The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Thursday, September 13, 2012 - 3B
Fresh ideas at this year's
MFarmer's market
Escaping
reality with
Bollywood
CSG to promote
sustainability at
second annual event
By ALICIA ADAMCZYK
Daily Arts Writer
University students already
sick of cafeteria food and burnt
TV dinners, rejoice - Central
Student
Govern-
ment will CSG MFarmer's
host its sec- Market
ond annual
Farmer's Today at11 a.m.
Market Michigan Union
today to Courtyard Patio
Sunday in an Free
effort to pro-
vide healthy,
sustainable produce options on
campus.
CSG, in collaboration with
University Unions, University
Health Systems, U Catering, U
Housing and Residential Ser-
vices and a host of other campus
departments, will set up shop
today in the Union courtyard -
located next to Amer's - from 11
a.m. to 3 p.m. to sell a variety of
fresh and locally grown flowers,
plants, produce and other delec-
table fare.
"Our focus is on healthy and
sustainable living," said LSA
sophomore Parisa Soraya, a mem-
ber of the CSG Health Issues
Commission and the organizer of
the market. "We're doing that by
having demonstrations from Uni-
versity chefs."
CSG and its collaborators will
utilize the market not only as a
produce sale, but as a way to edu-
cate students about the impor-
tance of going green.
"They'll have free samples for
students and also provide them
with recipes," said Soraya.
The recipes the chefs prepare
will include produce from the
market to encourage students to
try new foods.
Soraya said due to the over-
whelmingly positive response
after 2011's market, farmers this
year will offer a greater quantity
and variety of produce. Another
notable difference from 2011; stu-
dents can now purchase produce
using cash, credit cards or Blue
SUSTAINABILITY
From Page 1B
"We organized workshops
and fieldtrips for people who
just wanted to learn more about
how to garden, how to eat local-
ly, what to do with food from the
garden," Green said.
Cultivating Community hosts
open workdays where Ann Arbor
residents can cultivate garden-
ing skills, such as composting,
on a micro level. And, if tradi-
tional gardening doesn't suit
your fancy, Green said everyone
is encouraged to try some fresh
raspberries straight from the
vine.
In addition to their work in
Ann Arbor, Cultivating Commu-
nity has partnerships with the
Detroit non-profit Focus Hope
and the Summer in the City's
community service program,
which brings children from the
metro Detroit suburbs to volun-
teer in the city.
Last summer, Cultivat-
ing Community helped run a
community garden in Detroit
that allowed local kids to tend
their own garden plots. Green
explained that for many of these
kids, fresh produce isn't read-
ily affordable. Cultivating their
own gardens and growing pro-
duce helped teach participants
the benefits of fresh food.
"By having this garden ... the
kids can learn where this food
comes from and why (they)
Buzz Cummings explains to Nikita Mehta and Raksha Mehta how to make salsa at last year's Farmers Market.
Bucks.
Soraya stressed the impor-
tance of the entire campus com-
munity making strides toward
sustainable eating.
"We're a really big University,"
she said. "It makes more of a dif-
ference when the whole Univer-
sity participates in these things
because there's a lot of people
going towards the same goal."
Keith Soster, food service
director for University Unions,
noted the importance of buying
locally grown produce and said
all produce at the sale will have
been grown within a 250-mile
radius of Ann Arbor.
"When you can get it locally
and support the local vendors I
think that means a whole lot to
the community," Soster said.
In addition to today's market,
CSG will host a second sale on
Sept. 27 in the gallery of the Dud-
erstadt Center on North Cam-
pus and a third on Oct. 11, in the
courtyard of the Union.
Soster said more markets will
provide an opportunity to sell
different produce as growingsea-
sons change. He said the October
sale will feature pumpkin and
squash, whereas "(in) the first
one you'll see more things like
should eat it, why (they) should
want to grow it," Green said.
Though Green said she wasn't
sure if the plants are still being
cared for since the summer
ended, she recalled one boy who
carefully monitored his creation.
"There are a few who were
keen on having their own plant,"
Green said. "One kid had some,
I think it was okra, that he was
watching grow, and maybe some
pumpkins. So every week he'd
come back and just look at his
plants and take care of them."
