all photos benjamin reynolds 2018
I woke up around 3:30, arrived 5:43 and departed with the group, having conversation with Keith and the teachers who led the class. After or during the keynote, I question whether I should have brought my camera along, but, uh. There certainly are some pictures here! One of the things I underlined during the keynote was Lentil Underground, a book I haven’t looked up yet. It was interesting to hear about the organization of farms and “farm organisms”. I was into the communalist aspects I was picking up on, with Anna of Vilicus Farms posing the question “Who is your (local) farmer?”
I got lost a little bit, learning the layout of the building, and missed out on the first 20-30 minutes of the movie, so I payed for the lunch. Which was, well, just alright. The beef was a little overcooked, the roasted carrots were a bit undercooked, the cauliflower was quite good though.
I attended the Building a Vivid Picture panel, of which the highlight was the break-off discussion, I talked with an eco-ag student from another group and two women who were involved in biodynamics.
After that I went to the Hidden Half of Nature panel on microbiomes led by Anne Bikle which was partially on her effort to turn over her home garden, the microbial life plants feed on and how they feed on it, and parallels between plant and human biology, with some interrogations of intelligence and sentience. I bought her book afterwards. Looking forward to the answer of the question “what did your food eat”.
Then I went to Beyond Voodoo Vintners, which, after the lead panelist discussed how she hated the title for her book and subsequently, this panel discussion, went into a really in depth overview of the wine industry, biodynamic practices, pre-steiner and western european roots of biodynamic farming and spiritual practices, dads and the importance of regulation.
The highlight for me was the joint presentation from the Culinary Breeding Network, which finally displayed to me the difference that biodynamic practices have directly on plant biology, what NOVIC (Northern Organic Vegetable Improvement Collaborative) stands for and how much sound can impact your tasting experience, as we wore earplugs. We tasted a wine, two kinds of olive oil on bread, two kinds of squash grown two different ways and some very good honey which I’ve looked up and am about to pull the 11 dollar for 8 ounce trigger on.
Also, there was biodynamic tea and coffee available all day, which was , well, just alright. The fruit they had in the morning was quite good.