Green Drinks Edmonton: Your Local Food Tools

Our next Green Drinks is by far our most popular theme and always a busting-at-the-seams good time. Yes, it’s the Local Food Green Drinks and this year, the theme is all about Your Local Food Tools.

Spring is around the corner (or so we hope!). Will your food come from a local CSA, your new plot in a community garden, from your new favourite local food supplier or from a farmers’ market you’ve never heard of before?

This Green Drinks is all about providing attendees with the tools they need to connect to the their food. Meet the growers, the bloggers, the foodies and the DIY’ers to find out the best way to eat locally this year. Check out the following people, organizations and foodies who will be presenting their best tools on Wednesday, March 5th.

Liane Faulder, Eat My Words – Edmonton Journal

“As food writer for the Edmonton Journal, my job is to tell people about eating in Edmonton. I cover trends, chefs, restaurants and other food industry news, blogging and tweeting under the handle Eat My Words Blog. Once a week, on Wednesdays, I produce new stories on my beat online in the Edmonton Journal, and in the print edition of the paper.

As the biggest trend in the food world these days is local food, much of my job revolves around writing stories about local farmers, ranchers and growers of all descriptions, and they food they produce. Regularly, I profile chefs who work with local food, and print recipes from those chefs that feature local food. By following me on Twitter, reading my daily blog, and keeping tabs on the weekly fresh features in the paper, you’ll get a wide variety of food information, and food fun, related to the local food scene.

Please feel free to phone me if you have any information or tips about local food or restaurants in the city, or need to know anything specific about the food scene in the city.”

Dustin Bajer, representing the Edmonton Food Council

The Edmonton Food Council is a committee of the City made up of 14 talented and knowledgeable people who represent a diverse cross-section of the local food system. They provide advice and guidance to the City of Edmonton and are a direct link to fresh: Edmonton’s Food and Urban Agriculture Strategy. Their goal is to be a catalyst that enables expanded possibilities for vibrant food and urban agriculture in Edmonton. The Food Council will work to establish trust and working relationships with key individuals, groups and organizations in order to best support what is already thriving in our community, to enhance communication between everyone and to create learning opportunities for people to become more informed.

Sabrena Falcone, representing the Edmonton Permaculture Guild

The Edmonton Permaculture Guild is a non-profit society whose mission is to promote and facilitate permaculture for the benefit of our local community and the land. We strive to create resilient and regenerative landscapes and social networks by providing information, education, events, and workshops on all things related to the permaculture ethics (Care of People, Care of the Earth, Sharing the Surplus) such as organic gardening, composting, beekeeping, water catchment, natural building, food preservation, and greenhouse design to name a few. We work to spread permaculture design in Edmonton by organizing permablitzes (permaculture work bees) so more of us are growing food, eating locally, and sharing our bounty and experience with each other. As well, members have advocated to municipal government for our local food policy, and are actively involved with the Edmonton Food Council.

The Edmonton Permaculture Guild recognizes that local food is a critical issue for sustainable living in Edmonton, and we encourage everyone who is not familiar with permaculture principles to explore the global permaculture movement and connect with EPG on Facebook.

Chad Moss, representing Slow Food Edmonton

Slow Food Edmonton is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to supporting and celebrating the food traditions of Edmonton and Northern Alberta. From animal breeds and heirloom varieties of seeds, fruits and vegetables to handcrafted wine and beer, farmhouse cheeses and other artisanal products; these foods are a part of our cultural identity. They reflect generations of commitment to the land and devotion to the processes that yield the greatest achievements in taste. These foods, and the communities that produce and depend on them, are constantly at risk of succumbing to the effects of the fast life, which manifests itself through the industrialization and standardization of our food supply and degradation of our farmland. By reviving the pleasures of the table, and using our tastebuds as our guides, Slow Food Edmonton believes that our food heritage can be saved.

Slow Food Edmonton believes that pleasure and quality in everyday life can be achieved by slowing down, respecting the convivial traditions of the table and celebrating the diversity of the earth’s bounty. Our goal is to put the carriers of this heritage on center stage and educate our membership on the importance of these principles.

Areni Kelleppan, representing Sustainable Food Edmonton

Sustainable Food Edmonton is a non-profit charitable organization focused on raising awareness and initiating programs and projects that result in communities engaged in healthy food and a healthy planet. By offering the following, we connect communities and kids with their food and how it’s produced.

· Community Gardens – where we network over 80 community gardens to share resources, knowledge, and a grant to help gardens get started, expand, or renovate their site.

· Little Green Thumbs – an indoor garden classroom program operating in over 47 schools in our area (and growing every year!). We provide all the materials, training and support to make the garden as success during the school year.

· Yard Share – we connect those looking for land to grow food, with neighbours willing to share their yard space.

· Urban Ag High, a pilot project to help build a community of practice around ag programming for Junior & Senior Highs in our area. We help schools get connected, learn collectively, host workshops and events and find resources for their ag projects.

· City Farm – which doesn’t currently run but we hope to again in the summer of 2015.

These fine presenters will be surrounded by dozens of your favourite foodies and plenty of new connections to grow.

Don’t miss out – get your tickets now!

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