Dinner, Local: Harvest Spoon

Nights like tonight are pretty magical (what, you thought I had disappeared?).

It's weird that we haven't talked about Meg here, because actually, she's spectacular.  Meg Taylor is the woman behind Large Marge Sustainables, and when she's not feeding the crew of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, or crafting her catering company's newsletters, each of which closes with poetry, she's finding ways to feed anyone she can find, every bite laden with love and magnanimity.

Meg's foods resonate with her beliefs: community building, protecting the environment, including everyone, and eating well.  She works with school gardens, contributes to bake sales (her insane lemon rosemary shortbread has been gracing our No Cookie Left Behind bake sale since its first year), creates neighborhood picnics and dinners, and more, always serving satisfying, delicious food on real, non-disposable dishes, regardless of venue.

Tonight was the start of the latest expression of Meg's heart, Harvest Spoon / Cosecha Cuchara.  In her words, the concept was "to create an opportunity for communities to connect, form deeper bonds, and intersect with other communities in public spaces over local-garden-sourced dinner, discussion and performance," and this dinner in the park delivered exactly that.  

local lemons

The food wasn't merely local, but actually community sourced:  greens and citrus came from the gardens of attendees, and Meg whipped up a totally satisfying vegan and gluten-free meal (after all, everyone was included) with warming soups, hearty mains, and bourbon-spiked dessert.

jam jars for soup

Conversation ranged from greywater recycling and soil additives to providing food for Occupy LA, and the same guy who was helping us carry giant pots of cauliflower soup from truck to table at the beginning of the night was later going wild on a Spanish guitar as we all huddled together in blankets to keep warm.  It was that kind of night.

I feel strongly about using food as a vehicle to build community (this is not news).  I love the fact that I'm not the only one.