Our tentative agenda will include some mitosis. We’ll be defining leadership positions and splitting up into program groups. As a starting point, here are Slow Food USA’s programs. Finally, we’ll be discussing other possible meeting locations.

I hope I will see many of you next week! Look for the snail!

(By the by – I emailed this out to the Slow Food list but got a few bounces. If you want to be on the list but did not get an email from me today, contact me again please!)

Personally, I can’t wait for us to become official so we can get on the SFUSA website. Why is that a big deal? When people sign up online they will be able to select our convivium from the lis! Right now people are getting placed in our local sister convivia. (I think we CNYers are split between the Rochester Convivium and the Leatherstocking Convivium.) It’s the little things that excite me.

At the meeting we looked at the five pieces of the Convivium Application:

1. Description about your area
2. Bio about the team leadership
3. The convivium mission
4. Sign and return the Convivium Agreement name, logo and list letter.
5. Sign and return the convivium team application

…. and decided to focus on the first three for now.

1. Description about your area
Jonnell volunteered for this task, as she already has a lot of this written up. (I assume from grants to which she’s applied?) Later in the meeting, we talked about including information about indigenous / local foods to Syracuse. We assigned ourselves homework: research about a local food and post it to this blog. Off the top of our heads we discussed the Three Sisters (Corn, Beans and Squash), strawberry, hops, and salmon all being food that used to be harvested here. We also mentioned SALT!! (Hey Yury / Ed, can we count that as a food? ) I also warned that if you wait to submit a food, the easy ones will likely be taken! So act fast people! All people who attened the meeting are now blog authors. If you weren’t at the meeting (or can’t figure out how to post!) just email me and I’ll post it.

2. Bio about the team leadership
We talked about having a one page bio for each person, complete with a photo! We talked about what questions we’d like to ask:

• Name
• Profession
• What Slow Food means to you
• Where you grew up
• A dish indigenous to where you grew up, or a dish passed down within your family.
• You favorite meal ever

Anything you want added / taken off? Other ideas? Make a comment here or email me! Meredith took on the task of putting together the template. I’ll email it out to everyone when that is done. Everyone is asked to fill it out before our next meeting.

3. The convivium mission
For this item, we went discussed what Slow Foods meant to us, as well as what does “convivium” mean to us. Here are some of the comments:

• Italians eating lots of food and local-pressed wine in a field.
• Vermont. Clean water. Purity
• Connection to people to their food. Teaching people what their food is and where it comes from.
• Going Organic.
• Knowing exactly what we are eating. What every ingredient is and where it comes from.
• Michael Pollin going after that boar. Omnivore’s Dilemma. Food security. Connection between grocery store distance and low birth weight.
• Cooking in the kitchen with spouse… best time I have!
• Started thinking Slow Food was about affluency and exclusivity. Not suitable for a family on a budget! Slow Food is now actively trying not to be like that… I want to do my part to help that happen!
• Food is unique… it should be fun!
• Slow food… started as culinary arm of Italian communist party? Reclaiming cooking as a process of eating. Finding pleasure in the gathering and preparing of food. Pride in cooking!

We also had a discussion about what type of events we’d like to sponor:

• Going to local farms.
• Potlucks.
• Pie eating contest.
• Assure that local educational institutions have access to healthy/local food in their cafeteria.
• Possibly teaching gardening/growing food in schools.
• Block Party around community gardens.
• Support Syracuse Grows in their endeavours!
• Engage with food pantries to have Fresh Food Initiatives. Pair with CSAs to give excess produce to food pantries and distribute it with recipes on how to cook it.
• Have a presence at the Thornden Park Chili Festival in February and Taste of Syracuse in June.
• Seed Bank. Save seeds and seed exchange. Organic, heirloom varieties.
• Just have fun and not reinvent the wheel or try to do everything ourselves!

I (Paul) took on the task of consolidating all these ideas in a mission statement for our convivium.

Convivium-shed
One item we discussed was “what is local?” We bascially decided that our coverage area would be everything between the Finger Lakes, Rochester area, Catskills and Leatherstocking Region, as all these areas already have convivia. We also said we should include anything within our ecoregion. We will have a New York State map on hand at the next meeting to discuss this further.

Other notes
Here are some miscellaneous thoughts / comments from the meeting

• It was requested that we get copies of other Convivium Applications from Slow Food USA so we can see what SFUSA expects.
• We discussed how Slow Food USA’s new president is emphasizing food justice (see earlier blog entry about this).
• We talked up Syracuse Grows canning workshop. November 23rd. SU’s teaching kitchen. Room for 22.

