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The Platform For GOOD FOOD INNOVATION
21 Oct 2010
It is my pleasure to invite you to join us for the 2nd annual “Hungry New York” to celebrate the strategic and creative synergies between the local food and green building communities over dinner and drinks.
Last year, Hungry New York planted the seeds for a growing dialogue between committed advocates in the fields of sustainable food and green building; communities whose missions are aligned but for which there have been few opportunities to collaborate. It was a remarkable, singular event, both fun and educational, and established Hungry New York as an unconventional incubator of myriad collaborations and projects.
The goal of this gathering is to identify, encourage and support the small scale innovators that are prototyping models to improve our community’s food systems; the folks connecting thinking with doing. With this in mind the 2010 Hungry New York project will focus on five simple but profound stories, woven together by Carolyn Steel’s concept of ‘sitopia’, from her influential book, Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives. In her book, Carolyn examines the organic life of cities through the lens of food. While following food’s journey from farm to table to waste and back, she illuminates the enormous impact food systems and networks have had on the physical shape of our cities and asks how a new, holistic approach can improve the design of urban places and their surrounding regions. To this end she has proposed an alternative to utopia, sitopia, from the ancient Greek words sitos (food) and topos (place). Sitopia, in essence, is a way of recognizing the central role that food plays in our lives and of harnessing its potential to shape the world in a better way.
On October 21st we bring your five ‘sitopians’- individuals whose stories describe the impact local food networks can have on our built environment, our culture and our community. Our five storytellers, with five minutes each, will be:
Kate Bakewell, Landscape Architect and Hungry New York 2009 attendee, on her recent focus on food networks and their role in shaping planning and design processes.
Christine Datz-Romero, founder of the Lower East Side Ecology Center, on their innovative, community-based recycling and composting programs.
Ben Flanner will spin the tale of the Brooklyn Grange, a 40,000 square foot rooftop farm New York City, a remarkable, improbable venture, and the first such CSA in the five boroughs.
Robert LaValva, Architect and Founder of the New Amsterdam Market, will update us on his project to revive the municipal tradition of food markets, permanent homes for local food vendors in the model of Les Halles in Paris and its local descendants, the Fulton, Washington and Jefferson markets.
Paul Mankiewicz will describe his lifelong focus on soil and its fundamental relationship to all human activity, the basic unit of our food our water and our air.
Each speaker will tell their tale in five minutes. To guide us through these stories and weave them into a coherent narrative Carolyn Steel has graciously agreed, as she did last year, to facilitate a discussion between them and between all of you.
We encourage you to learn more about Carolyn’s book in advance of the event, here: http://www.hungrycitybook.co.uk/
We look forward to your active participation in this convivial session on October 21st. We expect the event, like last year, to act as an incubator of future partnerships and direct action.
We are inviting more than 100 key specialists who, like yourself, have been recommended by their peers. We are asking attendees for a $50 donation to cover the costs of this remarkable evening. Rather than catering the event in the conventional sense, the food and drink will be provided exclusively by local purveyors. Your donation will cover the costs for these small, local entrepreneurs as well as the services of The City Bakery staff. Once again, City Bakery has kindly agreed to host Hungry New York. City Bakery is an entrepreneurial food business committed to sustainability in every aspect of their operations for more than 15 years. Support them by visiting their new “Birdbath, Neighborhood Green Bakery” locations around New York: www.buildagreenbakery.com
Join us on October 21st to discuss an issue fundamental to everyone dedicated to the creation of sustainable communities, our relationship to our food and the myriad networks that provide it.
This invitation is non-transferable. Seating is very limited so please only RSVP if you are CERTAIN you will attend. Please purchase your ticket to RSVP no later than September 20th by registering through this exclusive link:
http://joinus.urbangreencouncil.org/hungrynewyork
