|
|
|
|
|
|
  Food Philosophy Dedications Every Friday, American Flatbread founder George Schenk
sits down and writes a dedication to be included in the In our efforts to share the philosophy, healing properties and appreciation of good food with you, we are now posting these below. Here's a temporary listing of our dedication collection, beginning with links to our "Best." In the near future, please look forward to a more organized presentation of over a decade of our dedications: Some of the Best Dedications: American Flatbread + Flatbread Kitchen The American Flag Now There is hardly a place without There are standard flags—made in the prescribed
way Happy Fourth. Happy Birthday, America. Thanks for coming everyone. Love, George American Flatbread + Flatbread Kitchen Happy Anniversary Middlebury American Flatbread
Thanks for coming, Beea
Tonight’s Menu and Baking are Dedicated to The American Flatbread Project
American Flatbread began as a backyard experiment at a dinner party, and has evolved into a franchising organization with over 100 employees, feeding thousands of people every day with thoughtfully baked bread made with locally and organically grown foods. George’s dream is 20 years old, and is growing healthier by the day, because more and more people are sharing the dream. The dream that began in the backyard was hand preparing thoughtful food that was enjoyable to the palate and nourishing to the body. Made with herbs from the garden; cheeses from a local dairy; with organic wheat and good pure water, this bread was cooked on local stone with locally grown hardwood fire for fuel. This food was enjoyable to make and enjoyable to watch being made, good to eat and good for the body. All five of the senses were pleased with this food. This is still the dream, and while it sounds simple, it is not easy. But it is good work with a good result, and we are grateful to George for sharing it with us. Thank you all for coming tonight, and for supporting and sharing in the dream. Love, Jen
Tonight’s menu and baking are dedicated to Twentieth Anniversary Yesterday we had our third planning meeting for American
Flatbread’s Thanks for coming tonight, Lisa
American Flatbread + Flatbread Kitchen Tonight’s menu and baking are dedicated to THIS WEEK This week Evan Marley arrived. He is a pizza This week I negotiated with our Landlord in Middlebury. This week I painted banners with my friend Jan. I walked through the bakery and said things I spoke with Charles, an organic dairy farmer This week I traveled to Burlington and spoke This week I bought three acres of threatened land. Thanks for coming. Love, George.
The Mountaintop Film Festival It has been said that a world without conflict would not be a very inspiring place for art, but perhaps what would be worse is a world, as ours is, with plenty of conflict, that did not generate an artistic response: what, in the face of inequities, injustice, and disrespect, would we think if artists did not care? Art is a window into the soul of the human experience. I am happy to report a soulful look into the human condition is available right here, right now, in little sleepy Waitsfield—a place that sometimes seems so removed from human anguish as for it to be momentarily forgotten. This week is different in ways that will be both enlightening and discouraging, joyous and outright disturbing, for this is the week of the Mountaintop Film Festival—“Ten days of human rights films in recognition of Martin Luther King’s birthday.” Starting this Friday, January 7th through a week from Sunday, January 16th, a series of films will run continuously from 3:30 pm to 10 pm. For most, they will be unfamiliar titles: “Time for a New God and Discordia,” “Spoon Jackson and Juvies,” “Maria Full of Grace,” “Deadline,” “A Child’s Century of War,” and many others. In addition, there will be several panel discussions and Q&A’s with some of the film makers. All films are shown at the Eclipse Theater. For more information, go to www.mountaintopfilmfestival.com or call 496-8994. Thanks, Claudia, for bringing this important cultural event to our community. Thanks for coming, everyone. Love, At the end of 2004, we were open for public dining every night from the day after Christmas to New Year's Day. Here's the series of dedications George wrote each night during that week. American Flatbread – Flatbread Kitchen Transparent Food No. 1 Think of a farm and what comes to mind? A farm family of husband, wife, some kids. Maybe Grandma or Grandpa lives there, too; a house, a barn, and in the barnyard the milking cows, and nearby a dozen pigs or so and a flock of chickens for both eggs and stew; and out back the pastures where the cattle graze during mild weather both day and night only coming into the barn for milking and to escape cold weather during winter; up on the hill there may be an apple orchard and beyond the orchard the woodlot which supplies building and heating wood; and not too far from the kitchen door a big garden that supplies the family with fresh vegetables in season, the extra being canned for the winter and spring; there is probably a clear brook and several hay fields. There is always something to do on such a farm, and it is worth doing. Fifty years ago such farms were quite common in this part of the world. And the food they produced was, almost universally, of very good quality—a fact which was, to a great extent, undervalued. Most of the food we eat today, however, does not come from small, diverse, family farms—yet our collective memory holds on to this romantic notion of farms and farming—we have this idea that our food largely still comes from such places. But it simply is not true. Today our food supply is dominated by a kind of industrial agricultural ethos that has subplanted family values with corporate values; the work of making a life has given way to the work of making wealth. And with this change our food—and what’s in it, has become more hidden. Thanks for coming tonight. Love, George -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- American Flatbread – Flatbread Kitchen Transparent Food No. 2 In T.F. No. 1 (last night’s dedication), I wrote about the wholesale change of how food is farmed in America—a change that has primarily occurred since the end of World War II. It is a change that has taken the source of our food from a largely agrarian small farm society to