Fresh! Screening at the Museum of Arts & Sciences in Daytona Novemeber 18th

One week from today, November 18, 2009 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM, the Fair Share Garden in partnership with the Museum of Arts and Sciences and the Downtown Farmers Market will host the film Fresh! at the Museum of Arts and Sciences.

Unique from other previous documentaries on agriculture and farming which have focused on the horror of the industry, "Fresh" is a look at sustainable solutions to problems with our industrialized food system and offers ideas on the direction the movement should be headed.

Come enjoy a wholesome meal, silent auction, the movie, and an informative discussion to follow.

schedule

6:30 pm--wholesome meal which will include samples of Organic beer and Fair Trade Organic coffee, music, and silent auction.

7:00 pm--Fresh, the movie begins, and an interactive discussion panel with follow the movie. The panel includes Commercial Horticulture Agent, Dana Venrick of the Volusia County Cooperative Extension Service; Joel Tippens of the Fair Share Urban Garden Project; and organic farmer Pauline Copello of Pauline’s Lucky Market Garden.

Event ends at 8:30 pm.

This event is a fundraiser for the Fair Share Urban Garden Project and the proceeds support establishing new community gardens and urban agriculture projects in Daytona Beach. Tickets are $15 at the door.

Thank you to our sponsors: Orlando Brewing, Sweetwater Organic Coffee, Cafe Campesino, Access to Organics, Chique LLC, Downtown Farmers Market and the Museum of Arts & Sciences.


For further details on this event contact the Museum of Arts & Sciences at (386) 255-0285

story

FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision of our food and our planet’s future. FRESH addresses an ethos that has been sweeping the nation and is a call to action America has been waiting for.

characters

Among several main characters, FRESH features:

Will Allen - 6ft 7" former professional basketball player Will Allen is now one of the most influential leaders of the food security & urban farming movement. His farm and not-for-profit, Growing Power, have trained and inspired people in every corner of the US to start growing food sustainably. This man and his organization go beyond growing food. They provide a platform for people to share knowledge and form relationships in order to develop alternatives to the industrial food system.

Joel Salatin- world-famous sustainable farmer and entrepreneur, made famous by Michael Pollan (also in the movie) - author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Joel Salatin writes in his website that he is "in the redemption business: healing the land, healing the food, healing the economy, and healing the culture." By closely observing nature, Joel created a rotational grazing system that not only allows the land to heal but also allows the animals to behave the way the were meant to – as in expressing their "chicken-ness" or "pig-ness", as Joel would say.

David Ball -supermarket owner, challenging our Wal-Mart dominated economy. With the rise of Wal-Mart and other big chains, David Ball saw his family-run supermarket dying, along with a once-thriving local farm community. So he reinvented his business, partnering with area farmers to sell locally-grown food and specialty food products at an affordable price. His plan has brought the local economy back to life.

reason

FRESH recaptures our sense of agency and makes us believe that our individual actions in fact do matter. Throughout the film we encounter the most inspiring people, ideas, and initiatives around the US. And thus, FRESH showcases real people first and foremost, connecting audiences not with facts and figures or apocalyptic policy analysis, but with personal stories of change.

producer

Ana Joanes is a Swiss-born documentary filmmaker whose work addresses pressing social issues through character-driven narratives. After traveling internationally to study the environmental and cultural impacts of globalization, she graduated from Columbia Law School in May 2000, awarded as a Stone Scholar and Human Rights Fellow. Thereafter, Ana created Reel Youth, a video production program for youth coming out of detention. In 2003, Ana and her friend Andrew Unger produced Generation Meds, a documentary exploring our fears and misgivings about mental illness and medication. FRESH is Ana’s second feature documentary.

Click here for directions to the Museum on the Fresh Website. Please consider RSVPing with us on Facebook and sharing this event with your friends. Enjoy the preview for the movie below.

Mandarin Perfume

Mandarin Perfume
Originally uploaded by AquarianBath

It's been a little while since I've made a blog post. I had a great art show downtown on Friday in Daytona Beach. We enjoyed a Fire Poi performance while sipping Muscadine Wine from the San Sabastion Winery in St. Augustine. I met a couple of great photography artists, one of which I will blog more about this week.

The Rose Geranium roll on perfume has been a hit, so I've been working on putting together a few more simple roll perfumes which will be listed on etsy this week. One of which is this Mandarin Perfume. It is made with pure essential oils of Mandarin, Sweet Orange, lemony Litsea and Patchouli. The Jojoba base that has been lightly infused with Annatto Seed to give it a lovely orange color.

The Florida Etsy Street Team's Fall 2009 Catalog

I'm pleased to present the Florida Etsy Street Team Fall 2009 catalog on behalf of our team. Take a peak. You will find some fabulous Florida arts and crafters as well as special deals from our members. You can download the pdf catalog here.