Growing Hope in Ypsilanti
LSA sophomore Shaina Shetty
says gardening can change lives.
As a researcher at Growing Hope
in Ypsilanti last summer - a
non-profit devoted to spreading
awareness about gardening and
healthy food - she documented
how gardens can elevate a neigh-
borhood's aesthetic and help
generate an interest in nutrition.
"It starts spreading through
observation, when you see
someone in your neighborhood
gardening," Shetty said. "We'd
plant a garden in one house and
the house next door would see it
and say, 'Hey, this is interesting,
let's do this.'"
If families qualify for the pro-
gram, Growing Hope volunteers
help them set up a personal gar-
den. For the first year families
are required to produce certain
food, but after a year, what they
grow is up to them. Gardens that
began as one raised-produce bed
flowers."
Not only will University chefs
educate students on sustainable
eating and provide recipes, but
farmers will attend to discuss
their crops and the challenges
involved in the growing process.
One of the farmers will instead
bring honey to the market, since
his usual apples were decimated
this year by inclement weather.
"That'll be an important edu-
cational piece for our commu-
nity," Soster said. "It's important
for everybody to understand how
availability affects price, and sea-
sonality affects price, and how
devastations can affect every-
thing."
Soster mentioned that in addi-
tion to the market, the U-Go's in
the Union, will continue to fea-
ture Farm Fresh Wednesdays,
during which students can buy
fresh produce every week until
the end of the growing season.
Soster said Farm Fresh Wednes-
days, which began in the first
part of July, are "a beautiful
thing."
"I think it was really great for
our community to see that num-
ber one, we partner with local
vendors, that we have produce
available for them to pick up, and
would soon turn into full-blown
gardens that families could tend
to until their entire lawn was
covered in food and flowers.
"Some of these gardens are
gorgeous ... they are definitely
pieces of art in some cases,"
Shetty said.
Not only could families that
wouldn't ordinarily have access
to fresh food now grow their
own, but according to Shetty, the
artistic beauty of the gardens
makes neighbors more likely to
invest in their neighborhoods.
"Community gardening
works as a whole, everyone in
the neighborhood is working
on it. If you're not working on
it your mom is working on it, or
your friend and so there's a lot of
potential," Shetty said. "It's been
a community building effort ...
people are less likely to destroy
something that's already so
beautiful."
Growing Hope pulls many
volunteers and interns from the
community in which they work.
Shetty saw how children who
began by helping out in their
family gardens would soon com-
mit to helping their neighbors
start their own sustainable gar-
dens with the aid of Growing
Hope.
She discussed one woman she
knew who, before starting her
garden, said she had a low iron
count. By the end of the summer
she attributed her normal iron
count to the food she'd been eat-
ing from her garden.
"I've always just seen eating
then thirdly, that they can take
those items and taste it," he said.
Erica Wald, manager of
MHealthy Nutrition and Weight
Management, which promotes a
culture of health at the Univer-
sity, said the program acts as a
"support arm" for the markets
and reaches out to the Univer-
sity's faculty and staff to attend
the sale.
In addition to chefs from the
University Unions, Wald said
MHealthy chefs will create vari-
ous "MHealthy approved" reci-
pes that will be featured at the
sale. MHealthy recipes promote
the use of whole grains, fruits,
vegetables and healthy fats, and
all meet the MHealthy Nutrition
Guidelines.
Wald said she was encour-
aged to continue to support the
sale after experiencing the great
enthusiasm pervading last year's
sale.
"People are there and they
are thankful that you're there,
they're excited to see food dem-
onstrations and taste the food
and talk to the farmers, there was
a great energy," she said.
Students are encouraged to
bring reusable bags to carry their
purchases.
food as a thing you do, I've never
really given thought to it," she
said. "Like eating fruits and veg-
etables, I took it for granted in my
household, and for some people
that's not normal," Shetty said.
An ever-changing landscape
Though students like Syed
may denounce the craft of gar-
dening, those who are in groups
such as Growing Hope and
Cultivating Community work
throughout the year to educate
people on how practical and
fruitful the practice can be.
