snowshoe hares. He then provides innovative ways to prepare wild foods that go far beyond typical campfire cuisine: homemade root beer, cured wild boar loin, boneless tempura shad, Sardinian hare stew, even pasta made with handmade acorn flour.

Thanks to our co-sponsors:

Wine World Warehouse      Readers to Eaters

Special thanks to our wine sponsors:

 Hestia CellarsCedergreen Cellars  Elsom Cellars        McCrea Cellars

Slow Food Seattle Books: July 14 – The Unprejudiced Palate by Angelo Pellegrini

Angelo Pellegrini

Angelo Pellegrini: Slow Food, before Slow Food existed

Join us for our next book club selection on Thursday, July 14th, the classic - The Unprejudiced Palate: Classic Thoughts on Food and the Good Life by Seattle’s own Angelo Pellegrini.

Join us! This will be an active, open conversation and all are welcome – please come even if you haven’t had a chance to finish the book! We’ll be meeting from 6-7:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 14th. Roy Street Coffee and Tea is located at 700 Broadway East. Limited free parking is available in the lot below.  RSVP on Facebook too!

From the publisher:
“First issued in 1948, when soulless minute steaks and quick casseroles were becoming the norm, The Unprejudiced Palate inspired a seismic culinary shift in how America eats. Written by a food-loving immigrant from Tuscany, this memoir-cum-cookbook articulates the Italian American vision of the good life: a backyard garden, a well-cooked meal shared with family and friends, and a passion for ingredients and cooking that nourish the body and the soul.”

The Unprejudiced Palate“I have always thought that Angelo Pellegrini misnamed his charming but opinionated book. It should have been called the Prejudiced Palate, because he is so absolutely sure and unwavering in his vision of how to live a beautiful and delicious life. And I think he’s right.”
–Alice Waters, Owner, Chez Panisse

“Like great dishes, great writing remains in our memory forever. Angelo Pellegrini’s THE UNPREJUDICED PALATE is a lesson in how to enjoy life in an elegant and highly civilized way.”
– Jacques Pépin

“THE UNPREJUDICED PALATE is a forgotten gem from what might be remembered as the Golden Age of American food writing. This Italian born, beloved Seattle professor, friend and colleague of MFK Fisher, wrote with charm, wit, and a rare intelligence about food.”
–Mark Kurlansky, author of Salt, Cod, 1968

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