Shango Bistro and Wine Bar, Buffalo

Springtime in Western New York is always an awakening of the senses. Slow Food Buffalo Niagara invites friends new and old to share in the tastes of the season at its “Spring Convivium: A Western New York celebration of local and seasonal foods” on Wednesday, May 29 at 6:30 p.m. at Shango Bistro and Wine Bar, 3260 Main St., Buffalo.

The dinner, the group’s first fundraiser, will feature a locally and seasonally sourced, five-course menu developed by Shango owner and chef, Jim Guarino. The meal will be $65 per person, including tax and tip, and $5 will go to help support the work of Slow Food Buffalo Niagara, the Western New York chapter of the national Slow Food network that advocates for sustainability and biodiversity through educational events and community outreach.

First course:  Salad – Poached duck egg, local greens, pork belly, pickled ramps

Second course:  Appetizer – Grilled Painted Meadow quail with andouille, green onion stuffing, spring pea mashed potatoes, local fruit mustardo

Third course: Entree – Roasted rack of lamb with minted lentils, Oles Farm asparagus, lamb jus

Fourth course: Cheese selection with Blackman Farms preserves

Fifth course: Dessert – Rhubarb crisp with ginger basil ice cream

Cash bar with local beer and wine opens at 6:30 p.m., and dinner will begin at 7 p.m. Seating is limited and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.

For reservations, please call Shango at (716) 837-2326.

Slow Food Buffalo Niagara is the Western New York chapter of Slow Food USA and shares its belief that everyone has the right to good, clean and fair food. Slow Food advocates for food and agricultural policies that are good for the public, good for our planet and good for farmers and workers. Each local chapter also seeks to create joyful and “convivial” gatherings of its members and the public, helping to remind us to slow down and enjoy all that life has to offer.

Chef/owner Jim Guarino is planning a special five-course dinner featuring items from local farms and other sources. Details about the menu, price and reservations will be posted later soon.

In the meantime, put this evening of good food and good company on your calendar and start spreading the word among your friends.

Love your compost! Learn more at Slow Food Buffalo Niagara's "Composting 101" program.

For the final Last Monday of the Month Speakers Program before our summer break, we welcome two speakers on April 29 to cover the ins and outs of composting!

Nicole Dionne, a local compost enthusiast who is working to help promote, create, and sustain vital urban environments, will explain the basics of successful composting.

Topics will include receptacles, compost-friendly food and other waste, use of the finished material, common FAQs and the environmental cost/benefits. Nicole also maintains a compost-themed blog, HoorayforDecayComposting.com.

Also joining us will be the Farmer Pirates’ Compost Crew to discuss their home compost pickup program.

A big thanks to the always-delicious Curly’s Grill and Banquet Center for graciously hosting SFBN. Everyone is welcome to say and dine with us after the meeting.

The lowly seed is at the heart of traditional farming systems across the world. Yet as anyone who has heard the name Monsanto knows, today it has been genetically shaped into a powerful commodity that runs our global food system, often at the cost of natural biodiversity.

Our March program, which will be free and open to the public, will serve as a primer on how to start fruits and vegetables from seed, including tips on planning and propagation. It will also include a discussion of the impact of biodiversity on our planet’s health, and how we can do our part to promote genetic diversity by saving seeds and choosing heirloom and other alternative varieties of plants.

The featured speaker will be Buffalo-based seed expert Remy Rotella Orlowski, who runs The Sample Seed Shop, a mail-order seed company.

Remy Orlowski of The Sample Seed Shop

Orlowski, a self-proclaimed “plant junkie,” is a nationally recognized authority on a variety of gardening topics, including growing tomatoes, perennials, antique and hardy roses, and growing fruits and vegetables from seed. Locally, she hosts the annual Buffalo-Niagara Tomato TasteFest, and teaches adult education cooking and gardening classes for Niagara Wheatfield Central School District. Her business is her passion; she travels to Kentucky every fall for a large heirloom vegetable swap, and she recently donated funds on Kickstarter to help support the upcoming documentary “Seed: The Untold Story.”