"Yes, we have a lot of peo-
nies because they look cool, but
there's also just a lot of research
that goes into that and there's a
heritage behind it too," Green
said of the peonies that annually
blanket the Arb in a sea of purple
and pink. "It's more than just
looking at flowers. It's educa-
tion, and community outreach,
and just giving people a place to
rest and re-collect themselves
and find peace."
From using deconstructed
milk cartons to grow plants in
Ann Arbor, to watching children
become invested in their health
in Detroit, to creating beautiful
landscapes and neighborhoods
in Ypsilanti through gardening,
it appears that gardening has
multiple functions.
"Landscapes change over-
time," Green said. "Humans
change them, they change on
their own. Here's a chance to see
it happening."
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hough I consider myself that influence us at the most
a competent movie impressionable time of life. We
reviewer, I recently cannot be critical of what was
rd my inextricably linked to our fond-
iv- est childhood memories, and has
orever been with us as long as we can
d by an remember.
cable Yet there's something about
fBolly- Bollywood asa whole that
movies. always keeps me coming back
those for more. I want to believe in it.
under a More often than not, my main
e pop- PROMA criticism of cerebral cinema is
e rock, KHOSLA that it's too real. Movies should
wood" be an escape from reality, into
to Hin- worlds where people sing about
uage Indian cinema, so love and dance on trains. I like
for being based out of the my media content to cross genres
Bombay (now Mumbai). and impart hopeful themes. That
any of my Indian friends, I'm so enamored of the films
up a child of two worlds, I've grown up with speaks to the
is unignorably reflected in immense amount of care with
te in films. which these stories are crafted
a's movies, like its food, and brought to life. A Bollywood
en described as having the film is, above all, a labor of love.
'of masala - a spicy blend It is notan industry ploy for
re elements - to elicit the money and awards, but a tribute
elicious and entertaining to the most beautiful aspects of
's that skillful integra- this life.
story facets that makes Indian cinema makes an art
rood so compelling and of masochism, fillingyoung
ible for Hollywood to people's heads with ambitious
e. Bollywood films don't dreams of romance and resolu-
to the constricting West- tion that may never come - but
undaries of genre; almost is that so bad? Thanks to Bolly-
production features action, wood fantasy, the world may be
y, drama, romance and the a more optimistic place, waiting
istinct component: music. to be filled with color and song.
movies are almost always I'm old enough to face the fact
Is, and with a liberal use that no singing, dancing hero is
label. dreaming of me from afar, but
that tiny glimmer of hope has
made me a better person.
alt t r ugh It's not uncommon to feel
ality throuw s*"e"""*"
Y D like there simply aren'tenough
he quantity hours in the day to watch all
the TV and movies that interest
Bollywood me. Mainstream and indie films
come and go from theaters with
films, flagrant disregard for cluttered
schedules. Bollywood is even
less considerate, with few films
even comingto local theaters
inordinate consumption and the rest going straight to
ywood content has sig- abysmal DVDs. They are the
itly impeded my ability to long-distance boyfriend who I
normal life. I'm physically will never trulybe with, who
ble of listening to a Hindi strings me along, whom I just
n my iPod without theat- can't quit.
p-syncing and including After two decades of these
oquettish look or gesture movies, life-changing stories
mugshot looks familiar, are few and far between. Even
ause you've had the not- the most shocking twists don't
lusive privilege of judging surprise me. I find most com-
the Diag). mercial Bollywood films to be
ry form of precipitation almost insufferable, but I suf-
like a missed opportunity fer nonetheless for the same
ice and romance. And reason that we all put ourselves
are the vibrant item num- through dreadful media con-
Nhere are the background tent: quality, not quantity. I
's necessaryto support could subject myself to a hun-
ry dramatic and amorous dred asinine movies made with
'or? all the care of a drunk person
e I sound certifiable, let's making Ramen noodles, but it's
it otherwise. Our genera- worth it to get even one that I
the U.S. grew up in the will adore for years to come.
age of animated Disney
s. No matter how many
we watch them, we cannot
the pearly sheen of films
Khosla is going through her
Bollywood collection. To watch with
her, e-mail pkhosla@umich.edu.
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