2nd Annual Slow Food Tufts Brew-Off!

Yes, spring is in the air. The piles of gritty snow are finally almost gone, brave tulip and crocus shoots are poking up, and yes, the smell of freshly-brewed, and quietly fermenting beer is in the air. Or at least it is in my closet, where I have my freshly minted batch of homebrew fermenting away, just in time for this year's second annual SLOW FOOD TUFTS STUDENT HOMEBREW COMPETITION!

Calling all brewers and brewer-curious folks in the Tufts graduate student community! Get your worts started now, as submissions to enter the brew-off are due April 1st! More details on how to enter are below (and in case you missed the fun of last year's competition, I've included a brief write up and photos of the event).

Slow Food Tufts Brew-off and Beer Luck!

Thursday, April 28

5:30 to 7:30 pm

Jaharis Cafe - Boston Campus

What is a brew-off?

A brew-off is a fancy name for a student home-brew competition- ALL Tufts graduate students, including Slow Food Tufts members, are eligible to enter. Don't have your own equipment? Collaborate and enter with a friend! Beer will be judged by a panel of expert brewers and beer aficionados. Prizes go to judges' and student favorites. Brewers must submit at least 1- 6 pack or 3- 22oz bottles of their home-brew, but are encouraged to bring more to share!

What is a beer-luck?

SFT's twist on the traditional potluck - instead of a dish to pass, bring your favorite beer to share with others!

How to enter the competition...

In order to officially enter the brew-off, email your name, school/program and type of beer you'll be brewing to rachael.kirk@tufts.edu by APRIL 1st! Any entries received after this date cannot be guaranteed entry into the competition.

Sarah Kasten, Rachael Kirk, Bridget McElroy, Juli Obudzinski

Brew-off committee

Highlights from Slow Food Tufts 2010 Brew-Off...

Over 100 graduate students from the Frieman, Dental, Medical, Fletcher and UEP Schools crammed crammed into the Jaharis Cafe on the Boston campus on April 29, 2010, for our first ever graduate student homebrew competition! Even former Dean Irwin Rosenberg showed up to partake in all the beer tasting festivities!

The brew-off started with a general tasting, where students, accustomed to the nature of Slow Food events, filled up their own tasting mugs/thermoses/mason jars/dixie cups with 2oz samples of beers that were entered into the Brew off. Students also brought various and sundry beers to contribute to the Beer-Luck, so rest assured, there was plenty to imbibe in.

18 homebrewers entered a total of 16 beers in the competition, which were judged in 3 separate categories.

Group 1: Ales, Pilsners, Blondes (India Pale Ale, Honey Blonde, Classic American Pilsner, California Common, Pale Ale and an India Red Ale)

Group 2: Belgian/Wheat (Belgian, Ginger Wheat, Belgian Triple, Weizenbock, and Heffeweizen)

Group 3: Darks (German Alt, Porter, Altbier, and Gingered Pale Ale)

Our esteemed panel of judges included Randy Baril, owner of the Modern Homebrew Emporium in Cambridge; Joe Connolly, beer buyer at Gordon's Liquor in Watertown; David Lytton, certified beer judge and tour guide at Harpoon Brewery; and Bert Boyce, beerologist at Samuel Adam's Brewery in Jamaica Plains.

Beers were judged on aroma, flavor, appearance, mouthfeel and overall impression. The winning brews included the Pale Ale, submitted by Friedman students Vladamir Kustanovich and Jesse Roberts, the Belgian Triple, submitted by Dental School student Scott Recksiedler, and the Gingered Dark Ale submitted by UEP student Alex Reisman.

Prizes included Samuel Adam's merchandise, a selection of collectors edition craft brews, gift certificates to the Cambridge Brewing Company, Lord Hobo, and the Modern Homebrew Emorium.

Last year's brew off was an absolute blast, and proved to be THE perfect way to wind down an otherwise chaotic spring semester. So mark your calendars for this year's competition - THURSDAY APRIL 28TH, and if you're thinking about brewing, submissions are due the week after spring break on FRIDAY APRIL 1ST.

Let the brewing begin!

Tufts Does Trivia!

