Entree options include nourish‘s Famous Meatloaf made with Vermont Quality ground Beef and local vegetables (hearty and delicious, it’s not your mama’s meatloaf!), Local Seafood, or Local Vegan Tempeh from 21st Century Food in Jamaica Plain.

At the 2011 Boston Local Food Festival, nourish was the Local Champion restaurant. They had the most locally sourced meal, and the most sustainable servings, exemplifying the Boston Local Food Festival mantra.

We return to nourish for an ALLocal Dinner to honor this accomplishment and to engage in conversation around Localizing our Food System. Our inspiring speakers include nourish’s Karen Masterson and JD Kemp, founder of Crop Circle Kitchen and Organic Renaissance/Food Ex.

Karen Masterson, founder and owner of nourish in Lexington Center has been a champion of environmental and social justice for over 30 years.  She is a former board member of SBN and supports local, independent farms, fisheries, and businesses everyday at her restaurant.  She will be serving up a delectable three-course meal staying true to her mantra of Responsibly Sourced, Reasonably Priced.

At the 2011 Boston Local Food Festival, nourish was the Local Champion restaurant.  They included the most locally sourced meal, with clear signage, and the most sustainable servings at $5 or less.  Soup was served in a bread bowl, so only a compostable spoon was used for service!  Karen exemplifies the movement the Boston Local Food Festival promotes.  We return to nourish for an ALLocal Dinner to honor this accomplishment and to engage in conversation around Localizing our Food System.

Karen will speak about what Localizing Food means to her and her restaurant along with other guest speakers including JD Kemp.  Kemp is an active member of SBN, is founder of Crop Circle Kitchen in Jamaica Plain and Organic Renaissance/Food Ex, an inventive food distribution system with an online platform that allows buyers and sellers to connect over an open marketplace.  More guest speakers to be announced.

Reserve your tickets here: RSVP nourish

SBN members Equal Exchange, City Feed, and 1369 Coffee House join five other local cafe’s in an innovative promotion to support local businesses. City Feed was a sponsor for the past two years of Boston Local Food Festival and Equal Exchange participated as a vendor last year. We encourage all our SBN Boston Local Food Festival Fans to show your local for local businesses and support this promotion that runs through march, 2012.  Why not purchase a gift card and pick up a Disloyalty Card for a friend this holiday?

Reposting of Blog:

Coffee slingers of Boston are uniting to celebrate the city’s incredible café landscape and the art of brewing up high-quality artisanal coffee.

This winter, eight independently owned cafés are joining together to launch Boston’s first disloyalty card program. It’s similar to a customer loyalty card, except that customers are encouraged to visit other businesses. The idea is to build support for local, independent shops in a city dominated by national coffee chains and to inspire coffee enthusiasts to explore Boston’s growing coffee culture.

“Each café in the program brings a unique perspective to the world of specialty coffee and specialty cafés,” said Leif Rawson-Ahern, manager of the Equal Exchange Café in Boston and organizer of the disloyalty program. “Each has its own energy and atmosphere, making for an exciting and eclectic experience.”

The initiative came out of discussions between managers at Equal Exchange Café and City Feed & Supply in Jamaica Plain. “We get to share our excitement about Boston’s burgeoning coffee scene with our customers – and hopefully, serve up a pleasant surprise for some folks who don’t yet know our shop,” said Sam Archer, manager at City Feed & Supply’s Boylston Street location.

Here’s how it works. Starting on Dec. 15, 2011, the eight cafés will begin distributing disloyalty cards to their customers. The customers will have until March 15, 2012, to receive a stamp from each of the cafés when they purchase a drink. After the card is complete, they can redeem it for a free drink at any of the participating cafés.

The disloyalty card concept was first launched in London by Gwilym Davies, the 2009 World Barista Champion. Similar programs have popped up in the U.S., in Seattle and San Francisco. Rawson-Ahern said the initiative to launch a disloyalty program here in Boston has had overwhelming support and enthusiasm.

