Occupy Our Food Supply - Buffalo's Eat At Home Create & Resist Challenge

As part of my continuing conversation on food ethics, access, and security, I took part in the global challenge on February 27th, of actively engaging in the food system and making it mine. The challenge I set up through Occupy Our Food Supply specifically for Buffalo was:

I encourage you not to eat out today, Occupy your kitchen. Have an eat-in with your family and friends. Engage in a conversation about food, where it comes from, how it got to your table, and what the future of food looks like to you. Take the time, make something not from a box or a can. Sit and enjoy your meal without the distractions of tv, phones, or computers. Think about what you can do starting right now, in making a difference in your home, your neighborhood, your city, your state, your country, your world.

So we Occupied our head space, physical space, each other's space. We read, did homework, cooked, and got together to eat dinner like we do every night. 

We enjoyed a meal made from scratch. The pierogies were made the day before during another one of my cooking classes. 

The floss sauerkraut came from the Famous Horseradish stand at the Broadway Market. The sausages of course were polish and fresh from Spar's European Sausage Shop.

The cream sauce was minced garlic, grated parmesan, cream, and butter. All but the parmesan was local.

I encourage you to Occupy your Kitchen every meal you are able. Talk about your food, have a relationship with your food sources and "Think about what you can do starting right now, in making a difference in your home, your neighborhood, your city, your state, your country, your world."

Pasta e Fagioli

My pasta e fagioli is a beautiful, thick, hearty, and decidedly non-authentic dish. This dish has ground beef browned in minced garlic and a splash of olive oil. Once drained of excess fats, I added a large can of pink beans, boiled ditalini pasta, a large glass container of Muir Glen Garlic Roasted Garlic Organic Pasta Sauce, and the frozen remainder of the Asiago Cream sauce I made on New


Year's Eve since I had prepped it separately from the seafood and it had such a rich cheese flavor that perfectly suited this dish. I served this with roughly julienned carrots. They were woodsy and thick cored, extremely flavorful, quite earthy and I barely steamed them to keep them as close to raw as I could. I generally can't stand to eat a carrot raw. Don't know if it's the cold snap when you take a bite or the flavor, but I didn't want them fully steamed either. These turned out perfect!