Rhode Island Feeds

RIFoodBank: @iheartrhody Thanks for the shoutout to our students, I know they appreciate it!

RIFoodBank: @puruesh Thanks for supporting Nothing! http://nothing.org

RIFoodBank: Our Community Kitchen students graduate today!! Congratulations and best of luck to you all! http://bit.ly/as2CGF to learn about CK

RIFoodBank: Groups of volunteers, we need your help w a special project! bit.ly/ahVIxG For more info.

RIFoodBank: @iheartrhody @DebMullen Thanks for the RTs!

At noon this past Tuesday, two dozen high schoolers and volunteers were hard at work at the front of New Battambang, a corner store on Elmwood Avenue in the southside of Providence. Junk food and candy were moved from the front of the store to lower shelves and the back, and replaced by bright colorful displays of fresh corn, cabbage, green beans, summer squash, peppers and tomatoes from Confreda Farms. While volunteers shuffled items around front of the store and labeled healthy items, students set up an art station outside and painted colorful signs featuring messages about healthy foods.

New Battambang’s Market Makeover is part of the Providence Healthy Corner Store Initiative (PHCSI), a new program that unites Rhode Island farmers, corner store owners, and community residents to increase the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads and pastas, low-salt and low-sugar canned goods, and healthier snacks.

Even when stores stock fresh produce, customers’ purchasing habits are very much affected by the way produce is labeled, packaged and its quality, price and placement in the store. A little rearranging – a Market Makeover – goes a long way. The Market Makeovers make healthy food more visible and accessible in the store by physically rearranging products and displays to increase the visibility of healthier options. For example, junk food is removed from the front of the store and replaced with racks of fresh fruit. Healthy food items get branded with the Healthy Corner Store logo. All produce gets clear labels and price tags. In just four hours, students and volunteers had transformed the front of the store into a whole new experience that emphasizes healthy options over the usual! (NBC 10 was there. See the video! Also see Dave Ciplet’s photos, a piece in Providence en Español, in the Projo and the Serious Eats blog.)

The Initiative links in with Farm Fresh RI’s goal of increasing fresh food consumption in neighborhoods like Providence’s Southside disproportionately hit by childhood obesity and diabetes. (Farm Fresh also runs a farmers market on Broad Street.) Many residents here rely on corner stores rather than supermarkets for groceries. Farm Fresh RI provides logistical support for getting/promoting fresh food from farms to the city stores through our Market Mobile program, in collaboration with other PHCSI partners: the Environmental Justice League of RI, Kids First, RI Department of Health and Providence high school students.

This May, the PHCSI kicked off with a Iron Chef competition, in which three teams of high school students from Alvarez, the Met and Feinstein high schools competed to make the healthiest meal using ingredients purchased for just $10 at neighborhood corner stores. (The Met team won with a delicious veggie quesadilla that Sodexo, the food service provider for Providence Public Schools, then put on the lunch menu on June 16th at every school in the district.) Since then, PHCSI partners and volunteers have been hard at work identifying healthy items for stores to stock and preparing the marketing and outreach materials to let customers and community members know about healthy items in their stores. Going forward, the PHCSI will continue to provide outreach and technical support to increase the availability and sales of healthy food options in the stores. Farm Fresh plans to work with corner store owners to purchase fresh produce from local farms every week through Market Mobile.

The next Market Makeover will happen at Mi Quisqueya on Broad Street on Saturday, August 14th from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm. Come by to help out or to shop!

RIFoodBank: Grill 2 Give tonight at @EastsideMarket 4p-6p $4 per person & it benefits the Food Bank. Tonites menu Portuguese Picnic http://bit.ly/WJxjC

RIFoodBank: Are you a fan of the Food Bank on Facebook? You should be http://www.facebook.com/RICFB

RIFoodBank: Food charity produces something from nothing http://bit.ly/bkF0ZA http://nothing.org

RIFoodBank: @JAMinardi Thanks so much!!

GetFreshInRI: This time of year is perfect for peaches from Mello's Farm Stand in Portsmouth! http://dld.bz/rxW3

RIFoodBank: RT @FarmFreshRI Free Thurs afternoon? We need help harvesting corn for @RIFoodBank from Cook's Valley Farm – email Hannah@farmfreshri.org

RIFoodBank: Help out your RI neighbors in need thru our Summer Food Drive. Get involved today! http://bit.ly/bGogrK for more info

RIFoodBank: RT @msnbc_health: Newsweek: Food insecurity highest in 15 years http://bit.ly/ciY1Zq

ediblerhody: Great farm to table dinner tonight at Chez Pascal with Pat McNiff from Pat's Pastured. Dined on fabulous treats... http://fb.me/EITIf6AX

ediblerhody: Is loving August!! http://fb.me/xb8LsTxe

 

The local peaches are in from Young Farm. They are amazingly good, with the kind of all-too-rare correct texture that makes even me, who generally prefers her stone fruit cooked, happy to eat them raw and dripping. But of course, like all fruit, they are wonderful cooked with a little sugar, and I am very fond of them with pound cake.

In the process of cleaning out my freezer in Little Compton, I came across a single chicken breast, and a little rye bread that I had made this summer. I had two peaches on the counter, so I decided I would make a last lunch for Carlton with it all before I left. I toasted the bread and pan-grilled the chicken; peeled and sliced the peaches; and sautéed them in some butter, brown sugar, salt and pepper, and a splash of lemon. I topped the chicken crostini with the peaches and walked them over to Carlton with a half-full bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. We had a very nice chat and I had a needed break from packing.

My friend Anne loves Karla’s peaches as well. They were part of her Southern ladies’ luncheon a few years ago, and of course, we both like peach pie when the spice and thickening are just so. Peaches are made for preserving, and Anne told me that when she looked at a peach the other day she thought it was so beautiful that she decided to make some jam and leave the skin on. I do that when I make jam with local cherry tomatoes, so this made perfect sense to me. Here are Ann’s iphone photos, which I fooled with a bit, and how she made her chunky preserve. As she said, all pink and yellow and lovely.

Ann’s Peach Preserve

6 cups sliced and roughly chopped peaches
3 cups sugar
¼ vanilla bean (the long ones), split and scraped

Mix and boil, skimming, until it reaches about 220 F.

 

        

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RIFoodBank: Fact Fri time! The Food Bank occupies a 75,000 sq. ft. facility and has a capacity to hold 2 million lbs. of food at one time!

RIFoodBank: Today we launch Food Bank Fact Friday - every Friday @ noon we'll give you a fact you might not know about the Food Bank!

RIFoodBank: RT @SustFoodSystems: Bravo - Unanimous passage of Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act - Child Nutrition bill! http://ht.ly/2lWaf #schoollunch