Of course chocolate making is always a love story. But this one goes much deeper.

One look at Jael and Dan Rattigan and you know: these two are madly, hopelessly, ridiculously utterly SMITTEN with each other. Good thing, too. They live, work, and parent together in a veritable whirlwind of activity that would make most of us dizzy. We should mention that they own French Broad Chocolates, producing some of the most revered chocolate in the country. Needless to say, we’re a little smitten with THEM! Their story is a beautiful amalgam of all the things they love: community, sustainability, chocolate making and each other.

The Rattigans seem like a love at first sight kind of couple. “Well,” Jael laughs, “it was something at first sight!”  The basic synopsis reads thus: Dan was catering at Jael’s brother’s wedding, there was an evening full of flirty glances, eyelash batting, and an overt “you’re cute!” from Dan, with the romantic crescendo of Jael coming in for a kiss at night’s end. Then, Dan says, “I asked her in. Cooking for people has always been the way I express my feelings, and I thought my best chance with this lady would be a one-two punch of homemade farm-to-table food and Ella Fitzgerald on the stereo.” Swoon!

Jael & Dan set up shop in Asheville, North Carolina several years ago, by way of Costa Rica where they owned a cafe, Bread & Chocolate. “We were searching for a place to settle, belong and dig deep roots. We found it. Our community of friends and colleagues is so amazing, our business is thriving, and our kids are happy.” The original vision was to make chocolates at home and sell them at local markets, but financial reality set in and the French Broad Chocolate Lounge was born.

“Supporting our local farmers is still imperative to our company values.  We seek to use all suitable ingredients that are grown in our foodshed…and we’ve made the commitment that if we can’t find it locally, we’ll try to find it direct from farmers or producers. If we can’t find it locally or direct, that’s when we rely on third party certification, such as organic or fair trade. Our definition of sustainability includes the environmental impact and growing practices, of course, but equally as important to us, is that our dollars fairly compensate the people involved in producing it (from farmer to server).”

When asked why they’ve been so successful in love, community and chocolate, Jael thinks the answer is simple: “We believe in living in a state of generosity.”

Related on EcoSalon

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ColumnWhen you eat, is it just another task, or something you make time to enjoy?

A French friend and I were talking recently about eating habits. This is of course a common discussion when it comes to looking at the differences in American and French culture.

“It is unthinkable to not have a sit down dinner,” he said, referring to the fact that in the large majority of French households, families sit down, together, to eat dinner. Skipping it would be on the verge of sacrilegious.

Look at the average American household, however. Bobby has soccer practice, Molly has to finish up a school project at a friend’s and mom and dad are both pulling long days at the office. Dinner, is eating a bowl of microwaved Top Ramen, consumed while standing at the kitchen counter in the ten-minute window that each individual person has identified as their own time to eat.

Eating is something that we fit in between all of our other tasks, while for the French, the everyday tasks of life are what they do in between the times that they eat.

This is, of course, a sweeping generalization.

Go into any supermarket in France and you’ll see people buying the exact same processed foods as in the U.S. Fast food joints have now overtaken traditional restaurants in popularity. And yet, there is still a tradition that ties people to eating in a way that is rarely present in the U.S.–and it’s a tradition that values the holistic nature of a meal.

For many Americans, eating is about the nutritional value; it’s a scientific process, more than it’s a cultural one. We boil a meal down to carbohydrates, proteins and fats. How much of this and how much of that do I need to maintain my energy and function, but also not gain weight in the process? We’re diet obsessed, and whether it’s conscious or not, it’s a constant dance of thinking about calories and our intake and output. We’re running an ongoing mental calorie calculator.

That’s a depressing way to eat. And not only depressing, it’s unhealthy.

Sitting down to a meal with friends and family provides emotional sustenance as well as nutritional. It’s a joyful affair. You might get all the calories and fiber that you need from a bowl of brown rice, broccoli and black beans, but if it’s eaten on-the-go, in ten minutes, you miss out on all the other aspects that eating brings us.

Eating can be a meditative process. Sit down for an hour-long (or two, or three) dinner and that’s an hour where you’re not doing anything else. It’s time for brain to disengage with the outside world and focus on the food in front of you and the people around you.

My friend and I began talking about Thanksgiving. “It’s the one day of the year where people really are focused on family and food and nothing else,” I said.

He responded, “while for a French person that happens every night.”

