Composting and African Cuisine

On Fridays, we always start off with a discussion of how things have been going and what needs to change.  We decided it would be best to switch up the work groups every two weeks.

Our first set of speakers for the development session today were Liz Falk and Talia from CCE who came to talk to us about composting.  They spoke to us about how compost works and why it’s important to do, especially on a farm. Then we talked about how composting is going to work at Southside specifically.  We decided to have a bucket next to each trash can at Congo Square Market, as well as one in the kitchen, as long as we know someone is going to be able to remove the waste each week.  Two people volunteered to have signage made for next Friday.

Our second speaker was a Cornell professor named Jackie Sayegh-Birch who gave a presentation on the culture of African foods.  In her presentation, she described a bunch of festivals in different African countries that are focused around celebrating food.  She came back from Wegmans after her presentation and gave us some samosas, a traditional food from Liberia, her native country.

After the presentations, Kirtrina Baxter helped a group prepare a meal for the rest of us which included some lemon parsley chicken, spinach linguini with garlic sauce, sauteed collards, and zucchini.  I’m hoping that more and more people will be interested in eating the vegetables that are cooked for them.  As of now, there are a few people that are hesitant to branch out from the foods that they’re used to.  However, most of the group thoroughly enjoyed this lovely meal.