Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
Reel to Real: A Food Film Festival Comes to Missoula
This weekend, the first annual "Reel to Real Food Film Festival" will take place at the Roxy and Crystal theaters in Missoula as a way for interested eaters to, “Feast Your Eyes, Feed Your Mind, and Nourish Your Soul.”
Organized in part by the Community Food and Agriculture Coalition, the festival will include a showing of “Eat at Bill’s,” a documentary about the Monterey Farmers' Market and "Two Angry Moms," which links the health of our children to school food. On Sunday, the event will culminate with the acclaimed film, “The Real Dirt on Farmer John.”
In this personal reflection on the agro-food system, Farmer John begins by asking, “What do you do when nothing is left?” In response, he takes a bite out of his soil.
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Commentary: Farm Policy
New Farm Bill Should Make Room For Beginning Farmers
A couple of weeks ago, I walked into the Library of Congress where people bustled about, draping white cloths on tables, surrounding them with chairs, and setting up displays that read, "State of the Union 2008", followed by a list of sponsors -- insurance, auto, tobacco, and technology companies. A woman taping a poster to a wall at the bottom of some stairs said it's a pre-State of the Union reception. So do you kick everybody out of the Library, I asked. Yes. Who gets to come? It's for members of Congress and their staff, CEOs of corporations, and presidents of think tanks.
A group of farmers and ranchers, including me, had been flown in to Washington by a coalition of sustainable agriculture groups to meet with our members of Congress about beginning farmer and rancher provisions in the farm bill. The trip happened to coincide with the President's address to the nation, an event seemingly devoid of any citizen participation beyond staring at a television and suffering through empty oratory and canned applause.
Corporate CEOs and think tank presidents may get to dine with our members of Congress, but the recent debate over the latest farm bill has shown that in farm policy at least, the average citizen, and moreover, the average farmer, matters.
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Yoga On & Off the Mat
Yoga, Sleep and Attachment: Part II
Last time I shared my sleep ritual—attachment, ear plugs and all. This week I consider sleep and yoga under the tutelage of Ann Dyer, a yoga teacher in Oakland, California, who Yoga Journal calls the “near-perfect sleep guru.”
Ann hosts as many as 10 “snor-a-thons” a year, during which she uses asana, chanting, and meditation to help people fall asleep. She is a senior faculty member and teaching associate of Rodney Yee at The Piedmont Yoga Studio. Ann's training is rooted in the Iyengar tradition, complemented by 10 years studying Nada Brahma, yoga of sound, with Mukesh Desai.
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Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
“Class C:” Basketball, Identity and Loss in Rural Montana
On Saturday night the film “Class C” premiered at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. The movie details the lives of a handful of Class C women basketball players in Montana, and as they play each other and make their way to the state championships we learn that basketball is more than a sport for them. It is not just a part of their identity; it is a part of their town’s identity. When they travel to games their hometowns shut down and folks follow the girls across the state to watch them play. At late night parties, they discuss strategy and tournaments won in the past.
But the film is most striking for what it reveals about the loss of small towns and an agricultural way of life in Montana. There is a common sadness among these young women as they talk about their small hometowns. They are not melancholy that they are 255 miles from the nearest mall, but that towns across the Highline and in eastern Montana are shrinking in population and dying.
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"I wuff you"
Puppy Love on Valentine’s Day
“You Can’t Hurry Love” serenades shoppers from the PA system as a middle-aged woman stops to eye the Pet Smart Valentine’s Day display, overflowing with heart-shaped squeak toys, pink dog beds embroidered with hearts, and sleeveless dresses for the dainty pooch.
Turns out Valentine's Day is a popular holiday for pet owners. “People kind of treat their dogs like their kids,” says store manager Jason McCulloch.
One pet lover says, “That’s what happens when you get old and crazy and your kids go away."
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Yoga On & Off the Mat
Yoga, Sleep and Attachment: Part I
Oh, sleep. For some blessed souls, slumber comes quickly each night. Tired bodies and minds fall into bed and sleep naturally. For some, like me, it takes teas, tinctures, visualizations—it takes the dependability of ritual. And over the years, as my ritual has gained steam, attachment has snuck into my transition to shut eye.
This week I share my sleep ritual—what helps and what hurts. Next time I'll post an interview with Ann Dyer, sleep guru and my new hero.
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Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
Pick your Ticket: How the Presidential Candidates View Agriculture
Just a few months ago when Iowa was on the mind of every presidential contender, agriculture was a well-discussed issue (especially ethanol). But it seems like an eternity since the presidential candidates left Iowa and the cornfields that dictated much of their talk. Since then, candidates have mostly left agriculture off the campaign trail, and only a few have posted their stance on agriculture on their websites.
As much of the Rocky Mountain West heads into Super Tuesday, here is some of what the current front-runners think about agriculture...
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Introducing...
A New Magazine: The New West
Driving past most any Western city these days is a little like watching those time-lapse films back in grade school. Empty fields become bulldozed lots become framed houses become finished homes with trucks in the driveway and new grass in the yard.
It’s a time of dramatic change in the Mountain West. And I’m excited to say that we at NewWest.Net are now launching a quarterly print magazine to help us tell the big story of growth and change in the region.
The best way to check out our magazine is to subscribe. We want to know who’s interested in The New West, so we have made the magazine available free to qualified subscribers who answer a short questionnaire.
We’d love to hear your input and feedback on our new venture. Comments? Criticism? Story ideas? I’d love to hear them. You can email me at . And click “more” below for the full announcement.
[more]Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
Building Community Through Food: The Missoula Community Co-op
In the fall of 2007, a small portion of an old shipping depot on Missoula’s Westside was scrubbed clean and given a new coat of paint. Volunteers made curtains and built shelves to hold staple items like olive oil, cheese, eggs and recycled toilet paper. New plants by the front steps started to take root, and so too did the new storefront of the Missoula Community Co-op.
Across the country, similar food or grocery cooperatives, better known as co-ops, have become an increasingly popular way for a community to gather around food, especially in the Northeast and the Midwest. Food co-ops can be buying clubs or an actual store, and to shop there, an individual or family pays a membership fee to the co-op and becomes a “member-owner.” The member can then order food through the co-op or shop at the store. Food often comes in bulk amounts, which reduces packaging and cost, and because it is ordered through and often delivered to the co-op, the person who orders the food does not pay shipping costs. The idea is that members will also volunteer their time at the co-op to reduce the costs associated with running a store, and keep costs lower for all members…hence the use of the term “cooperative.”
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yoga on and off the mat
Studio Spotlight: Bikram Yoga with Lora Gustafson
26 postures. 105 degrees. 90 minutes. Oh, and it just might “change your life.”
These are some of the trademarks of the L.A.-based Bikram Yoga. Life changing or not, few can argue against the practice’s intensity. Intense heat, intense stretching, intense instruction. (The teacher speaks throughout most of the hour and a half class.) And Lora Gustafson, the new owner of Bikram Missoula, would add that the practice is also intensely purifying.
In our interview, Lora chats about her recent move from Phoenix, this Saturday’s Open House and other aspects of the unique brand of yoga that has garnered her attention for the last eight years.
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