Here on the downtown Boston campus of Tufts, we have several separate schools full of grad students working towards degrees in the health sciences (nutrition, dentistry, public health, medicine, biomedical science, and more). While we all pass by each other in the library and around campus, it’s not often that we have events involving more than one school. This all changed on a recent Thursday night, when students from the Friedman, Dental, Medical, PHPD, and Sackler programs came together to test their trivia knowledge! With questions submitted by professors from various disciplines, as well as some pop culture and Boston-specific trivia, everyone had their chance to shine – and to be occasionally stumped. Teams combining brainpower from various schools did appear to have an advantage in the competition, with both the winning and runner-up teams bringing together different programs.

Matthew Hast, Director of Admissions at the Friedman School, was a fantastic host for the night as he took the 100 or so students in the room through eight rounds of questions. Afterwards, everyone was able to mingle (and debate some of the answers) at Sweetwater Tavern nearby.

Some fun facts we learned throughout the night:

o The Boston Marathon began in 1897!

o It takes 5000 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef.

o Only 2 – 3% of Massachusetts residents are currently uninsured for health insurance, compared to 15% in the general U.S. population.

o There are more than twice as many players on the New England Patriots roster than OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) inspectors in Massachusetts. (67 Patriots, 33 OSHA inspectors)

Slow Food would like to thank the PHPD program, Medical School, and Dental School for their help in organizing Trivia Night, and particularly the PHPD program for providing everyone with pizza! We hope everyone had a great time, and look forward to more cross-campus events.

Bread-Baking Skillshare

This past Saturday, three Tufts Slow Foodies (Maya Behar, Maggie Holmes, and I) squeezed into a tiny, yet lovely kitchen in Somerville to learn all about the art of hearth bread-baking from our very own Nicole Tichenor. Nicole took us through a recipe for Pain de Campagne, or “country bread”, explaining all of the intricacies involved in the two day process. For time’s sake, Nicole prepared three loaves (two boules and her first baguette) in advance so that she could show us how to set up the oven for hearth baking. The hearth baking method involves placing a skillet filled with water on the top rack and misting water on the sides of the oven to produce steam, causing the bread to rise rapidly and resulting in a delightfully crispy crust. The loaves were done in only about 15 minutes but required at least 45 minutes to cool, leaving us with plenty of time to chat about everything from wedding planning to the science behind good bread. Amidst the conversation, Nicole put the three of us to work to create our own batch of dough, using the starter, or Pâte Fermentée, she prepared the day before. We each took turns mixing ingredients and kneading the dough until the consistency and temperature was just right and ready for the first of several rises. We rounded out the afternoon with a small taste of the finished baguette and each left the skillshare armed with a loaf of freshly baked bread, a printed step-by-step recipe, and the knowledge and confidence necessary to try hearth bread-baking in our own kitchens. In fact, Maya wasted no time and picked up some bread flour and yeast on her way home!

Three key take aways from the skillshare:

1) Use good quality ingredients

2) Follow directions EXACTLY (this is where I usually go wrong!)

3) Stay focused and “keep your head in the bread”

Thanks again to Nicole for sharing her bread-baking skills with us!

Vanishing of the Bees screening: Bad News but Sweet Honey

Students in the Agriculture, Food and Environment program (or students who take Ag classes at Tufts) learn a lot about soil science, fertilizer use, and most of the inputs necessary for plants to grow inside our agricultural system. But rarely do we hear about the pollination services (namely, honeybees) that are also needed to grow most of the food we eat (in fact, 1 out of every 3 bites of food that you take is produced with the help of honeybee pollination).

This Sunday, Slow Food Boston, Slow Food Tufts, and Slow Food BU teamed up to host a screening of the documentary “Vanishing of the Bees.” This movie, narrated by Ellen Page (Juno and Inception) shed light on the current research into Colony Collapse Disorder, how it affects different beekeepers, its implications on agriculture, food safety and society as a whole, and what is being done to remedy the situation. I highly recommend the documentary for anyone interested in learning more about beekeeping and pollination services in agriculture and current events related to Colony Collapse Disorder. This issue may turn out to be a large political and scientific problem in the near future, and all Slow Foodies should educate themselves about it in order to best promote clean and fair food.

After the movie, a panel of local beekeepers(including Golden Rule Honey and Allandale Honey Co) discussed their feelings about the film and their personal experience working with beehives. One overarching theme of both the film and the panel is that there is a new wave of hobby beekeepers in the U.S. Many major cities (including Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, and New York) have made backyard beekeeping legal again, and Michelle Obama even installed a beehive into the organic garden at the White House. Lastly, we all got to taste the delicious, original honey produced by these local beekeepers. Local honey has such a distinct taste, and can change in taste and color depending on what crops honeybees get pollen from.

