Ready to Go!

It’s online! The Downsizing Donation Guide was funded by a grant I received from Recycle CT one year ago. The Downsizing Donation Guide is available on the home page of the HomeHaven website for all to read and download (www.homehavenvillages.org.).

The goal of The Downsizing Donation Guide is to keep useful items being removed from people’s homes or businesses as they downsize out of the waste stream and out of recycling bins. Its broader mission is to help residents of New Haven County find a new life for these items with groups that will use them.

Forty-three organizations from across New Haven County participated in the project. Each supplied a wishlist of needed items and instructions on how to donate them. Most wishlists are very specific. Some are very short, others long. Some items are for immediate consumption (food); others are meant to provide a lifetime of joy (musical instruments, golf clubs). Most requests are for goods for use in ongoing programs. Some will be sold to raise funds for programming. 

Wishlist requests range from alarm clocks to violins, from garden tools to wheelchairs, from bicycles to pickup trucks [on three wishlists!]. Some wishlists contain such challenging to donate items as musical instruments, pet supplies, medical equipment, and knicknacks!  Many requests are items to fulfill basic human needs: bed linens, canned goods, cleaning supplies, diapers, paper products, toiletries, and towels, all items likely to be left behind if a person is making a long-distance move, transitioning to assisted living, or settling an estate.

The project proved useful even before The Downsizing Donation Guide was completed. One of the participating organizations contacted me to ask if I knew of anyone who might be interested in 200 chair covers they had been offered but could not use. I was able to connect them with someone who was looking for that very thing! 

While the primary purpose of this guide is to find new life for still useful things, it is my hope that as you explore The Downsizing Donation Guide you may also discover some new organizations of interest, or even of service, to you or someone you know.

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”- Vincent Van Gogh

If you make a donation as a result of The Downsizing Donation Guide, please tell the organization how you heard about their needs.

Please share the The Downsizing Donation Guide with friends and colleagues whenever you have the opportunity. Happy downsizing!

On My Radar 9.10.15

Upcoming September 2015 Events in New Haven (#GSCIA)

Get your Green on, New Haveners! You have no excuse for staying home with the plethora of mostly free events coming up. Some days are so event-full that it will take some planning on your part to hit them all. 

Here you go, in chronological order, starting with this Saturday. 

Saturday, September 12

8-10 am, Quinnipiac Meadows Nature Preserve

1040 Quinnipiac Avenue

HAWK WALK and TALK

Free Event. Sponsored by the New Haven Land Trust. 

According to the Land Trust, “It's a great time of year to observe hawks and other migrating birds! Bird expert and past president of the New Haven Bird Club Mike Horn will be giving a guided walk at our Quinnipiac Meadows Nature Preserve this Saturday. All are welcome (except out-of-control children). Rain or shine! If you have them, bring binoculars and see you there!”

Also this Saturday…

Saturday, September 12

GREEN EXPO (11 am -5 pm) 

CT FOLK FESTIVAL (11 am -10 pm) – 10 Years Young!

Edgerton Park, located off Whitney Avenue near the Hamden-New Haven town line. Free Admission!  The full program and list of participants is available here. 

Monday, Sept 14

7:30 PM, BAR, 254 Crown Street, New Haven

New Haven Green Drinks meets at a special day and time in order to participate in TRANSPORTATION on TAP, hosted by goNewHavengo, the group that asks you to “Think outside the car.” Eat pizza, drink beer, and learn about transportation in New Haven. Attendees must be 21 or over.

Tuesday, September 15 - Tuesday, December 1

(with a few exceptions)

5:30 - 7:30 PM

DIVERSE VOICES: Environmental Leaders on Climate Change and the Environment

Kroon Hall, 195 Prospect Street, New Haven

The public is invited and welcome to attend this series of lectures offered as FES810 at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. More here. FREE.

The event-full Saturday, September 19 kicks off with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to walk or bike across the soon to be opened new southbound Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge.

Saturday, September 19

10 am - 3 pm

GRAND OPENING CELEBRATION

on the new Southbound Q-Bridge

Access provided at the intersection of Hamilton Street and Ives Place.

Only pedestrians and bicycles will be allowed on the bridge. The event planners promise family-friendly activities, refreshments, stunning views, and great photo opportunities. More information here. 