one where the bulk of our food comes from what is more accurately thought of as an industrial agricultural process. This change has had enormous implications to how our food is grown and subsequently to its quality and characteristics. The industrialization of agriculture has degraded the fertility of our soils, poisoned our waterways, polluted our air, tainted our food stuffs with exotic complex chemicals whose biochemistry and effect on human health we only incompletely understand, led to the inhumane confinement of our animals, and has, perhaps more bitterly ironic of all, impoverished and disempowered farmers and their families. The problem is not the choices farmers have and continue to make, the real cause of this change in the American food supply is…us. It is our values that are reflected in the kind of food we produce. For too long the overriding values have been cheapness and convenience with insufficient consideration given to the how and the where, and the when, and the why of our food supply. Our food—and the farms that produce it, are too important. Food shapes our well-being, and the well-being of the world. Thanks for coming. Love, George -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- American Flatbread – Flatbread Kitchen Transparent Food No. 3 I ended last night’s dedication with these words: Food touches virtually all aspects of the human experience: it is art and science, it is commerce and ecology. It is transported and heated and cooled. It is washed and it is dried. It is loved and it is feared. It is a commin gesture of peace and welcoming, and the point of many wars. It has been used to enrich and enslave, topoison and to heal. Food is a common denominator that unites us all as biological beings, but often divides us as cultural beings. The earth produces a great bounty of food—more than enough to feed us all, though we have not yet learned how to share it so that none go hungry. Food fills our hunger so that we may think beyond our bellies; its flavors and textures delight our pallets; its chemistry nourishes us. Around food we gather with friends and family and chare what is best of being human. And through food we help our bodies heal themselves. Food touches more of our world than I guess, anything I know. Food is important. It is important in ways that are fundamentally different than the way literature of mechanics or politics are. And for this reson what we eat, and how it was grown and processed and shipped is essential information. Because food is so absolutely vital to our being, and the well-being of the world, where it came from, and how it was grown and processed, and by whom is critical and relevant information to everyone. Thanks for coming tonight. Happy New Year. Love, George
American Flatbread – Flatbread Kitchen Transparent Food No. 4 Last night I wrote: “food is important because it is absolutely essential to our lives, and has a great influence on the well-being of the world. And so, where our food has come from and how it was grown and processed is appropriate public information and necessary for us to make informed and thoughtful choices. Food is fundamentally foreign and from the outside. In one of the most intimate acts of our lives we invite these foreign substances into our bodies to literally become a part of our bodies. It is a legacy of thousands of generations of trial and error that allows us to do this largely without fear of trepidation, and, indeed, through this cultural information that has been passed down through the generations, our knowledge of flavorful nutritious foods has transformed fear into joy, worry into gleeful expectation. We have come, rightly, to trust the food that has nourished and nurtured those who have come before us. It is trust that allows us to see and experience our food with comfort and joy. Our food must be beyond suspicion, and wholly trustworthy. And if we are to hope for an American society that remains a constructive force in the world, that is a beacon of freedom and opportunity and hope, then we are compelled to husband our soil by conserving its structure, fertility, and biology and take more seriously the work of growing our food sustainably so that future generations of Americans will be able to grow strong, and brave, and generous, and kind. Thank you for coming tonight. Happy New Year, Everyone.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- American Flatbread – Flatbread Kitchen Transparent Food No. 5 Last night I wrote: “we have come, rightly, to trust the foods that nourished and nurtured those who came before us.” This essential trust is now being eroded by an ethos of secrecy and a kind of Orwellian doublespeak promoted by commercial food growers and processors. For, in many of our most fundamental foods, we are getting more than what is stated or implied on the packaging; (our farms are increasingly the source of environmental pollutants rather than the exalted repositories of open space so often depicted) a great majority of the commercially produced foods are contaminated with pesticides, increasingly we ingest genetically modified DNA—the health implications of which we know very little about, our commercial meats are grown with growth hormones—and the animals are too often confined in ways that we would not wish on evil itself. And far, far too often, we as consumers know nothing about it. In a revolving door administrations where government regulatory agencies are staffed with executives from the industries they monitor, and government regulators move into high paying jobs in the industries they govern, there has come to be a sense that the general public simply does not need nor has the right to know which is in their food. Food that has been irradiated or grown with G.M. seed stocks, or injected with growth hormones, or that contain residues of pesticides do not have to be labeled as such. I think if there was more honesty, more transparency, in our food supply we, as a nation would have better, cleaner food. Thanks for coming tonight. Happy New Year, Everyone. Love, George -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- American Flatbread – Flatbread Kitchen Transparent Food No. 6 Last night I wrote: “food that has been irradiated, grown with G.M. seed stocks, injected with growth hormones, treated with antibiotics or contain residues of pesticides do not have to be labeled