Back To Our Roots - The Local Food Movement Via Film Fest

Tractors?! We don't need no stinkin' tractors! (Actually, they do, I'm just being smart)

Spent an enjoyable Monday evening at the Cleveland International Film Festival, viewing a production about local food, food economics, food politics, food production, and beer. The beer aspect was thanks in large part to the sponsorship of the Great Lakes Brewing Company, who also play no small role in the film itself. Poly Cultures: Food Where We Live, is a seven chapter story about the important role of locally grown crops, and the policies, legislation, and people who are working in support of them.

One segment focuses on Hale Farm & Village, a replica 19th century town set within the beautiful Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It has a small farm (hence the name). And on this farm they had some weeds, e-i-e-i-0.... So, along comes the ever-ecologically minded Conway brothers from GLBC, and presto! The 'Pint Size Farm' has suddenly sprung to life; producing a large amount of produce for the company's restaurant in Ohio City. According to Christine DeJesus, the Master Gardener, “This 6,000 square-foot farm will parallel a true culinary experience and feature a scent garden, edible flower garden, intensive herb garden, pollinator garden, medicinal tea garden and crop rotation areas with Asian cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, French filet green beans and more. The farm will use only biological and sustainable methods to create a place for education, enlightenment and natural entertainment." Also of note, the herbs produced will soon be featured in Great Lakes' Earth Day beer, Grassroots Ale.

On a side note, Katie and I were pleasantly shocked when who should appear in the film but... us! Though only for a moment, and from a distance, we enjoyed approximately 3 seconds of our promised 15 minutes of fame. Along with the Ohio State Fair Watermelon Seed Spitting Contest in which I placed second in 1989, that leaves me with about 13 minutes and 42 seconds.

This local food (locavore) movement has been at the center of sustainable agriculture push for communities, and this, along with City Fresh, have begun to put theory into action. Kudos to the filmmakers, Tom Kondilas, Brad Masi and David Pearl, for shining a light on the people and organizations who are helping to: bring quality produce to the inner-city, utilize organic farming techniques to produce their crops, re-use and recycle waste to 'close the circle' from growing to garbage, and generally promote community development through creation of neighborhood gardens and garden clubs. The city of Cleveland is a better place because of every single person involved with Poly Cultures.

Care to Dance?

That dude is psyched

The drought is over. Our humble Cleveland State Vikings Men's Basketball team rallied for an inspiring victory last evening over the much-heralded and 17th ranked Butler Bulldogs for the Horizon League Championship. Moreover, the win sealed a spot for CSU in the NCAA tournament, marking the first time since 1986 since the Vikings made a trip to 'the dance'. The campus this morning has a sort of kinetic energy about it that is quite welcome. The publicity and media coverage should provide a much needed boost to our enrollment, and to our prestige. We may have the second best urban affairs program in the United States, but our basketball team, for today anyway, is number one. Now let's just hope we don't come down with the 16th seed...

All is not well in Forest City...

Fresh off the heels of the New York Time's Sunday Magazine feature article on the foreclosure catastrophe befalling Cleveland, a terrible report hitting the national wires this morning about a man who, according to CPD, shot and killed his wife and four other people, including a pair of twin two year olds. This happened at West 89th and Denison, or approximately 10 blocks from my lovely home. My heart goes out to the families of those affected, and my utmost support goes out to the neighborhood and the Cleveland Police Department, who are still hunting down the suspect.

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It seems that of late, what was intended to be a pro-Cleveland site has become littered with tales of poverty, crime, and tragedy. It is terribly unfortunate that the city so many love is being demoralized and demolished, one police blotter item or news headline at a time. I have always been an ardent supporter of Mayor Jay Williams of Youngstown, whose approach to the city of Youngstown has helped to revitalize the community. His approach, to 'right-size' the city in terms of the reality of the population, not hoping for a return to its industrial heyday, could provide Cleveland with valuable lessons. A bright spot this past week has been the passage in the Ohio legislature of a measure to create a Cuyahoga County Land Bank that "allows officials in the state's most populous county to set up a non-profit land reutilization program to accept or buy foreclosed or abandoned properties." This will give the County much greater authority to tear down the hundreds of blighted shells, once homes, that litter much of the East Side, and increasingly, the West. What is to be done with those newly 'green spaces' has not been decided, but it gives everyone an opportunity to imagine the possibilities...