Welcome to the August newsletter for Sustainable Table & The Meatrix! Please feel free to send any feedback or ideas for future newsletters to info (at) sustainabletable.org.

• Feature Article - Back to School
• Featured Events - Food Nation, Aug 29 - Sept 1 and Just Food NYC Party Sept 9
• New Book - Cultivating the Web
• Sustainable Table in Print
• Recipe of the Month Easy Summer Gazpacho
• Take Action - Don't Irradiate Meat!
• Send Sustainability to Friends
• Stay in Touch with Sustainable Table!

Feature Article - Back to School
It's that time of year, back to school! Time to get new binders, paper and pens, and a new lunchbox. But what is going to end up in that new lunchbox? If you send your kids to school with food, you probably don't worry so much, but what are the schools providing? School food is a hot topic these days and things are starting to change. There are school gardens and some schools have even started buying local. But sustainable school food isn't the norm, and much work still needs to be done to change the habits of an outdated school food system. Please read this article for some great solutions.

Featured Events - Slow Food Nation and Just Food's Let Us Eat Local
The event everyone has been talking about all year is finally here! This Labor Day weekend in San Francisco we will be among the tens of thousands of people enjoying Slow Food Nation.

Slow Food Nation is the largest celebration of food in America. An unprecedented event, Slow Food Nation will bring people together to experience an extraordinary range of activities highlighting the connection between plate and planet. Participants will savor food from across the U.S. at Taste, a 50,000 square foot pavilion; meet farmers and producers at a marketplace surrounding a 10,000 square foot newly-planted urban garden in the heart of the city; learn from visionary speakers; and engage in political discourse to shape a more sustainable food system. Slow Food Nation will also feature a music festival, workshops, films, dinners, hikes and journeys. The majority of events will be free and open to the public; certain events are ticketed. Tickets are selling out, but check on them at the Slow Food Nation website.

Sustainable Table will be there as a sponsor of the Slow Dinners - we'll be blogging and sending back photos from the event, so check out what we're doing on the soon-to-be-renamed tour blog - The Sustainable Table Chronicles starting tomorrow, Friday!

Just Food - Let Us Eat Local
For any of you in New York City or who might be visiting on September 9th...Just Food presents Let Us Eat Local & The McKinley Hightower Beyah Awards: A Celebration of Local Leaders, Farms, and Food on Tuesday, September 09, 2008, from 6:30-9:00pm with honorary Chairwoman Anna Lappe. Let Us Eat Local will bring 20 of New York City's most sought-after chefs together with organic produce, heritage meats, artisanal cheeses, beer, wine, and spirits all produced within 250 miles of New York City. Under a tent and against the dazzling backdrop of the Midtown skyline, the chefs will prepare tasting portions to delight guests palates with the best of the season. Click here for tickets and more information!

Featured Book - Cultivating the Web
21st Century technology is reviving a centuries-old relationship between people and food. Cultivating the Web, a new publication from the Eat Well Guide (a project of Sustainable Table), shows how digital tools are being used to do everything from supporting local farmers to lobbying giant players in the food industry as online communities reject industrial food.

Cultivating the Web was created by the Eat Well Guide (www.eatwellguide.org), North America's premiere free online directory of local, sustainable food. The publication will be distributed at Slow Food Nation, or you can download a copy here!

Sustainable Table in Print
Check out these articles:

"A Green Giant" More Magazine - a story about Sustainable Table and Diane Hatz. A follow up to our Eat Well Guided Tour of America. A beautiful layout with recipes from the road, tested and approved by the More test kitchen! Recipes include: Cold Cucumber Soup, Corn & Pepper Frittata with Salsa Verde (created by Sustainable Table's Dawn Brighid!) & Solstice Blueberry Pie.

"One on One with Diane Hatz" Vegetarian Times Magazine - an interview with Diane about vegetarianism vs. meat-eating, organic vs. sustainable, and the benefits of sustainable farming.

"A Taste of Hope" Organic Gardening Magazine - an article by Dawn Brighid about why we should have hope for our sustainable food future. "Every time you eat from your garden and buy food directly from a local farmer, you are helping to reshape the future of agriculture, the economy and the environment." You can also hear Dawn talk with Dr. Steve about this article in an interview he did for his "Real Health with Dr. Steve" podcast.

"Raising Awareness of Sustainable Food Issues and Building Community via the Integrated Use of New Media with Other Communication Approaches" Cases in Public Health Communication and Marketing - This case study examines Sustainable Table's communication campaign and was co-authored by Diane with help from Dawn!

Recipe of the Month - Easy Summer Gazpacho With tomatoes at their peak, take advantage of their sweetness and nutritional value (as mentioned in our recent "Eat Healthy Monday" posting about tomatoes!) in this easy to make summer recipe.

Use the juiciest, freshest tomatoes you can find for this easy and refreshing gazpacho recipe.

Ingredients
6 tomatoes (preferably locally-grown), coarsely chopped
1 medium red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1/2 medium green bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, cut into quarters
1/2 jalapeņo or other hot green pepper, chopped (optional)
1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded, and chopped
1 medium red onion, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

Directions:
For garnish:
Measure out 1 tablespoon each of the green and red bell peppers, cucumber, and onion and finely chop. Reserve for garnish.

For gazpacho:
Put the tomatoes, remaining green and red bell pepper pieces, garlic, jalapeņo (optional), cucumber, and onion into a food processor. Process until smooth. Put half of the vegetable mixture into a large bowl and pour the other half through a fine strainer (you may need to do this in batches) into a smaller bowl and reserve the juice. Discard the pulp. Add the juice to the processed vegetable mixture and mix together. Add salt and pepper to taste. If possible, chill for at least 1 hour to allow the flavors to mix together.

To serve, ladle soup in bowls and spoon a little of the vegetable garnish on top.

Take Action - Don't Irradiate Meat
From Food & Water Watch:
USDA officials under Agriculture Secretary Schafer are proposing irradiating beef carcasses in order to cover up the filth and contamination of E. Coli. Irradiation is just a band-aid solution for meat industry problems and could be harmful to consumers. Worst of all, the meat wouldn't have to be labeled as irradiated.

Find out more at the Food & Water Watch site

And in more irradiation news, according to the New York Times , the FDA will allow producers to irradiate fresh spinach and iceberg lettuce, enough to kill e.coli and salmonella, a move not welcomed by groups like Food & Water Watch.

If you're not familiar with food irradiation and the controversy surrounding it, please visit our Food Irradiation page for more information.

Check our new Facebook Fan page
We are spreading the news about sustainable food and you can join us on Facebook! Write on our wall to let us know what sustainable efforts you are making or to tell others about sustainable events in your area

Send sustainability to friends!
Help us spread the word about sustainable food and what we’re doing here at Sustainable Table and The Meatrix. Please pass this newsletter to your friends and encourage them to get involved on our site. The only way we’re going to save family farms and be able to provide local, sustainable food for everyone is if we all join in and work together.

Stay in touch with Sustainable Table & The Meatrix!
The Parlour, our forum

Keep up-to-date on our blog, The Daily Table

Listen to our podcasts on Gabcast

MySpace - Moopheus and Sustainable Table

Sustainable Table on Facebook

See great pictures on our Flickr account

Have a wonderful and safe Labor Day weekend! We'll be back next month with even more information on sustainable food and what we've been doing. Thanks - for supporting us and for helping to save small family farms!