food for life  in the new millennium

a gathering about the source and protection of life
held in beautiful rural tennessee — Jun 3-6, 2010

Our twelfth annual comprehensive food conference includes skill-building workshops as well as discussion-oriented political dialogues.

Plan to attend for the week, weekend or even just a day.

Learn various food preservation strategies including canning, fermentation (sauerkraut, kimchi, tempeh, wine, beer, mead and champagne) as well as different methods of cooking, diet choices, health and nutrition. Attend workshops on edible and medicinal plants, seed saving, permaculture, biodynamic and organic gardening practices. Engage in theoretical and political explorations of the social and ecological implications of industrial agriculture. Discuss strategies for mobilizing against biotech and agribusiness, and promoting sustainable community-based food systems instead of global monopolies.

All workshops at the sequatchie valley institute are intentionally affordable using a sliding scale based on your income. Food exchange is available.

We ask $25 – $50 (sliding scale based on your ability to pay) per adult, per day, which includes meals and overnight camping. Ala Carte workshops are $10 for those who can’t attend a full day. Food trade (must be approved in advance) can trim $15 per day. Children, $10/day (parents are responsible for their own child care). For food trade, please contact us quickly to discuss our needs and your potential contributions, we prefer bulk and non-perishable, in case of duplicate donations; fresh food is okay, too.

Registration

Online Registration Form »
…or call us at (423) 949-5922

Food for Life 2010 — Schedule

(Schedule will evolve as we add workshops and presenters – please call if you want to be sure about a particular workshop)

Food for Life is run on Central Daylight Time.

THURSDAY, June 3

10:00 – Tour of Sequatchie Cove Farm

(lunch is on your own…)

1:00 -4:00 ARRIVALS AT MOONSHADOW, TENT SET-UP

Theatre and Community Games
All ages. Come to any or all sessions. Facilitators: Jeannie Cerulean, Maya Aurelia, Patrick Ironwood.
Playing is good for the heart of the community. No experience necessary. These games are derived from improvisation in the theatre, Soma, and festival play.
On Thurs during tent set up 5pm-6pm

4:00-6:00 * WILD WINE, MEADS, AND HERBAL ELIXERS: an Exploration into Fermented Magic Medicine & Party Drinks (Patrick Ironwood and Marissa Percoco) – We will gather materials from the garden & the woods, then brew various wines, meads & brews for everyone to take home. Please either bring your own honey (1qt/gallon of mead) or local honey will be available for $5/#. In addition, please bring 1(or more) gallon jugs (wide mouth with lid preferred), and any fruit or herbs to share; we will also harvest whatever is in season from the surrounding forest and farm.

6:15 DINNER – FERMENTATION POT LUCK – Please bring your favorite ferments to share with everyone during our first evening together. Plan to share recipes and stories…

7:30 WELCOME CIRCLE and Vision Sharing – We’ll open Food for Life this year with a circle in which we will brainstorm about ways folks can reclaim food from corporate control. Bring ideas, visions, and fantasies of grassroots action to create better food choices. In our circle we will share our visions and inspire one another to action. (or this can be changed – it’s up to whoever is facilitating the opening circle – this is what we did last year and it’s already up on the svi website for this year’s schedule as well…)

FRIDAY, June 4

8:00-9:00 BREAKFAST

9:15 MORNING CIRCLE

9:30-12:30 * FERMENTATION OVERVIEW (Sandor Katz) – Experience how simple it is to harness the transformational power of microorganisms to make foods and beverages more delicious, more nutritious, more digestible, and more stable. Learn about the healing qualities and nutritional importance of live-culture ferments, as well as their illustrious history and integral role in human cultural evolution. Empower yourself with simple techniques for fermenting these healthful foods in your home. Be part of the fermentation revival! We will make sauerkraut, discuss kefir and yogurt, wild yeast alcoholic beverages and much more.

12:00 EAT MY WORDS –  Storytime with Michelle Kimmons

12:45-2:00 LUNCH

CHOICE OF AFTERNOON SESSIONS:

FOR KIDS OF ALL AGES:

2:15-5:00

* BREAD MAKING/BAKING W/ KIDS (Tricia Baehr) – Kids of all ages will learn how to measure, mix, knead and bake bread from scratch…we will explore the rising process, developing gluten with kneading, shaping and baking.

* HOW TO MAKE BUTTER (Tricia Baehr) – Start with cream and watch how butter is made in an old fashioned hand crank churn while our bread dough is rising. Rinsing and salting and shaping butter. Kids will learn how butter doesn’t come from a plastic tub in the supermarket and how great it tastes on freshley baked bread.

FOR ADULTS OF ALL AGES:

2:15-3:15 * SLOW FOOD, FARM TO SCHOOL, PRESERVING FARMLAND (Trish King) – Discussion on the philosophy of Slow Food USA: promoting good, clean, and fair food. How will a good, clean, and fair food system benefit communities? What are the implications for institutional food systems such as school lunches? What will happen to our local food economy as land use changes and farmland is threatened by sprawl? From a global movement to the local food scene, we’ll discuss what it means to live Slow.

