Saturday FitH with film!

We have a special treat this Saturday at 6:30. Carlos Magana is opening his beautiful Swift Street studio to host our Food in the Hood. AND he's employing his state-of-the-art four-projector system to show our film, The Real Dirt on Farmer John. This classic of the sustainability movement follows the free-spirited and passionate John Peterson from 1996 to 2004 as he works to bring organic farming to the heart of the Midwest. It's alternately heartbreaking and inspiring, but ends - spoiler alert! - on a successful note.

I developed my menu to show off fresh, local meats and vegetables, but like Farmer John, it developed an exotic flair of its own - sweet and spicy. To match it I looked for a cause around the region of Turkey and couldn't miss the plight of the Kurds.  This site has a 2012 Change.org petition to President Obama regarding a December 28th bombing by US-supplied planes in which 35 people, including 19 teenagers, were killed. Kani Xulam, an articulate defender of Kurdish rights, has written the petition.

In 2010 Democracy Now interviewed a US journalist who was deported for writing about Turkey's attacks on the Kurdish people. The focus of our charitable contribution, or should I say sovereignty solidarity, will be the Alliance for Kurdish Rights. Their short video gives the situation in a 56-second nutshell.