ORIGINS: A Speaker Series

Our featured panelist tonight, Bernie Herman, is one of the co-founders of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Foodways.  Bernie is the author of the recently published book, A South You Never Ate:  Savoring Flavors and Stories from the Eastern Shore of Virginia.  The book brings together over 100 recorded interviews on the foodways of Virginias Eastern Shore as part of a larger endeavor undertaken around sustainable economic development through heritage foodways. He is currently working on a second volume along with a book of edited essays on the art of an African-American South.

Bernie Herman, George B. Tindall Distinguished Professor of Southern Studies and Folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, works on the material cultures of everyday life and the ways in which people furnish, inhabit, communicate, and understand the worlds of things. His interests extend to a larger universe of material culture including vernacular architecture, contemporary quilts and quilt making, food histories, and contemporary art by self-taught makers. His food writing has appeared in Saveur, Gravy, Organic Life and Southern Cultures. His community engagement through public presentations, workshops, and exhibitions derives from a deeply held belief that work of the arts and humanities finds its first calling in the public sphere.

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This evening’s conversation is with Jinji Fraser, the founder and owner of Pure Chocolate by Jinji.

Pure Chocolate by Jinji was started by Jinji and her father, Guy, in 2012 with the mission of helping people navigate their own wellness and nutrition. From there, the business took a shape of its own, becoming a vessel for Jinji and her team to create a brand known for pushing the boundaries of chocolate through storied flavors and direct and responsible trading. Today, with a new shop on the horizon, the Jinji chocolate crew is reinventing themselves again with drinking chocolate, and the arts of native women from around the world.  Jinji will be opening her second location soon in the Baltimore neighborhood known as Lauraville.

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This episode of ORIGINS features New Jersey citrus growers Vivek and Seema Malik along with their daughter and baker Simran Malik.The Maliks are self-taught, part-time citrus growers. Citrus is a passion stemming from their love of Japanese cuisine. A chance encounter with yuzu soy sauce at Nobu in NYC, started a journey of discovery and adventure which has led to a greenhouse filled with 16 citrus varieties in Bordentown, New Jersey. In Hindi, “Bhumi” refers to Mother Earth. “Bhumi Growers” is a labor of love to honor Vivek’s mom who passed away just before this venture was born. Vivek and Seema focus on growing and sourcing specialty citrus for their customers and are constantly learning and educating themselves to help improve the quality of their citrus. They are pleased to call some of the top names in food as their clients. Their growth so far is based on the philosophy of establishing a direct connection with chefs, bartenders, brewers and consumers through Instagram, Twitter and referrals from existing customers.They are very pleased to be here sharing their passion with all of us.

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Thanks for joining us tonight for a very important topic –our local farms.  Today we learned that a local institution, Trickling Springs Creamery is closing.  Two of our farmers from prior ORIGINS events have ceased operations. While it’s all not doom and gloom, I think this highlights the urgency of this conversation about our local farms.  What can we do to keep our farms healthy and economically viable?

We’re thrilled to welcome our all-star female panelist tonight.

Our first panelist is Shelby Kalm, the Campaign Coordinator for Fair Farms, a program convened by Waterkeepers Chesapeake. She is a graduate of St. Mary’s College where she received her undergraduate degree in Public Policy, and Art and Art History. Before Fair Farms, Shelby worked for the Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission and served as the Sustainability Coordinator at her alma mater.

The Fair Farms Campaign brings together consumers, farmers, public health professionals, and conservationists to advocate for a food system that is equitable, fair to farmers, invests in homegrown healthy foods, and restores our waterways.

Our second panelist is Dena Leibman, the Executive Director of Future Harvest- Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, a farmer-based nonprofit working to advance sustainable agriculture in the lower mid-Atlantic.  Dena’s commitment to conservation and sustainable agriculture has propelled her through a long career in wildlife biology and communications positions at environmental policy and scientific institutions. Dena is also co-owner of ZigBone Farm Retreat, a 100-acre sheep and goat farm and naturally built retreat center.

Our third panelist is Anne Palmer, Program Director at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) and a senior research associate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society.  She directs the Food Policy Networks project, which seeks to improve the capacity food policy councils and similar organizations to advance food system policies. Ms. Palmer’s research interests include food retail, food policy and food policy councils, food environments, obesity, urban agriculture, local and regional food systems, and community food security. In collaboration with seven other universities in the Northeast, she is a co-investigator on an USDA-funded project that explores how to use regional food systems to improve community food security.  Prior to joining CLF, Palmer worked for the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs for 13 years developing and managing strategic communication plans and large-scale health communication campaigns and programs in Asia.

Join Heritage Radio Network on Monday, November 11th, for a raucous feast to toast a decade of food radio. Our tenth anniversary bacchanal is a rare gathering of your favorite chefs, mixologists, storytellers, thought leaders, and culinary masterminds. We’ll salute the inductees of the newly minted HRN Hall of Fame, who embody our mission to further equity, sustainability, and deliciousness. Explore the beautiful Palm House and Yellow Magnolia Café, taste and imbibe to your heart’s content, and bid on once-in-a-lifetime experiences and tasty gifts for any budget at our silent auction. Tickets available now at heritageradionetwork.org/gala.

