Pete Thomas, right, pulls carrots out of the ground as NBC cameraman Neal Gallagher shoots from below. Dan Calderone is to the left, almost out of view. (Photo by the writer.)

What you probably won’t see on that show is a segment shot on a cold October morning at Food Gatherers. An NBC film crew spent a couple of hours taking footage of Thomas at the Food Gatherers warehouse and gardens off of Dhu Varren Road, on Ann Arbor’s north side. The segment was originally intended to be part of a broader profile of Thomas, who dropped 140 pounds during and after his appearance on “The Biggest Loser.”

But a couple of weeks after the shoot, NBC told Food Gatherers that their segment was being cut from the show – instead, producers planned to highlight a marathon that Thomas going to run. The Food Gatherers spot might air on NBC.com, but that’s uncertain.

The Chronicle got to tag along during the Food Gatherers portion of the shoot. Here’s a look at what goes into making a reality-ish show – even the parts that might never make it on TV.

The Prep

Pete Thomas hooked up with Food Gatherers through Feeding America, a national nonprofit that’s partnered with “The Biggest Loser” in the Pound for Pound Challenge to encourage weight loss while raising money for food pantries. Thomas wanted to include a community service aspect as part of his profile for the upcoming NBC special, and Feeding America suggested Food Gatherers, which is part of Feeding America’s national network of food banks.

There was considerable planning by Food Gatherers staff before the NBC crew arrived on the morning of Oct. 16. The nonprofit wanted to include as much variety as possible, highlighting different aspects of their enterprise and making sure their mission was clear. They also needed to include things that Thomas could actually do – as opposed to just sitting around talking.

A neat stack of Food Gatherers T-shirts and a cap for Pete Thomas were set up in the nonprofit's conference room before the NBC film crew arrived on Oct. 16. (Photo by the writer.)

The Chronicle had previously encountered the organizational prowess of Food Gatherers, so it was no surprise to see it on display again. A detailed, two-page handout prepared for the film crew listed the names and titles of Food Gatherers staff and volunteers, a bullet-point list of facts about the nonprofit, and a synopsis of activities to be filmed.

They also made sure that nearly every person who’d appear in the segment was wearing a T-shirt or cap with the Food Gatherers logo. Extra Ts were ready for anybody who needed one, neatly stacked on a table in the nonprofit’s conference room – and a cap with the ubiquitous Food Gatherers carrot was flagged with a sticky note, saving it for Pete Thomas.

The nonprofit’s executive director, Eileen Spring, was out of the country on this day, so the point person for Food Gatherers was Missy Orge, director of outreach and training.

The Shoot: Getting Started

The shoot was set to begin at 9 a.m. and Pete Thomas arrived first, at about 9:20, with his assistant, Lamar Amos, who is also from Ypsilanti. Amos carried what looked like a case for a musical instrument – when someone asked what was in it, he reported that it contained a large poster of Thomas, taken before his dramatic weight loss.

In fact, it’s hard to imagine that Thomas was ever overweight – a tall, strapping man with the confidence and charisma of someone who’s comfortable in his own skin, Thomas now makes his living as a motivational speaker and personal weight loss coach.

After introductions, he hands The Chronicle his business card, which also has “before” and “after” photos of himself. In the “before” image, he’s shirtless and frowning – stretch marks are clearly visible on his belly.

By 9:30 the film crew has arrived: the producer, production assistant, cameraman, assistant cameraman and sound mixer. Everyone gathers in the conference room, and Missy Orge reviews the activities that they have planned for the shoot, which include picking food in the garden and preparing a dish with the harvested food. “We’re going to insert you into all the parts,” she tells Thomas.

The producer, Ian Golding, announces that they’ll start with the outside shots. “We want to do a walk up – who would Pete meet when he’s coming in?”

That would be Missy – but first, there’s the question of outerwear.

Thomas needs a coat that’s suitable for working in a garden, so Dan Calderone, the farm manager for Food Gatherers, brings in two options.The first one Thomas tries on is a tight fit, just a little too small for his long arms. But Golding likes it: “You look good in that – you look thin!”

The second one is too large and a little more worn – but clearly more comfortable, and Thomas opts for that one.

Golding, however, persuades him to reconsider, with an eye toward how it will look on camera. The small one it is.

Pete Thomas, left, gets hooked up with a wireless microphone by sound mixer Kris Bagley. (Photo by the writer.)

Before they begin, Kris Bagley, the crew’s sound mixer, hooks up Thomas with a wireless microphone. He’ll do the same with everyone who appears on camera, and assures them that he always turns off the mic when they aren’t being filmed.

