CALLING ALL GOOD FOOD AMBASSADORS
(THAT WOULD BE YOU!!
)
We are finally doing it! We are finally coming up with a way that people can help us
spread the Food & Faith word to area congregations within their own faith community.
So many of you over the past four years have asked us how you can volunteer with Food
& Faith, and how you can help us carry out our mission and bring others on board the
Good Food Movement. Now, thanks to a generous grant from a local foundation, we are
excited to announce our new Baltimore Food & Faith Ambassador Program.
This fall, we will gather volunteers who are interested in how food relates to environmental sustainability, social and economic justice for farmers and other food system
workers, healthy food availability for those in need, humane treatment of farm animals
and, of course, faith.
Once a week for four weeks we will work with our new Ambassadors to teach them how
to talk to congregations about food production and distribution issues, and how to help
those same congregations think about making positive changes in their own policies and
practices.
But before we do this, we need your help. We want to make sure that our Ambassadors
learn only what is most helpful and best addresses their interests and needs, so we
have created a quick, 5 minute survey that will help guide us as we design the
program. If you think you might like to become a Food & Faith Ambassador
(and really, who wouldn’t?!), please follow the link to the survey here and share
your thoughts with us:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BFFPAmbassadorSurvey
We would be ever so grateful. Thank you and keep your eyes open for an announcement
with further program details to come in the next month or two.
“FRESH” RESOURCES FOR CONGREGATIONS
The film FRESH is now offering congregations 50% off the cost of the
license fee to screen the movie, along with a number of excellent faithbased discussion guides for Christian, Jewish, and Interfaith audiences
alike. FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers, and business people
across America who are re-inventing our food system. Each has witnessed the rapid
transformation of our agriculture into an industrial model, and confronted the consequences: food contamination, environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources,
and morbid obesity. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision —and hope! — for a future of our food and our planet.
SEASON’S ALMOST OVER FOR GARDEN GRANTS!
SUMMER 2011
Volume 4, Issue 3
BFFP’s mission:
To partner with Baltimore area
faith communities and religious
organizations of all faith traditions to promote a just, safe, and
trustworthy food system that
allows us to produce what is
needed now and for future generations in a way that protects
people, animals, air, land, and
water.
FOOD OF THE SEASON
Honey has been used since ancient times as both food and
medicine, and beekeeping to produce honey dates back to at least
700 BC. For many centuries,
honey was regarded as
sacred due to its wonderfully sweet properties as well as its rarity. It
was used mainly in religious ceremonies to pay tribute to the gods,
as well as to embalm the deceased. For a long time in history,
its use in cooking was reserved
only for the wealthy since it was
so expensive that only they could
afford it. Thankfully, that has
changed, and we can all enjoy
beautiful, miraculous honey. It is
best in the summer and fall when
it’s at its freshest, so now is the
time to indulge. (WARNING:
Babies under 12 months should
hold off enjoying honey until
they’re a year old as it can contain
toxins that may lead to a lifethreatening disease for infants.)
http://www.whfoods.com/
Calling all gardeners! Don’t forget that the BFFP has Garden Grants available in amounts up to $750 to help your faith community or religious school start a veggie garden. Applications
are already pouring in, and funds are limited, so make sure to apply ASAP. (The deadline to apply is August 15th.)
Visit our website for more information.
Honey Baked Apples
Adapted from KVeller.com
Photo from Cafe Lynnylu
Our recent film screening of Vanishing of the Bees has us all excited about honey, especially since
we learned that you can easily find a wide variety of locally produced, delicious honey nearby
(check out area farmers’ markets or join Baltimore Honey, B’More’s first honey CSA). This is
also a great dish to share at Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year taking place starting 9/29 this
year) when people look back at the year they before and ―start anew with wishes for sweetness
come,‖ traditionally dipping apples in honey. L’shanah tovah! (For a good year!)
4 baking apples, such as Cortland, Fuji,
Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, or Rome
8 teaspoons honey
4 teaspoons unsalted butter
4 teaspoons lemon juice, preferably freshly squeezed
1 1/2 cups yogurt or ice cream for serving (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Scoop cores and stems out of each apple, keeping base of apple intact. Peel a strip of skin from
around top of each cavity. Place apples in a buttered baking dish small enough to hold them snuggly and fill each cavity with 2
teaspoons honey and 1 teaspoon each butter and lemon juice. Bake for 25 minutes, then cover with foil and bake until tender,
another 10 to 20 minutes more. Transfer apples to serving bowls and drizzle with juice from baking dish.
Serve warm, with yogurt or ice cream, if desired.
PROJECT SPOTLIGHT
Baltimore Jewish Environmental Network
5425 Mt. Gilead Road
Reisterstown, MD 21136
Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin, Founder
Rabbi Cardin came to the very first BFFP meeting way back in July of 2007 when we gathered a small group of local clergy
together to ask what they thought about starting up the Project. Rabbi Cardin had recently learned that agriculture was
responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transportation sector in the U.S. after attending a talk hosted
by the Center for a Livable Future. She was anxious to get the synagogue community on board with making some positive
changes in the ways food is served and enjoyed. Here, she shares some of BJEN’s good works and plans for the future:
―I recently presided over a baby-naming ceremony where the family wanted to launch the journey of this precious new life
upon a raft of green. The event’s menu was largely seasonal and plentiful. The spread was full and festive. The dishes were a
café-au-lait color, a legacy of their natural, unbleached paper source. The flatware was eggshell. From first forkful to final
flourish, the utensils were reusable or compostable. Beige – it appears - is the new green.