3:30-5:00 * THE MEDICINAL PANTRY (Rachel Fee-Prince) – Learn what common foods and culinary herbs/spices can also be part of the home apothecary. As time allows we can cover everything from childhood issues, colds/flu to chronic illness.

Theatre and Community Games
All ages. Come to any or all sessions. Facilitators: Jeannie Cerulean, Maya Aurelia, Patrick Ironwood.
Playing is good for the heart of the community. No experience necessary. These games are derived from improvisation in the theatre, Soma, and festival play.
Fri 4pm-5pm

5:15 DINNER

6:45 * THE WAY TO HEALTH THROUGH FOOD AND HOW NUTRITIONAL SCIENCE CAN HELP (joel kimmons) – Lets talk about nourishment- ecology and where we fit in- how can we live an inspired gastronomic experience while nourishing the earth and all her communities. Local food, CSAs, farmers markets, community gardens, green spaces, school gardens, cooking, eating, and how to be more than just poop factories. Bring short questions (or don’t) and we will work towards the best answers in a real world and whole world perspective.

SATURDAY, June 5

8:00-9:00 BREAKFAST

9:15 MORNING CIRCLE

9:30-10:15 * CHOICE OF WORKSHOPS:

FOR KIDS OF ALL AGES:

* COMPOSTING 101 (Tricia Baehr) – One of the most important things we can learn these days is how to compost. With more and more people learning to grow their own food, nutrient rich fertile soil starts with home composting. Kids will learn what to compost and what not to compost. The science of how things break down and the importance of composting.

FOR ADULTS OF ALL AGES:

* SAFE AND HEALTHY WAYS TO SAVE YOUR EXTRA FOOD – PART ONE (Carol Kimmons) – Safe and Healthy Food Preservation. This hands-on workshop will cover fun and easy methods of canning, pickling, freezing, and drying your surplus from the garden or market. Materials and instruction booklets included.

10:30-12:00 * CHOICE OF WORKSHOPS

FOR KIDS OF ALL AGES:

* PLAY WITH YER FOOD (Michelle Kimmons) – Hope your imaginations are hungry, because Michelle is cookin’ up some creative fun! This year’s theme is “You Art What You Eat.” In the great artistic tradition of portraiture, we will compose self-portraits using stuff found in the kitchen. Glue will be
flowing, beans will be bouncin’!

FOR ADULTS OF ALL AGES:

* Fat, Fat, Fat: Making Ghee and Rendering Lard (Rachel and Daniel Fee-Prince) – We will make ghee and begin the process of making lard from local foraged hog fat. All the while discussing the positive role these nourishing and delicious fats can play in our lives. Both products will be available to take home later that evening.

12:15-1:30 LUNCH + Discuss! Discussion will include grass roots development in Central America and the 3rd world, and down to earth opportunities to get involved (Sandy Hepler) 2/3 World Development: the outlook, especially related to food and health – 95% of the world’s population growth in coming decades will occur at the edges of tropical cities. Is there any plan, or hope for sane development, and a healthy life for these people? How can they feed themselves? And can we help? Explore these issues with Sandy Hepler, based on many years of experience working on related matters in Nicaragua.

1:45-2:45 * Appalachian Heirloom Seeds and Foodways (Jim Veteto, Ph.D.)

Mirroring the diversity of bioregional natural flora, Southern/Central Appalachia is the center of agricultural biodiversity in the US, Canada, and northern Mexico. Appalachian homegardeners and farmers are nurturing close to 2000 documented folk taxa of traditional vegetable and fruit varieties. This workshop will present the results of a decade of research on Appalachian agrobiodiversity from a leading scholar in the field, discuss traditional ways of preparing Appalachian foods along with healthy alternatives, recommend heirloom varieties for Appalachian gardens, and provide seed packets for interested gardeners.

Jim Veteto, Ph.D., is assistant professor of applied environmental anthropology at The University of North Texas (UNT), the Director of The Southern Seed Legacy project, and Director of the Laboratory of Environmental Anthropology at UNT. He has fifteen years of experience as an heirloom gardener, permaculturist, environmental activist, and wild plants enthusiast.

1:45-2:45 * ICE CREAM AND INDUSTRIAL COLLAPSE: ARE THEY MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE? (Patrick Ironwood and Marissa Percoco) – Learn the basic use of hand crank ice cream makers, through a variety of recipes, including exploration of goat & cow milk, and also risk going hi-tech with liquid nitrogen to do a large quantity for an ice cream and crumpet party… participants are encouraged to bring ice cream makers of all types to use and share, milk & any of your favorite yummy add-ins

3:00-5:00 CHOICE OF WORKSHOPS:

FOR KIDS OF ALL AGES:

GARDEN CRITTERS (Tricia Baehr) – Discover the creepy crawly garden helpers from worms to ladybugs and preying mantis. Let’s talk about how they help in the garden and why they are important.

CREATIVE PLANT MARKER MAKING (Tricia Baehr) – Garden art is fun and makes our gardens more colorful while we are waiting for plants to grow. Have fun painting markers to help distinguish plants for your garden, a friend’s garden or even a community garden.

