For Immediate Release
April 1, 2006
Contact: Katherine Newell Smith
301-907-7590
kns4pr@erols.com

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Les Dames d’Escoffier and National Gardening Association
Join Forces to Save the Planet…One Green Salad at a Time

We have all heard the stories about children who think salad comes in a bag, milk comes from a carton and the only living cow they have seen is on television.

Well, Les Dames d'Escoffier (LDEI) and the National Gardening Association (NGA) are joining forces to create new stories in which more Americans better understand the link between rural and urban farms and their tables. They aim to champion the benefits of growing and preparing nutritious food. Beginning in April, which is National Gardening Month, and continuing throughout the year, LDEI chapters throughout the US and Canada will focus their volunteer efforts towards helping a variety of established garden-to-table organizations in their communities.

LDEI has named the program its Green Tables Civic Agriculture and Garden Initiative. Members will lend their considerable expertise to teach cooking classes, help farmers develop retail products, teach at-risk youth kitchen skills and coordinate farm visits among other culinary-related activities. The goal is to help strengthen those programs and broaden their reach. The NGA members through its GROW campaign, will offer their talents to those same organizations to teach and develop better growing methods.

"Our members are leading cookbook authors, cooking teachers, vintners, public relations executives, chefs and other culinary-related professionals. And, NGA's members range from hobbyists to professional landscapers." says LDEI President Pat Mozersky of San Antonio, TX. "Yet we all share a common passion: to help people…especially children…connect with the land, where their food comes from. When they take part in tilling the soil, raising produce and preparing it in meals, then they can begin to enjoy better health and closer connections that dining with friends and family provide."

The 26 US and Canadian LDEI chapters have chosen from six Green Tables programs:

• Grow-Cook-Share — Inner city growing projects that transform an urban corner into a cornucopia of food.
  
• Adopt a School Garden * — Provide garden, culinary and nutrition-related education to schools to enhance the impact of garden education, link it to health and the enjoyment of healthful food.
  
• Rehabilitative Gardening — Growing projects that engage individuals on probation or youth who are required to attend court-ordered programs.
  
• Farm-to-Restaurant — Promotional projects that connect restaurants with local growers.
  
• Garden/Farm-to-Market — Professional skills-sharing projects for gardeners and farmers to develop or enhance their food business.
  
• School Wellness — Health promotion projects for schools that help develop recipes for healthier menu items with more fresh food and promote healthier vending options.

Each chapter takes on one or more projects, members offer their professional skills and mentoring in areas of need and they track the programs’ development.

Chipotle Mexican Grill has generously offered to hold fundraisers in select Les Dames chapter cities where they have restaurants to help support the programs. Chipotle has a long-standing interest in providing wholesome, high-quality food to its customers in nearly 500 communities across the US. In 2002, it introduced naturally raised meats and sustainably grown produce to its menu as part of its “food with integrity” program that supports family farmers and sustainable agriculture.

LDEI (www.ldei.org) is an international educational and philanthropic organization of women with exceptional achievements in the culinary field. The National Gardening Association (www.garden.org) is an educational organization whose mission is to spread the pleasures of gardening far and wide.

*Adopt-a-School Garden is a program of National Gardening Association that is being co-sponsored by LDEI. For more details go to: http://assoc.garden.org/ag/asg/
Adopt-a-School Garden Contact: Keri Evjy, 802/863-5251 x122, keri@garden.org

Green Table Advisory Board
Abby Mandel , Author and Founder, GreenCity Market, Chicago
Marion Nestle, Author “Food Politics” and Professor, New York
Nora Pouillon Asia Nora, Washington DC
Cathrine Sneed, The Garden Project (San Francisco))
Alice Waters, Chez Panisse & The Edible Schoolyard (Berkeley)
Ann Yonkers, Farm Fresh Market, Washington DC

Educational sponsor:

Les Dames d’Escoffier International Chapters
Adelaide, Australia · Atlanta · Austin · Boston · British Columbia, Canada · Charleston · Chicago · Cleveland · Colorado · Dallas · Hawaii · Houston · Kansas City · Los Angeles · Miami · Minneapolis/St. Paul · New York · Ontario, Canada · Palm Springs · Philadelphia · Phoenix · San Antonio · San Diego · San Francisco · Seattle · Washington, D.C. ·

Greg Jewell, Executive Director, P.O. Box 4961, Louisville, KY 40204, USA
(502) 456-1851, Fax (502) 456-1821 ldei@aecmanagement.com, www.ldei.org