From there it’s just a hop and a skip over to the 6th annual East Rock Festival…

Saturday, September 19

11 am - 7 pm

EAST ROCK FESTIVAL

Orange Street between Willow Street and Cottage Street

This free festival celebrates all the East Rock neighborhood has to offer with food vendors, live music, demos, kids’ activities, and information on area non-profits.

And, if you plan it right, you can quench your thirst for a good cause…

Saturday, September 19

4-7 pm

BEER and OYSTERS in the GARDEN

Fred Cervin Bioregional Garden

608 Whitney Avenue

A fundraiser for the New Haven Land Trust. Standard ticket is $30.00 in advance. Support community gardening, environmental education, and nature preserves. More information is available here. 

Friday, September 25

5:30 pm (ish) at the flagpole on the New Haven Green

CRITICAL MASS

Critical Mass is a cycling event held on the last Friday of every month. Part of the worldwide Critical Mass movement, New Haven's “Kinder and Less-Critical Mass” is a monthly celebration of bicycling. The ride is generally slow; length may vary. The size of the group can reach 200 in the summer months! 

There ought to be something in here for just about everybody. Get up. Get out. Go New Haveners, Go!

Signs of Change 7.31.15

All around New Haven there are signs of change, real signs… 

The Yale campus is dotted with signs proclaiming “Urban Meadow” – patches of landscape, planted with wildflower seeds and sparsely tended. The unkempt appearance of some of these plots may be a little tough to get used to, but this “Meadow” (about a mile from downtown New Haven) is a wonder to behold — a sea of Black-Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) in full bloom. 

Rudbeckia hirta, a plant native to all the lower 48 states, is a member of the aster family. It can tolerate a wide range of soils and temperatures, and has no major insect or disease pests. You can read more about Rudbeckia hirta on this USDA factsheet. 

Its flowers attract nectar seeking bees, butterflies, and insects. Its seeds attract birds, as the poop-covered sign above attests. The companion website to the movie Queen of the Sun: What are the bees telling us? recommends planting a large volume of the same type of bee-friendly flowers  in your garden or yard to provide bees with forage. One of the suggestions is Rudbeckia hirta.

These plants bloom from June to October. Note that they do tend to crowd out other flowers growing near them. But if you love Black-Eyed Susans, have lots of sun and plenty of space, and don’t have time to weed, Rudbeckia hirta is the plant for you. 

This particular Urban Meadow is located on upper Prospect Street near the northern border of Yale’s main campus, in front of the planetarium, nestled between Farnam Gardens and Betts House.

Hopeful Highlights from 2014

In anticipation of good things to come in the year ahead, I’d like to share some of the high points of 2014 from my small corner of the world.

Greater New Haven’s citizens stood up for their trees. They came out in record numbers to object to the plans of the state’s utility companies to preemptively, aggressively, trim street trees in response to power outages during 2013’s severe storms. The power companies are still trimming, but they were forced to modify their “Vegetation Management Plans.” 

A new magnolia for YHP

Despite the rainy, cold weather, 650 cyclists braved the elements on April 26 to complete one of three routes in the 6th annual Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride, raising $152,157.55 for 26 environmental groups — the most successful Rock to Rock yet! Check out this article in the New Haven Independent for more. 

Yale University began to offer long-term employees the option of planting a tree in their honor in lieu of the usual commemorative gifts. Here is a photo of a magnolia tree planted outside the Yale Health Plan by volunteers and URI staff during the Yale Day of Service on May 10.

Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven has two rain gardens in their demo lot, constructed as part of a grant from the Greater New Haven Green Fund to divert stormwater from the city’s storm sewers. They were installed by volunteers and NHS staff under the direction of Michael Dietz, Director of U Conn College of Agriculture and Natural Resource’s NEMO Program. The June 13 installation had to be called to a halt due to torrential rain. It was finished on June 26, a real scorcher! The conditions remained harsh for new plantings during the coming weeks; here is a late summer photo. I look forward to seeing how the garden grows this spring. 

Late summer NHS raingarden

New Haven’s Beaver Ponds Park was designated an Urban Oasis. The little spruce we transplanted in the park is thriving in its new surroundings and sprouted some cones.

EcoWorks, a creative reuse center for the arts, opened as a Project Storefront In New Haven’s Mill River district. They sell materials, collected from businesses and institutions, to teachers, artists, crafters and others seeking low-cost art supplies. Check their website for hours and upcoming events and this link if you have materials to donate. 

