Although, my career has been about promoting, educating and the holistic doctoring of people toward healthy life-styles and optimal nutrition, I was surprised to find myself making a film about the importance of local food. I loved the farms and the stories told by the farmers kept me getting deeper into the farm lands and issues. I faced many obstacles I wasn't prepared for, on a technical level but felt committed to the subject matter and to the hard working farmers who generously offered their time and insights. My favorite stories are driven by rich characters, so I knew I had come across a handful of the most authentic folks in the world. It was an opportunity to highlight their efforts in the world. They're the unsung heroes, behind the scenes of local food initiatives, and the "grounding" toward a more sustainable planet. In the end, it's been tremendously rewarding to find how much people of all ages enjoy and are inspired by this film.

NEW YORK PREMIER.

What an honor it was to be invited to the prestigious Jacob Burns Film Center in Westchester County NY for the Women Filmmaker series.  Lois Dino, Programming Director for the center is a most generous and gracious film programer.  The film center is known for it’s work with Sundance films and is considered the top Indie Film center in New York and work closely with Sundance Film Festival

Joan Dye Gussow, a maverick in the organic and local food movement joined me afterwards for a Q & A. about the film as well as fielded questions about The Farm Bill and a great local, sustainable agriculture movement steamrolling ahead in New York.    The audience was filled with local-vore activists including Joan Dye Gussow herself who  has an impressive number of credentials and is or has been on boards with Farm Aid, Columbia University, Just Food, Michael Pollen, Alice Waters, Slow Food Nation, Farm to Table, as well as directors and workers from Stone Barn Farms,  just to name a few.  I read Joan Dye Gussow’s book “This Organic Life” while I was making the film so was pleased to have it autographed by her the evening of the film.  She had questions about deer showing up in a film about farming, since she said “Deer are like rodents, in New York..  They destroy our gardens.”  Apparently New York has passed a law allowing bow & arrow killing of deer on private property any time of year.   What she referred to in HEART & SOIL are Elk stepping over a high fence in the Animas Valley.  There used to be hundreds of Elk in that canyon now only a few small herds are able to survive all the development and encroachment of what was once their home.  Chester Anderson of Labocca Center For Sustainability is speaking during the pan of the Animas Valley, where donkeys bay, horses kiss and frolic and elk cross the fence.  Chester states:  “The health of our eco-system is tied to it’s bio-diversity.”  HEART & SOIL is a film about local agriculture making a point of going deeper into sustainability for the planet not just plants and livestock. Through continual manipulation of our eco-system, livestock or other animals and plants (even if non-edible) we won’t have a stable, sustainable eco-system to farm and reap a harvest.

Even though there are a number of farms in the Animas Valley I’m glad to know a few Elk still remain and I hope we can preserve their future there.  

Elk and Deer are both being farmed as are Bison and Yak all in a 200 mile radius of Durango.  

Joan Dye Gussow also asked about why the Llamas are in the film..  The opening is with Llamas getting fed Oats as are the chickens and little boy.  I chose this as the opening line
of the film not so much because of the Llamas whose organic manure is considered some of the best to fertilize soil for gardens, and not even because Llamas are known to protect other livestock from Coyotes, Bears,  Foxes and stray dogs.  I loved the line as a metaphor for the setting up the message of the film.  “Everybody likes these oats.  The Llamas like them, the chickens like them and Jack Henry likes them.”  Metaphorically the film is about sewing our own oats so I chose this line to begin the tone of the film.

What a great host we had in San Luis Osbispo. Paul Karlen, took it upon himself, as a board member of the film festival, to show several of us around. Rob Whitehair and Pam Voth, film makers of "The Little Red Truck" were also guests at the Peach Tree Inn. We all had a good time going around the stunning area together.