“We’re excited and proud to be joining up with other independent cafés – it feels like we are all part of a community.” said Andrew LoPilato, general manager at Pavement in Boston.

‪Boston Local Food Festival 2011 – Stone Hearth Pizza Co.

‪2011 Boston Local Food Festival Recap

‪Boston Local Food Festival-Peace Boston Dance-

‪City Feed and Friends at the 2011 Boston Local Food Festival!  

Thank you to everyone who came out and supported the cause!

Robert Owaida founded Bobby O’s Foods (located in Manchester, N.H.) in 2007 with a passion for Lebanese food and a need to help people create great-tasting hummus. After talking with a friend who just couldn’t get it right, Bobby O decided to make his first product: Hummus Made Easy Mix.

“He would always make hummus, tabouli, [and] pita chips from scratch at home,” said Annabelle Owaida, Co-owner of Bobby O’s Foods and wife to Bobby. “He wanted to provide customers with these products, how he would enjoy them at home.”

Made with fresh, all-natural ingredients, Bobby O’s hummus mixes only require chickpeas or garbanzo beans – and pita chips. Thankfully, Bobby O’s recognizes the winning combination of pita with hummus, and has since created his own line of pita chips. Bobby O’s pita chips are made with a unique blend of spices, and come in flavors such as Whole Wheat Garlic, Lemon and Chive, and Cinnamon and Sugar.

“Bobby O’s wants to provide the community with a snack that tastes great and is still healthy,” Owaida said. “Our Pita chips are all natural [and made with] no preservatives.”

In addition to hummus and pita chips, Bobby O’s also makes homemade tabouli mixes. However, Bobby’s dedication to his family still continues to be his number one priority – he still works a full-time job in addition to his food business in order to support his wife and three daughters. Because of that, his hummus and tabouli mixes are currently on the back burner while he focuses his free time on his homemade pita chips.

This will be Bobby O’s second year participating in the Boston Local Food Festival. The husband and wife duo is excited to share their pita chips with local food lovers, and to share their passion for Lebanese food.

“We are able to have a close relationship with our customers because we are local, which is very satisfying for us,” Owaida said. “We are very excited and looking forward to meeting new people and seeing the smiles on their faces when they try our chips.”

For more information about Bobby O’s Products, visit their website at www.bobbyosfoods.com, or their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bobby-Os-Chips/130034197070411. To purchase their products for yourself, you can order via their website. Bobby O’s products are also found at various specialty markets in the area – a full list will be provided at the Boston Local Food Festival.

This post was written by Michelle Collins of Local in Season, go check them out!  They are also one of our media sponsors, look out for them at the festival!

You’ve probably wondered how Dancing Deer came up with such a cute name. It’s actually named after an antique shop in Bar Harbor, Maine that was run by the grandmother of Suzanne Lombardi.

Dancing Deer is a company that lives and breathes a passion for food, and that food is filled with love. They believe that what mood you are in will dictate how your baked goods will come out. They must employ really happy bakers then because their products are always delicious!

All of Dancing Deer’s products are made from scratch and they are always all-natural, and have no preservatives. They are also Kosher! You can tell that Dancing Deer comes from humble beginnings because their signature Deep Dark Gingerbread Cake came from founder Suzanne’s grandmother. Dancing Deer takes a lot of pride in their product and even in their packaging, choosing environmentally friendly packaging over the cheap stuff.

You can find a huge assortment of goodies over at Dancing Deer’s website. You can search by occasion, price or by product and it’s probably best that you have someone with you to prevent you from buying everything on the site because that’s just how amazing everything looks! Ever conscious of the public’s need for healthy whole grains, Dancing Deer recently launched a line of 6 whole grain items including: Peanut Butter & Jelly Squares, Fruit & Nut Squares, Cranberry Orange cookies with white chocolate chips, Chocolate Chip cookies & Chocolate Chunk Brownies. Is that your tummy grumbling? Oh wait, that was mine.

