While we prize our Denver County Fair 1st Place ribbon that got this whole jam journey started, we are blown away and so honored to receive a 2017 Good Food Award for our Cherry Fig Mostarda, AND a Finalist position for our Absinthe Orange Deliciousness.
The Good Food Foundation is an organization that awards American speciality food & alcohol makers who are creating tasty foods that are ethically and sustainably produced. A national organization run by Sarah Weiner and Dominic Philips and chaired by the infamous Alice Waters.
Sabrina and I, and Jon from St. Kilians cheese shop, our collaborator on the Mostarda, flew out to San Francisco and hobnobbed with all the other winners in the incredibly beautiful War Memorial and Arts Center building. We were so excited to see a stack of sandwiches in the foyer made with our Mostarda and Vermont Creamery's winning Bonne Bouche cheese.
My favorite part of the entire event though, was listening to the incredible Winona LaDuke's speech. Winona LaDuke is an environmentalist, native american activist, economist, writer and farmer of heritage wild rice with the Native Harvest company. She spoke strongly and passionately about the importance of caring for and protecting our earth, our water, our heritage foods/seeds, and our need for an obligation to upholding these standards. While we already do our best to have a light footprint on this earth and to bring quality and intentional foods to you, the message resonated so strongly with us that I am determined to do an even better job.
Food is the cornerstone to healthy bodies and healthy relationships with our families and friends and communities. It is a commonality that we all on this planet share. We all have to eat, and we should enjoy that process of eating and we should value and respect every stop along that chain from the seed planted in the earth, to the water, to the person tending the crops to the pickers and the truckers and the choppers and cookers and also to the animals that feed us with their milk and yes, sometimes their flesh. The mass industry standards are not acceptable. Soiling our water table with oil spills or factory meat farm sewage, depleting our soil from single plant farming, covering our crops with pesticides and chemicals, modifying seeds to disallow natural regeneration is not acceptable. We have one planet. Demanding quality food to eat and share with our fellow humans has become a social movement. And we are proud to be part of that.
Photos by Marc Fiorito & Maura Gramzinski