Besides stimulating conversation about film making, world travel and elephant sea lions mating habits, we ate scrumtuous fresh food from the sea, locally raised organic greens and went through several bottles of Ortmaan family Vineyard, organic wine. It was a delicate blend that seemed pleasing to all our tastes. I had a good time participating on a filmmakers panel with Rob and Pam and several other filmmakers, the first morning of the festival. I met lots of great local folks at the opening night party where we rode the little Disney train with Keith Caradine and his new wife.
I enjoyed the unique opening night, where in the charm of a stately, heritage barn, we watched the old movie "King of the North". I found the staff & audience in San Luis Osbispo, warm, friendly, conscious, engaged in local agriculture, organic foods and most generous hosts. I'm looking forward to a return visit when my film will be screening again. San Luis Osbispo is most gorgeous.

NASHVILLE FILM FESTIVAL CELEBRATED IT’S 39TH YEAR THIS YEAR SELECTING HEART & SOIL AS A FILM TO KICK OFF EARTH DAY CELEBRATIONS. Al Gore shook my hand in the VIP tent after he presented the REEL CURRENT feature length documentary award to Michael O’Connell for his documentary- MOUNTAIN TOP RENEWAL.

The maturity and confidence of the film festival is obvious from it’s selection of films made by high school students and jump ropers in the lobby of the Regal Cinema where NFFF had all their screenings. I loved seeing the elegant Patricia Neal who even though in a wheel chair emanated poise grace and humor. Lyle Lovett introduced her with pride. When she was asked if she’d like to go back and do it all again. She laughed and said “Oh No but if you anybody has a job for me now I’m always looking.”

I adored the staff and volunteers at Nashville Film Festival. I noted brilliance in how they draw such a diverse group of filmmakers entertainers and professional movie makers together. And, not to forget the parties in Nashville were the greatest!

Whole Foods was always there with lots of great food for the VIP pass holders which included filmmakers who otherwise might live on popcorn during the festival. Whole Foods was a sponsor of Heart & Soil and Jolie the Public Relations manager of Nashville store was on the panel presented a Q & A after the film. Delvin Farms the largest CSA serving Nashville and surrounding area.

Cassi Johnson Dir of Food Security Partners of Middle Tennessee. The audience was interested in knowing what was going on locally and how they could become more involved. Farm to School doesn’t seem to be taking off in Nashville yet and as Cassie put it then next day when we had lunch. “There are people in Nashville who are going hungry”. When public health issues call for finding more food for folks who are hungry it’s hard to focus on changing the current school lunch program. So currently not much is going on with Farm to School – but everything in good time.

Nashville although green with large spances of lawns around rambling estates hasn’t had a reputation for being Green friendly or Eco –minded. But that’s changing with an ever growing community of eco minded folks community service organizations and the Tennessee Environmental Council. After the Film Festival I was invited to attend the Green Tie Dinner- auction fundraiser Green minded folks bid on HEART & SOIL and several left with copies.

I’ve had a number of requests for the film to screen again or from groups wanting to sponsor the film down there again. I’d like to see Heart & Soil used as a fund raiser to help fund community gardening and fresh local food for low income families.

Mara LeGrand parties with Justyn Baker Director  What a great jam session of a stage of awesome local musicians and some of the “Wrecking Crew” members themselves. The “Wrecking Crew” by Denny Tedesco was the wrap film before the party.

The LeGrand home and rambling covered decks was host to the July Slow Food Durango pot luck dinner. Guests dined in an elegant setting, crisp white table cloths, surrounded by an acre of flowers in bloom.

Andrea Parmenter has taken a leading role in keeping Slow Food Durango organized and forward moving. By all accounts we’ll keep buying local, cooking eco-friendly, collaborating with other groups and growing as a slow food group.

About 40 Slow Food Durango members and guests dug into the sumptuous local food savoring each edible bite. We enjoyed local wines, introducing, wines of the San Juan who now has distribution in Colorado and New Mexico. Each guest told about the dish they brought, where the food came from and little tips on how it was prepared.