New Haven Green Drinks had a successful year, under the leadership of an enthusiastic team of co-organizers. The group met 12 times, in 12 different locations over the past year and heard speakers on a broad range of environmental topics. The group welcomes new members, new ideas, and new venues. 

These are some of the many reasons why New Haven is a great place to live. Follow #gscia on Twitter to see what others are sharing.

On a personal note, late last January I enjoyed a long-anticipated hike to see the seals of Año Nuevo with my family. I look forward to more West Coast adventures in the years ahead.  

This fall, I became a Connecticut Certified Advanced Master Gardener and was awarded a pewter trowel pin for my hours of service. Here is a board I made along the way in fulfillment of some of my outreach hours. 

Finally, I have recently taken up knitting. You will have to check back later in 2015 to find out how that is going and exactly what I have managed to knit.

Wishing you and yours a year of peace, health, happiness...

Happy 2015!

Saturday Short Subjects: Get Out and Vote

For many of us this coming Tuesday, November 5, is a very important day — Election Day. In my city of New Haven, Connecticut, we are voting to elect a new mayor for the first time in 20 years!

How the citizens of New Haven vote will have a dramatic impact on the city’s future. Will they vote the party as usual, or will they vote for change? It may well turn out to be a scenario in which every single vote counts. I know I will be at the polls first thing in the morning, and I will be devoting Tuesday to helping my candidate. 

Most of us have had the right to vote since we hit the age of 18. For that we owe the hard work of those brave individuals who fought long and hard to win this right for all Americans. 

Only white, male property owners were eligible to vote in the first presidential election in 1789 (6% of the population). 

The 15th Amendment passed in 1870 declared that the “right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." In reality, it took the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to preventing southern states from any longer finding ways to disenfranchise black voters.

The Women’s Suffrage Movement began in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, but it took until August, 1920 to pass the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote. For photos of the gutsy women whose protests and arrests made the amendment’s passage possible, visit the archives of the Library of Congress. Just think, this happened less than 100 years ago!

Naturalized citizens have to study and pass a test in order to earn the right to vote. Here are the 100 questions on which the citizenship test draws. Did you know all these answers? 

Have a nice weekend. And, don’t forget to vote on Tuesday.

Why Saturday Short Subjects? Some readers may recall  being dropped at the movie theater for the Saturday matinee — two action-packed feature films with a series of short subjects (cartoons or short movies, sometimes a serial cliffhanger) sandwiched in between. Often the short subjects were the most memorable, and enjoyable, part of the morning. That explains the name. The reason behind these particular posts is that we are all short on time. My Short Subject posts should not take me as long to write or you as long to read (or try).

Counting Down to Earth Day 2013: 4.13.13

This is the fourth day of my Counting Down to Earth Day 2013 challenge. Yes, I realize that it's late in the day, but it’s still April 13!

As I continue with the theme of growing things, my fourth tip is a little more specific.

Today’s Tip: PLANT A TREE

Trees are valuable for many reasons.

The Arbor Foundation, founded in 1972, the centennial of the first observance of Arbor Day, is a nonprofit dedicated to the planting of trees. The Foundation has compiled statistics from all kinds of sources about why trees are good for the planet, wildlife, and real estate values!

Here are just a few:

• “The net cooling effect of a young, healthy tree is equivalent to ten room-size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day.” —U.S. Department of Agriculture

• “Healthy, mature trees add an average of 10 percent to a property’s value.” —USDA Forest Service

• “The planting of trees means improved water quality, resulting in less runoff and erosion. This allows more recharging of the ground water supply. Wooded areas help prevent the transport of sediment and chemicals into streams.” —USDA Forest Service

• “In laboratory research, visual exposure to settings with trees has produced significant recovery from stress within five minutes, as indicated by changes in blood pressure and muscle tension.” —Dr. Roger S. Ulrich Texas A&M University

• “There are about 60– to 200-million spaces along our city streets where trees could be planted. This translates to the potential to absorb 33 million more tons of CO² every year, and saving $4 billion in energy costs.” —National Wildlife Federation

New Haven, Connecticut, where I live, appreciates the importance of trees. The City has undertaken an ambitious program — TreeHaven | 10 K — with the goal of planting 10,000 trees in 5 years. The trees are being planted by Urban Resources Institute (URI), the group I am supporting in next Saturday’s Rock to Rock Ride. 