as such. I think if there was more honesty and transparency on how our food is grown and processed we, as a nation, would enjoy better, cleaner foods.” And, as I wrote three nights ago, this is important because, “food is important.” The doctrine of transparency in our financial and governmental institutions lies at the core of how and why they work. Transparency conveys trust, and it is trust in the process that allows us as investors and citizens to work towards the institutions’ ends. Indeed, the long-stalled Japanese economy has been hobbled by the international investment community’s perception of insufficient transparency in Japanese financial institutions. Investors simply do not trust the process and so they choose not to participate. Here in the United States we saw the effect of skirting the transparency rules that govern how publicly traded companies report their earnings in the Enron and World Com cases. Although these “secretists” and deceptors ultimately collapsed, the system survives because the idea of transparency prevailed. Our system of government has benefited in a similar way: we have better government because the system is essentially open—and I would argue that the parts that are not open are ones most problematic to good governance. In the same way that the doctrine of transparency has benefited commerce and government I believe that it would also benefit the national food supply. I believe that all food that has been grown or processed with G.M.O.’s, growth hormones, that contain residues of antibiotics or pesticides, or that has been irradiated should be labeled as such. I assume that the proponents of these practices believe they are good for our food. I say great. Put what you have done on the label and then make your case to the public, and let the marketplace decide. Thanks for coming tonight. Happy New Year, Everyone. Love, George American Flatbread + Flatbread Kitchen Saturday, December 11th, 2004 The Sixth Annual Organic Food for Public Schools Benefit Bake I sit now holding my head And tonight is the same though This is the look of constructive change. What today seems revolutionary will Thank you for coming tonight. I have sometimes felt alone in this journey, but because of you, now I do not. Love, George.
Tonight’s Menu and Baking are Dedicated to Keeping Track American Flatbread is very pleased to host a benefit bake for Keeping Track this Friday evening. Keeping Track is a local organization that works to inspire community participation on the long-term stewardship of wildlife habitat. They work to teach adults and children to observe record and monitor evidence of wildlife habitat in their communities. Their valuable work helps to keep a watch on the ecological health of our local landscape. Those of us who live in the Mad River Valley, and Vermont in general, may sometimes take the amazing and diverse wildlife around us for granted and assume that it will always be as vibrant as it is now. As a native Floridian who has lived in Vermont for nearly eighteen years, I too fall into the trap of forgetting, but nonetheless am grateful that there are organizations like Keeping Track who do the work they do and who remind us that our daily choices as human beings have an impact on the ecosystems around us. Growing up in suburbia, I rarely saw much in the way of wildlife except for the rare opossum or armadillo scurrying along the side of the road (strange looking little creatures they are). Driving at night here in Vermont, it is rare to not see some kind of wildlife, be it a deer or a fox running across the road or hiding in the bushes with its eyes sparkling in the headlights. Just a couple of weeks ago, me and other employees of the bakery were graced with a herd of seven or so deer out in the meadow in the early light of dawn. When I encounter this glimpse of wildlife around me I consider it a special gift to my day. Thank you Keeping Track for helping keep my days special by doing the good work you do to teach us all to be good stewards of the land around us and to share it wisely and willingly with our critter friends. Thanks for coming tonight, Lisa American Flatbread + Flatbread Kitchen Tonight’s menu and baking are dedicated to THANKSGIVING MEMORIES We have learned memories, of course, the ones that come from the stories handed down over the generations. And I am grateful to have these: the noble acts of kindness and generosity the pilgrims and native peoples shared. Our own Thanksgivings have been made richer by their story though it causes us all to pause at the fall of grace that followed…but perhaps more real and more formative are our own contemporary memories, the events of our own lives. For me, these childhood memories of grandmothers and aunts and uncles, and steamy warm kitchens filled with the aromas of roasting turkeys, and mounds of perfectly mashed potatoes, and bowls of peas with little pearl onions, and a big table set out with all of the family’s finery, and the last minute dash to make the gravy, and the cranberry sauce wiggling on the table still with the impressions of its can. I remember everyone talking and laughing and smiling and eating to overfullness like royalty in a kings court—and in a way we were, though we didn’t know it, for these are lucky memories indeed; maybe that is the great purpose of our memory: to know where we have come from and the great opportunity and gift to those who follow is to be grateful for the good that has been. Thank you for coming tonight. Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone. Love, George
