Stories indexed with the term ‘local food’

Ann Arbor greenbelt advisory commission meeting (Nov. 10, 2010): At this month’s meeting, commissioners unanimously approved forming a subcommittee to explore possible changes to the existing boundary of the greenbelt district. Led by GAC vice chair Dan Ezekiel, the group will look for ways to protect properties that might be appropriate for the greenbelt, but that lie just outside of the current district. A similar effort in 2007 resulted in bumping out the boundary by a mile.

Noting that this was the second time they’d looked at the issue, GAC chair Jennifer S. Hall suggested exploring other ways that the greenbelt program might achieve the same result, but that wouldn’t involve regularly moving the program’s fixed boundary.

Another theme of the meeting was local food. Two local food advocates – Lisa Gottlieb and Jeff McCabe – gave a presentation about their work raising money to fund construction of hoop houses at local farms. Gottlieb and McCabe host the weekly Selma Cafe, a breakfast gathering every Friday morning at their home that regularly draws more than 120 people. Commissioner Dan Ezekiel praised their work, and GAC chair Jennifer S. Hall expressed the hope that they could find ways to work together in the future.

Also during Wednesday’s meeting, commissioners voted to recommend an agreement with Webster Township, which is offering to contribute $50,000 to the purchase of development rights for the 146-acre Whitney farm. The city council has already agreed to pay $707,122 toward that purchase.

Greenbelt program manager Ginny Trocchio reported that the city has closed on the 51-acre Gould property, adjacent to the recently protected 286-acre Braun farm – both farms are located in Ann Arbor Township. The Braun acquisition bumped the greenbelt program over the 2,000-acre mark, she said – about 2,200 acres are now part of the greenbelt. The Brauns have agreed to open their property for a celebration in the coming months.

In other action, GAC voted unanimously to set public commentary rules in alignment with other city boards and commissions. And Hall noted that two vacancies will be opening up next year on GAC – she encouraged local residents who might be interested in serving on the commission to attend some of their meetings, or talk to their city councilmember about their interest.

The commission also got an update from city treasurer Matt Horning, who was responding to questions that commissioners had raised regarding a drop in investment income on the latest year-end financial statement. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor City Council meeting (Aug. 16, 2010): Monday’s meeting was notable for its brevity, lasting barely over an hour. It was filled with the stuff of small-town governance – mayoral proclamations in honor of park volunteers, local food month, and women’s equality day.

Some of the more interesting conversation emerged during deliberations as the council accepted one of several easements: Why is this one 7 feet wide, when the others measure 10 feet?

Another one of the easements accepted by the council involved a non-motorized path to be constructed on the north side of Washtenaw Avenue between Glenwood and Tuomy roads. That project has a history dating back to 2006. At Monday’s meeting, the council also completed the third of four required steps in the process to establish a special assessment of residents whose property abuts the non-motorized path.

In other business, the council authorized purchases of software, plus IT switches. The switches will support the data center to be housed in the new police-courts facility. The council also set the stage for the local firm NanoBio to be able to apply for a tax abatement, by establishing an industrial development district.

As a part of his city administrator’s report, Roger Fraser seemed to put participants in the annual shopping cart race on notice that the event could be shut down on pain of a missing parade permit. The shopping cart races are a part of “punk week,” which has been part of Ann Arbor’s late summer culture for over a decade. The following evening, the race took place – with Ann Arbor police cruisers serving the same function they’ve performed historically, hanging in the background, providing a measure of protection to racers from traffic approaching from behind.

The shopping cart race featured a former councilmember and DDA board member, Dave DeVarti, who was stirred to participate by Fraser’s threat to shut down the event. [Full Story]

Head north on Hewitt Road from Washtenaw Avenue, past Eastern Michigan’s Rynearson Stadium to the edge of the St. Joseph Mercy Hospital campus. Off to the right is a plot of land that the health provider is now returning to a previous use – farming.

The centerpiece of the current effort is a 30 x 96-foot hoop house, which began construction on Monday. It will be joined by a second hoop house later in the summer, and plans call for a dozen of the structures to be built in the coming years.

The vegetables grown on the plot will be used in the hospital cafeteria and patient meals, and sold at a farmers market, with excess donated to Food Gatherers.

On Monday and again on Wednesday this week, Hank Beekley and his team of draft horses helped with the effort to transform about an acre of St. Joseph’s 356-acre campus in Superior Township to productive farming.

Tuesday was an off day for the horses – wet conditions were the key factor. But Beekley himself was there on Tuesday, along with other volunteers and St. Joseph’s staff to help build the first hoop house, which was already off to a good start based on Monday’s work. [Full Story]

Eating Thin Mints recently got me thinking about locally produced food.

