SLOW FOOD UTAH: Article
(This article is re–printed from Catalyst Magazine, which is no longer storing it in its archives. [Jan. 3, 2007])
"Slow Food, from Italy to Utah: Grow, Cook and Eat ‘Slow’."
- By Amber Billingsley, Catalyst Magazine, Vol. 24, No. 5, May, 2005.
"Greg Neville of Lugano Restaurant has been a Slow Food member for many years. As a response to the ever-growing industrialization of food, and as a backlash to the appearance of a McDonalds in the Piazza Spagna in Rome in 1986, Carlo Petrini founded the Slow Food Movement. Since its inception in Italy, and the development of the International Movement in Paris in 1989, the organization has grown worldwide and now has over 80,000 members.
Slow Food is an educational, nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving ecologically sound food production, reviving the rituals and the traditions of the family table, and encouraging people to take a slower, more harmonious pace of eating and of life. Slow Food offers events and public outreach that lend support to growers and food producers and provide education to consumers. One of the many programs they promote is Slow Food in Schools, including the Edible Schoolyard, in which students are directly involved in growing and sustaining an organic garden. Another is The Ark USA, which aims to celebrate and preserve endangered foods.
Slow Food USA has hundreds of local conviviums scattered across the nation and boasts over 12,000 members. When you become a member of the Slow Food Movement, you are directly linked to the convivium in your area where you receive news of local events and food happenings, and you are also connected to people who savor and delight in good food.
Christi Paulson first heard of the Slow Food Movement during her travels through Italy. She later joined Slow Food Utah in 2000, and has since become president of the local convivium. Christi has seen Slow Food Utah evolve from a small group of food enthusiasts who dined together to a current membership of about 60 people and growing, who work together to support local restaurants, markets and purveyors, to connect chefs with local growers and producers, and to build a community of people who care about the land and their food. A grade-school teacher and a mother of two kids, she is keenly interested in building youth education and is working on implementing local schoolyard and community gardens.
This summer holds some mouth-watering events, including a Summer Solstice celebration at Bell Organic farms in Draper and a potluck on May 22 in which nonmembers and members alike are invited to bring a favorite dish, to get to know each other, and to find out more about Slow Food. Everyone is invited to attend board meetings to offer ideas or to help with events. The best way for Slow Food to gain momentum in the community is for individuals to become involved, whether they are Slow Food members or not.
Choices we all make every day can help us to satisfy our relationship with things natural and honest, keep us connected to the rituals of the seasons and the table, and remind us to respect our sources of nourishment on all of the levels in which we are fed -- physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Patronizing local markets and independently owned restaurants that use local produce and organic foods, tending a garden, perusing the local farmers market, baking a cake from scratch rather than succumbing to a box mix, lingering over a meal and savoring it with all of your senses, teaching a child to cook all help keep good food alive, and by doing so we will leave a rich and varied culinary legacy to future generations."
"Greg Neville of Lugano Restaurant has been a Slow Food member for many years, and carries this philosophy into his seasonally based rustic Italian cuisine featuring locally grown organic produce. Chef Neville uses lamb raised organically and without hormones in Morgan Valley in this light, springtime version of classic braised lamb shanks."
- Tomato Braised Lamb Shanks:
- Ingredients
4 ea. Morgan Valley Lamb shanks (available at Emigration Market), frenched, knuckle off, approx. 16-20 oz. Each.
5 tomatoes, coarsely chopped
6 oz. red wine
About 6 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
8 garlic cloves, minced
3 bay leaves
4 oz. assorted herbs such as thyme and rosemary, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
2 carrots, minced
1 celery stalk, minced
2 onions, chopped
Dredge (lightly coat) lamb in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Quickly brown lamb shanks in hot oil. Place in baking/braising pan. Cut tomatoes and place in pan over shanks. Add wine. Add carrot, celery, onion mixture. Add herbs and enough stock to cover shanks. Braise them by slowly cooking the browned meat in a heavy pot or Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid for a minimum of 4 hours in a 325-degree oven. This could take an additional hour, depending on your oven. It’s okay to prepare the shanks in the morning the day of your meal, or even the day before. Then you can easily skim off any excess fat after the dish has cooled. Use the broth in the pan as the sauce for the shanks.
Serve shanks with an arugula salad from Bell Organic Farms (available at Liberty Heights Fresh), dressed with:
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
juice of 1 lemon
1 garlic clove, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Lugano Restaurant. 3364 South 2300 East, Salt Lake City, Utah. 801–412–9257.
Amber Billingsley is a pastry chef and food writer who loves to eat slowly in Salt Lake City.
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