Editor's Welcome
Welcome! My name is Mario Capozzoli and I launched this Web site after reading Michael Pollan’s groundbreaking book In Defense of Food, An Eater’s Manifesto. On page 148, he provides us with a clear path toward navigating our food sourcing: “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”
That was the point when I remembered my great-grandparents’ gardens, an Italian homage to the old country—with ripe tomatoes reflecting the sunshine off their tight, bright skins; musty plump grapes shadowed under broad green leaves; and lemons so yellow that after holding them in my eight-year-old hands, I could smell the fragrant glories of citrus oil all day long.
What did our great-grandparents know that we didn’t? Maybe a lot more, or maybe a lot less. But one thing’s for sure, their foods were not complicated with caustic pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and colored dyes, slick waxes, and a 14-day average haul across the country to our local markets
This site brings together the Locavore (or localvore) movement, the Slow Food philosophy, the whole foods movement, and the belief that when we bring together our families and communities around food, we accomplish more than the act of eating—we build community, we strengthen families, we laugh more and cry more, and we create deep within us an ability to nourish each other with our inherent sensibilities. Food—good food—paves the way!
Why are we doing this?
As an organic gardener, classically trained chef, concerned parent, and the son of two successful restaurant owners, I have learned throughout my life that food--good, natural, healthy food--is important to both nourish the body and feed the soul of humankind. In addition, I want to give back to my community for all that I have taken; and perhaps one day I can look back and feel a sense of accomplishment because I left this world a little bit better than I found it.
Consider this: Food on our grocery store shelves is nothing more than a re-arrangement of commodity corn!
What's in my pantry?
Is that a personal question? The question most often asked by other foodies--especially organic, local, and sustainable types--is how I stock my pantry. Coming from a SoCal restaurant family, I never had any concerns about sourcing fresh, seasonal foods. In California the growing season is practically all year long, and what we cannot get in the dead of a California winter, such as it is, we get from Mexico's and Arizona's croplands--local by California standards. But now that I live in New Hampshire with its short growing season and ice cold, snowy winters (and I hate to rely on food that is grown thousands of miles away), I "put up" as my grandmother would say. I can, jar, freeze, dry, save, and otherwise stock my pantry. In fact, in my 1769 farm house, known as King's Grant Farm, the pantry is a well-used spot. Here's my pantry list.
How do we spread the word?
We use a number of different approaches. We practice what we preach by using only non-GMO seeds, harvesting vegetables and fruit by hand from our own gardens, using biodynamic and organic practices in our fields, and by recycling and composting. And we bring our children around the table to celebrate family, friends, and neighbors. Second, we update this Web site frequently--at least once a week and normally several times each week--as a public service. And thirdly, we take an active role in our community. As a chef, for example, I present local harvest meals in nearly every New England state once each year, am an active Localvore, am a member of and volunteer for the Northeast Organic Farming Association in New Hampshire, and I am a board member for the Friends of the Abbott Library. In December 2009, I became a University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension Master Gardener.
l'passionato, private chef service
For the past ten years in New Hampshire, Duck Hollow Private Chef Service has provided healthy, local, seasonal, and themed-food services in both intimate and large settings to friends throughout New England. Newly named l'passionato, Italian for "the passionate one", this new company offers hands-on kitchen instruction, seasonal food demonstrations, charity events, wine and food tastings, and other "break bread" gatherings to its clients. As a trained chef who cut his professional culinary teeth in the California market, Mario's sensibilities lean toward seasonal, organic, and minimally-altered food preparation that yields the freshest, cleanest tastes Mother Nature provides. To learn more about past and upcoming edible experiences, including menus, please click here.
You can contact us at editor@greatgrandmother.org.
Sarah Jacobson, contributor
Sarah is currently pursuing a B.S in Nutrition and Eco-gastronomy at the University of New Hampshire. This will be her second year as the president of UNH Slow food, and an active member of the Organic Gardening club, UNH community dinners and Slow Food USA. In 2009 she served as the student representative on the Eco-gastronomy advisory board and during the 2010 spring semester she worked as an intern for Seacoast Eat Local, promoting New Hampshire farmers and locally grown and raised foods. Her strong passion for helping and educating others led her to volunteer for Operation Frontline, a program sponsored by the NH Food Bank, helping teach low-income families about cooking and nutrition. During a semester- long field experience she also helped plan and implement a salad bar in a local high school. This spring she launched a program for UNH Slow Food called “Less Canned, More Fresh!” which involved collecting fresh food donations from the winter farmers markets and bringing them to local food pantries. She is originally from Ithaca, NY and loves making trips home to visit her family’s farm and the Ithaca farmer’s market. Sarah enjoys growing her own food, chasing her silly red hens, and eating good food with her friends and family.