Slow Food Buffalo Niagara is the Western New York chapter of Slow Food USA and shares its belief that everyone has the right to good, clean and fair food. Slow Food USA advocates for food and farming policies that are good for the public, good for our planet and good for farmers and workers.

Those are some of the takeaways offered by our speakers – Registered Dietitian Nicole Klem and Danny Gagliardo, owner of D’Avolio Olive Oils and Vinegars — at our February meeting, held in D’Avolio’s Williamsville store.

A "capacity" crowd attended our February meeting

More than 30 people, a “capacity crowd” for the space, were in attendance. The meeting was held in conjunction with National Heart Month and, synergistically, on the same day that the “New England Journal of Medicine” published the results of the first major clinical trial showing a diet rich in olive oil reduces deaths from heart disease.

As health-conscious Americans in recent decades have turned away from animal fats in favor of those from vegetables, U.S. production of fats and oils has surpassed 12 million metric tons. Telling the “good” from the “bad” when it comes to vegetable and gourmet oils isn’t easy and labeling on bottles promotes them all as “healthy.”

Focus on the healthier oils

Because they vary in the kinds of fats they contain, Klem said that when it comes to purchasing and using cooking oils, it’s important “to match your fats to your use. Your goal is to maintain as much nutrition as you can in food preparation.”

Your focus, she added, should be on the healthier oils based on their fat content and on using those oils appropriately in cooking, depending on their “smoke point.” Oils that are more temperature-sensitive are better for dressings, while those at the other extreme are better for cooking, explained Klem, a full-time assistant professor in the Food and Nutrition Department at Trocaire College and a member of the board of directors of Slow Food Buffalo Niagara.

Niki Klem explains the differences between cooking oils

Polyunsaturated fat (the trans fat found in processed foods) should be avoided. Used to enhance flavor and preserve freshness, it may increase inflammation and harmful LDL cholesterol, and promote build up of plaque in your arteries.

Monounsaturated fat — found in olive, canola and peanut oils – can decrease total cholesterol and harmful LDL cholesterol when used in place of saturated fats like those from animal sources (such as found in butter, whole milk, animal meats and lard).

Polyunsaturated fats known as Omega-6 and Omega-3 are essential to a healthy diet. Omega-6 (in vegetable oils and poultry fat) can have the same beneficial impacts as monounsaturated fats, but also may decrease beneficial HDL cholesterol and promote the inflammatory process. Omega-3 (in oils high in linoleic acid, such as flaxseed, canola and walnut oils, as well as human milk, shellfish and cold-water fish: mackerel, salmon, anchovies, tuna) has three benefits: decreasing harmful LDL cholesterol and total cholesterol when used in place of saturated fats, and having potential anti-inflammatory properties.

The “ideal” diet, Klem noted, is one in which the ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 is 1:2.

The healthiest oils, she said, are extra virgin olive oil (EVOO), unrefined coconut oil and avocado oil. EVOO has a low smoke point of only 320-degrees Fahrenheit. It can be used for cooking food at lower temperatures, and is best suited to be used in dressings and on foods after they are cooked.

Unrefined coconut oil is Klem’s preferred oil for cooking since it has a smoke point of 350-degrees Fahrenheit. While it smells like coconut, she said it does not impart a coconut flavor to foods prepared with it. High-quality extra virgin olive oil that has a low acidity level has a smoke point of 405-degrees Fahrenheit, she added.

To learn more about cooking oils, read the “Cooking Oil Comparison Chart” at http://www.eatingrules.com/2012/02/cooking-oil-comparison-chart/

Look for the “first press”

Gagliardo said a key to the quality of olive oil is the caliber of the olives when they were pressed (crushed and processed) and when that occurred. The best olive oils, he added, are from the “first press.”