It’s Girl Scout cookie season, and on Saturday – after swinging through the Ann Arbor Farmers Market – I encountered a Brownie and her dad set up at the corner of Main and Liberty, their table loaded with boxes of Thin Mints, Samoas, Tagalongs and an assortment of other cookies that I remember selling too, back in the day. I bought three boxes.

At $3.50 per box, the cookies aren’t outrageously priced – though the boxes seem to get smaller every year. But later, in doing a quick calculation of all the food I’d bought that day, I realized that in buying those cookies, I’d failed to meet a challenge I’d heard earlier in the week: Spend 10% of your food budget on locally produced food.

The “10% Washtenaw” challenge was issued at the Homegrown Local Food Summit, a day-long event on March 2 that drew over 200 people to the Dana Building on the University of Michigan campus. Many of the people at the summit already surpass that goal in a fairly dramatic way. The real challenge, organizers acknowledge, is how to convince the rest of us to do the same. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Public Market Advisory Commission meeting (March 2, 2010): In her market manager report during Tuesday’s meeting, Molly Notarianni gave a recap of the Homegrown Local Food Summit, where she’d spent most of the day.

She noted that one of the market commissioners, Shannon Brines, was absent because he also had spent the day at the summit, as one of its organizers, and was wrapping up loose ends there. Though both the commission meeting and the summit have similar themes – both focused on locally grown food – The Chronicle will report on the summit in a separate article.

Tuesday’s commission meeting touched on several topics, including a proposed transfer of seniority between two market vendors, and an upcoming annual meeting with vendors on March 8. At that meeting, the commission will be getting feedback on proposed changes to the city’s vendor application and inspection forms.

The annual meeting and revisions to the forms were the focus of two speakers during public commentary. Market vendors Scott Robertello of Kapnick Orchards and Bruce Upston of Wasem Fruit Farm criticized aspects of the proposed changes, saying that too much information was being required. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Public Market Advisory Commission (Feb. 2, 2010): Much of the discussion on Tuesday evening focused on an upcoming meeting with market vendors. Finances were on the agenda, too, with a quarterly report from the market manager and some comments from the public about expense and revenue trends, and the impact of new, higher stall fees.

The meeting with vendors, set for March 8, is part of an effort to engage farmers and others who sell products and produce at the public market. Commissioners hope to get feedback on a range of topics, from drafts of new vendor application and inspection forms to ideas for promoting the market.

Some of Tuesday’s meeting was spent reviewing drafts of the vendor application and inspection forms, which include revisions aimed at getting more detailed information about what the vendors are selling, and how the products are made. [Full Story]

“How about a round of applause for beets?!” Kim Bayer asked the group gathered for dinner on Thursday night.

When a room of people cheers for root vegetables – and later, for pie – there’s probably a theme at hand. On Thursday, the theme was locally grown food, fêted at a potluck hosted by Slow Food Huron Valley. The 30 or so people at Hathaway’s Hideaway on South Ashley heard an update on the nonprofit’s activities over the past year, and got a preview of what’s to come in 2010.

There was also plenty to eat and drink: Derby sandwiches (with pickles, bacon and mayo), parmigiano pumpkin soup with prosciutto, spinach walnut pesto, vegan “slop,” sweet potato pie – most of these and other dishes made from locally grown or produced food.

The connection between the meal and the mission of Slow Food Huron Valley was clear, as Bayer – a member of the group’s leadership team – told the diners: “Good food needs to be a basic human right.” [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Public Market Advisory Commission meeting (Oct. 6, 2009): Shoppers at Wednesday’s Ann Arbor Farmers Market might have encountered a few things they hadn’t seen before: 1) Five easels with questions about how customers use the market, 2) three new vendors and 3) a film crew for the movie “Naked Angel.”

The first two were among several items discussed at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Public Market Advisory Commission. The group also talked about Halloween plans for the market – it falls on a Saturday this year – and reviewed its recent working session, which focused on policy issues and outreach. [Full Story]

At a meeting of the Ann Arbor Public Market Advisory Commission earlier this month, market manager Molly Notarianni reported that she’d received a vendor application from someone who wanted to sell food that incorporated traditional Chinese medicine, including “steamed healing sweet buns” and “sweet lotus rolls.” Because she hadn’t yet approved the application, she didn’t reveal the name of the business, but market commissioners seemed intrigued.

Then at the Sept. 12 Homegrown Festival, The Chronicle encountered a booth for Dr. Lu’s Healing Cuisine, where balls of sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaves were selling briskly. Lucinda Kurtz, who was staffing the booth, confirmed that they had applied for a food cart at the farmers market.