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Food insecurity refers to USDA’s measure of lack of access, at times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members and limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods. Food-insecure households are not necessarily food insecure all the time. Food insecurity may reflect a household’s need to make trade-offs between important basic needs, such as housing or medical bills, and purchasing nutritionally adequate foods. According to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Map, 22.2% of Baltimore City residents and 12. 4% of Washington DC residents are food insecure. There are programmatic/retail and policy food insecurity solutions. Both programs and policies are needed to address food insecurity but for our ORIGINS discussion tonight, we will focus on a few of the innovative programmatic/retail solutions happening in both DC and Baltimore.

Our panelists are: Holly Freishtat, the Baltimore City Food Policy Director, Casey Dunajick-DeKnight, the Chief Operating Officer for Good Food Markets and Reverend Heber Brown, III, the Pastor at the Pleasant Hope Baptist Church in Govans (Baltimore neighborhood) and founder of the Black Church Food Security Network.

Holly uses a multi-sector perspective and engages with many agencies, nonprofits, community groups and stakeholders to dismantle policy barriers, facilitate new partnerships and leverage funding to implement innovative solutions to address food access issues in Baltimore.

Casey joined the Good Food Market team in 2015 and now oversees all the day-to-day operations. Casey will also discuss Oasis Community Partners, the non-profit arm of Good Food Markets that was founded in 2016 with the mission to improve food access and community health in underserved urban food deserts. The inaugural board of directors came together around the opening of Good Food Markets pilot location in early 2015, recognizing the many opportunities to engage Woodridge/Langdon around diet, health and nutrition. Oasis Community Partners strives to improve the health of their community by working with a diverse group of individuals and organizations behind the shared goals of food sovereignty and security.

Reverend Heber Brown, III, launched The Black Church Food Security Network in 2015— a grassroots initiative that empowers black churches to establish a sustainable food system to combat the systemic injustices and disparities that plague black Americans, who, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, are sicker and poorer than non-black Americans. The network currently operates at more than 10 congregations in Baltimore, most of which are located in the city’s “food priority areas.” There are also participating churches and farms in D.C., Virginia and North Carolina—and the list is growing.

Its HRNs annual summer fund drive, this is when we turn to our listeners and ask that you make a donation to help ensure a bright future for food radio. Help us keep broadcasting the most thought provoking, entertaining, and educational conversations happening in the world of food and beverage. Become a member today! To celebrate our 10th anniversary, we have brand new member gifts available. So snag your favorite new pizza - themed tee shirt or enamel pin today and show the world how much you love HRN, just go to heritageradionetwork.org/donate.

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This episode of ORIGINS continues the conversation we started on Thursday, September 20th about the economic impact of buying and sourcing food locally. Last week we heard from Scott Nash, the CEO and Founder of Mom’s Organic Market and Tracy Ward, the Director of a new food hub in Easton called Chesapeake Harvest.

We’re continuing our look at the economics of buying and selling locally with two farmers and business owners with different but successful models.

Mark Toigo is the farmer/owner of Toigo Orchards in Shippensburg, PA. Mark began his career in agriculture at an early age moving with this family from Washington DC to his family’s newly acquired orchard in Shippensburg. After a brief stint in the aeronautics industry, Mark returned to the family farm. With expansion in mind, Mark was at the forefront of developing the farm to table model which allowed rural farms to collaborate and partner together to bring their products to the urban marketplace. This program is now an extensive network of Farmer’s Markets saturating the New York City and Washington DC areas. Mark sells to multiple sales channels including Whole Foods, Mom’s Market and others. He has a clear understanding of the marketplace and buyer trends which allows him to forecast trends and select crops that show promising yields and buyer preference. Mark makes sustainability a top priority and has built and retrofitted facilities to reduce the negative affects commercial agriculture has on the environment.

Our other panelist is Dave Liker, farmer/co-owner of Gorman Farms in Howard County, Maryland. Dave started working in organic farming over 20 years ago in both California and high altitude Colorado. He moved to Maryland in late 2008 to start Gorman Farms. They are now in their 10th season of production. They have expending and purchased their own farm in 2016 and are now operating off of 2 locations in Howard County. He grows diversified annual vegetables for a 600+ member CSA. They are a CSA only model and also run a pick your own strawberries for a few weeks in late spring.

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The intent behind ORIGINS, a speaker series, was to highlight the farmers, fisherman, producers, and makers behind the local food movement in the Mid-Atlantic region. Spike Gjerde started his first restaurant, Woodberry Kitchen, with a commitment to local growers and producers. He and his team have returned more than $2.1 million annually to the local economy during the last several years.

This episode will take a closer look at the economics of the local food system from both a retailer’s perspective and an Eastern Shore aggregator called Chesapeake Harvest, based in Easton, Maryland. In Episode #27, we continue the conversation with two local farmers, Dave Liker from Gorman Farms and Mark Toigo from Toigo Orchards.

This episode’s panelists are Scott Nash and Tracy Ward.