This becomes  particularly important when people need to take a bathroom break.

With the microphone hooked up and the coat selected, it’s time for the walk-up shot. The idea is to see Thomas walk from the parking lot to the front door of Food Gatherers.

It’s a simple thing. Even so, they shoot several takes.

The outside shot needs no extra lighting. But the next segment is shot inside, in the nonprofit’s reception area.

Cameraman Neal Gallagher and his assistant, David Walsh, set up some lights on a tripod, aiming them at the ceiling to add an indirect glow and augment the room’s existing fluorescent lights. Thomas asks Gallagher how much his camera costs. About $40,000, Gallagher replies.

Golding directs Thomas to enter the front door, greet the receptionist, Marz Roehrig, and ask to see Orge. “Let’s have Dan come into this shot too,” Golding says, referring to Calderone. Orge asks, “Am I introducing them, or does he already know Pete?”

In the background, Nicole Ferris, the production assistant, is getting people to sign releases – forms giving NBC permission to use the footage that’s being shot of them. Thomas also takes a moment to pull aside The Chronicle and give some advice – always make sure to stay behind the cameraman, he says, so that you won’t be in the way during a shoot. This advice comes in handy, though it’s not always easy to anticipate where the camera will pan, especially outdoors. We head outside.

Harvesting Harvested Squash

The Gathering Farm is a half-acre, fenced-in garden that lies on Food Gatherers’ property, in front of their warehouse and office building. The food grown there is distributed to the nonprofit’s network of food pantries in this region, with the goal of providing healthier, fresh food to low-income residents. Food grown in the garden is also sent to the community kitchen at the Delonis Center, where it’s prepared and served to people at the homeless shelter.

Dan Calderone, left, places butternut squash back on the ground so that it can be "harvested" on camera. Pete Thomas and Ian Golding, far right, strategize about the scene. (Photo by the writer.)

All of this is a narrative that’s worked into scenes throughout the shoot. It’s a story that Food Gatherers staff knows well, and Golding compliments them on how natural they are in their interactions on camera.

But some things aren’t quite so natural. Because of the threat of frost, all of the butternut squash in the Gathering Farm has been harvested. However, Calderone has a bushel basket full of the vegetable, and suggests placing the squash back into the garden so that it can be “harvested.”

Golding agrees to this, but cautions them: “We need to make it as close to real as possible, because anyone will know that squash just isn’t sitting on the ground.” At this, Thomas quips: “So squash comes from a field? Hey, I grew up in the city – I thought squash came from Aisle 2!”

Calderone carefully re-populates a section of the garden with squash, making sure the stems are covered with the dried vines on the ground. He shows Thomas how to use a knife to make a fake cut, in an upward motion that appears to quite realistically sever the stem from the vine. Golding seems satisfied. Shooting begins.

Next Up: Carrot Way Carrots

Though executive director Eileen Spring is partial to potatoes, carrots are the signature vegetable for Food Gatherers. Their road off of Dhu Varren is called Carrot Way. Concrete carrot planters line the entrance to their office building, and an oversized stuffed carrot is a fixture in their lobby. And, as it happened, there were still unharvested carrots in a garden behind the Food Gatherers warehouse – that’s where the crew headed next.

Neal Gallagher, the cameraman, admires the design of the warehouse’s water diversion system. When it rains, runoff from the gutters flows down pipes and is collected in large blue barrels at intervals along the entire length of the building. It’s unclear whether any of that information was discussed on camera – during the shoot, we’re too far away to catch any of the conversation.

When the carrots are pulled, dumped into a box, and loaded onto a cart, everyone heads back into the warehouse for the final part of the segment – food prep and cooking.

In the Kitchen: Wash Your Hands

Normally, food from the gardens is prepared at the kitchen of the Delonis Center, but to do so for this filming would have entailed some logistical gymnastics. For one, it would have required the crew to travel to yet another location. It also would have meant delaying the actual lunch served at Delonis.

Mark Bowden, in the green Food Gatherers T-shirt, cleans off a table for food prep as cameraman Neal Gallagher explains the angle he'd like to shoot. Next to Gallagher is producer Ian Golding and Pete Thomas. (Photo by the writer.)

Instead, Food Gatherers staff set up a “test kitchen” in the warehouse, and asked two of the cooks who work at Delonis – Mark Bowden and Sam White – to help with food prep. Scott Roubeck, special projects coordinator for Food Gatherers, was also on hand in his white chef’s jacket, walking Thomas through the paces of a recipe for squash casserole.