It’s true in a way. Certainly not every single lunch and dinner in France is a grand affair, but there is a process to eating, one that puts an appreciation into the food but also the manner in which it’s consumed. You don’t eat an on-the-go snack in the middle of the afternoon, because a sit down dinner awaits you in only a few hours.

An American/British friend who recently came to Paris from London said that for her one of the main differences about the two cities is that in London you practically have to make an effort to avoid street food, while in France, popping into a shop for a snack is rare, and if you are hungry at 3 in the afternoon, you have to work a little harder to find something to eat because you just missed the lunch service.

The 24-hour access to food that is then consumed in a matter of minutes isn’t just bad for us because of the calories; it’s bad because it eliminates all the other beneficial aspects of eating a communal, sit down meal. And as fast food continues to permeate French culture – Burger King is coming back soon – it’s something that the French are going to have to take a long, hard look at, because ultimately, the infusion of fast food culture means the death of slow food.

Want to eat better? Put less time into thinking about calories and more time into thinking about the process. Slow down and enjoy the meal and the people around you.

Not just once in a while, or on a holiday, but everyday.

Related on EcoSalon: 

How Food Builds Community: Foodie Underground

The Joy of Eating Seasonally and Locally: Foodie Underground

Thanksgiving Food for Thought: Foodie Underground

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Daniel Lee

The post To Eat is Not a Task, the Argument for Slowing Down: Foodie Underground appeared first on EcoSalon.

 

“The rules for living well, if you can call them that, are simple and a pleasure to follow. Eat local and mostly plants. Ride your bike, even on rainy days. Say yes to dinner invitations. Always bring your signature dessert. Invite people on picnics. Bike in the sunshine. Follow a morning ride with a strong French press.” – “The Culinary Cyclist” by Anna Brones

EcoSalon’s own Foodie Underground, Anna Brones, has penned a cookbook for bike-loving foodies that’s full of creative, delicious and healthy slow food recipes alongside tips for successfully stocking your kitchen and transporting culinary masterpieces on two wheels. As founder of the taste bud tantalizing blog Foodie Underground, Anna has incorporated her Swedish heritage, time in the Pacific Northwest and current life in Paris into this guide for hedonistic, healthy and bike-heavy living. You’ll find gluten-free recipes like sea salt chocolate cake and baked eggs in avocado halves alongside instructions for shopping in bulk with a bike, gracefully hosting a dinner party and picnics by bike.

The pages are riddled with Anna’s anecdotes on the development of her recipes as well as Johanna Kindvall’s charming illustrations, which are a treat in themselves. Following an amazingly successful Kickstarter campaign, pre-orders of the book can be placed via Foodie Underground, with delivery estimated for August 2013. We caught up with Anna to hear more about the inspiration behind the book and to give you a taste test of her thoughts on slow food, cycling and good living.

Leena Oijala: What was the inspiration behind “The Culinary Cyclist”?

Anna Brones: My publisher-to-be and I met up last fall to discuss various projects we were both working on and in the course of the conversation we started talking about food (I am known to talk about food quite regularly!). I told her she should think about publishing a book about food and bikes, she responded with, “why don’t you write it?” It was impossible to say no.

LO: This book will be quite the resource for the modern-day city cycler. Why do you think it hasn’t been written already?

AB: I am sure there is a book somewhere out there that has touched on the same topics. Most people know how to ride a bike, most people know how to make something edible to put on the table, I’m just hoping that this book inspires people to step it up a notch, not because they have to, but because they want to.

LO: Which country’s culinary culture most influenced the recipes you chose to include in the book?

AB: I would have to say that most of the book’s recipes come from my mother. She was born in Sweden, so she certainly has had a more European approach to cooking, but she also likes to experiment. She taught me to not be afraid in the kitchen, rarely use exact measurements and to change recipes whenever possible. So most of the recipes in the book don’t have a regional influence, just an influence of an attitude towards eating and cooking. There’s also no doubt that I have been influenced by living in locavore-centric Portland where it’s easy to shop locally and seasonally, and where no one will ever raise their eyebrows at you for brewing your own kombucha.

LO: What is your favorite recipe in the book?

AB: Ack! That is a touchy question. If I had to choose I would say the Quinoa Apple Spice Cake recipe. It’s a personal favorite because when you tell people you can make a cake with quinoa they look at you like you’re crazy. But I happen to have a thing for putting odd ingredients in recipes, so I guess that’s normal.

