The Good Fest Mini Conference Soil to Soul: How Foods and Farms Nourish

This year’s conference focuses on How Foods and Farms Nourish: from the ways soil health affects our body to cooking techniques that enhance a food’s nutrition.

The Good Fest Mini Conference is ideal for anyone who is interested in building a deeper connection with food. The workshops are designed in a way to encourage group discussion and to create a space that is informal and fun for participants to meet other like-minded people. We select topics we believe are necessary and unique to our food system and are concepts that inspire the work at Local Roots NYC for the upcoming year.

Last year's conference brought together approx 75 New Yorkers and out of state folks, upstate + urban farmers and food producers. Photos can be found here.
WORKSHOPS
Opening Panel Discussion
Panelists - Oko Farms, League of Kitchens, Taproot Farm, Chalk Point Kitchen, La Moringa
Facilitator - Ora Wise, Harvest + Revel
Explore different viewpoints of our food system of How Foods and Farms Nourish. Each panelists will be given time to discuss how our conference theme plays a part in their life and community. We will then break into groups based on the different themes brought up by our panelists, and share what resonated to us. 

Drink Free Beer, Reduce Food Waste
Taste and learn how bread scraps that we normally toss can be transformed into quality craft BEER! This home-brew demo with Toast Ale will show how you can personally apply their rev-ALE-utionary process of turning surplus bread into beer, making it a beverage that not only tastes good but also reduces food waste. Support Toast's Indiegogo campaign ahead of the event if you want to see this sudsy solution to food waste come to life in NYC! Conference participants will be able to enjoy complimentary Toast Ale samples throughout the day.

Soil Health and Body Health
Farmer Zach Wolf
Explore techniques farmers implement to provide you with food at its peak nutrition and learn how foods and farms can have an impact on your body, mind, and spirit.

The Interplay of Food, our Digestion and How We Eat in Living a Healthy Life: a Collaboration of a Chef and a Doctor 
Chef Richard LaMarita and Dr. Robert Graham
In this workshop we will look at the idea of balance and taste variety from an ancient and modern perspective and connect how a strong gut microbiome and mindful eating all play an important part in our health. We will look at these ideas from the viewpoint of a chef & a doctor and offer tips on strengthening our digestion system and cover simple mindful eating habits that can keep us on track to better assimilate our food, therefore putting less stress on the body and environment.
The workshop will include a food demo that illustrates the different tastes & their unity. You will learn how to prepare the following dishes and be able to sample them!
Jasmine Green Tea Chai. Roast Cauliflower with Tumeric, Pickled Cabbage & Pine Nuts.
Crostini with Fresh Ricotta, Tuscan Kale & Pickled Radish
Roast Cauliflower with Tumeric, Pickled Cabbage & Pine Nuts.
Lunch With a Farmer
During lunch, sit down with a Local Roots NYC farmer or one of our panelists/workshop leaders. We hope you can come with questions for our food experts and make friends with other New Yorkers. Food is available for purchase at Bergn Beer Hall. Friends of Farmer ticketholders will receive complimentary lunch courtesy of Landhaus with salad mix donated by one of our Winter farm partners, Radicle Salad.