It was a pleasure to watch this eye-opening film, hear from local apiarists (and taste their honey) and meet members of Slow Food Boston and Slow Food BU. Hopefully there will be many more opportunities to collaborate on events in the future!

Watch the trailer here:

Vanishing of the Bees - Trailer from Bee The Change on Vimeo.

Also, thank you to Slow Food BU for hosting the event!

Slow Food tea-tasting

I was lucky enough to hold a tea-tasting last week, with the sponsorship and support of Slow Food Tufts. The turnout was a bit low, but this has a lot to do with the date chosen, President's Day, when a lot of people are gone for the weekend. Still, the company was lovely and we had some great teas!

Preparing for the event, I headed down to the Tea Zone at 15 Elm Street, Somerville, where I was amazed by the selection of teas. After careful browsing, I finally purchased 2 oz. of peach white, 2 oz. of Milima estate black, 2 oz. of cream Earl Grey, and 1 oz. of gyokuro green. The guy behind the counter was really nice, and I was unhappy to notice a "for lease" sign on the front window as I walked out.

I then went to the supermarket and got ingredients, out of which I made blueberry muffins and new-to-me cucumber sandwiches, which were just those little pumpernickel cocktail breads, with chive cream cheese and cucumber slices on top. Recipes for those vary somewhat; this was my own variation.

In attendance was Elana Brochin who brought with her a minty "tisane" (or herbal tea), Isaac Anderson (engineering grad student) who brought his delicious homemade chai latte, Catherine Owens who brought a smorgasbord of teas from her travels in Bolivia as well as some deluxe jasmine green tea, and Becca Weaver who dashed over from a flurry of meetings to join us.


We started with the gyokuro green, a premium Japanese tea that called for just two minutes of steeping with comparatively cool, 140 degree F water. This produced a very light brew with a surprisingly rich, earthy flavor. Next was the jasmine green tea that Catherine brought with her, which, simply upon opening the tin in which the tea came, elicited oo's and sighs from everyone around the table. The jasmine was indeed very strong in that pot and left my apartment with a pleasant after-smell, which was complemented well by the next pot we brewed, the peppermint-clove tisane brought by Elana. We made the collective decision that an herbal, non-caffeinated tea would be good for our next round, and it was a good choice, with the herbs opening up our throats and tasting like a summer garden.

It was at this point that Elana had to leave our company and we were sad to see her go. After that, our tea-time looked more like this:At this point, we made the decision to get into the teas of which I'm particularly fond: the black teas. Most commonly, these are your Liptons and Tetleys, etc. However, I had purchased the Milima estate black earlier and was raring to give it a try. Kenyan teas are generally of the Assam variety (generally what is used to make Irish breakfast teas), making very strong, dark brews. Unfortunately, I simply overdid the steeping time while my favorite teapot's spout became clogged. As a result, this was our least successful pot, becoming bitter with tannins, though it made an excellent case for the value of milk or cream in darker black teas.

Around this time, we all start getting both a bit giggly from caffeine and a bit groggy from two hours of tea-drinking, but we pressed on to one of my favorite teas, and probably my very favorite flavored tea: cream Earl Grey. Tealuxe sells this as Creme de la Earl Grey, but they are made the same way, by adding vanilla oil to Earl Grey tea, which is usually black tea with bergamot (a kind of citrus) oil on it. The result is a truly creamy taste (including the texture which is very slightly oily due to the added flavors), and Becca noted aptly its similarity to yellow birthday cake.

Though that sounded like dessert, we decided at that point that our tea-tasting needed to wind down, as we all noted emerging hiccups and general fa-tea-gue. It was time for one more treat: Isaac's homemade chai latte. Boxed Oregon Chai is simply no replacement for authentic chai latte, but even less so for it being freshly made and brought to your home in a glass jar. As we finished, we all breathed a sigh of relief, and also gradually realized that three hours had passed, with us simply sitting in one place, enjoying novel flavors and each other's company without noticing President's Day slowly passing us by. Numerous cucumber sandwiches, almost a whole pan of muffins, and five pots of tea plus a jar of chai latte later, my friends went home with some extra of their favorite new discoveries in tow and the feeling of freshness and subtle elation that tea delivers. I very sincerely hope that we can do this again soon.

Thanks to Slow Food Tufts for your sponsorship of this event!

-Jeff Hake