Farmer-Chef Connection participants

We attended Portland’s 9th annual Farmer Chef Connection put on by the Portland Chef’s Collaborative on March 9th, 2009. The event was an opportunity to meet new colleagues and connect with folks we have briefly met before or merely communicated with over less personal mediums.

The keynote speaker was Brent Foster, an environmental attorney speaking about the dangers of the proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) pipelines in the state of Oregon.

There were several workshops held throughout the day – we found Innovative Ideas for Marketing Local Products in an Economic Downturn, moderated by Jaret Foster of the Portland Farmers Market, to be most pertinent.

Before a delicious lunch prepared from meat and produce donated by local farmers, we participated in what can be described as ‘speed dating’ for farmers and chefs. We were able to connect with farmers, winemakers and entrepreneurs who grow produce, herbs, raise chickens, livestock, run dairies, grow grapes and make wines, and those who make vinegars and blend teas.

We were able to source many ingredients as well as talk with farmers who are happy to plant their crops based on our needs throughout the year. Overall this was a successful event that has opened up doors to fruitful business relationships.

Arctic Discoverer, LNG Carrier

We attended the annual Farmer-Chef Connection event on March 9th, 2009. Brent Foster, an environmental attorney, was the keynote speaker on the topic of LNG, liquefied natural gas, and its threat to farms, wine and fish.

LNG is a fossil fuel that is shipped liquefied. The issues are pollution from the pipelines, damage to land and crops from drilling to install the pipelines and the large energy cost from shipping it liquefied. California and Tijuana have denied pipelines but the debate in Oregon continues.

Since the US is the 6th largest supplier of natural gas in the world, and foreign LNG is 400% more expensive, there doesn’t seem to be much sense in installing new pipelines. There are terminals in Texas that have been built for the purpose of importing but have now proposed exporting to Asia.

To find out more about LNG and what you can do, go to http://oregonfirst.net/.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle book cover

My new favorite book is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle from Barbara Kingsolver. I have always been a person that loves food, but I am starting to appreciate more and more that these days, farmers are the rock stars, not chefs.

I am incredibly lucky to live in an area that grows a lot of its own food. If the entire world were to plunge into a deep spiral of financial troubles and that finite resource we call gasoline were to dry up, Oregonians, for the most part, would still be able to eat!

Sure, it would be harder to get things from farm to table, but we could all grow food in our back yards, too, to supplement the crisis because we get so much rain. In the sunny desert, it may be beautiful, but as this book mentions, those cities are just living on borrowed water. And time.

Did you know that a recent issue of Inc. magazine is touting the global water crisis as the next big thing, just like “plastics” was in the movie “The Graduate?” Getting access to potable water is getting harder every day – about one in six people in this world have no access to clean and safe drinking water.

If we continue to follow the current trend, by the year 2025 two thirds of the people in this world will not have sufficient access to clean water. Hence the opportunity to create machines that desalinate, divert, and filter the water we do have.

Local food systems, in addition to conservation of all that we have (water, energy, etc.), is imperative in this continually evolving world. I plan to make it my mission to educate people just how important this is, just as Barbara Kingsolver is doing.