If you  live in New Haven, you can request a tree, to be planted by URI, at no cost to you. But first you must sign a pledge that you will care for your new tree. Newly planted trees require 25 gallons of water per week during the growing seasons (from bud-break to leaf-drop) for the first three years.

If you decide to plant a tree, please think carefully before you buy one. Think of your site. How much sun do you have? What is your zone? What is your soil like? How much space do you have? Talk to an arborist or a reputable nursery before making your final decision.

To start you off, here is a slideshow of trees you should NEVER plant. 

Come back tomorrow for a new tip as we count down to Earth Day on April 22.

Love Your Mother (Earth). Pass it on. Together we can make a difference. Yes, we can!

2012: The International Year of Cooperatives

The United Nations declared 2012 the International Year of Cooperatives. 

UN international years are declared to draw attention to and encourage action on major issues. The International Year of Cooperatives was intended to raise public awareness of the invaluable contributions of cooperative enterprises to poverty reduction, employment generation, and social integration as well as to highlight the strengths of the cooperative business model as an alternative means of doing business and furthering socioeconomic development.

The year was launched at the UN in a program in October, 2011, shortly before New Haven’s Elm City Market, a co-op, opened its doors with 750 members. The market’s membership has grown in the last year to over 1710 today.

In November the UN held closing ceremonies for the Year of Cooperatives, which included a short film festival. The seven winning films raise awareness about cooperatives – what they are, and what they do – and encourage support and development of cooperative enterprises by individuals and their communities. Each of the films also highlights at least one of the 10 key messages of the International Year of Cooperatives:

• Cooperative enterprises build a better world.
• Cooperative enterprises are member owned, member serving and member driven
• Cooperatives empower people
• Cooperatives improve livelihoods and strengthen the economy
• Cooperatives enable sustainable development
• Cooperatives promote rural development
• Cooperatives balance both social and economic demands
• Cooperatives promote democratic principles
• Cooperatives and gender: a pathway out of poverty
• Cooperatives: a sustainable business model for youth

You can view the films here. I suggest starting with the 2 minute short, “What’s to Love About Food Co-Ops,” produced in the US by the National Cooperative Grocers Association, which playfully describes the many reasons why you should be a Co-Op member.

The film’s message, in short, is that co-ops sell a wide range of healthy food and are good for the local and regional economy. As a member of a new co-op myself, I can attest that being a member of a co-op has tangible and personal economic benefits. 

If you live in the New Haven area, it is easy to be a part of the co-op movement. Stop by the Elm City Market. Check out the photo wall of happy member faces. See if you can spot me there. Why not join me? You can be a happy member, too.  

More on the Emerald Ash Borer

When the Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilus planipennis) was detected in Prospect on July 16,  2012, Connecticut joined the ranks of 15 other states where infestations of the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) have been found. [Details on its life cycle and the press conference which announced its discovery can be found in my initial blog post of July, 21.] The EAB feeds exclusively on ash trees and is responsible for the death and decline of tens of millions of ash trees, of all species, from the Mid-West to New York state and south to Tennessee. Infestation of an ash by EAB usually leads to the tree's death, often within two to three years.

How was the EAB discovered?

Purple detection traps, known as “Barney traps” because of their color, baited with manuka oil (a chemical lure to attract any EABs in the area), have been used in Connecticut since 2008. They are hung in ash trees in May, checked three times, and then removed in September. Initially, a total of twenty traps were deployed. In 2011, in anticipation of the EAB's arrival from New York, 940 traps went up. In 2012, 540 traps were hung in more carefully targeted areas. Traps, however, were not the means by which the EAB’s presence in Connecticut was first detected.

Dr. Claire Rutledge hanging a purple trap.
Photo by Mioara Scott.

The EAB is a prey of Cerceris fumipennis, nicknamed the “Smoky-Winged Beetle Bandit,” a ground-nesting, non-stinging native wasp, which hunts beetles in the family Buprestidae, which includes EAB. Scientists along the eastern seaboard and in parts of the Midwest have been using Cerceris as a bio-surveillance tool. They have recruited an army of citizen scientists as “wasp watchers,” who monitor baseball fields adjacent to woodlands during the peak of Cerceris hunting time — late morning to early afternoon on hot, sunny summer days. Their assignment? To intercept the Cerceris prey before she (always a female) can get her catch into her underground burrow. If the EAB is in the area, it is evident in the Cerceris catch. Dr. Claire Rutledge, a scientist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES) in New Haven, has been assembling a cadre of Cerceris watchers in the state for the past several years. This past summer, the watchers included 17 Master Gardeners who signed on after wasp watching was approved as an official outreach activity.

