Sunday APRIL 21, 2013 | 1:00 - 5:00 pm | free admission

Agriculture has played a significant role in the history and economic development of southwestern Alberta. Inspired by the success of last year’s Earth Day community event celebrating slow food, the Galt Museum & Archives and Slow Food Southern Alberta Convivium [SFSAC] invite you to walk, bike, skate or skip on over to the Galt this year on Sunday, April 21 from 1:00 – 5:00 pm for Museum Community Day: Earth Day — a chance to meet local producers, sample local foods, and take in tastings and cooking demonstrations.

Local producers including Birds & Bees, CR Fruit Farm, Earthly Matters Vermiculture, Fieldboxes, Mocha Cabana, New Oxley Garlic, Naturally!; Poker Cattle Co., Red Engine Coffee Roasters, Room To Grow, Screamin’ Brothers, Thoz Bars and others who are part of a worldwide network of over 100,000 members in 1300 Slow Food Convivia will be on hand.

A mini-store featuring Urban Grocer — a local grocery located in the former Tin Tin building on 9th Avenue South which carries products from a number of the vendors represented — will be set up to sell local foods: be sure to bring your shopping bags! Umami Shop, soon-to-open in downtown Lethbridge, will offer demos on the half hour.

“We will be demonstrating the basics of Umami cooking and showcasing the basic ingredients for the audience to familiarize themselves with,” says Patricia Luu, who, together with brother Alex Luu and third partner Sven Roeder, will open their store in early June at 812 – 4 Avenue South. Their parents, Louis and Thao Luu, have operated the Asian Supermarket in Lethbridge since 1984.

This is the second concept store for the trio; the first has been operating in France for three years. “A team of three, we have combined the knowledge we have gained through our world travels to bring healthy, specialty, simple, and easy choice ingredients to Southern Alberta, because life is too short to eat bad!”

The featured producers are also featured in the SFSAC directory The Faces of our Food, a free booklet first published in 2012 which has been updated for 2013. Printed copies will be available at the Earth Day celebration, and online at www.slowfoodsouthernalberta.com.

“The 2013 "The Faces of our Food" directory provides information on the folks committed to leading the way towards positive change,” says Jackie Chalmers, President of SFSAC, “a change where we will continue to grow our food locally and make that food available for feeding our own on a larger scale.”

“Having access to good, clean, fair, local food is a significant step towards food sovereignty, a fundamental shift in focus from food as commodity to food for public good,” explains Chalmers. “Food can again assume its central role in strengthening communities, ecosystems and economies. Food sovereignty is a way to put the "culture" back into agriculture, and helps ensure food security for all.”

“Our Earth Day Museum Community Day offers a unique opportunity to visit the museum as a family, to meet some of the people who might produce the food you prepare at home, and to learn a bit about the science of food,” says Community Program Coordinator Leslie Hall.

“If you “Bring Your Own Cup” you’ll receive a free coffee at the Museum Store, and if you have left your car at home for the afternoon you can enter our draw for some great goodies.”

Admission is free, and includes access to the Discovery Hall where visitors can take in the traveling exhibit Canadian Science & Engineering Hall of Fame, organized and circulated by the Canada Science and Technology Museum, and made possible in part through funding support from the Department of Canadian Heritage. For more information on other Galt Museum & Archives happenings, visit www.galtmuseum.com.