Scott Nash started MOM’s Organic Market at the age of 22 with an initial investment of $100 as a home delivery business out of his mom’s garage. On July 2nd 1987, MOM’s made its first sale delivering to a customer who lived in Rockville, MD. Since then, MOM’s has grown to become one of the nations premier chains of family owned and operated organic grocery stores. MOM’s has nineteen stores in DC, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

Tracy Ward has over 30 years of experience as an economic and community development leader, devoting her career to community transformation and change through collaborative public/private partnership and cross-disciplinary strategies. In 2004, Tracy founded Urbanite, an award-winning glossy magazine with a circulation of over 60,000 in the Baltimore metropolitan area.   After shuttering Urbanite in 2012, Tracy took a year off to work on farms and learn about our local food system.  In 2014, as executive director of the Easton Economic Development Corporation, Tracy started Chesapeake Harvest, a sales, marketing and branding organization committed to increasing sales of locally and sustainably grown food products in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

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This episode will be on foraging in the mid-Atlantic area and features two longtime foragers, Jeff Long and Tom Mueller.

Jeff has been an amateur mycologist for 30 years. He has been foraging mushrooms for 30 years and truffle hunting for almost 8 years now.  He is past president of the Mycological Association of Washington, DC and is currently the only living lifetime honorary member of that organization.  Jeff also lectures and speaks about mushrooms and truffles at least a couple of times a year.

Tom Mueller, Wild Edible Forager is a CIA trained chef and co-owner of a catering company for 25 years focusing on local and organic ingredients before it was in vogue.  A lifetime of enjoying nature, Tom started foraging for mushrooms in the late 1980’s and began providing to restaurants in 2012.  Tom has been foraging full time since 2017 focusing on wild mushrooms (about 65 varieties) and wild edibles including ramps, wild asparagus and spice bush berries.

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This ORIGINS episode will be about the future of fish farming as well as its current status. Our panel consists of Jillian Fry, TJ Tate, Mark Ely and Jesse Blom.

Jillian Fry directs the Seafood, Public Health andamp; Food Systems Project at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. The project aims to increase awareness, expand the relevant evidence base, and advance policy goals in support of a healthy, equitable, and sustainable supply of farmed and wild seafood products. Jillian is a researcher and educator who believes in the importance of effective science communication. She received her Master’s of Public Health degree from the University of New Mexico and doctorate from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Jesse Blom is an educator with a great interest in agriculture and the environment. He uses aquaponics, the symbiotic production of fish and plants, and other forms of urban agriculture, as teaching tools for people of all ages at the Food System Lab @ Cylburn. Jesse received an M.S. in Freshwater Sciences from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Dartmouth College.

Mark Ely is the owner of Limestone Springs Preserve located in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. Limestone Springs is the largest private aquaculture facility in Pennsylvania. They grow Rainbow trout for their recreational fishing preserve located on its 25 acre farm, also for private stocking, and they process trout for the food industry. Mark currently sits on the PennAg Industries (PA aquaculture trade association) and the US Trout Farmers Assoc. board of directors. June will mark his 30th year in the aquaculture industry.

Tj Tate is the Founder of Seafood.Life a strategic company focused on the defining, implementing and executing solutions to secure the future needs of our seafood consumption. TJ’s goal is to unify cross-sector messaging regarding responsible aquaculture on a global scale. TJ is rooted in her beliefs that a responsible ecosystem of wild and farmed seafood holds the power to change our futures and attain goals of food security, economic gains and maintaining cultural connections to the ocean.

TJ has worked in the world of fisheries for over 18 years beginning her career in Aquaculture and fisheries working at Hubbs Research Institute. She was previously the Director of Seafood Sustainability for the National Aquarium, Founder and Director of the first brand of responsibly harvested and traceable wild caught fish from the Gulf of Mexico called Gulf Wild.

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Our discussion tonight will be on natural sweeteners. We are delighted to welcome Joseph and Margaret-Ann Burkholder, who are the owner/farmers of Compass Winds Sorghum, based in Dayton, Virginia, outside of Harrisonberg. Sorghum can be grown either for grain or for crushing into molasses. “Sorghum moved west over the Blue Ridge with the pioneers,” says Joseph. “It was more adaptable to our climate than sugar cane, and it became the first sustainable sweetener of the frontier.”

Our other panelist is Chris Krantz who is the owner of the HT Krantz Honey Company in Frederick, Maryland.  Chris started his company with 2 hives and now has close to 400. His focus is mainly on bulk honey, package bees and honeybee queens. Their queen bee mating program is at the heart of their success.

You’ll also hear from Alex Weiss from Caledonia Spirits who provided us with our punch this evening. Alex started his journey into distilled spirits via a degree in Botany and a fierce love and respect for agriculture and the relationships humans forge with their environment. After a two year stint studying this subject in China, Alex moved to New York City and began managing sales for a grass-fed beef producer in Central NY. Eventually, Alex was approached by the founder and master beekeeper for Caledonia Spirits to come on board as a Brand Ambassador, becoming the Sales Director a year later and helping to grow the distribution footprint to 29 States and five countries.  Currently, Caledonia Spirits employs more than 40 people in Vermont and up and down the East Coast, while making a positive impact on our community and agricultural landscape.

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