Seems like food is a rising trend in Central Florida, and the following list of sites reinforces that with some great links and lots of juicy content to sink your mental teeth into. I present, in no particular order (and by no means comprehensively) a list of sites you should check out if you’re into food:
Winter Park Harvest Festival
This website exists right now to promote an event, happening November 20th in “Central Park’s West Meadow”, whatever that means. Already, the site has loaded up with some great how-to articles for growing your own food and announcing some smaller events leading up to the festival.
A Local Folkus
Started in 2007, this locally-sourced blog is written by John Rife, who is now taking an active role in advancing the Slow Food and Slow Money movements here in Central Florida. He is well-known for taking massive continent-spanning road trips in his camper named Kodi, along with his wife and his dog. Now John talks about heritage, local markets, gardening, and local events, with lots more road-tripping thrown in. Subscribe and enjoy!
The Good Garden
I recently met author Sarah Kinbar through a local gathering called Florida Creatives Happy Hour, and it turns out we shared a former employer. Sarah has years of experience with traditional print magazines, and now she is stamping out daily posts on her site about growing food and fun things you can do with the things you’ve grown – lots of fun recipes and personal stories. Sarah also works with a team of contributors to make sure there is a “fresh” post every day!
Edible Orlando Magazine
Apparently, this website is also available in dead tree form… This brand new magazine produced locally about the great culinary escapades and I believe it is very focused on the Slow Food movement. As of this writing, all their content is locked inside the digital edition in the sidebar, but the full magazine’s content is available there. The site is part of a network called Edible Communities, which also produces a healthy number of podcasts in addition to almost 60 regional magazines.
The Thin Chef
This blog is a weekly entry by “thin” Katie Farmand, who happens to be one of the editors of the Edible Orlando mag above. She makes no promises about being a diet blog: In her own words, “Not low-calorie, or low-fat, but food that is real, whole, and fuels your body.” Still, there are some fun-looking recipes here, and it’s worth checking out.
Like I said, these are certainly not the only 5 sites about food in Orlando, or even about this particular subject. At the same time, I hope you have learned something, and will continue to learn by checking out these sites!
sad fact: over 1 million plastic bags are consumed per minute globally. gut-wrenching fact: marine wildlife mistake plastic bags for food and die. frustrating fact: supermarkets and politicians will take years to sort it out. happy fact: making morsbags will help, with immediate effect.Fnd out more about Morsbags, spread the word and make a bag of your own. You can meet other Morsbaggers in our forums
It’s all about having a group of friends around to chat whilst simultaneously making shopping bags out of old duvet covers, curtains, fabrics from charity shops, etc, to distribute en masse to shoppers to help protect marine wildlife.
Morsbags are fully recycled, fun and easy to make (see our pattern), washable, portable, foldable, unique, cheap, biodegradable and reusable.
When enough morsbags have been made, pods hand them out to happy and surprised shoppers heading into their local supermarket. Hurrah!
Our local Orlando Weekly paper recently published a cover story on “Clucking Around”, highlighting the hijinx of some anonymous downtown dwellers, who choose to remain so because raising chickens is illegal here in the City Beautiful. Go read the feature, it’s both informative and charming.
On a similar note, a recent book read of mine had a chapter on raising chickens, not only for producing eggs, but as pets. There’s a great (sad) story involving some local predators as well, and the construction of an automatic chicken coop door.
The book is called Made by Hand, and it’s authored by the editor of Make Magazine, Mark Fraunfelder. In addition to the dozen or so other chapters about Mark’s journey toward self-reliance and connecting with his surroundings, he talks about tutoring his daughter, moving to the South Pacific and some other great stories that can’t be missed.
This is not an ad, I just thought this thing was cool. A great way to recycle plastic, and props to the designers for creating something reusable and smart.
http://www.dynomighty.com/mighty-wallet/ – Mighty thin, mighty strong, mighty green! The revolution in Tyvek® wallet design began with this super thin single folded sheet of Tyvek® created by Terrence Kelleman in 2005 for Dynomighty Design. First sold at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Mighty Wallet® is quickly becoming the most popular wallet on the market because of its durability, longevity and ecological features. Check out all the styles available at our site and be sure to FAN US on Facebook to get all of our latest updates and special offers. Be Mighty!
Learn more about or donate to the Sustainable Economies Law Center’s Urban Agriculture Program: www.SustainableEconomiesLawCenter.org
The Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC) is working with a team of interns and volunteers to explore the legal needs of a growing urban agriculture movement. We are developing an online Urban Agriculture Legal Resource Library, and designing resources and presentations that explore legal issues that relate to urban agriculture, including: land acquisition, zoning, property taxes, land covenants, health codes, building codes, nuisance laws, land conservation tools, and so on.
The Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC) facilitates the growth of sustainable, localized, and just economies, through legal research, professional training, resource development, and education about practices such as:
· Cooperatives
· Community-supported enterprises
· Barter
· Sharing
· Local currencies
· Intentional communities, ecovillages, cohousing
· Affordable housing and limited equity housing
· Urban agriculture
· Community-based renewable energy
· Community land trusts
· Social enterprise
· Microlending
· Local investing
· Co-op banks/credit unions
One of my twitter friends, @ultimike, recently linked me to a story from the Orlando Sentinel about a homeowner’s association in East Orlando that won’t let someone get a light-colored roof, which could save them $100 – $150 per month on their electric bill because it won’t match the “harmony” of the rest of the neighborhood.
She said she understands that her neighbors denied the request because no one else has a white roof.
But “until you get one white roof, you can’t have two. Until you have two, you wouldn’t have three,” Piper said. “If we did all the roofs at one time, with $100 of savings a year on each one and 100 homes, that’s $10,000 … for electricity that is just wasted now.”
A really great cover story appeared in last week’s issue of the Orlando Weekly, our local independent news source. It talks about the Homegrown local food co-op, a community-supported agriculture non-profit organization here in Central Florida. They recently re-located to the Florida Hospital’s “Health Village” campus. Seventh-Day Adventists are really into a healthy diet – I believe their patients eat mostly vegetarian/vegan – and they run the hospital system, which is one of the largest in the country.
But Florida Hospital’s Paradis deliberately partnered with an entity outside of the hospital’s insular system, rather than re-create the project within the hospital system. “I’m big enough to do the whole thing,” says Paradis of the hospital’s resources, “but I’m choosing to talk to (Homegrown Co-op), because (those) guys are so passionate – I call Michael and Emily ‘community passionaries.’”
They will also be opening a retail store sometime in the Fall, according to the article. On Orange Avenue, on one end of the “Antique Row” along Lake Ivanhoe. Orlando has sorely needed something like this for a long time, and now thanks to a generous matching grant program from Florida Hospital, it can become a reality, despite a rough economic climate.
The Weekly article says Homegrown will not be selling pork products because of Florida Hospital’s involvement. That’s a small price to pay for such a huge leg-up in your third year of existence. I honestly can’t wait for the retail store to open, and for Orlando to become a bit more self-sustaining.
Orlando Event TV interviews Ann Lemis of Green Sky Growers, a technologically sophisticated and sustainable rooftop garden in Winter Garden, Florida.
This 4th-floor hydroponic sustainable garden is located immediately next to the Garden Theatre in a city called Winter Garden, which is just comical. Green Sky sells their lettuce and other products to 8 local restaurants and at the local weekly farmer’s market. See more video about Winter Garden at the Daily City.
The Fair Trade Project is holding a poker run–bike style! Registration is only $5 and will start at 2:30pm at Austin’s. The 10+ mile ride will start at 4 and take you to local stores that sell fair trade: Chamberlin’s Natural Foods, Enzian Theater, Ten Thousand Villages, Whole Foods and Austin’s. You’ll pick up a playing card at each stop to complete your poker hand.
We’ll have great prizes from each stop for the person with the best hand, plus additional prizes, including great stuff from local bike shops. After we give out the prizes at 6:30, we’ll have a free show featuring local music.
Even if you don’t participate in the ride, we hope you’ll join us for the show. See you there!
The Fair Trade Project seeks to help disadvantaged producers receive a just price for their goods while building relationships and encouraging social and environmental responsibility. When people are paid a fair price for what they produce, they can pull themselves, their families, and their communities out of poverty.
You can make a difference simply by buying fair trade products.
I get a weekly deliver of a fruit and vegetable basket from a local farm. I describe how i am going to use forever bags to store the produce. Do a search in your local area for the same service.
Do you have CSA in your area? Are you a subscriber? How much of your weekly food for meals is actually grown locally?
A weekly show and talk about sustainable communities, eco-friendly life hacks, healthy recipies, green gadgets and lots more. Our listeners may also directly participate in this podcast by submitting links to del.icio.us bookmark sharing under the tag footprintpodcast. Aside from reading news both national and international, we will be attending local events and providing first-hand accounts, photos, video and interviews from people making an effort to shrink their ecological footprint and inspire others to do the same.
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