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Health & Fitness

Autre Monde to Host Author / Organic Gardening Expert Jeanne Nolan for Farm to Table brunch, Booksigning and Lecture

In conjunction with Author & Gardening Expert, Jeanne Nolan,  Med - focused Autre Monde Café & Sprits Chefs Dan Pancake & Beth Partridge have created a 3-course vegetable centric  brunch menu to accompany a lecture and signing by Ms. Nolan.  She will discuss how you put your garden “to sleep” for the Chicago winter.  The event will occur October 5th, 11am to 1pm.  It is part of Autre Monde’s green focused event program which they launched in conjunction with their Green Seal Certification. It began with a wine dinner featuring natural wines and continues with this signing and lecture.

Jeanne Nolan, the founder of The Organic Gardener Ltd., has designed and cultivated more than 650 farms and food gardens in and around Chicago—in downtown parks, public school yards and inner-city shelters, on restaurant rooftops, townhouse terraces and suburban estates, even in the mayor’s back yard.  Nolan, also the designer of and project manager for The Edible Gardens at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo—is part of a nationwide initiative urging us to change the way we think about our food. In her debut FROM THE GROUND UP: A Food Grower's Education in Life, Love and the Movement That's Changing the Nation (Spiegel & Grau Hardcover, now on Sale)—an engaging blend of how-to, manifesto and memoir—Nolan shows us that it has never been easier to grow the vegetables we eat, regardless of whether we make our home on a rural farm, in a city, or in the suburbs. At a time when more Americans than ever before are cooking healthy food from scratch, Nolan is taking the movement to the next level and teaching and inspiring us to grow healthy food from scratch.

Responsible for designing and implementing The Edible Gardens, a 5,000-square-foot vegetable garden for children at the world-famous Lincoln Park Zoo which welcomes 25,000 visitors a year, Nolan is also a consultant for corporate outreach programs like Hidden Valley Ranch's “Love Your Veggies” campaign and speaks to audiences ranging from Kraft executives to the Garden Club of America to the Holistic Moms Network.  She also writes “Grow Your Own,” a weekly blog on Babble.com.

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Interspersed with her personal story, Nolan provides essential facts and insight (including an Appendix of “Ten Lists of Ten Essentials for Every Aspiring Gardener” that will educate even the greenest of green thumbs on the sustainable “seed to table” approach that is sweeping the country, including:

v The five principles that will help you grow food anywhere, whether on a rural farm, in the city, or in the suburbs: sunlight, soil, fencing, paths, and irrigation.

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v If the 160 million acres of U.S. farmland devoted to growing soybeans and corn alone were farmed organically, a total of 580 billion pounds of carbon dioxide could be effectively scrubbed from the atmosphere each year. And anyone—as a simple first step—can turn part of her backyard into a beneficial carbon sink by planting an organic garden.

v The Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that children more than doubled their overall fruit and vegetable consumption after their parents grew a food garden in their yard.  More nutrient-dense than conventional produce, homegrown fruits and vegetables can improve the eating habits of adults and children and help prevent diabetes, obesity, and some cancers.

v Among the easy-to-grow vegetables that Nolan recommends for the beginning gardener are arugula, greens, beans, beets, broccoli, carrots, cucumbers, peas, and potatoes.

v A recent National Gardening Association study found that the average family with a vegetable garden spends just seventy dollars a year on it and grows an estimated six hundred dollars’ worth of vegetables.

Equal parts inspiring, deeply personal, and instructive, FROM THE GROUND UP will appeal to urban gardeners, armchair gardeners, and anyone with a vested interest in healthy, delicious, affordable food.

Event tickets are $60 per person (available at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/443992) and include; the lecture a three course local farm brunch with lemon thyme sparkling cocktails & fresh juice and a signed copy of Ms. Nolan’s book.

About Autre Monde
Located on the border of Berwyn & Oak Park in the heart of the Roosevelt Road entertainment corridor  at 6727 W. Roosevelt Road, Autre Monde Café & Spirits a Green Seal Certified Restuarant is open Tuesday through Thursday from 5 to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. and Sunday from 11a.m.-2 p.m. (Brunch) and 5p.m. to 9 p.m. (Dinner). Reservations are recommended and may be made by calling (708) 775-8122 or online. Street parking available and valet on Fridays & Saturdays. Stay up to date with Autre Monde by visiting the restaurant’s website, blog, Facebook page, or Twitter feed.

ï FROM THE GROUND UP ð

 A Food Grower’s Education in Life, Love and the Movement That’s Changing the Nation ● By Jeanne Nolan

Spiegel & Grau ● On sale July 16, 2013 ● Hardcover ISBN: 9780812992991 ● eBook ISBN: 9780679644477

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