Mioara Scott, who has worked with Dr. Rutledge for five summers, was the one who found Connecticut’s first confirmed EAB — in Canfield Park in Prospect, in northern New Haven County. She caught the Cerceris wasp carrying the female EAB that then was sent to USDA Animal and Plant Inspection Service (USDA APHIS-PPQ) offices for verification. After the initial discovery, watchers captured 25 more EABs at Canfield, and three more at nearby Fusco Field. An EAB was caught in Beacon Falls later that week. EAB was also discovered in a catch sample submitted by the wasp watcher (a Master Gardener) assigned to Canfield Park. This triggered an early check of purple traps in the area. A trap in Prospect yielded three, and EABs were found in traps in Naugatuck State Forest and in Bethany. Summer surveillance in Fairfield, Litchfield, and Middlesex counties has not yielded any EABs; the newly confirmed infestation seems to be confined to the Prospect area. 

The Prospect, CT EAB
(Actual size approximately 1/2" long)
Photo by Katherine Dugas

Why Is everyone so concerned? 

Ash makes up 4% to 15% of Connecticut’s forest and is a common urban tree. An important source of food for a wide range of native wildlife, ash is already in decline because of a disease called ash yellows. There is concern that the EAB could reduce the population of ash in the state to a point where it might not be able to recover, potentially causing a ripple effect in the ecosystem of Connecticut’s forests.

How did the EAB travel to Prospect? 

Prospect is a good distance from Dutchess County, New York, along the Hudson, where EAB was detected earlier this year. Some speculate that the EAB may have blown into Prospect on storm winds, but more likely the EAB arrived on firewood. The EAB has great flight potential. Movement of firewood containing EAB to a new location gives the beetle the opportunity for rapid expansion of its territory —the quickest way to spread the infestation. 

What are the current action steps and goals?

• Establishing the borders of the current infestation. Now that wasp-watching season has ended, and the EAB’s adult life cycle stage is about over, means of detection will shift to physical examination of trees in the Naugatuck State Forest for signs of EAB presence. 
• Slowing the infestation’s spread. On August 9, the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station issued the terms of a quarantine on the movement of hardwood and hardwood products out of New Haven County, to take effect immediately. You can read the full text of the quarantine here.

What can you do to stop the EAB?

• Inform everyone you know.
• Don’t Move Firewood.
• Be alert. Watch for visible signs of infestation. If you see something, immediately call CAES (203-974-8474) or email: CAES.StateEntomologist@ct.gov. 
• Become a wasp watcher. Volunteers normally watch once a week for an hour or two at a time during the six to eight week Cerceris hunting season, from late June until early August. Visit cerceris.info for more information, and then email Dr. Claire Rutledge (Claire.Rutledge@ct.gov) if you are interested in joining the program. You will need to commit to a one-hour training session and approximately ten hours of active wasp watching.

Thanks to Cerceris and the wasp watchers, we know EAB has arrived in the state. Connecticut now has an action plan. People are mobilized. Let’s hope it’s in time to save Connecticut’s ash trees.

Meatless Monday: The Heirlooms of Old Wethersfield

Just off I-91, between the city of Hartford and the suburban sprawl of Rocky Hill, lies quiet Old Wethersfield, a popular destination for tourists and schoolchildren wishing to get a glimpse of colonial American life through such attractions as the 1715 Buttolph-Wiliams House, the setting for The Witch of Blackbird Pond.

The home of Comstock & Ferre Co., the oldest seed company in New England, the town is also a mecca for organic gardeners. The heirloom seed company was having a party for its 201st birthday when we happened to pull into town yesterday. There were musicians, period re-enactors, vendors, and speakers passionate about issues related to GMO crops, including Bill Duesing, Director of CT-NOFA. 

