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Conviviality On a sweet summer night in 2010, I gathered together at Tre Piani many of the people who have joined me in bringing Slow Food to our own corner of the planet.We are local farmers, chefs, food-business owners, educators, and activists. Whatever our calling, we all are doing our part to promote food that’s been produced , raised, and prepared in a way that’s “good, clean, and fair.”That night, the sixteen of us tucked into a banquet that included produce from the Tri-County Auction and Zone 7, chicken from Griggstown Quail Farm, cheese and ham hocks from Cherry Grove Organic Farm, Cape May Salt oysters, and tilefish and tuna from Viking Village. We enjoyed homemade pickles made from cucumbers bought at the Hightstown auction, egg salad made from local eggs, roasted eggplant , and, of course, New Jersey tomatoes. Everything was fortified with hearty wine and beer. As I looked around the table, I thought about how far Carlo Petrini’s original idea had spread. Here we were in New Jersey, all of us preoccupied with carrying on his movement, all of us energized about restoring a food system that doesn’t just support local suppliers and farms but truly unites communities. Conviviality is one of the pillars of the Slow Food philosophy; and as my book comes to an end, I think it’s only right to quote the movement’s official description of its power: “May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency. Our defense should begin at the table with Slow Food.” Those of us who gathered together on that midsummer evening understood that Slow Food can also be seen as a metaphor for quality of life. A good life requires proper nourishment of mind and body. It also needs love: of oneself, of one’s friends, of one’s family, of one’s food. I looked around that table, grateful to be with these friends and proud of what we’ve accomplished. I recalled that, several years ago, it had dawned on me that we were embarking on a remarkable 18  195  mission one that was larger than all of us. That’s when I knew I needed to write this book. As I neared the end of this project, Jean Torkelson, the writer who’d helped me put this story into words, suggested that I should throw a dinner party for the people I’d been writing about. It would be a way to give them a chance to talk about what the movement means to each of them. Hey, any excuse to throw a party! But I waited until the summer so that the entire menu could be made from local ingredients, many of them nurtured, grown, and raised by the very people now sitting around the table. Of course, the group was limited by logistics and schedules. So many people have contributed to both this book and to Slow Food in our state that I would have needed to rent a gymnasium for the whole crowd. But as it turned out, the party was just the right size for sitting together and sharing memories. “Well, I grew up on a small dairy farm in northern New Jersey,” recalled Matt Systema, chef at George Rude’s Griggstown Quail Farm. “Basically all our family meals came from our own farm.” He still gets a rush of nostalgia when he eats food that’s been grown the right way. And that night, it seemed to me that Matt was getting a little dreamy-eyed as he dug into the kale cooked with ham hocks. “To me, Slow Food is all about the importance of tradition,” he continued. “I used to take tradition for granted, but now I really see the value of a meal around the family table, shared by the people who matter to you the most.” “Oh, I know just what you mean,” said Pegi Ballister-Howells. She recalled how her father always needed a big bowl of greens at every dinner. “He would have loved this kale,” she said. Then she laughed and told us that sometimes her husband, Tom, comes home, takes a deep breath, and says, “It smells just like Nana’s house.”What he means is that Pegi’s cooking has stirred memories of his own family meals; and when that happens, Pegi joked...

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