So when The Chronicle arrived at the Eberwhite neighborhood home of Larry and Lucie Nisson in mid-September, it was the third time we’d encountered the venture, but the first time to meet its founder, Yun Lu, and to hear in detail about both the business and a nonprofit he started, Golden Courage International. Accompanying him was Roger Newton, a local entrepreneur best known for helping develop the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor and for later founding the Ann Arbor drug developer Esperion Therapeutics. Newton serves as chairman of the board for Golden Courage, and supports the nonprofit through his Esperance Family Foundation.

About a dozen people gathered in the Nissons’ backyard to hear more about these ventures while sampling tea eggs, sweet bean paste buns and rosebud chrysanthemum tea. [Full Story]

When The Chronicle entered the lower level meeting room of the downtown Ann Arbor library, the first things we noticed were three large trays of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cut into bite-sized wedges. As public forums go, this was an offbeat gnoshing choice.

It turned out that the sandwiches – and apples, soft drinks, potato chips and other food – were all sourced from Michigan, in keeping with the theme of Wednesday night’s event. The panel discussion focused on the state’s economic crisis, and how the community can respond to it.  Buying local products is one example.

Starting a local currency is another possibility – the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority is funding a study to look into that. Generating  electricity locally is also an opportunity – Mayor John Hieftje told the group that he didn’t think the dam at Argo Pond would be removed, in part because it might be used for hydropower in the future.

The forum – “Michigan’s Economic Situation: Crisis or Opportunity?” – was hosted by Ann Arbor-based Michigan Peaceworks and Washtenaw Voice, a coalition of local nonprofits that are working together to increase voter turnout and bolster the community in other ways. Michigan Peaceworks is the lead agency in this effort, part of the broader Michigan Voice initiative.

State and national issues were part of the discussion, but most of the six panelists focused on how the local community can take action in specific areas, including food, health care, housing and the environment. [Full Story]

When Royer Held decides which tomatoes to plant in his garden each year, he doesn’t look through seed catalogs. He simply sorts through a collection of plastic bags that hold his own private stash of tomatoes-to-be.

He’s a seed-saver, cleaning and saving seeds from his own stock of plants and trading with others who have varieties he’d like to try. It’s his way of saving the flavorful tomatoes he loves and maybe even developing a new strain by working with generations of hybrids.

“Seed-saving is the ultimate source of local food,” says Held, a computer programmer who’s been involved in gardening since he was a child.

Held’s slightly disheveled garden at Greenview Park – one of the Project Grow gardens there – is a library of tomato genetics, but with wood-and-wire frames in the place of shelves, and instead of handing you a volume to read, he might give you a tomato to taste – maybe a Lollipop cherry tomato or a sausage-shaped Pirkstine Orange. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Public Market Advisory Commission (Sept. 1, 2009): Tuesday marked the start of Local Food Month in Ann Arbor. Tuesday also was the start of a three-year term for the newest member of the city’s Public Market Advisory Commission, who’s also a vendor at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market: Dave Barkman, of TJ Farms in Chelsea.

By way of introduction, Barkman noted that he’s been selling at the farmers market for 28 years. He said he knows a lot of stories, though he didn’t tell any at Tuesday’s meeting. Others did have stories to tell, however – about weddings at the market, medicinal sweet buns, “enthusiastic support” for the Sept. 12 Homegrown Festival and more. [Full Story]

Next week, Ann Arbor chef and restaurateur Eve Aronoff makes her debut on nationwide prime time TV.

The owner of Kerrytown’s eve is among 17 contestants to compete for the title of “Top Chef” on the sixth season of Bravo’s Emmy-winning series, filmed this year in Las Vegas. Its three-month run premieres on Wednesday, Aug. 19, at 9 p.m.

Aronoff acknowledges that she never watched Top Chef – let alone considered appearing on the show – before its producers approached her to become a contestant.

“People connected with the show had been to the restaurant and enjoyed it,” she explains, “so they invited me to apply.” [Full Story]

Five years ago, Alex Young spent his days trying to get Zingerman’s Roadhouse up and open. A long-time chef, Young signed on as manager and chef there, moving his family to a farm outside Dexter.

But on his one day off each week, he picked up a shovel and started his garden. Every week, he dug one row, laboriously turning up deep layers of soil, trading physical labor for the stress of embarking on the new business venture.

That spring, Young wore out the heavy sole of his boot from the edge of the shovel and had a dozen rows in his 75-by-75-foot garden.

“It was a stress reducer,” he says now, and he still sees the calming and even meditative side of growing food as that garden sprouted into Cornman Farms, a business that still is growing. [Full Story]

The Chronicle recently reported an amicable resolution between local government officials and organizers of an event in an arguably unorthodox location: An art show in an industrial park.

