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Sacramento Food Film Festival is March 10th! Tickets going fast!!

Some of the best movies I have seen in the past few years have been all about food!!

More specifically, documentaries about our food and its production and distribution.

Needless to say, the inaugural Sacramento Food Film Festival is right up my alley! It will be held on Saturday, March 10, 2012 at Guild Theater from 10am to 10pm. So basically, come out like you are camping out for a deal on an HDTV at Best Buy on Black Friday, ok? 😉

I know a lot of you seem to be aware and conscious of the serious food issues/problems that this world faces, but these movies will educate you (as well as entertain and provoke thought) to what is really going on and really going wrong with our global food supply.

Here is the film lineup for the day:

10:15 Lunch Line 63 min.

Lunch Line follows six kids from one of the toughest neighborhoods in Chicago as they set out to fix school lunch — and end up at the White House. Their unlikely journey parallels the dramatic transformation of school lunch from a patchwork of local anti-hunger efforts to a robust national feeding program. The film tracks the behind-the-scenes details of school lunch and childhood hunger from key moments in the 1940s, 1960s, and 1980s to the present, revealing political twists, surprising alliances, and more common ground than people might realize.

11:30 The Last Crop 50 min.

The Last Crop follows Jeff and Annie Main, and examines how one family’s mission to preserve their small working farm’s existence for future farmers is challenging the status quo of farmland conservation and farm succession policies within California’s 36 billion dollar agricultural industry. I saw this movie early this month and absolutely loved it. Since the filmmaker keeps adding on to the length of the film as the story progresses (as it is a work in progress), it will be a little longer than 50 minutes.

12:30 Dive 53 min.

Inspired by a curiosity about our country’s careless habit of sending food straight to landfills, the multi award-winning documentary DIVE! follows filmmaker Jeremy Seifert and friends as they dumpster dive in the back alleys and gated garbage receptacles of Los Angeles’ supermarkets. In the process, they salvage thousands of dollars worth of good, edible food – resulting in an inspiring documentary that is equal parts entertainment, guerilla journalism and call to action.

1:30 Future of Food 88 min.

The Future of Food has been a key tool in the American and international anti-GMO grassroots activist movements and played widely in the environmental and activist circuits since its release in 2004. The film is widely acknowledged for its role in educating voters and the subsequent success of passing Measure H in Mendocino County, California, one of the first local initiatives in the country to ban the planting of GMO crops. Indicative of its popularity, the Future of Food showed to a sold out audience of 1,500 at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco in 2004, a benefit for Slow Food, where it was introduced by Alice Waters.

3:00 Food Matters 80 min.

With nutritionally-depleted foods, chemical additives and our tendency to rely upon pharmaceutical drugs to treat what’s wrong with our malnourished bodies, it’s no wonder that modern society is getting sicker. Food Matters sets about uncovering the trillion dollar worldwide ‘sickness industry’ and gives people some scientifically verifiable solutions for overcoming illness naturally.

4:30 Ingredients 67 min.

Inspiring and rich, INGREDIENTS unearths the roots of the local food movement and digs into the stories of the chefs, farmers and activists transforming our broken food system. This upbeat, beautifully-photographed film introduces us to the verdant farms and pioneering restaurants where good food is produced and served. From innovative farm-to-table programs in Harlem to picturesque sheep farms in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, INGREDIENTS shows the heart of an alternative food system – healthy, sustainable and tasty.

Through interviews with world-class chefs such as Alice Waters and Greg Higgins and sustainability-minded farmers in Oregon, New York and Ohio, INGREDIENTS weaves an uplifting tale that is equal parts earthy rebellion and mouth-watering homage.

Narrated by Bebe Neuwirth, INGREDIENTS is a fun, open-minded film that will satiate both veteran slow-food fans and the uninitiated alike.

Narrated by Bebe Neuwirth? Guys, need I say more? 🙂

6:00 Farmaggedon 90 min.Farmageddon highlights the urgency of food freedom, encouraging farmers and consumers alike to take action to preserve individuals’ rights to access food of their choice and farmers’ rights to produce these foods safely and free from unreasona-bly burdensome regulations. The film serves to put policymakers and regulators on notice that there is a growing movement of people aware that their freedom to choose the foods they want is in danger, a movement that is taking action with its dollars and its voting power to protect and preserve the dwindling number of family farms that are struggling to survive.

7:45 Farmers Panel Discussion 60 min.

9:00 What’s Organic about Organic? 59 min.

WHAT’S ORGANIC ABOUT “ORGANIC?” delves into the debates that arise when a grassroots agricultural movement evolves into a booming international market. As the film moves from farm fields to government meetings to industry trade shows, we see the hidden costs of conventional agriculture. We also see how our health, the health of our planet, and the agricultural needs of our society are all intimately connected. The film compels us to look forward, towards a new vision for our culture and encourages us to ask, “How can we eat with an ecological consciousness?”

