The Nashville Food Project’s Blog
Salad Train
This year's lettuce harvest has allowed us to include beautiful salads on over 2,000 meals thus far. This photo is one of the beautiful salads we've made that included TNFP lettuce, strawberries from Nashville Grown and hard boiled eggs from Foggy Hollow. Thanks to all the hundreds of volunteers that planted, tended, harvested, washed, chopped and made these tasty dishes to help us nourish our community.
Many Friends
Our onions are growing strong. Thanks to this awesome group from Friends Life for mulching them well with straw to keep the soil cool and moist. Thanks friends!
A Splash of Color
Our stir fry entrees were topped with TNFP grown cilantro and served along side our fresh salads. This meal made for a colorful week in our prep room and garden. We hope you are enjoying spring produce!
Sharing Hospitality along with a Meal
A mens group from Woodmont Christian Church pose with Tallu before taking their monthly truck run to Murfreesboro Road, where they share a meal with residents of Mercury Courts. Woodmont, its members and its Senior Minister Dr. Clay Stauffer have been so supportive of our work from the beginning. We are grateful!
In the garden
GM Financial sent out their A-team to volunteer recently in our gardens. They turned compost, planted carrots, and harvested spinach without one word of complaint on the first day to break 90 degrees this year. Thank you for all the hard work!
A Sweet Donation
This Cub Scout troop sent along something special with their donation.
Cub Scout Troop 221 recently donated 200 delicious made-from-scratch cookies for our meals to be served at Operation Stand Down. They included this sweet note along with their gift! If your group is interested in providing dessert for any of our meals, contact Anne Sale at anne@thenashvillefoodproject.org. We'd love to put you on our calendar!
Strawberry Salad Forever
Doesn't that look delicious?!
TNFP grown lettuce, local strawberries, donated feta and toasted almonds made for some beautiful salads this week. These salads will be included in 250 meals.
Starbucks in the Garden
What was Starbucks up to in the garden?
This awesome group of Starbucks managers volunteered at our Wedgewood Urban Gardens. Glad to see them still smiling after two hours of pulling weeds, prepping soil and laying irrigation lines. Must be all the caffeine. Thank you Starbucks for supporting our work!
KLD Farm
Looking for local responsibly-raisedmeat? Check out this farmer.
Lucy and Ken Drinnon with Tallu at their gorgeous KLD Farm in Ashland City. They donated almost 200 pounds of beef and pork to our Meals program last week. KLD raises happy, healthy animals on plenty of green pasture. Visit Ken on Saturdays at the Nashville Farmer's Market and purchase their delicious and responsibly-raised meat. We love these dear people!
Tomatoes Tomatoes!
Hmmm. Wonder if they planted enough?
These Harpeth Hall 8th graders planted the first 50 tomatoes of our summer tomato crop. We're excited about the San Marzano, Cherokee Purple, Black Krim, Tropic and Brandywine headed for our kitchens. Do you have a favorite heirloom tomato variety?
Bring on the pie!
We served how much pot pie???
Pot pie that is. We served over a thousand servings of chicken pot pie last week. That means cook teams rolled and baked homemade biscuits to top each serving. This entree came alongside roasted sweet potatoes, garden salad and a Christie Cookie! This is food we are very proud to share in our community. We'd love to have you spend time in our kitchen helping prepare delicious meals. Check out our volunteer opportunities HERE.
Growing Community
What have our community gardeners been up to?
Community gardeners at our Wedgewood Urban Gardens planted their summer crops recently. Everyone is eager for the first ripe tomatoes, peppers, green beans and more. What's the summer vegetable you've missed the most since last year?
Good Enough to Eat!
What a unique way to learn about fruits and vegetables!
Learning while using these beautiful handmade fruits and vegetables certainly make us want to eat the real thing!
We could not be more thrilled with the latest art project that students at Ensworth High School have completed for us. We now have two full binders of incredibly detailed felted vegetables to use in our educational 'nutrition rainbow' activities with youth and for ESL support with the refugee community gardeners with whom we work. We so appreciate their creativity!
The Urban Gardening Festival is Saturday
Come visit our booth at the Urban Gardening Festival and learn how easy - and helpful - it is to make soil blocks to start your seeds.
Come visit with us this Saturday, May 16, from 9am-4pm at The Urban Gardening Festival on the campus of Ellington Agricultural Center, 5201 Marchand Dr, Nashville, TN 37211. We'll be there demonstrating our soil block technique for starting seeds. This free event is designed to educate and engage visitors with local artisans, exhibitors, gardeners and vendors from throughout the Greater Nashville area. There's so much to learn and experience - plan to spend a fun day!
Dollar General gets cooking!
This great group of folks from Dollar General spent a recent morning in our prep room working on potatoes and veggies for one of our favorite meals - shepherd's pie. Finished with a sprinkle of freshly grown TNFP parsley, this hearty meal served 75 residents at Mercury Courts. Great Job Dollar General!
Garden Beauties!
We're happy these two lovely ladies paused a moment from their work to have some fun for the camera. Stop by sometime to see what all their hard work has produced. Linda has outfitted our new herb dryer with shelves and Madi has filled the greenhouse with seedlings for our final Project Grow pick up this week.
It's here!
We are so excited to have this new walk-in freezer installed behind our office! Just in time for freezing the abundance of summer crops that come our way. A huge thank you to Judy Wright and Christ Church Cathedral for making it happen!
Cake Mix to Cookies!
We've discovered a delicious way to prepare both almond and lemon cookies from a yellow cake mix. Thank you Anne Byrn AKA "The Cake Mix Doctor" for sharing your excess cake mixes with us!
Last summer, students from the Oasis Center worked in partnership with The Frist Center to make this beautiful art installation that hangs over the refugee toolshed at our Wedgewood Urban Gardens. Some of the students continue to volunteer weekly in the garden and are proud to show their artwork to their peers from the International Teen Outreach Program.
Turkey (and chicken) pickers!
Here's the best turkey pickin' group in Nashville! Almost 100 pounds of turkeys & chickens were turned into pot pies made with a a rich, homemade broth and lots of fresh vegetables. Our office smelled like grandma's house for days!