Beauty is a matter of cultural expectations, and celebrations are seeking to change what we see as beautiful. Sacred occasions
are increasingly marked by locally grown foods, seasonal dishes, and waste-free celebrations.
Resources guiding the way are on the rise. BJEN and the local chapter of the American Jewish Congress are working to craft a
guide for the Baltimore Jewish community to promote earth-healthy celebrations. From local sources of ―green‖ invitations to
celebrating at nearby sites (less driving), to responsible food choices, to sustainable accoutrements and decorations, to presents
and their presentation, celebrations can become moments to make earth-healthy choices the normative fare.
BJEN, a community-wide organization with 13 member synagogues dedicating themselves to becoming more sustainable, is
exploring joint-purchasing initiatives that will enable congregations, schools, and agencies to buy non-toxic cleaning products;
recycled, compostable paper goods; and commercial compost services at affordable prices.
Several synagogues are creating community vegetable gardens – with their schools and adult members—creating crossgenerational experiences that help participants physically reconnect with the wonders of the earth.
We are setting up the infrastructure for a gleaning project, in which we map the location of urban fruit trees, whose fruit-fall
often goes to waste, uniting tree owners and gleaners in capturing this harvest so those in need may eat more healthfully.
We do not see all these as discrete efforts, comprising a burdensome, endless checklist of tasks to accomplish. We see this all
as one, as simply new ways of doing what we already do. Instead of celebrating in this way we are celebrating that way. Instead of creating this kind of yard we are creating that kind. Instead of buying those utensils we are buying these. Instead of
thinking of our place on the earth this way, we are thinking of it that way.
All these diverse acts are but one connected act; all flow from the same call, the same impulse: a desire to tend well to this vibrant earth we inherited and which we must soon hand on to our children.
When seen that way, it all seems so … natural.‖
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
God comes to feed us, to fill us, to love us. ―God pervades the world in the same way as honey in the comb,‖ says
Tertullian. Abundant beyond our wildest hopes, this bread is everywhere before us, sweet, like honey in our
mouths, given to sustain us.
- Douglas Burton-Christie
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
Film Screenings of “Out to Pasture” and “Saving Seeds”
Join us for the final event of Baltimore Food & Faith’s 2001 Summer Film
Series as we watch two short documentaries that celebrate the farmers who
celebrate diversity in the fields. FREE.
Tuesday, 8/16/11, 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Stony Run Friends Meeting House
5116 North Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21210
Almost all of the animals we eat in this country are raised in so-called confinement operations, facilities that house thousands of chickens, cows or
hogs. However, there are still farmers who raise animals outdoors, in diversified operations. Some would call them backward, but these farmers believe
they are on the cutting edge of animal agriculture. Out to Pasture tells their
stories. (34 minutes)
For more info, visit Baltimore Food & Faith
Saving Seeds portraits Bill Best, an heirloom bean and tomato farmer of
Berea, Kentucky, who has been saving seed and growing unusual varieties
since the 1960s - long before it was trendy to do so. A finalist for the Golden
Snail Award from Slow Food, this film highlights the work of just one unsung hero in the movement to protect diversity in our agricultural system. (20
minutes)
Starts Saturday and , 9/10 and 9/11/11 and
runs the following five weekends
Home Scale Permaculture Design Course
Heathcote Community
21300 Heathcote Road
Freeland, MD 21053
For more info or to register, call (410) 3579523, e-mail [email protected], or
visit Heathcote Permaculture Design Course
Learn ethical principles and practical skills to help you produce for yourself
with local natural resources and by mimicking natural ecosystems. Topics
include energy efficient planning for house, gardens, orchard, woodlot and
wildlife habitat; farm animal forage systems; beneficial microclimate; urban
strategies for food and energy production; sustainable community economics
and food security. Earn your Permaculture Design Apprentice Certificate.
Sliding scale $900 to $1,100. Register by 8/10 for a $100 early bird discount!
What’s Gotten into Us: Staying Healthy in a Toxic World
Wednesday, 9/21/11, 7:00 PM
Enoch Pratt Free Library Central Branch
400 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
For more info, visit Baltimore Green Works
McKay Jenkins, Professor of English at the University of Delaware and former journalist, discusses his new book which takes a look at the way everyday things that may be making us sick, and shows how we can protect ourselves by making wiser, healthier choices. He examines the way products are
made and (rarely) regulated; the way synthetic chemicals enter our bodies;
and the latest research about what this chemical ―body burden‖ may be doing
to our health. It looks at our shopping habits (including a small bit about
food), our drinking water, and our lawn care, and it ponders how advertising
and marketing have effected our choices. FREE.
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Questions or comments, please e-mail us at [email protected], or call 410-502-5069.