Not only do they put love into all their products, but they put love back into the community. Dancing Deer’s main philanthropic efforts are developed to helping homeless families through the Sweet Home Project. Dancing Deer donates 35% of the retail price of Sweet Home goodies and gifts to go towards scholarships as a pathway out of poverty to economic self sufficiency.

Make sure you check out the Dancing Deer booth at Boston Local Food Festival this weekend if you want a chance to taste their unbelievable brownies and learn more about their fantastic goodies. You cannot miss it!

This post was written by Local in Season contributor and blogger Amanda Laskowski.  Amanda also writes her own blog, Tales from a Kitchen Misfit – you should probably go and check it out!

What should we serve with the grilled salmon tonight, peas or kelp?  – That’s the question Ocean Approved wants to make standard.
 

Ocean Approved grows – yes, grows – their kelp in Casco Bay, in the Gulf of Maine.  Spores are nurtured on land, set on “long lines” in the ocean once they mature, and harvested off the ropes from March to May.  The company is the happy collaboration of Paul Dobbins and Tollef Olson, former mussel farmers, and it’s is the first kelp “farm” in the U.S.
 

Raising kelp requires no fresh water, no arable land, no fertilizers, and has a positive impact on CO2 levels; it’s thus a bandaid for the ocean’s acidification perils.  There’s nothing ironic about the name, “Ocean Approved,” Dobbins told me.  The owners believe in running their farm – kelp isn’t seafood; it’s a sea vegetable – with the sea’s blessings.   
 

Leave behind the salty, dried product in cellophane packages; Look for Ocean Approved’s frozen kelp in freezer section of specialty stores, right beside the organic frozen peas.  Again, Olson and Dobbins want frozen kelp to simply be another frozen vegetable choice.  What you do with peas – a side dish, a salad, tossed into a soup – you do with frozen kelp, (thaw, drain, and it’s ready to use).  Choose kelp over peas and your finished dish will ripple with calcium, Vitamin A, K, magnesium, iodine, and all the trace elements anyone needs.
 

Cook it like pasta, treat it like a slaw.   For Dobbins a crumble of it is the ideal topping on grilled salmon.  England, Ireland, Scandinavia, Japan, all considered kelp an easily harvested fresh vegetable.  Dobbins explains that the reason there’s no kelp section in the indices of our old cookbooks, although people were known to use the vegetable here, is that a limited population – only those living on a coast – had ready access to it.  
 

Samples of kelp cuisine – pickles, soup, slaw – will be generously distributed at the Boston Local Food Festival.  Speaking to me over the phone, Dobbins was audibly excited when I brought up Ocean Approved’s representation at the festival.  

“It’s a great way to reach new people – we served 3,000 samples last year!”  Visibility, feedback, education, it’s all there, Dobbins said.

Kelp, washing up on your beach today, is probably the most local, sustainable vegetable we can be serving.  Ocean Approved’s place at the Boston Local Food Festival is natural, a place reserved by the sea itself.

As a painter and writer, Heather Atwood spent a lot of time waiting on tables in great restaurants. While struggling with color and line, she was also learning how to roast a great chicken, and what it means to balance textures in a dish. She’s been interested in good food ever since. Married, the mother of two daughters, Heather now lives in Rockport, Mass. and is the food columnist for the Gloucester Daily Times. She is featured regularly in Taste of the Times videos and her writing can also be seen in the Wednesday food section of the Times.  She is also a contributing writer to Local in Season

Mateychuk has been the brew master at Watch City Brewery in Waltham, MA since 1997. The brewery, located on Moody St., came about in 1996, and since then has won several awards, as well as grow a significant “mug club” of regular customers from the Newton/Waltham area. Besides its impressive selection of locally brewed beer, it also serves a great selection of typical pub fair—and everything served there is grown locally.