The first shot showed Orge and Thomas coming into the kitchen from the warehouse. Orge introduced Thomas to the kitchen staff, but vetoed shaking hands – Bowden and White were wearing latex gloves, as they’d already been doing food prep. Noting that she was chair of the food safety council for Feeding America, Orge tells Thomas he needs to wash his hands and put on gloves, too.

Most of the prep work has been done in advance – bowls of cubed squash, onions and carrots are sitting on the counter. For the camera, Roubeck shows Thomas how to peel the squash and cut it into cubes. Off to the side, White has been chopping onions and winces as the vapors sting his eyes.

Roubeck explains how the casserole is made – with eggs, lowfat cheese and mayonnaise – while Thomas asks questions about how many meals are served at Delonis – 50 for breakfast every day, 120 for lunch on weekdays, and 150-175 for dinner daily.

Scott Roubeck awaits the arrival of Pete Thomas, while Sam White and Mark Bowden do food prep. (Photo by the writer.)

The dish goes into the oven, which requires a bit of finesse. It turns out that this particular oven doesn’t work, so the actual dish has been pre-baked in an oven in a different part of the building. Orge brings in the pre-cooked casserole – it smells great – and off-camera, it’s put into the non-functional oven. On-camera, Roubeck then removes the finished casserole and serves it up.

At this point Gallagher, the cameraman, notices that the baked casserole has carrots as well as squash, but carrots hadn’t been among the ingredients of the dish they’d put into the oven. Orge offers to pick out the carrots. This is deemed unnecessary – “Just don’t mention it,” Gallagher tells Roubeck.

As Thomas samples the finished product, he remarks, “This is really good – I’m surprised!” Earlier, he had joked that he was hoping they’d make pumpkin pie, even though he knew baked squash was healthier.

Coda: The Rest of the Story

After finishing up at Food Gatherers, the crew was headed over to Thomas’ home in Ypsilanti, then to do a workout at Eastern Michigan University, where Thomas teaches a fitness course. They also planned to shoot Thomas playing basketball – it was a passion he had given up when he gained so much weight, Thomas explains. “You just weren’t that good,” jokes his assistant, Lamar Amos.

In a phone interview several days later, Eileen Spring – the nonprofit’s executive director – said it was generous of Thomas to include them, and that it had been an exciting experience for the staff and volunteers, even given the news that it likely wouldn’t air.

The connection to Thanksgiving has special resonance for Food Gatherers, Spring said. It was 21 years ago during the week of Thanksgiving that the nonprofit made its first food rescue run, picking up food from six local businesses with a van that Paul Saginaw of Zingerman’s borrowed from Moveable Feast.

Finally, for those readers who are looking for one extra dish to serve during their own Thanksgiving feast, here’s the recipe for squash and carrots that was prepared during the filming at Food Gatherers.

Food Gatherers’ Squash and Carrot Casserole

• 3 cups butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 cup peeled carrots, cut into ½ inch “coins”
• 1 small yellow onion, diced
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (low-fat is fine)
• 12-15 whole wheat crackers, crumbled
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 TBSP light mayonnaise

Heat oven to 400°F. Boil squash and carrots until tender (about 15 minutes). Rinse and drain. Mix squash, carrots and remaining ingredients. Sprinkle more cheese on top if desired. Spoon into baking dish (8 inch square or 9×13 inch rectangle). Bake 45 minutes to 1 hour. Eat with vigor.

"I know your blurry winter roads like the back of the hand that is Michigan."

Matthew Milia of Frontier Ruckus led off Tuesday night’s set at The Ark just the way he started the band – with David Jones sitting by his side. With Jones’ gentle plucking of the banjo and Milia on guitar, Milia eased into Driving Home, Christmas Eve: “The churchyard is frozen, the Salvation Army is closin’, your child is dozin’ asleep …” But the repeated rhyme stopped there and did not become a caricature of itself in the way that a Dylan lyric sometimes does.

As the evening progressed, the pair were joined on stage by the full complement of the band – which added drums, bass, a musical saw, piano, trumpet, trombone – but the constant throughout was the sheer literate quality of Milia’s songwriting. A lot of it is about place, or moving through a place – someplace that could be any old place. But he’s writing about a particular place – even if it’s half made up, which is the case for Orion Town, the title of the band’s new full-length CD release. But it’s real particular places when he sings about I-75, or Rosemont Street. And Milia makes them compelling as stand-ins for a listener’s own places – in the same way that Springsteen does when he sings about driving through his hometown in a big old Buick or when Mellencamp describes another hot one out on Highway 11.

Frontier Ruckus (right to left): John Krohn, bass; Ryan Etzcorn, drums; Anna Burch, vocals; Matthew Milia, vocals; David Jones, banjo. Also, mostly obscured at left: Zach Nichols, saw, trumpet, melodica; Ryan Hay, piano; Jeremy Peters, trombone.