Tonight’s Menu and Baking are dedicated to American Flatbread Fall Retreat 2004 Next week a handful of people that have been working for many years on this project we call American Flatbread will go off for a two-night, three-day retreat. For 72 hours we will talk and think and eat and drink and possibly cry or yell or yawn or laugh – about American Flatbread. These planning retreats have become an annual event, and sometimes bi-annual. This year I am particularly excited about the retreat because I feel we are on the cusp of hatching some really exciting plans. It is hard to grow this company. So many of us feel very emotionally attached to American Flatbread. We feel strongly about not making wrong decisions – not selling out, not reducing quality, not losing control of the process, not losing control of the Brand, not growing beyond what feels sustainable. Sometimes George calls this line of thinking “awfulizing” – imagining the worst case scenario…and he rarely participates in this line of thinking. George so often proposes the other side of these arguments – what I will call the “imaginizing”. He (along with all of us at different points, but he nearly always) imagines the best case scenario. The rosy parts of what could be. The dreams of feeding more people well; of improvements; of more beauty and more fun; of spring water fountains and cabin dining rooms and cozy soft seating in front of fires and more kids playing safely and good food in hospitals and organic food in schools and affordable housing and mixed use daycare/elder care and….maximizing our opportunities. Very likely next week’s dedication will relay the results of this balanced recipe of magic and practicality baked for three days at room temperature. Stay tuned…… Thanks for coming tonight. We love to bake for you. Love, Jen American Flatbread + Flatbread Kitchen FLATBREAD FALL RETREAT, 2004, PART II Last week, while I was away looking at colleges with my daughter, Jen Moffroid wrote Part I of this dedication concerning our upcoming Sr. Staff Retreat promising that this dedication would “relay the results of this balanced recipe of magic and practicality baked for three days at room temperature.” (Nice use of metaphors, Jen.) In good measure our discussions flowed from the practical to the ephemeral, from how and when to why and for what purpose. In this I suspect ours were nothing more nor nothing less than the conversations most people have among colleagues and friends. We sat as people trying to figure out how to best make our way in the world--how to remember the lessons of our past? How to imagine the kind of future we want for ourselves, our families, and our communities? We are imperfect in our remembering and imperfect in our envisioning. As much as we wish this wasn’t so, that we would never have to repeat a past mistake, and always know how things will turn out, perhaps the true richness in our humanity is our imperfections, for it is in these that we are given a chance to rise and be more than we could have known. What would I know of forgiveness if I was never trespassed? Would love loose its luster without hate? All forms cast shadows. It is what we think of them and do with them that counts. I’m not sure if this is the report Jen had in mind. Oh well. Thanks for coming. Love, George
American Flatbread + Flatbread Kitchen Tonight’s menu and baking are dedicated to Family Tree Dr. Sol Londe rested in peace at his home in Los Angeles yesterday at the age of 100 years 10 months. Peace was something he had been striving for his entire adult life.
Love, Jen **With thanks to Bob Sheer for these facts
American Flatbread & Flatbread Kitchen Tonight’s menu and baking are dedicated to: The Vote Welcome to all of you and thank you for being here tonight. In the thirteen years that I have worked for American Flatbread I have probably only written two or three dedications. Sharing my thoughts or feelings on paper is not my area of expertise although anyone who works here will tell you I have plenty to say! Anyway, for a number of reasons today I found myself inspired to sit down and share a few words with you on that increasingly popular topic…voting. I will say that similar to my inhibitions toward writing is my distaste for mixing politics with any of life’s pleasures, especially food, so I will try to be brief. To all of those who think that their vote does not count—I say it does! Even if the person you vote for does not win the election someone will see the numbers and get a message. When you are talking about the sheer volume of votes that are cast in elections it is not the 1 or 2 that count, that is true, it is the collective number that speaks. You cannot add to that larger voice if you do not exercise your one small, but meaningful vote. Please do not throw away the right that so many fought so hard to get for you! Thanks for reading and now…enjoy this beautiful evening and your meal. Camilla
Dedication Tour de France I went to see my friend Charles Fallick Martley the other day. Many of you may know him from around town as a helpful chap who volunteers for the Ambulance Service, runs an acupuncture office in town here and also runs and funds an acupuncture school in India. He is also a Flatbread alum and a huge cycling fan. His animated conversation about the Tour recently piqued my interest in the Tour de France. The Tour de France began in 1903 as a publicity stunt for the magazine l'Auto. That year it was a 2,500 km race over 19 days. This year is the 91st year of the Tour, because some time was taken off for the World Wars. It has become a 22 day and 3395 km race in which 9 countries participate: Belgium, Denmark, France (they have 6 teams!), Germany, Italy (they have 4 teams!), Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the USA. America recently woke up big time to the Tour in 1999 when cancer survivor Lance Armstrong, of the United States Postal Service team, won for the first time. He has won every year since then and with 2 days (or stages as the racing days are called) left of the 2004 Tour de France to go, Lance looks as though he will capture a record breaking 6th victory in a row. Each of his victories have been a victory for every cancer survivor, every underdog (America’s favorite champion), and a stellar example of what determination and focus can yield. The Tour is extremely physically challenging with a four-stage period of climbing mountains in the Alps all day. These are mountains twice as high as our own, and one day was a 14 km race uphill the whole time. Wow. With two days left, I would encourage everyone to check it out on the telly. We may see the reason many people now call it the Tour de Lance. Thanks for coming tonight! Love, Jen