“We’ve always focused a lot on the local agriculture as far as produce and local seafood—and time to time local meat that’s in New England and Massachusetts,” said Mateychuk. What exactly does local mean for them? Watch City picks their produce and hops just three miles away at a local farm, Gateways. (It can’t get much more local than that.) Mateychuk is a big supporter of growing locally, and the main reason? “Because it’s fresh,” he said. “I think it’s a great thing to go into a community in a different town. I always check to see if someone’s brewing beer locally. It’s something that can’t be beat. Drinking stuff off the tap is always fresher than the bottle.”

Watch City Brewery is featuring two of their local beers at the Boston Local Food Festival this Saturday: Toasted Ah Ah Pale Ale and Mongrel IPA. Some of their other famous local beers that you can find at the brewery include MonkeyMonk Saison, a slightly spicy and sweet summer ale, and Stephanie’s Cherry Raspberry Wit, a refreshing tart wheat ale. Watch City Brewery’s local beers are also available throughout the city, including Red Bones, Stoddard’s Fine Food and Ale, and Cambridge Common.

This post was written by Megan Kellett, a lovely blogess who writes about her kitchen and eating adventures over at Cooking Whims.

Lydia’s Handcrafted Foods “grew out of our family’s love of food, made well and made with love” so says Lydia, the daughter in the duo that makes up Lydia’s Handcrafted Foods. A native of Egypt who immigrated to America in the 1980s, she brings an authentic representation of what good Middle Eastern food and dishes are all about in a market full of over processed, overly sweet and not very fresh items.

To prove how important quality and fresh ingredient’s are to Lydia’s Handcrafted Foods, they only use the best quality local and imported ingredients, and have a product line of only 10-12 different items. However, just because their product line is small, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t encompass a wide range of Middle Eastern specialties.

Have you ever eyed a delicious looking tray of baklava only to be disappointed in the taste? Many times baklava can be too cloyingly sweet, and none of the other flavors that make baklava great come through. Don’t worry though; you won’t get that with Lydia’s Handcrafted Foods baklava. “Ours is more balanced – flakey, nutty, and sweet. We always tell people – you think you’ve tasted baklava? Well think again!” Well, if that isn’t a reason for you to try their baklava, then I don’t know what is!

But maybe baklava isn’t your style, that’s ok! There’s Dukkah, which is an Egyptian nut and spice mix. Traditionally served with bread and oil, it’s the perfect appetizer! Or how about Semna, which is Arabic clarified butter and Lydia’s is one of the only places you can find it!

So besides being able to sample some of Lydia’s Handcrafted Foods such as the dukkah, baklava, and semna at the Boston Local Food Festival on October 1st, just where CAN you gets your hands on their delicious goods? Check out your local gourmet food stores such as Formaggio Kitchen, Baccos Wine & Cheese, Pemberton Market, and select Whole Foods. And pretty soon, you’ll be able to order through their new website, www.lydiashandcraftedfoods.com. And don’t forget to sign up for their mailing list when you stop by their booth at the Boston Local Food Festival so you can keep yourself updated on all the amazing things happening at Lydia’s Handcrafted Foods.

This post was written by Local in Season contributor and blogger Amanda Laskowski.  Amanda also writes her own blog, Tales from a Kitchen Misfit – you should probably go and check it out!

Art at 12: Fort Point Arts Community’s alternative community, gallery and performance space

More information on FPAC can be found here. FPAC is located at 300 Summer Street M1, Boston, MA 02210

Feast for the Eyes

What does it mean to nourish or to seek sustenance? In contrast, what does food mean when it is able to tantalize, to be a moment that is savored, when it is able to provide us with the luxury of pleasing our senses? Feast for the Eyes is a visual exploration of the ways in which food captures our senses. Guest Juror: Lauren Winsor, NEFA

Works by: Sylvie Agudelo, Kristen Alexandrov, Eli Alperowicz, Barry Cronin, Kippy Goldfarb, Franck Grall, Elisa Hamilton, Joanne Kaliontzis, Ian Kennelly, Amy MacDonald, Sterling Mulbry, Krina Patel, Khalilah Ramdene, Sylvia Stagg-Giuliano, Ryuji Suzuki