For more information on the event go to: http://sacfoodfilmfest.com

Special thanks to sponsors Simply Recipes, Whole Foods, Slow Food Sacramento, Munchie Musings, Mikuni Sushi, Guild Theatre, and the Sacramento Co-op.

You can find the Sacramento Food Film Festival on Facebook here!!

PS: If you buy a ticket by March 1st, you will be automatically entered to win a restaurant gift card from deVere’s or Ella.

Buy tickets here now! Hurry because the Guild only holds 200 people and tickets are going fast!!

February 17, 2012 | Categories: events, festival, food, movie, organic, paleo, sacramento | Leave a comment

It’s Organic Produce Delivery Service and Homemade Paleo Dinner!

Every other Tuesday, I receive a box like this from a company called It’s Organic Delivery! They are one of a few produce delivery services available in the greater Sacramento area.

Here is a peek of what comes inside an all-vegetable box. It serves a family of 2-4 and costs $34.99 per delivery or $31.99 with promo code.

A mixed fruits and vegetables box serves a family of 2-4, is $34.99 per delivery or $29.99 with a promo code, and contains between 10-12 varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables.

A fruits only box serves a family of 2-4 costs $34.99 per delivery or $31.99 with promo code and is packed full of organic fresh fruits.

As a reader of cakegrrl.com, I’d like to offer you the promo code to enter when you sign up! It is “organic5off”

If you are still considering a produce delivery service, but aren’t sure what to do with a lot of things that come in the box, please stay tuned to my website because I’ll be throwing out lots of ideas for you!

To sign up to receive your produce from It’s Organic, please follow the link here.

There are many reasons I have gone organic for nearly all of my fruits and vegetables. Yes, it is a little more expensive, but I believe that buying organic will eventually pay off in the long run. I hope I don’t have to tell all of you how toxic pesticides are. If you are trying to be healthy and getting in all your servings of fruits and vegetables, what is the point if they have loads of poison on them from pesticides? It is so very important to avoid putting chemicals into your body. The best thing I heard today that really puts things in perspective is… “if they have to wear gas masks to grow your food, what are you supposed to eat it with?”

Beyond that, buying organic is important because it creates a demand for organic. Why is this important? Have you considered the farm workers who harvest your fruits and vegetables and their daily exposure to toxins in the pesticides? What about the fact that when you buy local and organic, you help to stimulate your LOCAL economy? 🙂

And, yes, you DO have to actually wash, cut and MAKE SOMETHING out of what is in the box, but the best part is that they deliver it straight to your door! It’s kind of like Christmas Day for me when my produce box arrives. It’s fun to play a little game of Iron Chef and make meals out of whatever comes to me for the week.

So, this is what I did with the bunch of Rainbow Chard I received. I chopped up the stems…cook those first, because they take a little longer to cook than the leaves do.

Here’s a nice picture of the leaves after I removed the stems. What I did to about 3 or 4 leaves is blanch them in boiling water for about a minute to make the leaves pliable.

And then I wrapped them around some BEAUTIFUL halibut filets purchased from another Paleo friend of mine from Taylor’s Market (HOLLA) (which I rubbed down with smoked salt, curry, cumin, lemon, pepper, cinnamon), and baked them in a 350 degree oven for 20ish minutes.

Meanwhile, I sauteed onions, the chard stems, the rest of the chard leaves, garlic, and bacon in this skillet. I also added some chopped, toasted almonds.

Remember the acorn squash in the beginning of this post? Here’s what it looks like after I baked it, and pureéd it in the blender with carmelized onions, garlic, sea salt, chicken stock, coconut milk, and spices including curry, cumin, cinnamon…

And here’s what the meal looks like completed. I can’t tell you how good it feels to eat this way, so healthy, guiltless, and delicious. I really don’t know how you could eat anything processed or from a box ever again. EVER. Sure it might be convenient, but it’s pretty much LESS convenient to get cancer from stuff you thought was supposed to be food. I don’t know, maybe that’s just me? 😉 I’m telling you this because I care about your health and I want you to look and feel your very best… not because I am trying to be an elitist jerk. You might think you “don’t have the money to buy organic” but I am telling you this: I NEVER get sick. I never have headaches. I don’t have joint pain or allergies. Isn’t that worth giving up a few things to avoid feeling like crap all the time?

This way of eating might be extreme for some, but I think it’s extremely delicious. When you get enough fat and protein in your meals, you don’t need (and after a while won’t crave) any bread or potatoes.

I will step down from my soapbox long enough 😉 to let you know you can follow It’s Organic on twitter here and like them on Facebook here.