LO: Your book includes mostly vegan and gluten-free recipes. Why do you think so many people have begun to gravitate toward these types of diets?

AB: I think it’s because people have started paying attention to what makes them feel good. For some people that’s a meat-heavy diet, but I think a lot of us have found that a diet of lean proteins and low dairy intake does us quite a bit of good. I am not vegan, vegetarian or even 100 percent gluten-free, I just cook the kind of food that I know is healthy for me and makes me feel good. At the end of the day, everyone has to choose their own eating habits, and most of the time it’s a matter of trial and error to finally end up at the type of eating that works right for you. It’s not necessarily about what we eat but being conscious about what we eat; where it comes from, how it makes us feel, etc.

LO: Why do you think food brings people together?

AB: No matter who you are or where you are from, you have to eat. Food brings us together because it’s a unifier; it’s something that we all do no matter our race or gender. If you look at various cultures around the world you will find that food is quite often the cornerstone of celebrations and traditions. Our ancestors sat around a fire and ate what they had hunted or harvested. Today we sit around the table. It’s a way of connecting not only with other people, but also with the place that our food comes from.

LO: Why do you think our relationship to food has changed so much in the last five decades?

AB: We have opted for larger economic profits instead of health, and because of it we’re in a system where we’ve externalized all the costs so that unhealthy food is the cheapest option out there. I love the term that Michael Pollan used in “Omnivore’s Dilemma,”– “irresponsibly priced food”– meaning that you can look at a certain product and think that it’s cheap, but the price you pay at the checkout isn’t the real cost of the food to the environment and society. We live in fast, modern times, and many of us don’t make the time to eat well because, unfortunately, we don’t see it as a priority. But if you force yourself to remember that the only thing that’s keeping you going every day is what you eat, you can’t help but want to do better.

LO: If you could choose anyone in the world, who would you invite to dinner?

AB: Ah, the ideal dinner guest, good question. In terms of an interesting conversation about food, I would love to sit down with Marion Nestle, PhD. She has been such an influence in the world of food politics, and I think the dinner conversation would be more than enlightening. It’s one thing to talk about wanting to change the food system, and it’s another to actually do it. She’s one of the people that’s doing it, and that’s inspiring to me. Although, I would be super nervous about what to cook!

Images: Johanna Kindvall

The post Interview with Anna Brones on Her New Slow Food and Slow Living Cookbook ‘The Culinary Cyclist’ appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnIt’s called the “slow food movement” for a reason: good food takes time. 

I had an hour on my hands for lunch. But then one espresso turned into a second, the cafe owner and I waxed ecstatic about Stumptown coffee and craft roast, and soon an hour had turned into an hour and a half. These things happen.

I happen to have that serious affliction where I start talking about food and I can’t stop. Apparently it’s contagious. Get talking to an artisan producer and you could spend the better part of an afternoon in a conversation about the how and why of what they make. Go to the market and you’ll probably end up chatting about how to put your rhubarb to use. Visit a small brewery for a tasting and the brewer could turn into your new best friend.

These are things that don’t happen at your well-equipped supermarket or fast food chain. There is a pace to shopping and eating locally, seasonally and organically. It’s a pace determined by people that love what they do and what they eat and share a common bond with those that believe that good food takes time.

There is no denying that there is a general trend to more authentic food, even fast food companies are working hard to make their food look more natural in order to bring in a clientele that doesn’t want to buy anything that seems too over-processed. Domino’s pizza with a more rustic look, Egg McMuffins with a much less formulaic shape and such. But here’s the clincher: actual natural food will never be fast.

It’s called Slow Food for a reason. Good, real food takes time; on the farm, at the market, in the kitchen and around the table.

There was a time when we lived in harmony with daylight hours and the seasons. When a meal wasn’t a drive-thru away. We ate food only when we prepared it ourselves, and we were healthier because of it. Nowadays we buy a quick snack, eat it on the go, and are so busy checking our email over lunch that we forget what we’re even eating.

This is no way to live.

If we care about what we eat, we have to be willing to engage. Food brings people together after all. We talk, we share, we learn–be it a recipe or a better way to grow basil. If we care about our food, we have to be willing to slow down. To enjoy the moment, even if the moment is as simple as eating an apple and a handful of almonds.

“Not everyone has that kind of time,” you say.

