Nourish Nashville

Nourish 2016 did not disappoint! In its fifth year, the event raised more than $135,000 in support of The Nashville Food Project’s mission to grow, cook and share nourishing food.

This year’s event, held on July 28th at the Hutton Hotel, brought together 275 friends of The Nashville Food Project to celebrate recent accomplishments and enjoy an exquisite meal prepared by six of the Southeast’s most notable chefs.

The evening kicked off with margaritas prepared by Chipotle Mexican Grill, served alongside several delicious Mexican-inspired hors d’ouevres from Chef Nick Hertel of Merchants. Attendees ate and mingled while perusing the silent auction, which featured nearly 80 packages thanks to the generosity of our Nashville community.

Guests then gathered at the table to enjoy a five-course meal paired with wines from Lipman Brothers. Local food writer and friend of the Food Project Chris Chamberlain elicited many laughs from the stage as emcee of this year's event. The dinner included watermelon salad by Chef Bill Smith of Chapel Hill’s Crook’s Corner, curried catfish and grits by Chef Asha Gomez of Atlanta’s Spice to Table, Bear Creek Farms pork belly by Chef Matt Bell of Little Rock’s South on Main, and beef by Chef Cole Ellis of Cleveland, MS’s Delta Meat Market. After a rousing live auction, guests enjoyed a blueberry posset by Butcher & Bee’s Cynthia Wong as well as take-home cookies from Christie Cookie Co. on their way out.

Huge thanks to all in attendance at Nourish this year. A special thanks to our sponsors for making this year’s Nourish possible: First Tennessee Foundation, Chipotle Mexican Grill, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee Community Trust, Dorothy Cate and Thomas F. Frist Foundation and Whole Foods Market. We also want to thank our patrons, live and silent auction donors and in-kind sponsors for supporting this annual fundraising event. We are grateful to you for believing in and supporting the important work of The Nashville Food Project. Click through the photos below to see the night's highlights.

Nutrition Education - Strengthening our Relationships with Food & Each Other

by Kathleen Costello, AmeriCorps VISTA Nutrition Education Coordinator

Hello all! I joined The Nashville Food Project's staff earlier this year as a member of Americorps’ Anti-Hunger and Opportunity Corps (AHOC). AHOC places Americorps members at different organizations throughout the county that are committed to reducing hunger in their local community. 

My role at The Nashville Food Project involves creating nutrition education opportunities for several of TNFP’s community partners. These activities include inviting students to our kitchen to make healthy snacks, teaching hands-on cooking classes at summer camps, and leading food demonstrations with some of our community partner organizations. 

I just finished providing hands-on cooking sessions at the PENCIL Foundation’s summer camp. This two-week camp taught students about environmental issues such as pollution and water conservation through fun activities, speakers, and field trips. The Nashville Food Project provided lunch twice a week, and I got to lead the kids in cooking classes that had an environmental component. For one of our sessions, we made local “berry scones” with raspberries picked from our Wedgewood Urban Gardens. Besides being insanely delicious (I ate three) it gave students the opportunity to see how many miles non-local food travels compared to locally grown food. Just purchasing two local ingredients for this recipe—cream and raspberries—saved over 4,000 miles of food travel!

(For a peek at how far a non-local strawberry travels to get to a consumer, take a look at this great video from the Ad Council.)

Another nutrition class underway is at Nashville CARES, an organization that provides resources and support to people diagnosed with or at risk of contracting HIV. Every other Wednesday, I bring a hot, made-from-scratch lunch made by our volunteers, and I give a cooking demonstration for one of the meal components. I remember being so nervous for my first class…how would these strong individuals who are dealing with a serious immune disease going to react to this fidgety 20-something intern encouraging them to eat more vegetables? I was taught that the most important part of teaching is connecting with your students… but how could I connect with an audience so seemingly-different from me?

It turns out the answer was pasta salad. I asked about their favorite foods, and Margaret, a fiery grandmother with glittery fingernails, told me how she loves pasta salad, but wanted to learn some new ways to make it. I shared the first pasta salad recipe I’d ever made, someone else mentioned his mother’s go-to ingredient (Italian salad dressing) and the conversation rolled on from there. This week, per Margaret’s request, I’m going to show them how to make a pesto pasta salad made from carrot tops. I guess we aren’t so different after all.

Before my experience at The Nashville Food Project, I thought the most important part of being an educator was walking into the room with all of the answers. But the more time I spend with such amazing and unique individuals, the more I realize that my job is not to provide the right answers, but to ask the right questions. It’s about understanding people and what drives the food choices they make. It’s about working together to find out what the barriers are to making healthy choices, and how we can break those down and build new, healthier relationships with food and each other.

It most likely also involves a freshly baked scone and a killer pasta salad recipe. 

Growing Together at the Nashville Farmers' Market

The Nashville Farmers Market hosted record-breaking crowds this month to kick off the warm season, and we’ve been thrilled to be a part of it as "Growing Together," the new name for the Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program, a partnership between The Nashville Food Project and the Center for Refugees and Immigrants of Tennessee.

For the first time, the farmers of Growing Together harvested produce they’ve been growing since early March to sell at the market. Baskets have been overflowing with vibrant komatsuma, a Japanese mustard spinach, and several additional varieties of mustard greens such as sueling and giant red leaf. The farmers also harvested crops like joi choi (a type of bok choy), arugula, cilantro, dill, hakurei turnips and daikon radish.

Each week, two farmers in the collective attend the market to represent the group such as Thomas Piang of Burma and Chandra Paudel of Bhutan, pictured above. We’ve been providing profiles of the farmers along with recipes for featured produce.

Thank you to all the customers who have visited with us so far such as Chef Sam Tucker of Village Bakery & Provisions inside the Market House. He picked up an armful of joi choi during our first market.

Chef Sam with our farm shed neighbor Victoria of Lucy Bird Kitchen.

We were delighted to see it in subsequent weeks on his menu sauteed with brown butter, chili and lemon.

Come see us this season at the market. We’ll be there every Saturday through September.  We look forward to showing you this gorgeous produce!

Refugee Growers Prepare for Nashville Farmers Market Season

We're so excited to continue our support of the Center for Refugees and Immigrants of Tennessee's Refugee Agricultural Program this growing season! This year, we have an exciting new aspect of the program, which will support a number of growers as they work to sell some of the produce that they grow. Below is a post from our partner CRIT on the progress thus far.

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The farmers of the Refugee Agricultural Program of Middle Tennessee arrived early Monday morning at the Nashville Farmers’ Market to imagine their new space under the Farm Sheds.

Beginning in May, they’ll be selling the produce they have been working hard to grow off Haywood Lane in South Nashville to the thousands of customers who browse the downtown market on Saturdays.

“This is the first time this has ever happened at the Nashville Farmers’ Market,” said Tasha Kennard, the executive director of the market who spoke with the group. “You can inspire the community and teach the community that you want to be a part of it and inspire others to do what you’re doing.”

Many in the group have grown food or worked farmers markets in their native countries of Bhutan, Nepal and Burma. Here, they’ll join a group of about 150 merchants at the market from Tennessee and nearby states like Kentucky and Alabama.

Tasha offered tips to the group through translator Siddi Rimal about how to successfully sell at the market, but she also congratulated the group on opening doors and showing community members how to provide food, create jobs and support families.

“We are here to support you,” she said, “and our fellow farmers are here to support you and help you have a good time.”

We hope you’ll visit our farmers’ market booth on Saturdays from May through September. The Nashville Farmers’ Market is located at 900 Rosa L Parks Blvd.