The Vermont Fresh Network Oh what a beautiful June we have had. This land is amazing. Hay Farmers are cutting their first hay. The forecast calls for perfect haying weather this weekend– dry and sunny but not too hot. Haying in 90 degree plus heat has got to be one of the most uncomfortable situations going. Vegetable Farmers are harvesting greens galore – salad and mesclun and spinach. The early crops are in! Radishes, and the first Strawberries of the season. Strawberry season is one of my favorites. You can see more promise in fields as well, as peas climb higher and potatoes and tomatoes put out more leaves. The Dairy Farms are joyful too, as cows eat fresh grass, which their stomachs ( all four of them!) enjoy more than corn. Our milk tastes better and even has some chlorophyll from the grass. The turkey and chicken farmers are letting their birds graze out the days in outdoor pens. Birds that enjoy the sunshine, fresh greens and bugs, always yield delicious flavor. The Farms of Vermont are among the loveliest, and they are beginning to disappear. Farms only exist when farmers can make a living off the land. With the help of the Vermont Fresh Network, more Vermont Restaurants are serving Vermont grown food, achieving the goal of preserving the farmland while feeding us the best food there is. Tonight we will donate $4 for every Flatbread sold to the Vermont Fresh Network to help sustain Vermont’s Farms. Thank you for coming! Dedication One Big Table Yesterday, at the upper end of Church St. in Burlington, the Vermont Foodbank celebrated America’s Second Harvest “One Big Table” event, the purpose of which was to raise awareness of hunger in our communities. Deborah Flateman, who is the Executive Director of the Vermont Foodbank took the microphone first and acted as the event MC. I spoke last. In between was an amazing group of people from government, the non-profits, clients of food shelves- one of whom was an eleven year old girl living in poverty, the other a middle aged mother who said that she was the first person in her family to use emergency food shelves. I guess I represented the business community. The governor spoke, as did the mayor, and a representative from each of Vermont’s Congressmen spoke. I believe that we can provide food security for all of our citizens in this decade. I believe this because of what I saw and heard yesterday. Food insecurity has been a condition of the human experience for as long as we know. And because of that, I suppose, there has been a resigned sense that we can and should try to feed the hungry but it is not possible to truly do so. This long held wisdom is no longer true. We are learning how to feed each other. It is happening because of a coordinated response from government, the nonprofit sector, business and individuals. Some day, the table at which we all eat will be big enough. What an amazing day that will be. Thanks for coming tonight. Love, George Friday and Saturday May 28 & 29, 2004 Great People I had some great people in my life today: People who plan ahead People who gave me a kiss People who are thoughtful, People who are kind People who speak kindly and considerately, People who own up to a Civilization relies on great people. They have a huge positive impact on the human experience. They set off a chain of contagious goodwill toward others and teach us all what it is to be civilized. With their help, maybe human beings really will reach their full potential someday. Thanks for coming tonight. We love to bake for you. Love, Jen
Waitsfield Flatbread Kitchen- Friday and Saturday
April 30, May 1, 2004 Transparent Food: Study No. 1 Some time ago I remembered listening to the radio and the commentator was speaking, in a critical way, about the Japanese economy, and he said that one of the fundamental difficulties was that the Japanese banking system was insufficiently transparent - that is, the system was not open in a way that an investor could fairly and accurately evaluate the relative financial worth or strength of a specific business. The commentator compared the Japanese system w/ the far more open- or transparent- US System and noted that the US economy consistantly recovers from financial slumps or recessions because the worlds financial community gains trust from our relatively transparent accounting and reporting procedures. I think our food supply would benefit from increased transparency. Today, because of laws that seem to have been written with manufacturers, corporate farms and big producers in mind instead of the general citizenry, the way our food is grown on corporate farms to how it is processed- to the degradation of our soil, water and air; to the residues of pesticides that persist even after washing and cooking; to irradiation, genetically modified seeds, growth hormones, and a host of other changes ( from foods origins), consumers are largely unaware of all of these things- they are unaware because there is no requirement to share food's history. If we as consumers were faced with our food supply's true history, it strikes me that our purchasing choices might change. Why should we not know? To be continued. We are happy to bake in benefit tonight for the health center. Love, George
Waitsfield Flatbread Kitchen- Friday and Saturday
April 2 & 3, 2004 Continued Discussion on GMOs Perhaps it’s a case of money talks… In Vermont? More than 100 conventional Vermont dairy
farmers and hundreds of organic producers have expressed opposition to
this technology to the Legislature. Farmers, both organic and conventional,
are very concerned about GMO crops contaminating their fields. · Insecticide toxin in every cell of a corn plant …to name a just few, maybe it will be the potential loss of agriculture business both internationally and domestically that will finally catch the ears and hearts of decision makers, and stop the proliferation of GMO’s. Thanks for coming tonight…we love to bake for you. Love, Jen
Waitsfield Flatbread Kitchen- Friday and Saturday
March 26 & 27, 2004 Strategic Food This is strategic food. It is a strategic plan for change Happy days to you all. Love, George
Waitsfield Flatbread Kitchen- Friday and Saturday