But we have time to watch television, check Facebook, text our friends, and a whole other laundry list of things that inevitably become a time suck. Adding a couple of extra minutes in your day to ask a question about your food, or spend a few more moments enjoying your meal is a good thing. Carve out time everyday to tend to your kitchen herbs and you’ll be all the happier for it. It’s all a way to reconnect to what we’re eating and where our food comes from.

Because, the more natural you want to eat, the more time you are going to have to spend. But don’t worry, it’s time well spent.

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Anna Brones

The post Foodie Underground: Good Food Takes Time appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnCan I have a side of fries with that run?

“Can we get burgers and beer?”

These are words that rarely come out of my mouth. Burgers and beer are a far stretch from kale smoothies and quinoa after all.

But burgers – real burgers – are good. Especially when you’ve worked for them. So after a half-marathon this weekend, my friend Megan and I deemed IPAs and burgers on the outdoor patio at the local brewery a must.

I didn’t opt for the lamb, artichoke and chevre version (there was one), or even the pub specialty, I went for the simplest burger on the menu: beef, lettuce, onions and tomato. No cheese. Just a straight up hamburger. No sea salt, or artisan blue cheese or fried egg or even cured bacon. Just a burger. Remember those?

“This is the best thing I have ever eaten,” I said matter of factly.

Now before everyone freaks out about me eating a burger (Gasp! But there’s gluten!) and fries (Gasp! They’re not even made from sweet potatoes!), let me explain, and keep in mind that when all is said and done, I did come home to some vegan chocolate mousse. Was a regular burger really the best thing I had ever eaten? Certainly not. Are burgers even my favorite food? Far from it. But in that moment it was, because post-half marathon, much like post any kind of physical activity, food, even water, tastes better.

In these situations, we appreciate what we’re eating because our body needs it. Not because something caught our eye on the menu, but because we are giving our body sustenance. How often do we feel this way on a regular day basis? Rarely, and it’s not because we’re not having daily hardcore workouts, it’s simply because we are not eating in balance with what our body needs, and in turn, we lose an appreciation for what’s on the plate in front of us.

We live in a world of convenience, and our eating habits have followed suite. We’re hungry, or we know that we should eat, so we grab the nearest thing we can find, or we stop in at a restaurant and order what sounds good. In half an hour or less we’ve eaten and continue on with our day. Thirty minutes after that and we can’t even remember what we just ate. Not because the meal itself wasn’t memorable, but because we were too busy to pay attention. Not really needing everything we were consuming, we didn’t take the time to appreciate it. Soon we’re complicating dishes, because we’re bored with the original version, unsatisfied with its simplicity.

But good food, both in terms of taste and in terms of health, is often simple food. Ask anyone that trains on a consistent basis, and their diets are rarely complicated affairs. They’re made up of all the things we know we should be eating: whole grains, fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, a kale smoothie here and there. If you eat regular, well portioned meals, you’ll feel the same way: satisfied with less.

Time, stress and a lack of a quality food tradition keep us from doing so. We eat dinner on the go, we don’t take time to sit down with friends and break bread, and we focus more on the individual characteristics of food that we think we need – more protein! more antioxidants! – than taking a holistic approach and eating food for food’s sake.

If we take time to think about what we’re consuming – where it came from, what it is, who prepared it – an ordinary dish quickly turns extraordinary. But when we stop thinking about what we eat, we’re rarely satisfied with simplicity. Instead we need fancy combinations, infusions and condiments that distract us from what we’re really eating.

A simple salad? Not good enough. Where’s the ranch dressing?

Vegetable stir fry? Doesn’t anyone have any teriyaki sauce to add to this?

Basic omelette? Can’t that have a little ham and goat cheese in it? And where are my scallions?

We can’t even assess what is good food and what isn’t because our bodies don’t really even need all that we’re giving them. Overdosing is convenient. We don’t think about what we’re consuming because we don’t have to.

“Seriously is this not the best hamburger you have ever eaten?”

“Yes. It’s why we run Brones.”

Megan was right. Eating happens to be one of the reasons that I and several of my friends run, in fact it’s a regular topic of discussion. Not because it means that we can eat anything (although that is a nice feeling), but because we have a better appreciation for food that we don’t get when we eat just because we have to.