The date of the press is important to know, he added, because olive oil should be discarded once it is a year old (even though the labels on some bottles of olive oil say the oil has a shelf life of three years). Unfortunately, he added, some olive oils already are several months old when bottles are first placed on store shelves. And some, he warned, are a blend, or co-mingling, of olives from first and subsequent presses, as well as different sources.

Danny Gagliardo advises on how to pick high-quality olive oils

Because olive oil is sensitive to light, do not purchase brands in clear bottles. Buy oils that are sold in dark bottles or cans. Olive oil should be stored away from sunlight and heat, and not near your stove. It is not necessary, however, to store it in a refrigerator.

Gagliardo said D’Avolio sells “single varietal” olive oils, as well as those that are infused to give them a flavor. With the former, the taste of the oil is solely from the olives.  The “single varietal” olive oils sold by D’Avolio at its five locations rotate every six months between northern- and southern-hemisphere crops to ensure quality and freshness. At any one time, D’Avolio sells only oils from northern countries or only southern countries.

Gagliardo said many people look for “product of Italy” on the label of bottles of olive oil when they shop. That phrase, however, does not assure the quality of the oil or even its origin. He noted that Spain is the world’s largest producer of olive oil and that some of the best olive oils come from Australia. To win the “product of Italy” endorsement, he added, olive oils and other products need only to have “passed through Italy” at some point.

More information about D’Avolio’s olive oils and other products is available on its website at http://www.davolios.com/

To learn more about olive oil, Gagliardo suggests that you read “Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil” by Tom Mueller.

The focus of the program, which will be free and open to the public, will be sorting out the facts and myths about vegetable and olive oils, how they are produced and how they can impact your health.

As health-conscious Americans in recent decades have turned away from animal fats in favor of those from vegetables, U.S. production of fats and oils has surpassed 12 million metric tons. Telling the “good” from the “bad” when it comes to vegetable and gourmet oils isn’t easy and labeling on bottles promotes them all as “healthy.”

Our speakers will be Niki Klem, a registered dietitian, and Danny Gagliardo, founder and owner of D’Avolio Olive Oils and Vinegars.

A registered dietitian with a passion for whole and local foods, Klem is a full-time faculty member in the Food and Nutrition Department at Trocaire College. She also is a member of the board of directors of Slow Food Buffalo Niagara.

Gagliardo, whose family has been cooking with olive oil in the restaurant business for more than 90 years, opened D’Avolio in 2010.  Now with five locations in Buffalo Niagara and a growing online business, D’Avolio is a purveyor of fine olive oils, vinegars and gourmet oils.  Olive oils will be sampled during Gagliardo’s presentation.

Slow Food Buffalo Niagara is a chapter of Slow Food USA and shares its belief that everyone has the right to good, clean and fair food. Slow Food USA advocates for food and farming policies that are good for the public, good for our planet and good for farmers and workers.

• We were honored to have a world-class professional beekeeper – Geri Hens of Hens Honey Bee Farm in Pendleton – as our guest speaker.
• More than 30 people were in attendance on an evening when Mother Nature was making driving challenging with rain and fog.
• And we were the beneficiaries of the generosity of our host, Frizlen Group Architects, as well as four businesses donating refreshments: Martin Cooks, Chateau Buffalo, Community Beer Works and Buffalo Cheese Traders, LLC.

For the love of honeybees

In her discussions of her passion for beekeeping and the challenges facing operators of small farms in New York State, Geri Hens made it crystal clear that she is on the same page as our chapter and parent Slow Food USA in advocating for food and farming policies that are good for the public, good for our planet, and good for farmers and workers.

In Hens’ case, the workers are the thousands of honeybees that populate the 1,000 colonies she maintains in 11 counties in western and upstate New York. “Upstate,” in her mind, is north of New York City and its adjacent counties.

The only New York State producer of USDA raw organic New York Native Wildflower and Tree Varietal Honey, Hens said her hard work is guided closely by the beliefs of her Native American heritage.

