Last weekend, while people everywhere downed burgers and beer, one upstate cookout also served up ideas for farm policy change. I’m talking about Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s annual Labor Day BBQ.
Catered by Great Performances and held at their Katchkie Farm, the event brought together about 150 of the Senator’s Hudson Valley supporters — including her mom. Guests feasted on foods grown right on site, with a heaping helping of food systems thinking.
The wish-I’d-been-there menu included bbq chicken, sweet corn succotash, heirloom tomato salad and Kinderhook Farm’s hamburgers and hot dogs, washed down with watermelon-water, Chatham beer and Millbrook Wine. But the conceptual meat came when the Senator spoke about everything from land preservation to growing new farmers and fighting hunger by keeping SNAP strong: issues we can all sink our teeth into.
Held our annual #LaborDay bbq today at @KatchkieFarm in #Kinderhook, #NY. Thanks to all who came, we had so much fun! pic.twitter.com/viGcnH42P9
— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) August 30, 2014
And when it was all over, even the pigs ate well.
Photo credit: Michael Molinski.