There’s nothing better than a meal after you’ve worked your body. That’s natural, it’s what humans have done for centuries. But most of us don’t do jobs anymore that require physical labor. Instead we live in urban areas, frazzled and neurotic, and after three hours of staring at a computer screen and feeling low on energy, we reward ourselves with a big lunch, probably consuming much more than our body actually needs.

What’s the solution? Reminding ourselves of what good food really is and how much of it we actually need.

Much like eating outdoors helps us to appreciate the simplicity of food so does physical exertion. Some of the best meals I have ever had were after long hikes or runs, with friends around a table sharing the mutual feeling of accomplishment along with a much needed refuel.

We don’t have to commit to intense workouts before each meal, but we can eat in better balance with what our bodies need. Give our body the sustenance that it requires, not because the food is convenient, but because we’re conscious about what we’re taking in.

And plan more workouts that include a good celebratory meal with friends afterwards. Be sure to get the IPA.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

The post Foodie Underground: The Beauty of a Post Workout Meal appeared first on EcoSalon.

Embrace the sweet, slow pace of summer with the food that symbolizes it all.

Italy holds the reigning flag of slow food. It is, afterall, the movement’s official birthplace, dating back to 1986 in Piedmont, Italy. As one of the country’s northern most regions, encircled by the Alps and directly touching France and Switzerland, it’s no wonder a love for food and nature collided into an international movement here—where wine pours from vines and where you can graze for breakfast on meadows of rice and corn.

Travel south some 200 miles to Tuscany, and you’ll meet an even older articulation of slow food—cantucci—most commonly known to us foreigners, as biscotti. The twice-baked crunchy cookie is reported to have been a survivalist food (think modern day granola bar), munched by travelers and Roman warriors along their journeys. With the heralding of the Renaissance, biscotti found life again in the perfect pairing—dipped into a glass of vin santo, Italian dessert wine, for just the right sweetness and crunch. It became something to gather around, to celebrate and to luxuriate in, slowly.

Years ago though, long after the Renaissance, I lived and studied in Florence, Italy. And the aromas wafting from bakeries is what I remember most. (Well, that and spoonfuls of creamy gelato.) Biscotti were the staple among those delectable bakery delights, filled with fruits, nuts, chocolate and varieties between. Now that I dine vegan (and gluten-free—no easy Italian feat), I often wonder what my next trip to Italy will taste like. I may fall off the vegan wagon. Or, I may just pack my own dolce for the journey. Like biscotti, the kind that keeps.

Since no trip is tangibly in store, I’m transporting myself to Tuscany for the summer with bites of biscotti. I started out in my kitchen with a chocolate almond variety and then moved to something more seasonal, cherry hazelnut biscotti. Both provide just the right amount of sweetness, but there’s something about cherries that make June tastebuds sing. Maybe that’s because these summer fruits are reported to protect you from cancer, enhance your memory and help you sleep better at night, thanks to the antioxidant anthocyanin and the nutrient melatonin, respectively. If it ensures the journey is slow and sweet, I’ll take it.

The Original – Chocolate Almond Biscotti
from Joy of Baking

Ingredients

• ¾ cup blanched whole almonds
• 2/3 cup granulated white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 ¾ cups all purpose flour
• 2/3 cup semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate

The Vegan & Gluten-Free Version – Cherry Hazelnut Biscotti
Makes approximately 16 biscotti

Ingredients

• ¾ cup lightly toasted hazelnuts (or almonds)
• 2/3 cup granulated, unrefined sugar
• 2 egg substitutes (I blended 2 tablespoon ground flax seeds with 6 tablespoons warm water)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (I mixed vanilla extract and almond extract for a traditional almond biscotti essence)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 ¾ cup flour – follow the following gluten-free flour blend:
• (¾ cup sorghum flour)
• (½ cupbrown rice flour)
• (¼ cup white rice flour)
• (1/8 cup tapioca flour)
• (1/8 cup almond flour)
• (½ teaspoon xanthan gum)
• 2/3 cup dried, unsweetened cherries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F
2. Toast hazelnuts, almonds or another choice of nuts for 8-10 minutes or until lightly brown and fragrant. Let cool, and then coarsely chop and set aside.
3. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
4. In a large bowl, beat the sugar and egg substitute with a stand mixer, a hand mixer or simply a whisk with vigorous arms. Beat until thick, pale and fluffy. Add in the vanilla (and/or almond) extract and beat until mixed.
5. In a separate, medium bowl, mix together the flours, baking soda and salt. Add to the egg mixture and mix together until fully combined.
6. Add the cherries and toasted, chopped hazelnuts (or almonds) to the mix and combine.
7. Transfer the dough to a well floured surface or, if not too sticky, to parchment paper. Roll into a log shape about 12” long and 3 ½” wide.
8. Place on your prepared baking sheet, and bake for about 25 minutes, or until firm to the touch. Remove from the oven, and let cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes.
9. Reduce the oven temperature to 325°F.
10. Transfer the biscotti log to a cutting board and cut, on the diagonal, into ½” thick pieces.
11. Place the biscotti, cut side down, on to the parchment-lined baking sheet, and bake for 8-10 minutes. Turn over, and bake the other side for about 8-10 minutes, until lightly brown.
12. Remove from the oven and let cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Note: Experiment with different varieties, mixing in different fruits, nuts, spices and chocolates. Once you have the dough down, there’s no end to the biscotti bliss.