FOR ADULTS OF ALL AGES:

* THE PHILOSOPHY OF EATING WILD (Alan Powell) – This workshop is about the value of wild foods in the context of human history as well as modern human life. Alan will talk about plant identification as well as harvesting philosophy (understanding how much to take and why). He will discuss why we stopped eating wild foods and the effect on human health and diversity in a healthy diet. The format will be an herb walk with much commentary and discussion.

5:15-6:45 * ARTISAN FARMSTEAD CHEESE TASTING AND THE STORY OF SEQUATCHIE COVER CREAMERY (Padgett Arnold) – Enjoy a tasting of cheeses made here in the Sequatchie Valley at Sequatchie Cove Creamery. Learn about the background of this new enterprise at Sequatchie Cove Farm, and how making this cheese fits in with the philosophy of the farm, and the local foods movement here in the southeast. A slide show of photos from the farm and its in-depth research into artisanal cheese-making will accompany the tasting. Bring your own wine or other beverage to share.

Theatre and Community Games
All ages. Come to any or all sessions. Facilitators: Jeannie Cerulean, Maya Aurelia, Patrick Ironwood.
Playing is good for the heart of the community. No experience necessary. These games are derived from improvisation in the theatre, Soma, and festival play.
Sat 6pm-7pm

7:00 PIZZA AND WOOD FIRED COB OVEN DISCUSSION – we will disscus sourdough & wheat fermentation, wood oven use and tips on building your own… as we bake.

SUNDAY, June 6

8:30-10:00 BREAKFAST

10:15 MORNING CIRCLE AND FERMENTATION CHECK-IN

10:30-12:15 * TRADITIONAL FOODS (Didi Wildrover and Chad Ananda) – This workshop will explore the process of nourishing our future by reclaiming the endangered foods and foodways of the past. We will start with an overview of nutritional practices utilized throughout human history that have relied on foods that are locally produced/gathered, nutrient-dense and more highly digestible, and minimally processed and stored without dependence on refrigeration or electricity. Given the extreme dependence of our modern societies on fossil fuels, high-tech food production methods, and pharmaceutical short-term health solutions, embracing traditional foodways is a movement toward greater community-based self reliance, and deeper foundations of health. We will spend some time looking around the kitchen at the variety of traditional foods we have incorporated into the food scene at Moonshadow, and do some basic hands-on activities to illustrate traditional foodways: making farmers’ cheese from raw milk, mayonnaise out of eggs and olive oil, acorns into edible meal, and turning whole corn into nutritionally superior “masa” or “hominy,” all of which we will incorporate into our final meal together.

12:30-1:45 LUNCH

2:00-3:00 CHOICE OF TWO WORKSHOPS:

FOR KIDS OF ALL AGES:

MAD HATTER TEA PARTY (Tricia Baehr) – The annual FFL Mad Hatter Tea Party for kids of all ages! Wear a silly, fun or sophisticated hat while we explore the world of teas from history to healing properties of herbal teas. Learn how to brew tea while enjoying sipping and trying different varieties.

FOR ADULTS OF ALL AGES:

* SAFE AND HEALTHY WAYS TO SAVE YOUR EXTRA FOOD – PART TWO (Carol Kimmons) – Safe and Healthy Food Preservation. This hands-on workshop will cover fun and easy methods of canning, pickling, freezing, and drying your surplus from the garden or market. Materials and instruction booklets included.

Theatre and Community Games
All ages. Come to any or all sessions. Facilitators: Jeannie Cerulean, Maya Aurelia, Patrick Ironwood.
Playing is good for the heart of the community. No experience necessary. These games are derived from improvisation in the theatre, Soma, and festival play.
Sun 2:45pm to 3:15pm We will perform for the Tea Party Entertainment

3:15-4:45 * CHOCOLATE SURPRISE (Sandy Hepler) – Explore an all-time world favorite. Cacao itself is health food and can be made healthier. Original Aztecs drank it as a hot, bitter, peppered drink (did they ever add honey?). A really healthy, great-tasting chocolate is possible! samples of delicious organic chocolate are guaranteed. These are handmade in northern Tennessee by Sandy Hepler himself, our Mad Kitchen Scientist.

5:00 * CLOSING CIRCLE

Lodging:

Accommodations are spartan: tent camping space is available and is included in the daily event/workshop fees. If you would like hotel/motel/b&b lodging, try the following:

• Mountain Inn & Suites — 17260 Rankin Ave, Dunlap, TN — (423) 949-2184 (10 miles from SVI, in Dunlap)
• Club House Bed & Breakfast – 512 Mountain View Cir, Dunlap, TN — (423) 949-4983 (10 miles from SVI, in Dunlap)
• Acuff Country Inn – 1156 Highway 28, Jasper, TN 37347 — (423) 942-6370 (20 miles from SVI, on I-24 exit 155)

Download the event flyer

• 
  ffl-flyer_layout – 8.5″x14″ printable PDF (2 per sheet)

Food Donations

• SVI Food Donation Needs – Food for Life (pdf)

Learn more about SVI and Food for Life

• Monessa Guilfoil of WUTC interviews Asha Ironwood