March 19 & 20, 2004 A (Modified) Dinner with the President First, a little story: There once was a very nice little man who had done many good things with his life. One day he received an invitation to dinner at the White House. “Please come to a banquet in the East Room to honor you, your friends and your colleagues for your contributions to humanity.” The little man smiled and looked forward to the happy event. On the day of the dinner he went to the White House and was shown in to the great East Room. He was in awe of what he saw. Forty-six long tables and a head table where the President would sit. The little man was escorted to his seat and noticed the name cards immediately around. He could tell this was a great gathering indeed: he, like everyone else, would be sitting next to and across from good people of good minds- it was sure to be an enjoyable and interesting evening. The White House above all else is a political place and as sometimes happens in politics it was important, at the lat minute, to include a guest because he had made a significant contribution to the President’s campaign, and as it turned out, he sat next to the little man, taking the place of an old friend (who the little man had not seen for a long time and who he was looking forward to speaking with.) The guest were seated, the President took his place at the distant head table where all seemed well. But down at table no. 17 where the little man had been seated there was a kind of local chaos because the political guest turned out to be overbearing and obnoxious and dominated in an unpleasant way all conversations at his end of the table. All of this, of course, was far removed from the President. Dinner went on but it was not what it might have been for the little man and his colleagues. The President left immediately after dessert, which was his usual way, and retired to his private quarters. His wife asked him how the banquet had gone. “It was wonderful. Everyone had a grand time.” And this was true as far as he knew. When the little man came home his wife asked him the same question. “Well,” he replied, “parts were good, but it was not what it might have been.” After which he described what had happened. We are like the President isolated in seeing only the most general conditions. The experience of the little man is like our genes: sensitive to the most subtle changes in their immediate environment. What does it mean to one of our genes to be seated next to foreign genes? What is it, because of our great and lofty and distant position, that we do not see? That we do not feel or hear or taste? What is it that we do not know? What we do know is that our biologic world is enormously complex and although we have learned a great deal about how life systems work, our ignorance is like the submerged mass of an iceberg. Food is fundamental to our health and well being. Food is important enough to be careful. Thanks for coming tonight. Love, George
Public School Food Welcome to the Local and Organic Food for Public Schools
Benefit Bake. Over the course of several weeks I have been working on this project with some amazing people in our community. This past Tuesday I had a really uplifting meeting with Steve Hall and Sean Titley from the Café’ Services organization, on how to use the funds we will raise this weekend. Café Services is a New Hampshire company that runs the food service programs at the Middlebury High School, Middle School and Mary Hogan. They feed about 750 kids every day! Also at the meeting was Peter Ryersbach, who has been active at the High School for many years as a teacher and is also working on a food committee there to raise the consciousness of healthful eating. Matt Oettinger, of the TGIF café at the High School, was there and was really enthusiastic about incorporating organic and local food into his program, which guides some of the students in cooking the meals there. Mary Gill, the school nurse, was very enthusiastic about getting involved and finding a way to include more organics and locally raised foods into school food programs. Then there was Mark Perrin, a local fixture about town, very active in the Mary Hogan school as well as the Chamber of Commerce and owns Green Peppers restaurant. He was the one who knew all the other folks and spurred them all to get together. As a result, all these people: teachers, school nurse, food service managers, cooks and restaurateurs got together to make positive change in the community. We all left with the same vision in mind and the same enthusiasm to work harder to make those changes. These folks were all on committees working toward getting more local, healthful and organic food in the schools before I came along. I also learned over the course of pulling this event together just how many parents are on similar committees and have similar meetings. There is a real movement for local, healthful and organic food in our schools…American Flatbread is just one oar in the water perpetuating it… not starting it at all. Last week I asked in this document what kind of lessons we convey to our children if we do not act on our cares about the food they eat. This week I experienced the answer: there are many, many actions being taken by responsible, caring, wonderful adults. Lucky kids! Lucky all of us! Thank you for coming tonight. Love, Jen
Public School Food Free public education has been an integral part of our society for more than two hundred years. As a result of its enormous success, we have asked our public schools to carry an increasing share of the responsibilities of preparing one generation to successfully follow the next. One of these new responsibilities has been to feed our children. Because of public school food programs a lot of kids, some for the first time in their lives, get enough to eat. The importance of this responsibility has largely gone unrecognized by our schools, and undervalued by children, parents and society at large. A hot list of commonly eaten foods that routinely have pesticide residues above currently understood safe levels (for adults) includes: rice, strawberries, milk, corn (including corn chips, popcorn, and corn cereals), wheat (bread and cereals), bananas, green beans, peaches, apples (including applesauce and juice), raisins, nectarines, carrots and cherries. Many of these are picked before they are ripe so they can be trucked around the world. The foods that we do produce here in Vermont are often sourced from out of state simply because we can get them cheaper. Would we rather save money than support our neighboring farms? The economics that drive these kinds of foods in our public schools is based on what can only be understood as a kind of penny wisdom, pound foolishness. And all of us, but especially our children, will pay for these food choices . . . with our health, and the well-being of our environment. Children, our children, all children, are especially
susceptible to pesticide residues in food. To understand this we must
first understand that children are physiologically different from adults.