La dolce vita!

The post Vegan This: Cherry Hazelnut Biscotti appeared first on EcoSalon.

A round-up of what we’re reading right now.

An economic burden on people and governments? Yes, we’re talking about same-sex marriage bans. [Via TakePart]

Can a fast food chain ever really adopt a Slow Food approach? We think not, McDonalds. [Via Grist]

In New Orleans, an old mayonnaise factory is turned into an arts incubator, complete with recycled tires for insulation.  [Via Curbed]

Art is a powerful force. Here’s another example in temporary street art that promotes peace. [Via Treehugger]

Is there a cleaner gender? That is debatable, but as it turns out, men’s offices have more bacteria. [Via National Geographic]

Image: TakePart

The post Link Love: The Economics of Same-Sex Marriage Bans and Fast Food Going Slow appeared first on EcoSalon.

Willows Inn offers the freshest seafood imaginable…from right outside the door.

Organic dining from a chef trained at the world’s best restaurant: Willows Inn is sheer heaven for foodies. It’s also the antidote to the hustle and bustle of city life, where you’d expect to find such summa cum laude gastronomy. Culinary star-in-the-making Blaine Witzel (age 25) trained at Noma in Copenhagen, where Rene Rezdepi has taken on Ferran Adria’s mantle as today’s most garlanded restaurateur. Now Witzel (pictured below) wows the crowds at this idyllic slow food haven on a tiny island off the coast of Washington State.

The Pacific Northwest is famous for its fabulous shellfish, especially razor clams, but also crabs, oysters and scallops, and fish such as salmon and halibut. They don’t have far to travel to reach your plate. Local organic vegetables provide the supporting roles in Witzel’s starry menus – don’t be surprised to see beach-foraged seaweed make an appearance. “Fished, foraged and farmed,” as they say since many ingredients as possible come from the island itself, and the water around it.

The seven onsite guest rooms in this wood-built inn are a stylish mix of traditional and contemporary featuring organic bathroom goodies, free WIFI and some rooms even have radiant heating, for toasty toes. Two rooms in the detached guest house have their own private decks and bath tubs; you can also stay on the farm where much of the food served at the restaurant is produced, including the eggs, or in stunning beachfront houses and apartments around the island.

If you’re all gourmeted out, have a massage (in your room, if you prefer) or a hot stone treatment in the spa. Then roll down to the nearby beach or venture out into slow-paced Lummi Island, with its thriving community of artists and artisans and respect for the environment; the island is renowned for its sustainable fisheries and eco-farms.

The more adventurous (and die-hard foodies) can take a kayak out to visit the other San Juan islands, minding any Orca whales or seals en route, to forage for sea lettuce, Saragassum, and beach plantain.

Rates from $204 including tax and whale-watching from the comfort of your room; the kayaking is an extra activity.

Photos: Willows Inn, Celebrate Big, coffee&donuts

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

The post Places & Spaces: Willows Inn, Lummi Island, Washington State appeared first on EcoSalon.

A rift in slow food reveals big growing pains.

The foodiverse was all atwitter over this article from Chow last week. A rift has been forming between two factions within Slow Food USA, a non-profit organization that promotes the pleasures of the table, artisanal food production methods, sustainable agriculture, and direct connections between producers and consumers.