How Was Your Halloween? Sharing my Day at the Hallowgreen Festival

I spent the morning at the Hallowgreen event in Daytona Beach, which was a fundraiser for the Fair Share Garden. There were a number of workshops, trick or treaters and vendors at the event. It was an early morning as we were setting up in conjunction with the regular City Island Saturday farmer's market. My intention was to be awake at 5:45 a.m. and set up by 7 a.m. When I woke up and sat down at the computer the clock read 7:04 a.m. OOPS!! Scott accidentally turned off the alarm that he set for me. Half awake, I headed out for the market with out my bag of items for my workshop on home remedies for cold and flu. Luckily I chose a recipe to demonstrate which consisted of simple ingredients available at the farmer's market: garlic and honey. I picked up the garlic from one of the produce vendors and wild flower honey and a small jar of gourmet pickled okra from Ms. Ocie and I was all set. I knew I could count on the dedicated fair share volunteers to help me finish off the jar of pickles so I would have an empty pint jar for my demo.



Filling up the jar with honey: garlic is helpful for resolving colds, coughs, sore throats, and sinus infections. If you would like to make some garlic honey for cold and flu season you can find the full method in a former blog post.



Dana Venrick of the Volusia Flagler Cooperative Extension Service and Joel Tippens of the Fair Share Urban Garden Project gave an introduction to organic gardening at Hallowgreen.



Dana introduced everyone to the various organic supplements for the garden. One of which was Azomite. This is a mineral rich volcanic ash which we use at the garden. It is pictured below among the other items.


Rich organic soil hand mixed by Joel Tippes of Fair Share.


Chicken mother got my vote for best costume.


Here we are: chicken child, chicken mom, pouty ballerina, and I enjoying our pretzel cigarettes. Like my pumpkin arm paint? That has lingered in the form of pumpkin tan lines.


Meet two of the hand crafting vendors:

Michelle Davidson of Daytona Beach with her son Isaac. Michelle is a talented artist who makes fused glass jewelry and a wide range of fine art. Check out her fine art America website. I'm the proud owner of some of Michelle's fused pendants.


Crystal Calhoun is the owner at Stars and Crossbones and a member of the Florida Etsy Street Team. Crystal spins yarn and makes beautiful scarves and her partner Brian makes chainmaille jewelry. See the pretty green linen scarf being fingered in the picture below? It didn't stay on the table long before it was snapped up by a happy customer.

Lavender Earl Grey Tea: A Favorite New Morning Tea Blend

During the summer (which seems to go on forever in Florida) I generally like to drink green tea. The green tea is very cooling. We brew it up daily and store it in the refrigerator in a glass jar. I also am fond of making vitamin and mineral rich herbal infusions of nettles, oatstraw, and red raspberry leaf. Recently I've been drinking Earl Grey Lavender tea in the morning. We have a great restaurant supply store in town called Sixth Street Sales, where I am able to find lots of fun boxed discount tea blends. The Lavender Earl Grey tea was one of the blends that I found last time from Revolution. Regular Earl Grey tea is a black tea made with Bergamot oil. Bergamot is a rich, sweet, fruity citrus oil used in aromatherapy and natural perfumery.



I love the way the addition of a small amount of Lavender buds adds a sweet herbaceous touch to the earl grey. When I run out of the tea bags, I'm planning to pick up some earl grey in bulk to which I will be adding home grown Lavender from my friend Michelle. Lavender is one of my favorite herbs for calming the nervous system and I enjoy making Lavender vodka/ tincture for use during stressful periods.

I'm looking forward to reading what others are drinking in the morning lately. This blog post is a part of an a November blog party about morning beverages hosted by Dancing in a Field of Tansy

New Product: Rose Geranium Natural Perfume

Rose Geranium Perfume
Originally uploaded by AquarianBath

The alkanet root infused jojoba oil makes up the base of this perfume giving it a lovely red color. The perfume is naturally scented with the Rose like essential oil of Perlargonium gravolens, also known as Rose Geranium. A small amount of Australian sandalwood helps anchor and complement the Rose Geranium.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=33536552

Delicate Little Beauties: My First Moringa Flowers

This is my second year growing Moringa oleifera trees, but the first year they have bloomed. If you are not familiar with Moringa, it is a highly nutritive tree, which has the highest protein concentration of any known plant. It is also very easy to digest. Since they did not bloom last year and I was harvesting a good amount of leaves I decided to just let them go over the summer and see if we got any flowers. So here are the first blooms from one of the trees at the Fair Share Garden. I am hoping that we will end up with many seeds to share. All parts of the plant have a variety of culinary and medicinal uses. The most interesting use I have found though is water purification using the seeds. In Natural Medicine in the Tropics Treatments Dr. Hans Martin Hirt gives a complete method for river water purification. About 10 crushed seeds (2 grams of seed) is needed to purify 20 litres of water. The Moringa seed binds the fine particles and bacteria and removes 90- 99.9% of bacteria. The purification can actually be done also with seed that has already been pressed for its oil. Moringa oil has a long shelf life and can be used in cooking, soap making, and as a base for cosmetics.