This Just In

Local Sprouts dig in

Venue watch + more

By DEIRDRE FULTON | July 29, 2009

For two years, the Local Sprouts Cooperative has been creating a name for itself as a sustainable and healthy catering and meal cooperative in Portland. Hanifa Washington, a worker-owner and chef, likens it to "Superman in slo-mo," saying that the organization has experienced a "steady advance" since its inception in 2007. In addition to catering events for approximately 50 like-minded groups, Local Sprouts has attracted about 60 co-op members who benefit from the group's community-supported kitchen, paying a fee in return for a certain amount of freshly prepared foods every week.

Now, the eight worker-owners are about to take a giant leap, as they attempt to launch a Community Supported Café in town, possibly in the former Portland Hall. (The owners are currently in negotiations with Bayside Maine LLC, the development company co-owned by activist and state senator Justin Alfond, which bought the building at 645 Congress Street and plans to build apartments above the ground-floor retail space the Sprouts hope to occupy.)

To celebrate their achievements so far, Local Sprouts will host Taking Root, a fundraising event at SPACE Gallery on August 8. They'll serve a giant meal (roasted-veggie and greens salad, fresh bread, haddock or marinated tempeh with caramelized onions and more seasonal vegetables, plus chocolate beet cake and blueberry cheesecake bars), bands will play (including Over a Cardboard Sea, The Orchards, Lady Zen, and the Excuse Me Circus), and representatives will be on hand to talk about what Local Sprouts founder Jonah Fertig calls a "very unconventional" café idea.

In addition to carrying over the Local Sprouts community-supported kitchen model, the café will be financed (Fertig hopes) through community-based loans and investments. Members will be able to pick up meals, but the café will also be open for the public to order off a menu; Washington and Fertig describe a space that's available for educational programs and possibly even winter farmers' markets and co-op retail. Could this be the community space that Portland's social-activists have been clamoring for? Stay tuned.

Related: Music Seen: Assemble, Inspiring urban growers, Portland Music News: May 8, 2009, More

Music Seen: Assemble
This month's Evolve2Advance bash, "Assemble," the latest in a series celebrating the convergence of visual art, music, food, and community, was one of those events whose status update should have read, "Come to SPACE right now for this very cool and under-attended event."
Inspiring urban growers
Just in time for the fresh-food abundance that comes with summer and farmers' markets and pick-your-own adventures, the folks at SPACE Gallery and the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) will host their second Food+Farm extravaganza this week.
Portland Music News: May 8, 2009
The weekend of May 23 is shaping up to be an important one in the local-music continuum.
Food unfarmed
Following in the Peabody Award-winning footsteps of Aaron Wolf's congenial, informative documentary King Corn, Robert Kenner's omnibus agri-doc Food, Inc . offers a bleaker portrait of America's food economy at this year's Food+Farm event series, centered at SPACE Gallery from May 7 to 10.
Music Seen: All over
Last week we spent five of six nights out on the town. If anyone ever complains that we don't have enough venues or shows to attend we beg to differ.
Music Seen: Ocean and Pontiak
The day after Ocean's predictably under-attended (30-40 people) Cinco de Mayo performance at SPACE, a friend who also attended asked what I thought. "So loud," I said. "So slow," he responded. It wasn't hard to catch the reverence in both reactions.
Put your skirt on
Portland's aggressive new frontgal can hit all the notes while she hits you in the face.
Last call
One of the big topics of social conversation in Portland last week was the anonymous Portland Point blog's ruthless, somewhat self-negating takedown of the Honey Clouds' May 23 CD-release show.
Greetings and salutations
The film, a decidedly unlikely crowd-pleaser, has had a charmed year so far. It won a Special Jury Award upon its world premiere at Austin, Texas's SXSW Film Festival, and an Audience Award at the prestigious Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in North Carolina, becoming something of a "little documentary that could" on the festival circuit.
Escaping the life
Like the drug dealers in The Wire or accounts of illegal trafficking of any form, the current and former teenage prostitutes in David Schisgall's documentary Very Young Girls don't often refer to their trade as a job.
Music Seen: Neko Case + Haru Bangs
First things first: Neko Case is the complete package, an unmitigated bombshell (gorgeous, wry, self-effacing) with a singular artistic vision (country/folk songs so heavy on metaphor and animistic and obscure mythological references that you could — and should — unpack them for months) and a voice like an air-raid siren.
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Topics: This Just In , Culture and Lifestyle, Food and Cooking, Foods, More

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