This blog has moved

Not far … just over to Slow Food Harrisburg.

Radical Again

This is the last post here, and the first post on Slow Food Harrisburg. I’ve been vexed by my current radicalization about food, because I don’t know if it will interest anyone but me. And I didn’t want to keep writing about Slow Food on a page supposedly devoted to eating out in Harrisburg, which definitely has a Restaurant Row implication.

Anyway, I renamed the blog, moved all the past posts here, and will laboriously move all the links, which will give me a chance to reconsider them.

And it’s all about slow food.

The question today is this:

sourcing food

True Food was established in 2000 as a means to engage non-farmers in the struggle against genetically engineered crops. It’s now a 40,000 member network dedicated to stopping the genetic engineering of our food, farms and future, and working with others to create a socially just, democratic and sustainable food system.

The True Food food list is really two lists — a list of real foods, and a list of Frankenfoods. genetically modified organisms scientifically designed to separate you from your money and your connection to good taste.

Take that most utilitarian meal, the TV dinner … or Heat & Serve meal, as it’s called by Big Food.

Here’s a True Food list of edible Heat & Serve meals:

– Amy’s Kitchen Chili
(Medium & Spicy) Chili with Vegetables

– Annie’s Naturals P’Sghetti with Tomato Sauce All-Star Pasta with Tomato Sauce

– Bernie O’s Pasta with Tomato sauce

– Bearitos Chili Black Bean Chili Spicy Chili Baked Beans

– Ginny’s Vegan Foods Savory Soy Chili Classic Ratatouille Roasted Red Pepper Chili Mexican Fiesta Stew

– Grandma Millina’s Kids Meals Pasta Rings in 3 Cheese Sauce Vegetarian Franks & Beans

– Health Valley (Hain/Celestial) Chili Fajita Turkey Chili & Beans 3 Bean Chili

– Yves Veggie Cuisine Veggie Chili Veggie Country Stew Veggie Macaroni Veggie Penne

While here are the Frankenfood dinners:

– Chef Boyardee (ConAgra) Beefaroni, Macaroni & Cheese, Mini Ravioli, ABC’s & 123’s

– Dinty Moore (Hormel) Beef Stew, Turkey Stew, Chicken & Dumplings

– Hormel Chili with Beans, Chili No Beans, Vegetarian Chili with Beans

– Kids’ Kitchen (Hormel) Spaghetti Rings with Meatballs, Macaroni & Cheese, Pizza Wedges with 3 Cheese

– Franco-American (Campbell’s) Spaghetti O’s, Mini Ravioli, Power Rangers Pasta in Sauce

Happy Christmas

and Happy Solstice … here’s a nice read from John Mariani about growing up with holiday feasts.

Crimes against food

While we were sleeping, Big Food took over the table. Not just our table, most of the tables in the world. Through genetic manipulation, strong marketing and good lobbyists, six companies now control 98 percent of seed sales in the world. They have reduced the number of vegetables that are not corporate hybrids by 90 percent.

“The ultimate unnatural product of genetic engineering is a ‘terminator gene’ that causes a crop to commit genetic suicide after one generation …

Roasted Veggies, sweet and hot

I don’t know where you get your root vegetables, but mine don’t come spicy … and i likes ‘em that way.

So standing in the kitchen with a glass of red wine and Jean Shepherd’s “Christmas Story” on fridge TV, I went through a bunch of recipes. Darren McGavin was changing the tire and when Ralphie let loose the F-bomb, I said to myself “WTF!” There were no interesting recipes!

As a public service project, I set out to design the perfect (and perfectly easy) hot and sweet root veggie roast.

Slow Food Dinner

Three local cheesemakers will present their best products and three chefs will make a feast from them at the first Slow Food Harrisburg banquet on Friday, Jan. 25, at HACC’s Wildwood Conference Center.

The PA Farmstead & Artisan Cheese Alliance picked the artisan farms: Keswick Creamery, Otterbein Acres and Three Belle Cheeses.

Guest Chef Jason Viscount of Bricco created the menu with Chef Instructors Michael Finch and Jim Switzenberg of HACC.

A Cheesemaker’s Reception opens the evening at 6:30, with wine, samples and discussions from the three producers.

The appetizer is a Roasted Beet and Oterbein’s Sheep’s Milk Feta Salad …

HACC Culinary Gala

Wondering what to do for dinner Wednesday night?

There are some tickets left for the Senior Culinary Students’ Reception at HACC, a Global Cuisine Gala. The students did everything from menu design to ordering to receiving to — tomorrow night — cooking and serving. Tickets are $20 at the door, or from faculty secretary Ragin El-Shater, rlelshat@hacc.edu, 780-3248.

Butlered appetizers start the evening at 6:30:

* Creamy Mushroom Phyllo Pockets with Red Pepper Sauce
* Black Olive Tapenade in Grape Tomatoes
* Crab and Avocado Tostadas
* Prosciutto with Melon on Wheat
* New Potatoes with Gorgonzola and Walnuts

Meat and Heat

If you have not read Bill Buford’s “Heat,” an account of the writer as budding culinarian, you should remedy that. The guy can write.

Here, for instance, is a paragraph from his review in the New Yorker of three carnivorous

Need help with goats

And soys, and rices.  I’m doing a story about milk that doesn’t come from cows.  I have experts and grocers, but I’d like to hear from people who drink goat’s milk, rice milk or some other form of non-cow drink.

If you do, you can email me me at pcarroll@patriot-news.com or paddydear@epix.net.