Tomorrow morning, transit workers are striking across Italy, but we have 9:50 tickets to Venice. Word on the street is that we’ll be fine. Eight of us from the Academy are renting an apartment for the weekend. I won’t be bringing my computer, and will probably not be blogging. But not to worry! I’ll be keeping a food diary—and not one in the style of a dieter.
Other tidbits of interest? I just cooked a simple dinner for myself and Jack made of mostly local things purchased around the neighborhood. I sauteed peppers, onion, rosemary, and proscuitto. I scrambled local organic eggs. We ate warm pizza bianca from Panificio Beti. I like that they put coarse salt on top. I opened some Lazio wine, but it was corked.
For dessert, Jack ate Greek yogurt with honey, and I ate a ciambellina vino rosso.
I also started working on a new project today, as a volunteer for the Diversity for Life campaign. In order to promote knowledge of the importance of agricultural biodiversity for the health of people, cultures, and the planet, they are launching an oral history project in Kenya and Italy this year. (Other places will follow.) For these oral history archives, school children will record interviews with their grandparents about what foods they used to grow, cook, and eat. The aims are to foster an interest in old food traditions and in the foods themselves, to help the kind of agricultural biodiversity that’s been almost lost to monocultures and convenience food continue to thrive, and to encourage a reliance on varied diets which are more nutritious and can be grown in ways that are healthier for the planet. I’ll be writing the pamphlet that will be distributed to school children in rural and urban Kenya, and which explains the project and the value of maintaining both agricultural biodiversity and continuity in the regional culture as it relates to food. A lot of American school children could benefit from a similar campaign!
This weekend, though, I’ll be walking around beautiful Venice, taking notes about a very different kind of food culture.
Ciao!
The Roving Locavore 