Category: events

annual member potluck, 5/16

potluckDate: Sunday, May 16th
Time: 11:30am – 2:00pm
Location: Eiler’s Park (Deep Eddy)

Want to eat some good grub and meet the Slow Food Austin board?

We have an annual general membership meeting to launch our volunteer board into action for the coming year. Come enjoy a delectable potluck and say Hi to the board as well as other Slow Foodies.

Bring a dish to share and please provide your own plate & utensils (we’ll have back-ups- we’re just trying to make the event low impact). In addition to beverages, fun conversation, and some educational activities about Slow Food, we’ll have a few fun awards to hand out such as the most local dish, the simplest slow dish, the funniest named dish, etc.

Enjoy a beautiful afternoon with friends, food, and fun. We’ll be meeting and eating at Eiler’s Park (Deep Eddy), so if you are inclined to take a brisk swim wear your suit- it costs about $3 to swim.

Non-members welcome.

Contact Sara Weber, Slow Food Austin President, for more info.

farm tour: Stryk Dairy/Strykly Cheese 3/27

Date: March 27th
Time: 11am – 2pm
Location: Stryk Dairy

You’re really from somewhere when you live on a road named after your family. Bob Stryk’s grandfather was running the family dairy in Schulenberg before industrialization drove all the small Texas dairies out of business. With true farmer innovation, Bob and Darlene Stryk have found the niche direct markets that enable them to continue this tradition and milk their Jerseys on a small, intimate scale. The Stryks offer raw milk to a small but growing and passionate group of locals, and they have built a loyal clientele for their own hand-crafted cheese, including a traditional Czech specialty, ‘koch kase.’

Raw milk has been in and out of the news with increasing frequency. The City of Austin is considering passing an ordinance allowing its sale within city limits, in response to federal and state regulatory pressures to stifle it. Bob and Darlene have a few things to say on the subject, naturally. Come out to the dairy, meet the herd, taste the milk, and decide for yourself. Participants will take home a selection of the dairy’s products. Limited spaces will fill fast!

Please RSVP to education@slowfoodaustin.org to coordinate ticket purchase.

farm tour: Johnson’s Backyard Garden 3/6

Johnson’s Backyard Garden Offers Farm-Grown Heirloom Vegetable Transplants

Date: March 6th
Time: 10am – Noon
Location: Johnson’s Backyard Garden

Slow Food USA maintains the Ark of Taste, a catalog of historically and culturally important foods, to encourage their continued enjoyment. Now Slow Food Austin invites you to join them on a Farm Foraging Tour of Johnson’s Backyard Garden, a certified-organic produce farm and greenhouse operation. Tour participants will receive farm-grown Ark of Taste vegetable transplants to grow in their own Backyard Gardens! Get a jump start on that spring garden!

From its humble beginning on East Holly Street, Johnson’s Backyard Garden has outgrown Brenton and Beth Johnson’s backyard and become the largest member-subscription farm in the southern U.S. – right here on the near-east side of Austin, Texas.

Now the Johnsons and Slow Food Austin will help you grow your own, plus tell you a little bit about their phenomenal growth. How have they done this? And why is this growth good for you, Austin Locavore? Limited spaces will fill fast!

Please RSVP to education@slowfoodaustin.org to coordinate ticket purchase.

farm tour: Springdale Farm 4/10

Date: April 10th
Time: 10am – Noon
Location: Springdale Farm

Local farms come in all sizes, big and little. The new buzz words – “spin” farming, urban farming, “pocket” farming – are embodied in Springdale Farm, a 78702 4.8-acre patch cultivated by Paula and Glenn Foore. The couple has rescued a little bit more of Austin’s fertile river bottom from impervious surface and runs the city’s newest community-supported agriculture (CSA) operation. Tour attendees will learn how the couple stopped dreaming and started practicing their brand of “sustainable urban farming,” right here in Austin. Attendees will receive a box share of spring vegetables featuring fresh herbs. Limited spaces will fill fast!

Please RSVP to education@slowfoodaustin.org to coordinate ticket purchase.

photos from january happy hour at cipollina

Huge thanks to all who came out to our first happy hour of 2010 at Cipollina Bistro last Thursday. We had a full house, sold out of all the wine and raised over $500 for Haitian relief efforts!

Thank you to Pioneer Wine for donating the amazing bottles of wine and, of course, to Cipollina for being such fantastic hosts. Next month’s happy hour will be at Fino. Stay tuned for details!

Check out the great photographs taken by one of our leadership team members – Marshall Wright of Eatthislens.com.

slow food austin launches farm tours

slow food austin farm tour: yonder way farmSaturday, January 16, 2010
11am – 2pm
Yonder Way Farm
Tickets: $25 single/$40 couple/family (includes sampling of farm product (i.e. meat, produce, etc.)