Comstock & Ferre started in 1811 as Wethersfield Gardens, which was sold to Judge Franklin Comstock and his son William in 1838.  Inspired by the Shakers of Enfield, Connecticut, who were the first to package and sell garden seeds in colorful packets, William adopted the practice and plied his seeds in lidded display boxes of his own design to shopkeepers throughout New England and as far west as the Mississippi. In 1845, William took on a partner — Henry Ferre. William Comstock retired in 1871, and the growing company was operated late into the 20th century by four generations of the Willard family. 

Its newest owners are the Gettle family – Jere, Emilee, and daughter Sasha, who also own and operate Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Mansfield, Missouri (their home and first business) and the Seed Bank in Petaluma, California. Baker Creek Founder Jere Gettle planted his first garden at 3, and in 1998, at the age of 17, printed the first small Baker Creek Heirloom Seed catalog, which now offers 1300 varieties of seed in its beautiful 196 pages. The Gettles collect seeds from around the world and only sell non-hybrid, non-GMO, non-treated and non-patented seed. They work extensively to supply free seeds to “many of the world’s poorest countries” as well as to school gardens and educational projects in the US. Their mission is to “educate everyone about a better, safer food supply and fight gene-altered, Frankenfood and the companies that support it.” You can read more about the fascinating family here, here, and here.

The Gettles’s dream for the grounds and eleven buildings of the Comstock & Ferre property is to “erase modern influences around the company and return it to something that William Comstock or Stephen F. Willard could recognize, if they were to walk through the doors. Comstock will be a type of living history museum dedicated to agriculture and our diverse inheritance of heirloom seed varieties that are in danger of extinction…”

Old Wethersfield is a short drive from New Haven and is worth the trip just to visit Comstock & Ferre. In nice weather you could easily spend a day with so much to see and do and a wide range of eating options near the attractions (as well as places suitable for a picnic). Just remember not to visit on Saturday if you want to step inside Comstock & Ferre. 

You can also peruse the Comstock & Ferre and Baker Creek Heirloom catalogs and shop from them online.  

I often blog on food, food issues, or topics related to growing things on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Meatless Monday: It’s Food Day Today!

Happy Food Day! Yes, today, October 24th, is a very special Meatless Monday. The goal of this first annual Food Day, sponsored by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, is “to bring together Americans from all walks of life to push for healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way.” Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) are the Honorary Co-Chairs for Food Day 2011. There are events large and small scheduled to take place around the country. Click here to find an event near you.  

In my city of New Haven, CT there will be lots of things happening over the course of the day. Here are some highlights:

• In a morning event, second graders from New Haven’s Columbus School will walk to the Chabaso Bakery Farm for a teach-in with New Haven Public Schools Food Director “Food Dude” Tim Cipriano and his colleague, dietitian Sarah Bourque. The students will be the first to taste Chabaso Bakery’s new “Ollie Bread,” made with all natural ingredients and whole grains such as wheat, honey, raisins, millet, flax, and rye. The bread will be served in New Haven public schools.

• At 5 pm on the Yale campus, Chef René Redzepi, owner of Noma restaurant in Copenhagen, Denmark, named the “world’s best restaurant” in both 2010 and 2011, will present a talk co-sponsored by the Yale Sustainable Food Project and the Yale Agrarian Studies Department. Redzepi goes beyond the usual farm to table route to source everything locally: he is a forager. The story goes that on one particular day during a very harsh winter, the only hyper-local ingredients he and his team could procure were some dark blue carrots which had wintered over in an icy field. Redzepi is reported to have turned the leathery carrots into a delicious dish after braising them for hours in goat’s butter and serving them with fresh chamomile tips and sorrel.  For more, check out Dishes from Noma: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine. 

• At 6 pm the public is invited to the City’s Barnard Environmental School for some healthy snacks and a screening of What’s On Your Plate?,  “a witty and provocative documentary produced and directed by award-winning Catherine Gund about kids and food politics.” Admission is free. There will be door prizes! City Seed’s New Haven Cooks will be available for purchase.

Even if there are no scheduled events in your area, you can still observe Food Day. Here is a link to send a message to Congress asking for support of Food Day's goals. Here is another to special Food Day recipes. 

Wherever you are, whatever you do today, be well and eat well. Happy Food Day. Have a great week.

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal  health and the health of our planet.”

PS Please don’t forget about the frozen beans from China. The petition count is still rising, but at a slower rate than it has been, still going for 500. If you are interested in signing on, you will find my widget one post back. Thanks.