There are many ways that we can interact with our food. We cook it, eat it, some of us garden or farm it, and perhaps we buy it at the market. In addition to all of those, some of us love to write about it.

Food writing takes many forms. Restaurant reviews have a certain celebratory style and language that has long been an established part of our cultural food fascination. On the other extreme, we have works like Fast Food Nation which explore some of the darker aspects of food production. In between these two are a million different voices and styles of prose and poetry relating to the food we eat.

For those of you in the Bay Area, the writing center 826 Valencia is holding a Food Writing seminar to explore how we write about food, and how you can get published, perhaps even paid, to do so.

I will be joining a diverse panel of authors and editors who will be present to discuss all the aspects of this growing field. Mollie Katzen, of The Moosewood Cookbook fame, will undoubtedly be a highlight for many. She will be joined by chef Scott Youkilis, editor of the journal Out of the Kitchen, Lessley Anderson, a senior editor at Chow.com, and Joe Jarrell, a writer for the SF Bay Guardian.

I caught up with Lessley, and asked her how she had become involved with the project. “I had volunteered with 826 Valencia in the past,” she said “and so was excited to be a part of the panel to support their work.”

The writing seminar is a fundraiser for the nonprofit 826 Valencia’s free tutoring and writing programs for 6 – 18 year olds. 826 National has branches in six other cities in addition to the original San Francisco location. The program is founded on the belief that “strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.”

With food writing specifically, it is clear that success in this particular field can be associated with a broad range of backgrounds. My original writing inspiration came from ecology and nature, as I attempted to emulate the likes of Barry Lopez and Annie Dillard. Lessley mentioned that she, too, did not start writing about food, but rather trained as a journalist and for a time was a crime writer.

But no matter where you begin, food writing is certain to nourish your mind and heart, but also your belly as you nibble away for inspiration while you write.

The Food Writing Seminar will be taking place Thursday, Nov 20 from 6 – 9pm at 826 Valencia, in San Francisco

Photo: asacart

Iowa experienced the flood of the century 15 years ago. That, of course, was a different century.

Over the last week Iowans have seen floods unlike any in living memory. 1400 city blocks in Cedar Rapids were inundated with water up to 11 feet deep. 16 University of Iowa buildings were flooded. Interstates 80 and 380 were closed by water flowing 2 feet over their bridges. Levees have given way in Des Moines and Columbus Junction. 36,000 Iowans are newly homeless.

Now, that water moves south, breeching levees in Missouri and Illinois, infecting groundwater, ruining lives.

All this will have lasting impact on our state and its neighbors, but the larger impact may be felt across the country and around the world. An estimated 2 million acres of freshly planted farmland is under water. Statewide, about 20 percent of soybeans and 10 percent of all corn grown is either lost or at risk of being lost, according to the Iowa Department of Agriculture. The smaller sustainable family farms of the region are hit particularly hard because they lack many of the federal protections afforded the large commodity growers, but those big corporate farms grow roughly a third of the corn and soy in this country and the ripple effects on our already weakened economy will spread just like the floodwaters. Even the stockpiles left from last season’s bumper-buster harvest (those that were not themselves ruined by floodwaters), cannot be shipped to market because railroad bridges are closed or washed out completely and the Mississippi River is closed to barge traffic along Iowa’s entire eastern border.

Closer to home, my dear friend Susan Jutz, director of the area’s largest CSA, lost her 102-year-old barn to the storms. Restaurant owner Jim Mondanaro’s flagship restaurant is underwater, with all its equipment, furniture, and a $12,000 inventory of food. Scott McWane’s Dairy Queen, in the family since 1951, survived a Packard through it’s front window in 1958, 6 feet of water in the basement in 1993, and a tornado that opened it up like a pizza box in 2006. When the Iowa River Crested on Sunday there were 8 feet in that same basement.

While some CSAs have lost entire crops and acres of land, the CSAs that went unhurt are trying to get their food to families who have lost their homes.

83 of Iowa’s 99 counties are state and/or federal disaster areas. Whole towns are evacuated. Family businesses lost. Restaurants underwater. The rebuilding process will take years and be in the billions of dollars.

Slow Food Iowa is in the process of determining what it can do to assist the affected farmers, wineries and restaurants. We’ll soon be turning to the wider Slow Food world for help. Meanwhile your advice and your prayers will be most welcome.

Donations are currently being accepted to assist in recovery for farmers and food producers connected to the Slow Food community. If you would like to make a donation, click here or email Kurt Michael Friese at k.friese[at]mchsi.com.

Photo Credits: Cow and Landscape images Creative Commons licensed from Flickr