Slow Food Austin (SFA) Farm Tours offer a signature opportunity to forage food items directly from area farms, in the context of an informative tour showing how and where the items were grown or produced, and introducing the people that produce them.

Goals of Tours:

* Increase understanding of the contributions area farmers make to our local food community
* Offer opportunities to sample local foods
* Increase understanding of Slow Food Austin’s goals to promote our local food culture and encourage conscious and appreciative enjoyment of it
* If possible, provide food for thought – novel discussion topics and angles on local farming

SFA is launching our farm tours with a bang – come with us on January 16 to meet Jason Kramer of Yonder Way Farm, an ambitious and exciting operation along the lines of Joel Salatin’s pastured salad bar beef farm, Polyface. Jason raises pastured pork, beef, poultry and eggs, and is completing construction of an on-farm commercial kitchen from which he plans to serve barbecued pork, sausages and other eatables. In the best farming tradition of cooperation, Jason also offers organic produce and milk from two other neighboring farms.

Yonder Way Farm [directions]
5500 Hwy 105
Brenham, TX 77833 (1 hour 45 min from Austin)

Tickets are SOLD OUT.

The tour carpool will leave Austin at 9am on January 16 (depature location TBD). Expect to return to Austin by 5pm
For more information, send an email to education@slowfoodaustin.org.

fresh screening on 12/5 kicks of eat local week

Paramount Theatre presents a special screening of FRESH and audience Q&A with special guests Joel Salatin, writer, local food spokesperson and owner of Polyface Farms, and Ana Sofia Joanes, director and producer of FRESH.

Join Slow Food Austin for a special engagement screening of Fresh at Austin’s historic Paramount Theatre to kick off Edible Austin’s Eat Local Week.

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 for a future of our food and our planet.

Paramount Theatre presents a special screening of FRESH and audience Q&A with special guests Joel Salatin, writer, local food spokesperson and owner of Polyface Farms, and Ana Sofia Joanes, director and producer of FRESH.

Ticket prices are $15, $25 and $100. The $100 tickets are the best seats in the house and will include admission to the pre-screening reception for Joanes, Salatin and other featured guests to be held at the State Theatre lobby—featuring Austin’s top chefs preparing locally sourced food tastings and local beverages, beer, wines and cocktails.

Participating restaurants are: Asti / FINO, Wink / Zoot, Primizie Osteria, Kerbey Lane Café, The Leaning Pear, Cipollina, Blue Dahlia. Participating beverage artisans will be: Zhi Tea, Tipsy Texans, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Paula’s Texas Spirits, Dry Soda, Texas Hill Country Wineries. Slow Food Austin along with many other local food nonprofits will be on hand to answer questions about our organizations and give you the opportunity to learn more about supporting Good Clean and Fair food.

Watch more video clips and interviews

Buy your tickets now at austintheatre.org/fresh.

a slow taste of tuscany celebration & dinner

SlowLifeInTuscanTownCoverEdible Austin, Slow Food Austin and Welcome Books invite you to

A Slow Taste of Tuscany

A celebration and special dinner at Primizie Osteria

We present this event as part of a celebration across North America of Slow Food and Douglas Gayeton’s new book Slow: Life in a Tuscan Town

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 7:00

Join us in honoring the simple and superb pleasure of fresh food that has been prepared slowly and locally.

Tickets ($85) include a multi-course feast highlighting local ingredients, an autographed copy of the book ($50 value), and a contribution to Urban Roots. Gratuity and taxes separate.

Please RSVP at www.primizieaustin.com by Nov. 6
Primizie Osteria, 1000 E. 11th St., Austin, TX
Telephone: 512.236.0088

Sponsored by Zagat & Welcome Books | Edible Austin | Slow Food Austin

austin discovery school/slow food feast in the field

Slow Food Feast in the Field
Slow Food Feast in the Field

Slow Food Feast in the Field
Sponsored by Slow Food Austin
Benefitting Austin Discovery School

Saturday, October 24, 2009
7:00pm – 11:00pm
Green Gate Farms [directions]
$100 Donation Required
Buy Tickets Online or purchase at the door

The third annual Austin Discovery School/Slow Food Feast in the Field fundraiser is a multi-course gourmet dinner prepared by Chef Jesse Bloom of Ecstatic Cuisine using fresh local vegetables and meats from Green Gate Farms, and served in the field under the stars. Proceeds will benefit the Austin Discovery School – a local elementary school that teaches children to become junior master gardeners using an outdoor curriculum.