The progression of the performance Tuesday night mirrored in some ways the chapter of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn entitled “I Have a New Name,” from which Frontier Ruckus quotes on their MySpace page under the slot for Sounds Like: “… and there was them kind of faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lonesome and like everybody’s dead and gone.”

But the faint dronings soon become the barking of hound dogs as they encircle Huck on the Phelps’ plantation where he’s arrived a stranger. Which is not in any way to compare the full band to the barking of hound dogs.

Especially not the vocals of Anna Burch, who lends the band’s sound a fresh, sweet quality to complement Milia’s not-unpleasant half-creak, which sometimes teeters on the edge of a laugh.

And there were plenty of laughs shared among the band and the audience during the evening, some intentional, some not. “We’re not used to playing formal shows,” Milia said during a minor hitch involving the set list and tuning of their instruments, saying that they were used to playing bars where most of the people were only half listening.

Andy Garris' hand offers a tray of shots to a band he loves.

One of those bars has been The Elbow Room in Ypsilanti, and Andy Garris of The Elbow Room was there at The Ark on Tuesday to offer up a tray of Jameson shots to the band before one of their final songs. After the show, Garris summarized his thoughts on Frontier Ruckus: “I love this band.” They’ll be playing next at Garris’ Elbow Room on Dec. 28 for the third day of a three-day event, Mittenfest.

Standing in the same conversational pod as Garris after the show was Ryan Howard, who plays with the band Canada. Howard confirmed that Canada would be playing the first day of Mittenfest on Dec. 26 along with Creaky Boards, among others. Chris Bathgate was also in the audience for the Tuesday show with Frontier Ruckus, and he confirmed that he’d be at Mittenfest as well (Dec. 28). All three days of Mittenfest are scheduled for The Elbow Room this year, with music starting at 6 p.m. each day.

The show on Tuesday evening at The Ark had the relaxed intimacy of a neighborhood pub with a band comfortable knowing that many of the people there were totally on their side. But bass player John Krohn estimated after the show that two-thirds of the audience skewed away from their usual demographic.

Greeting Take a Chance Tuesday concert goers at the door of The Art are Food Gatherers volunteers May Ping Soo Ho and William Charley, along with Cynthia Dunitz of Fleming Artists.

Those folks at the concert who had never heard Frontier Ruckus before, and might well have never heard of them, either, were at The Ark for Take a Chance Tuesday. The Take a Chance Tuesday series is a free concert on the fourth Tuesday of every month except December, which concluded a full decade with yesterday’s concert. Cynthia Dunitz of Fleming Artists came up with the concept 10 years ago as a way to help develop young and up-and-coming artists. Speaking with Dunitz before the show, she said that she’s turning over the reins to her colleague, Susie Giang.

The concert series also works as a fundraiser for Food Gatherers, which had volunteers on hand to accept and sort the food that concert goers brought in lieu of paying for tickets.

The concert series also enjoys support from DTE’s GreenCurrents program, which has sponsored 110 concerts at The Ark, according to Larry Kaufman of DTE. Kaufman was on hand to highlight DTE’s role in sponsoring the series, as well as to sign folks up for the GreenCurrents program, which DTE promotes as a way for electricity consumers to boost the use of electricity in the grid that comes from wind and other alternative sources.

As The Chronicle left The Ark, Kaufman was on the verge of signing up Andy Garris of The Elbow Room for GreenCurrents.

The Frito-Lay blue team loads boxes of food in the Food Gatherers warehouse on Wednesday night.

At 7 p.m. Wednesday evening, the offices of Food Gatherers at 1 Carrot Way were fairly quiet, with just a handful of people milling around, chatting and checking out the display of old food products. (Anyone remember PDQ drink mix?)

That scene changed dramatically at 7:05, when the first of four chartered buses started dropping off Frito-Lay sales reps, coming for a marathon volunteer effort to pack food boxes for Thanksgiving meals. By 7:25, the volume level had ratcheted up with roughly 200 people crammed in elbow to elbow, ready to get to work.

With clipboards in hand and whistle hung around her neck, Missy Orge, Food Gatherers director of outreach and training, was ready to lead the troops. This was a logistical challenge – the most volunteers they’d ever had at one time – but Orge was clearly prepared.

People were already divided into work crews, based on the color of T-shirt they’d been given: blue, brown, orange, red, yellow, green and purple. (Some of these guys were a little pumped up, huddling up with high fives and shouts of “Green Rocks!” and “Brown Rules!”)