Their respiration is faster than adults. Relative to their weight, they
eat and drink more than adults. The fact that children are still growing
makes them more susceptible to the ill effects of chemical residues. And
finally, because children have longer life expectancies than adults, their
exposure periods are longer. Organic/Local Foods for Public Schools Benefit Bake,
March 19 & 20 Thank you for coming tonight. Love, Jen (paraphrasing George)
Darling Camilla All too often the concept of unsung heroes is actualized in our daily lives. Mother’s day exists, and thank goodness, because if it didn’t we would hardly stop and thank our Moms for the efforts they make day in and day out to share their love and make our lives wonderful. Same for Father’s day, of course, and Valentines Day for our lovers. There is no Sibling Day (oddly), but you’ve got National Nurses Day, and Secretaries Day (now called Administrative Professionals Day) and there’s Earth Day, appropriately. There’s Memorial Day and Labor Day and Armed Services day. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a great one and President’s day is nice….but there are quite a few more that just don’t resonate with me: National Mentoring Day; Groundhog Day, Friendship Day, to name a few. But I like the concept…of making a special occasion out of someone helpful who has made an historic difference and proven over and over again how much they care. An special occasion to be mindful of their efforts and to recognize their profound affect that betters the whole. An occasion to celebrate someone who goes above and beyond so often you come to expect it. An occasion to thank the person who you know will have the answer when you aren’t sure about something. Someone who doesn’t shy away from a crisis: digs in when there is a flood; takes over for a team member who has a family emergency, and doesn’t drop the ball; calls the ambulance at the right time and administers CPR until it gets here. In our case (and lucky us!), we have Darling Camilla. She is all of the above as well as a shoulder to cry on, a Gourmet (some call her The Palate), a disciplined task master and budget meeter, a fun date, a champagne lover, an aesthete and our Mother Duck who takes care of us as she leads us all down the path. All of us here at Flatbread, and all of you who come to visit, would experience less enjoyment if it weren’t for her. And American Flatbread would make a much smaller contribution to the world without her. Happy Camilla Day! Thank you all for coming tonight. Love, Jen
Vermont Fresh Network Being that I am fresh from a two-day retreat where 12 food professionals and enthusiasts outlined the 2004-2005 initiatives for the Vermont Fresh Network, I am inspired to use this space to share that work with you! Nine years ago a joint effort of the Vermont Department of Agriculture and NECI, as well as a sprinkling of enthusiastic chefs and farmers, formed the Vermont Fresh Network to organize and expedite connections between Vermont farmers and their local chefs, as well as to raise public awareness about local food. Why, you might ask? The reasons are many: · Chefs that purchase products of Vermont farms
are supporting Vermont’s agricultural heritage, keeping our beautiful
green spaces open, investing in Vermont’s farm economy, as well
as providing more nutritious, delicious and · Farmers that provide locally grown foods give us the gift of fresher (and therefore more flavorful AND more nutritious) foods, preserve Vermont’s agricultural heritage, keep our vistas beautiful and the working landscape REAL. In addition, with the mad cow scares, irradiation and other “food system” safety concerns, they provide us with a large measure of security. Thank you farmers!