The honeybees, which she noted are not “her bees,” are the most important element of the business and her major concern is that they are healthy, not the income that the business generates.

Geri Hens discusses honeybees at inaugural meeting

Honey is the bees’ food, she noted, and her business relies on their producing honey above and beyond what they need to survive. During the past two years when there has been summertime drought, Hens has given back to the bees, supplementing the honey available to some of the colonies to assure their health and survival.

Drought is only one challenge faced by Hens, who has worked in the past on a dairy farm and as a college health sciences/environmental sciences professor, and found her way to apiculture as the result of a life-changing auto accident.

Another major challenge in New York is the diminishing numbers of native plants and shrubs whose pollen is essential for honeybees. Home gardeners can support honeybees by not ridding their yards of such plants — which Hens said many consider “weeds.”  And when adding new plants to a home garden, she suggests they choose native varieties.

Asked what blossoms honeybees are most attracted to, Hens suggested the next time you visit a local nursery you pay attention to the plants that are attracting bees and make your selections from among them.

She also encourages gardeners to keep their gardens/yards chemical-free and to be sure to provide water sources such as bird baths and fountains for nature’s pollinators.

Hens Honey Bee Farm produces 16 kinds of wild vegetation honey in three forms: liquid, cream and comb. Each kind has its own distinct flavor depending on the colonies that produce it and the wild vegetation growing in the vicinity.

Many of those in attendance purchased jars of wildflower honey from Hens.

The first “review” was in within hours of the meeting’s conclusion as one buyer noted in a Facebook post:  “Went home and had ginger tea with honey. Honestly I haven’t tasted honey like that since I was a little girl.”

Hens is the owner of Hens Honey Bee Farm in Pendleton, the only New York State producer of USDA raw organic New York Native Wildflower and Tree Varietal Honey. The farm has 1,000 colonies in 11 counties in western and northern New York. They produce 16 kinds of wild vegetation honey in three forms: liquid, cream, and comb.

In addition to a discussion of her work as a beekeeper and the lives of bees, Hens will provide an overview of new directions in farming and farm products in Western New York and New York State. She also will have products from her farm to sell after the meeting.

The meeting will be free and open to the public. It will begin promptly at 6:30 p.m. Light refreshments from Martin Cooks http://www.martincooks.com/ and Buffalo Cheese Traders, LLC http://www.buffalocheesetraders.com/# will be served beginning at 6 p.m.

For more than 20 years, Hens Honey Bee Farm has met/exceeded USDA standards for organic honey production for bees, honey and beeswax. Hens’ bees produce 16 varieties of native/indigenous vegetation liquid, creamed and comb.

Hens is proud to be an environmentally responsible honey producer and organic apiculture industry leader. She provides organic apiculture consulting and mentoring, educational presentations, swarm collection and relocation services.

Former vice president of the Western New York Honey Producers Association, she serves as a bee specialist for the local Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE), including Erie and Niagara counties in addition to several other New York CCE programs. In addition educating the public, growers and beekeepers, she is offers swarm collection services and consults regarding issues pertaining to pollination insects (especially honey bees, bumble bees, and native bees).

Hens, a participant in the Indigenous Women’s Imitative, is a retired, tenured SUNY outdoor educator, administrator, professor and coach. Geri also was a major contributor on honey bee wellness and health management for Ross Conrad’s textbook, “Natural Beekeeping.”

Slow Food Buffalo Niagara is a chapter of Slow Food USA and shares its belief that everyone has the right to good, clean and fair food. Slow Food USA advocates for food and farming policies that are good for the public, good for the planet, and good for farmers and workers.

From a Slow Food perspective this is not only possible but inevitable. There is only hope for the future because it is rooted in history, legacy. Let us protect our heirloom varieties. Let us show children how to plant and grow corn. Let us work together to course correct, and continue to learn from the leaders of today who inspire to be this change. In this new b’ak’tan and the next.