Next meeting
Our next meeting will be sometime in December and we want to have it at Second Story again. I will send out infomation in the next week polling for the best date / time.

Thanks for reading this far, and thanks to everyone for a great meeting!!!

So to start a chapter (convivium) of Slow Food USA here in Syracuse, I need to get people to sign up to become Slow Food USA members. This costs money. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t really enjoy asking people for money. But many things require money to happen. Money is also a commitment (ie, “put your money where your mouth is”). So let’s talk about the costs of Slow Food membership, what that money gets you, and where it goes.

Membership Costs
This information is taken directly from the Slow Food Memberships page.

• Individual membership: $60 / year
• Couple membership: $75 / year
• Student membership: $30 / year

So, for an individual, it’s equivalent to paying $5 a month. Not bad in greater scope of things. Also, I’ve gotten asked “what makes someone a couple?” Well, that is up to Slow Foods USA. But please don’t short-change the organization. As you’ll see below, they do some pretty awesome stuff.

Membership Benefits
Here are a list of the membership benefits, which were again taken from another Slow Foods USA page…

• A one-year subscription to the Snail journal, which covers good, clean and fair food issues such as: sustainable seafood, food systems education, alternative food distribution, protecting biodiversity and regional food traditions.
• The Slow Food Almanac from Slow Food International that features in-depth stories of the movement from around the world.
• The Food Chain, our monthly e-newsletter that highlights the activities of our 200+ convivia, our diverse programs and the latest headlines in food sustainability.
• A personal membership card and a copy of the Slow Food Companion (for first-time members, mailed quarterly), which details Slow Food’s mission, network and projects.
• Membership in your local Chapter and invitations to local, national and international Slow Food events ranging from seasonal feasts to film festivals, farm tours to taste workshops.
• Discounts on merchandise including the Slow Food Guides to New York City, Chicago and San Francisco, as well as other items in our General Store. Call for member discount or order through the monthly Food Chain.

Phew! Glad I just had to copy and paste all that. As you can see, you get a lot of perks for being a member. And a card. You also get a card in the mail.

Where the Money Goes
Again, I will pull from one of the Slow Food USA pages. I get the feeling I’ll be doing that a lot. The chart below breaks out all the money. I’ll explain some pieces as best I can. However, if you want more detailed information, I encourage you to contact Slow Food USA directly. I’m really just working off what little I know.

First: Slow Food International Allocation. This portion of your money assists with opening up chapters of Slow Food across the globe. And as much as we don’t like to think about it, we in America take up much more than our fair share of international resources. I personally see no problem with having about $20 of my dues go toward encouraging local, sustainable agriculture throughout the world.

Next biggest chunk: Leadership Training & Convivium Development. Well… that’s money going toward helping Syracuse get off the ground. Every new convivium gets a disbursement of $100 its first year to assist with start up costs. I expect it also covers the operating expenses associated with assisting new convivia get off the ground.

Your money also goes toward making the publications happen, supporting Slow Food USA’s programs (which I can get into in another posting if people want) and annual convivia disbursements (the first year we’ll get $100 – every year thereafter we get an amount based on the number of people in our convivia). Oh, and let’s not forget overhead expenses for the organization as a whole.

Full disclosure time: I was in the middle of writing up a nice big long blog post (complete with charts and subheaders) addressing all this questions. … and my computer froze. Bear with me people, I’m new to blogging. So I will just focus on the first question now.

What is Slow Food?

Slow Food started in Italy, as part of a protest to the fast food movement. It has since grow to over 50 countries, with thousands of grassroots chapters. The organization is about nourishing healthy food systems: supporting local farms, educating people about food choices, providing access to healthy fresh food to impoverished neighborhoods, patronizing restaurants that provide local fresh food.

Or, as I like to say: It’s about making brownies from scratch instead of from a box.

Some people ask about what is the difference between Slow Food and organic food. Basically, organic food is good, but you can still have monocrop industrial organic farms that ship around the country and don’t pay the workers fair wages. Slow Foods is about creating a sustainable food system. Farms that nourish the earth. Kitchens that nourish friends and family. Consumers and restaurants that support the hinderland. In a way, it’s about fighting entropy through the blessed action of eating.

Not enough for you? Check out the Slow Food USA website. They have their own (probably better) explanation of what Slow Food is. It also has links to the benefits of membership and information and events happening around the country.

Thanks for reading this far. Check back in the future, or subscribe to the RSS feed! Next post I’ll be talking about what membership in Slow Food USA gets you, and where the money from your member dues goes.