Flatbread Memories It’s two o’clock in the afternoon. I never write the dedication this early in the day. For years I wrote between three and four, then it became between four and five. More recently I’ve been writing between five and six, and on particularly bad nights, not till seven. And more frequently than I would like to admit, for the past few months, weeks have gone by without writing at all. It’s not so much that I am losing my zest for it, or have had nothing to say, rather, I suspect, it has been a change in my work. These days my responsibilities seem to increasingly take me out of town- and often on Fridays. Today I am off to Middlebury, where I was last Friday. For several weeks before that I had been up in Burlington helping build a new oven there. Next week I’m off to California to help with the West Coast Trade Show. I only say all of this because for those of you who come here and look forward to reading this page, I am sorry. I have missed this writing in the same way I still miss baking (I use to bake every restaurant bread). I do not know if these few and little words all these years have meant very much to the world. They have meant a great deal to me, and maybe that is enough. As to the obtuse title of this piece, I thought I was going to write about something entirely different. Words are funny that way sometimes. Thanks for coming tonight. You guys are great! Love, George
The Burlington Oven There is an American Flatbread oven being built for a restaurant on St. Paul Street in Burlington this week. Much of it is done by the work of hands: 12,000 lbs of local rock were built into a base for the oven. Each rock was placed by hand. 25,000 lbs of sand were dug by the shovel-full off of a truck and into buckets and then poured by hand from the buckets into the sandbox base of the oven. 10,000 lbs of soapstone were laid onto the sandbox to form the baking shelves. 100 Alder saplings were harvested from a local swamp: cut with a hand-saw and dragged out by hand, loaded onto a truck by hand, unloaded by hand, loaded onto another truck by hand, and unloaded at St. Paul street by hand. 7,000 lbs of blue clay from the woods of Lareau Farm
were loaded into a truck, and then unloaded, by hand in Burlington for
the new restaurant on St. Paul Street. The buckets were picked up by hands
and moved twice more inside the space. The hands that are building the Burlington oven have built other Flatbread ovens. The hands belong to people who are singing the joy and good intentions of this place into that oven, with wishes for more good bread to be born. Thanks so much for coming tonight. We love to bake for you. Jen
Friday and Saturday January 30 & 31, 2004
DUST OF SNOW
Thank you everyone for coming in tonight. We love to bake for you. Love, Jen
Friday and Saturday January 23 & 24, 2004 Love and Watching When I was small and in school I am not then, and like them Last night, for the first time, neither my wife nor I I wouldn't have thought so much of it maybe, Thanks for coming. Love, George
Friday, Saturday and Sunday January 16, 17 &
18, 2004 The Mountain Top Film Festival At my door this afternoon is Jason Ford. He's come to speak with me about "Action for Social and Ecological Justice," with a focus on these issues in Central America. He tells me of the plan Puebla Panama: a big money, big government, big corporation plan to build road and rail infrastructure from southern Mexico to southern Panama, principally to extract natural resources from pristine and indigenous areas. It's one of these projects, like so many before, that promises wealth and independence but too often delivers displacement and impoverishment for the great majority. And this weekend is the first Mountain Top Film Festival right here in the Mad River Valley. It will feature independent films on the subject of Peace and Justice. In so many places, these two elemental human rights have been trampled by the forces of greed, misunderstanding and fear. What is going on here? It's as though the stories of the oppressed refuse to lay in silence anymore. Wherever I turn I am compelled to listen. Maybe this is the bargain we have made: a great, interconnected world, a seamless economy, where all things are defined by their price. The shadow of money hides a thousand ills. They are ills that move and twist and struggle to be seen and heard. And they are. And so, there are stories that reside wholly in the light of our awareness, and stories hidden in the dark. We are infinitely more whole by knowing both, no matter the pain and discomfort the knowing may cause. Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend. Thanks for coming. Love, George
Friday & Saturday December 5 & 6, 2003 Blueberry Lake for All When I was a little boy, my parents, sister and I journeyed
by car from
American Flatbread is happy to bake in benefit this Friday
to help secure the last private parcel along the lake Thanks for coming tonight. Love, George
Dedication 08/08/03 Through A Kitchen Door Several nights ago I awoke from a vivid dream: The people of the land had been at war for three generations. Great was the sorrow and the sadness. One day, in his own act of desperation, the old man w/
thin I watched with amazement, and followed him. He and I entered the village of our enemy, the enemy
of ____ Thanks for coming tonight. Love, George
American Flatbread - Flatbread Kitchen Friday and Saturday October 17 and 18, 2003 This week's baking and menu are dedicated to: Today I Today I got up after a good sleep, in time to help my
son Willis get
Around 8:45 I drove over to the East Warren Store (which
sells We stopped at Johnny's farm in Moretown to get some When I got back to Lareau Farm the photographer (Jon
Fox) But a good day, and one made better because you have
come
George
American Flatbread Flatbread Kitchen
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We don't often think of our roadways, and how dependent
we are on them, Animals need corridors too. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
menus
at the restaurant. The dedications provide a focus for the energy of the
bakers and cooks as they make the food as well as providing food for thought
and discussion for our customers. We have found that many customers appreciate
these dedications, and some of them ask for a copy to take with them.