Missy Orge of Food Gatherers gives instructions to the Frito-Lay volunteers.

Orge and other Food Gatherers staff led the rainbow-shirted collective back to the warehouse, a cavernous space where pallets of food and drink were stacked on steel racks. They’d already organized work stations: Long tables with an area to put together the cardboard boxes, stacks of food that would go into each box, and pallets at the end where the taped-up completed boxes would be stacked.

Orge gave more instructions on where to put trash and where to recycle cardboard. And finally, she passed out clipboards to the team leaders (in white T-shirts).

So how do a bunch of Frito-Lay employees wind up packing cans of corn and boxes of stuffing late on a Wednesday evening?

The sales reps for Frito-Lay’s mid-America region – which includes Michigan, Ohio and northern Indiana – hold a region-wide meeting twice a year or so. This year, they gathered Nov. 12-13 at the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Marriott at Eagle Crest. Each meeting includes some kind of volunteer component. Amy Ladd, an executive assistant with Frito-Lay, said she simply emailed Ann Arbor’s mayor asking for suggestions, and he referred her to Food Gatherers.

A couple of hams, but not the edible kind.

Frito-Lay paid $7,500 to buy the food that was being packed – enough for 1,000 boxes, containing:

• Stuffing mix
• Corn bread mix
• Vegetable soup
• Mixed vegetables
• Carrots
• Macaroni & cheese
• Elbow macaroni
• Corn
• Apple sauce
• Milk (in shelf-stable packaging)

Food Gatherers also tossed in a four-pack of bottled water from Life Water. During the holiday season, each box, plus a five-pound bag of potatoes – also paid for by Frito-Lay – will be paired with a turkey and given to families in need.

Food Gatherers works with about 150 programs to distribute food. Of those, roughly 100 agencies will benefit from the Frito-Lay-funded food by ordering Thanksgiving Day meals from the nonprofit.

Food Gatherers expects the demand for food will be higher than ever this year. In 2007, the group saw a 50 percent increase in people seeking food aid compared to 2006 – and the economy has worsened since then. If you’d like to contribute or volunteer, more information is available on the Food Gatherers website. Food Gatherers will also be holding its annual Rockin’ for the Hungry outdoor food drive Dec. 3-7 at Busch’s on South Main Street.

Frito-Lay's purple team works fast.

Volunteers from Frito-Lay pack pickles.

Orange team members check expiration dates in the Food Gatherers pantry.

Five-pound bags of potatoes, awaiting distribution.

Is it a tired member of the orange team? No, it's just a stuffed carrot in the Food Gatherers office.

Missy Orge of Food Gatherers talks with a green team member who's feeding the cardboard baler.

A graduate receives congratulations and a chef's jacket from Scott Roubeck, Special Projects Coordinator for Food Gatherers' Community Kitchen

The Culinary Arts Training Class is part of the jobs training program that’s integrated into the Food Gatherers Community Kitchen. The Community Kitchen serves meals nightly at the Delonis Center, the homeless shelter on Huron Street on the periphery of downtown Ann Arbor. During their 120 hours of instruction, which accumulates in twice-weekly sessions, students in the training class are responsible for preparing the Monday night Community Kitchen meal.

Missy Orge, Director of Outreach and Training at Food Gatherers, emphasized in her remarks to the assembly that the training class is not easy. Although the most recent class started with 10 students, all of which completed the course, the class from the spring dwindled from eight to four students by the course’s conclusion.

Culinary Arts graduates made the appetizers served at the graduation reception – including this carved fruit centerpiece.

Based on the quality of the appetizers on offer at the reception – which were prepared by graduates of the course – it was not hard to believe that some of the Monday night dinners they prepared during the training course earned applause from the diners.

In addition to their diplomas, graduates received a chef’s jacket and a “golden spatula.” Although the spatula is likely ornamental, the gleaming white new jackets are fully functional. And the goal of the program is for graduates to find a place in the food industry where they could get those jackets dirty.

Among local establishments where graduates have found employment in the past are: People’s Food Co-Op, Zingerman’s Roadhouse, Zingerman’s Deli, Zingerman’s Next Door, Stucchi’s and Washtenaw Community College.

Currently, graduates are employed by Sodexho (at Borders World Headquarters), Subway, Kroger, Zingerman’s Deli, Red Hot Lovers, McDonald’s, Little Caesar’s, UM Hospital, Avalon Housing, Food Gatherers.

Gradautes of the 6th and 7th classes of the Food Gatherers' Culinary Arts Training Class. The graduation reception was held at the Delonis Center.

]]> http://annarborchronicle.com/2008/08/22/graduation-golden-spatulas/feed/ 0