All of the recipes included something fresh and local. - A Farm to Table kind of meal. It was astonishing to learn that a couple of members rolled their own grape leaves to make a platter of dolmas. Olive oil not local of course. In my dreams we can grow olives grapefruit and figs in the Rocky Mountains eco system.

Jerry Zink of Sunny Side meats brought a raspberry current wine from the 70’s and his hand made sausages, made up as he went. Kay & Dave James from James Ranch brought their famous grass fed beef and Bob Kauer and Jama Crawford brought homemade ravioli with pesto sauce made from garlic and basil from Shared Harvest Community Garden.

Darrel Parmenter, CSU Extension officer brought elk meat, sliced on Bread from Bread our local bakery. Word is he hunted the Elk himself. Carla Toth a local acupuncturist made a spicy Thai salad from the seasons first baby carrots.

Margi Buiso, from The Master Gardener class, came early to help set up. Margi brought Chili Rellenos , chilies kept frozen from Sutherland Farms last year’s market. Eggs came from Coles Meat & Vegies and goat cheese from Linnaea Farms.

Bill Manning of High Dessert Foods offered a bowl of apricots and cherries, mentioning that fruit is hard to come by at the Durango Farmer’s Market. The season in this area is usually too short, late frosts bites the blossoms and early freezes before the fruit is ripe. Apples like a good freeze in the fall, so at this altitude we’re more likely to get them. Peaches are particularly vulnerable in this area due to weather.

Many people ask me what is Slow Food and find humor when I say it’s the opposite of fast.

It’s a restoration for what we’ve lost because of our frantic life styles. I have many memories of gatherings around food through my life. Pleasant times around good food at home or in the homes of friends is reminiscent of a slower paced lifestyle. When I was a child then a young Mother, everybody’s house had an aroma of something good cooking in the kitchen. Even the school cafeteria stimulated our digestive juices to get ready to eat. Chef Ann Cooper, the Renegade Lunch Lady writes in “Lunch Lessons” about those times and informs us about when & why they shifted. With the help of the Berkeley School District, Alice Waters, Michael Pollen and “Two Angry Moms” a documentary about the school program a movement is building for school districts to find ways to provide healthier food for children by buying more local food for the school lunch program and once again cooking and engaging students in preparing foods in school.

When I had a health food store in Telluride, the local bakery owners, and many of the other merchants, chefs and restaurant owners would come together for a pot luck brunch of fabulous food and a local musician jam session on Sunday morning. I’m saddened now to observe so many children from infancy up who don’t have the enriching experience of coming home to the smell of something yummie in the crock pot or the oven. Parents claim they’re too busy, but word has it they have time to watch cooking shows and reality TV instead of prioritizing making a good meal.

Today, I stopped by a friend’s house at the end of the day, very hungry after a bike ride. She gave me a hearty serving of Tai cabbage salad, made from her High Dessert Food CSA basket. I ate it in the car on my rush back home -- so here’s a toast to Slow Food groups around the world for their efforts to bring us all back to the sensuous wondrous world of enjoying preparing and sharing healthy sustainable foods to create great energy for ourselves and the planet.

SLOW FOOD NATION NEWS

SLOW FOOD NATION is sponsoring Julie Hudak as a delegate from Slow Food Durango to attend the annual conference in San Francisco over labor day 2008. Julie wears many hats for her work with the Garden Project and with Jeanine Justice of Healthy Lifestyles LaPlata.

As a Slow Food delegate Julie will present her local projects like Community Gardens at senior centers, community in school as well as the wildly successful Farm to Chef event she organized for Slow Food at the Farmers Market in Durango, which coincidently instigated an arrangement from Fox Fire Farms to provide meat for 9-R School Lunch program, under the direction of Krista Garand.

Many more collaborative events are planned including a fund-raiser for Durango’s Slow Food group, with a screening of HEART & SOIL with local food from local restaurants who serve and support a local food community. Look for that event around harvest time 2008.