Dear SF Oxon Members (and non-members):

First things first – the next event is on 13 June the Chinese Dinner at the Condor in Oxford and the deadline for signing up is in 3 days – Monday, 29 May. Geoffrey Whittle will sign you up if you email Geoffrey NOW at ranger.organics@virgin.net

Slow Food Fund Raising Dinner

Thank you, thank you, thank you! To all those who supported the dinner through their presence and their donations! We had 43 guests and we will be transferring £450 to support Slow Food UK Biodiversity projects. The actual maths of the evening, though, will be clear when I receive the final Invoice from the Caterers. There will be photographs from the dinner on our website www.slowfood-oxon.org.uk in Features. My personal highlights of the event were “The strawberry story” of our guest speaker Mike Rimmington, the wonderful and young jazz band and the excitement over our raffle and before I enclose here a few testimonials I’d like to say a special Thank you! to Ian Bird for his donation of wines and to Ann Parsons and Liz Wilding for their help on the day.
”I think last night was absolutely great! You put together a very professional event which was interesting and enjoyable and of course served first class food”.

“Thank you for organising such a lovely evening on Thursday. It was great to relax (for a change) at a food event! and of course the food, drink and company were great.” More of these on our website shortly.

Terra Madre dinner

The Programme of the fund raising dinner was so busy that I decided not to feature the Terra Madre film; neither collected we any donations to support producers from developing countries to attend Terra Madre. It takes at least £500 to sponsor one producer; and Terra Madre 2006 plan to have 5,000 food communities from around the world, many of which will need to be sponsored.

So, because we still have a fantastic film to watch and because we have plenty of red wine left, Grana Padano and Cheddar cheese and Huehuetenango Highlands coffee, my husband and I decided to repeat the last summer farmhouse dinner and host it on Saturday, 1 July in our shed at Hardwick Estate. Those who came last year will remember the place and the popularity of the event. Theresa and Geoffrey Whittle will again offer their organic beef, this time a “flavourful 'boeuf bourguignon - French rich stew of beef flambéed in armagnac first; in wine with garlic, onion, for a memorable flavour”, m-m-m… and I will make a summer soup, all sorts of salads and dessert. My husband, Iain Tolhurst, will offer a garden tour for those who want to come earlier (4pm) and Sarah Mcintire from Esselle Organic will be displaying her organic skin care products which you may like to buy. Sarah has been recommended to us by Jim Turnbull, our SF member who works with small businesses in developing new markets (remember Romania?) and Sarah has kindly agreed to bring her samples to our dinner. We will be collecting £10 per person to cover the food costs but this time it will also include your (red) wine, plus £5 to Terra Madre makes £15 per person which we kindly ask you to post by 25 June (cash or cheques payable to Slow Food Oxon, please). In the meanwhile do let me know by email if you plan to attend and I will send you a confirmatin letter with directions, time, etc.

Speaking of Terra Madre though, I am delighted to report that both producers that we nominated for Terra Madre as the Oxfordshire Community of Organic Beef Producers – Geoffrey Whittle from Ranger Organics and Caroline Landless from Duns Tew Organic have been approved and will be representing Oxfordshire in Turin. We also applied for Chef Romain Alinat of Chef’s Table and a decision is due any day now.

Don’t forget

Our Teas & Coffees tasting in Wallingford on 10 July. Stephen Kitchin will lead us through the tasting session. He runs Wallingford Tea and Coffee Co. Ltd. situated in the centre of Wallingford. Stephen Kitching’s career has revolved around all aspects of Tea and Coffee as a merchant, broker, buyer and estate management. His entire working life has been within the Tea and Coffee and commodity markets based in South Africa, Kenya, Malawi, Iran, Oman and London. He was born in Kenya and his father planted tea before moving to Uganda to buy his own tea estate. After training as a tea and coffee taster in South Africa he then joined a tea and coffee brokers in Nairobi, Kenya. He has retained active connections in Mombasa to Europe with buyers and sellers of tea and coffee, and owns a retail shop specialising in quality tea and coffee in the UK and is also a Director of a tea blending and flavouring company in London. He has developed marketing knowledge for coffee in Europe and the USA. Interested?

Slow Food Book Group

We met on 24 May and had another very enjoyable and meaningful discussion over a glass of good wine and “The Rituall of Dinner…” We would like to encourage more members (and non-members) to join the group. The next session is scheduled for 12 July (July is a busy month for Slow Food Oxon!) and the book to read is In Praise of Slow: How a Worldwide Movement Is Challenging the Cult of Speed by Carl Honore. It is available at Amazon and I bought it at The Works in the Westgate shopping centre for £1.99 this week. Please note that the book is not just about food, it touches upon every aspect of our lives, even sex… Interested? Sign up with Liz Wilding webeditor@slowfood-oxon.org.uk

New

Our members Ben Walker and Cristina Tosti have kindly offered to organise a Slow Food film event at the Phoenix sometime in September, so will be looking forward for details!

Last but not least:
On behalf of Craig Sams, Chair of the Soil Association, I am attaching an invitation to a special screening of The Future of Food documentary about GM foods, which will be held in London on 22nd June. Apparently the film “has made a huge impact across the world already as people have been alerted to the shocking reality of genetic modification”. To book, please send a cheque (£5 per person attending) made out to "The Guild of Food Writers" and send to Jonathan Woods, Administrator GFW, 9 Colman House, High Street, London SE20 7EX (Please note, credit card/debit card bookings cannot be accepted).

That’s it for now, I shall leave you to process all this information, fine-tune your plans, sign up for events, buy the book, while I spend a few days in New York with my newborn baby (God)son!