Many of the same elements were a part of the saga of Friday Mornings @SELMA: An event in an unorthodox location, a spike of concern from local officials that raised the specter of shutting it down, compromise, and an ultimate resolution that satisfies regulatory issues while keeping this fundraising event alive.

“It’s always cool when the government does something that makes sense,” said Lisa Gottlieb, who runs Friday Mornings @SELMA with her husband, Jeff McCabe, and a corps of volunteers.

What exactly is Friday Mornings @SELMA? Why did the government get involved, and what did they do that “makes sense”? And how is all of this related to the local food movement? We tell the tale after the break. [Full Story]

The cavernous commercial space next to the Liberty Lofts condo complex isn’t always empty –  as recently as May, The Chronicle documented a temporary architectural exhibit there. Mostly, though, passers-by can look through the floor-to-ceiling windows and see roughly 18,000 square feet of emptiness at the corner of Liberty and First.

But on Wednesday, July 8, the former factory space will have another temporary occupant: Karen Myers and Archie Welch are holding an open house from 3:30-7 p.m., hoping to garner support for a European-style indoor farmers market. [Full Story]

On any given night when the weather allows, you’ll usually find James Macdonald chatting with customers or passers-by at his West Liberty restaurant, Bella Ciao, as servers shuttle in and out of the building to serve outdoor diners. But not for much longer. After running the restaurant for over 22 years, he and his wife Kathy Macdonald are selling the business to local chef Brandon Johns, who plans to transform it over the summer into an eatery that highlights food from local farms and markets.

Bella Ciao will remain open through the upcoming Ann Arbor Restaurant Week, an event spearheaded by James Macdonald that highlights downtown restaurants and features set-price lunches and dinners. Bella Ciao’s last dinner service will be on Saturday, June 20. Johns, with his wife Sara Johns and two business partners, plan to renovate the restaurant and open it in early August as Grange Kitchen & Bar.

The deal closed earlier this week. Kathy Macdonald made the announcement at Thursday morning’s membership meeting of the Main Street Area Association, which The Chronicle attended. In a phone interview later in the day, she said they plan to focus on their other local business, Pastabilities, a pasta wholesaler that sells to area groceries and chefs. She said they’ll be selling off most of Bella Ciao’s extensive wine list as well. “There’s only so much we can bring home,” she said. [Full Story]

The Masonic Temple on West Liberty seems an unlikely place to find a food entrepreneur, but when The Chronicle arrived there one Tuesday morning earlier this month, Mary Wessel Walker was already aproned and baking at the commercial kitchen there.

“I’m experimenting a lot with recipes I haven’t tried in large quantities,” she says, opening a jar of honey that had crystallized from the cold. Those large quantities are for her customers –  eight families who’ve signed up to buy a weekly amount of baked goods from CFK Bakery, Wessel Walker’s newest venture. [Full Story]

The Chronicle arrived midway through Thursday’s day-long Local Food Summit 2009, and found evidence of the morning’s work plastered all over the walls of the Matthaei Botanical Gardens conference room: Colorful sticky notes on butcher paper, categorized by topics like “Food policy/legislation,” “Resources for young/new farmers,” “Distribution,” “Heritage” and “Community Self Reliance.”

Each note listed a resource, idea or goal, and together represented hundreds of ways to strengthen and expand this region’s local food system. About 120 people had gathered to focus on that topic, and organizers hope the momentum from Thursday’s event will transform the way our community thinks about food, and in turn transform the health of residents and our local economy. [Full Story]

At Hathaway’s Hideaway on Wednesday night it was all about the food, as members of Slow Food Huron Valley gathered for their annual dinner with a potluck feast made mostly from … yes, locally grown food.

Potato chowder, cabbage salad, wild rice with Michigan cherries and walnuts, pumpkin pie, foraged greengage plum jam bars, wine from nearby Lone Oak Vineyard Estate – plates were full and so was a long dining table decorated with holiday garlands.

It was a night to talk about the year’s accomplishments – and there were many.

[Full Story]

Ann Arbor is considered a regional hub for food system entrepreneurship. Along with an incredible diversity of grocery and restaurant businesses, Ann Arbor attracts a large collection of emerging ventures. As an agricultural innovation counselor with the Michigan State University Product Center, I help entrepreneurs get their products to market, and I’d like to highlight some of these ventures to provide insights into both entrepreneurship and the potential of developing our local food system. [Full Story]

In Fritz Haeg’s first slide, shot straight down into his own compost pile, a banana peel was still discernible. “This,” he said, “was what we should be celebrating!” Not banana peels per se, but rather compost – a kind of recycling that does not lose value with each cycle as many of our other efforts do (like, for example, paper recycling).

Haeg was standing in front of about 40 people in the multipurpose room of the Ann Arbor District Library to present his project, “Edible Estates,” which involves installations of … [Full Story]