On one side is what we’ll call the Alice Waters faction that thinks food is too cheap to keep farmers who are doing the right thing in business and that people should prioritize food over consumer goods – and pay more for it. On the other side is some of the newer leadership of Slow Food that seeks to counter the charges of elitism that have continued to dog the organization, and to broaden its appeal to a younger, broker, and less well-connected demographic.

Think $20 pasture-raised chickens compared to Slow Food’s Recent $5 meal challenge. In some ways, switching its focus to value, rather than preciousness has helped Slow Food. Membership is up. But, according to the Chow article, donations are down from well-heeled donors who are unhappy with the organization’s new direction.

Critics insist that Slow Food must reach more people or risk being irrelevant to most of the population. Anna Smith Clark, The San Francisco Bay Area Governor of Slow Food agrees, but also thinks the laser-like focus in the media on higher profile elements around Slow Food do the organization a disservice. She points out that ordinary members within the organization are continually finding ways to disseminate the ideals behind Slow Food to different groups.  “There’s nothing written about the people who volunteer hours of their time planting the seeds of change in their communities among their friends and family members, or working with like-minded organizations,” says Smith Clark.

Discussions about Slow Food tend to focus on the need of reaching two specific groups: low income people and well-off foodies. For low income people the message is that it doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming to cook local, organic, real food, while the message for foodies is that when they fetishize taste, no matter the cost, they leave out a huge proportion of the population, for whom their message is useless.

As Slow Food grows up and the focus shifts away from its famous founders, there’s a third group that it will be crucial to reach: The enormous swath of the population with plenty of money to pay for good food, but who simply doesn’t care. This group doesn’t care about farmers, doesn’t care where food comes from, doesn’t care if it has additives, doesn’t care if it has too much packaging. Some probably doubt that organic is even healthier. Let’s call them the honey badgers of the consumer food market.  They really don’t give a sh*t.

If you’re a foodie living in a foodie bubble, you might forget these people exist. To remind yourself of the reality, go to a high-end conventional grocery store in any town in America, look at the cars in the parking lot, and watch what people put in their carts. It’s not a rarity to spot someone walking to a late model Mercedes or $70,000 Escalade with a grocery cart full of hundreds of dollars’ worth of processed, packaged food. Stacks of hot pockets, multiple giant boxes of Froot Loops, cases of Coca-Cola, jars of cheese dip, enormous bags of chips, and nary a fresh (or even frozen) vegetable in sight. Now go hang out around the parking lot of a fast food outlet in any well-off suburb, and notice how busy the drive-thru is.

So how does Slow Food reach those people? Smith Clark says people gravitate to the ideas of Slow Food around any number of issues, from concern for farm workers to childhood obesity. They get little tidbits of knowledge from community, news, friends, and family members, and at some point, the flashbulb lights up: “What are you going to do with the money in your pocket?” I ask if there isn’t some way to reach these people more quickly than these myriad individual conversations.

“I think that’s why it’s called Slow Food,” replies Smith Clark.

The honey badgers of the consumer food market vote. Changing the food system so that it is fair for both farmers and eaters is going to mean breaking the stranglehold the food industry has on food policy. Good food advocates need to reach the honey badgers and convince them that organic, sustainable food is not only better, but it’s also worth paying for, spending time cooking, and going to the polls for. Until then, you can pay all you want for chicken and heirloom vegetables at the farmers’ market, but the fast majority of food will still be processed, a lot of family farmers will still be impoverished, and those $20 chickens will continue to reach only a niche market. It’s going to take time. That’s why it’s a movement, not a revolution.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

Be Still my Beeping Crackberry: In Defense of Slow

Slow Fashion Alchemy

Slow, Meet Furniture. Furniture, Meet Your Maker.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate,  on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Lifesupercharger

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A weekly roundup of EcoSalon’s top stories.

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In this week’s Sex By Numbers: Taking You For Granted, writer Abigail Wick encourages us to stop wasting time being so self-conscious and instead, live life to the fullest. She writes: “It’s this disproportionate focus on perceived lack that has really started to rub me the wrong way. Rather than celebrating their abundant gifts, there is a systematic zeroing-in on self-doubt. It frustrates me to see lovely, lovable female friends mired in such petty preoccupations. ‘Wake up!’ I want to scream. ‘Stop taking it for granted, stop thinking about yourself so much, stop this self-indulgence. Don’t wake up 30 years hence and rue the potential and pleasure you frittered away in a misery of your own making.’”

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