Highlights from Farm Aid 2007

Yesterday Kristin Donnelly and I attended the 22nd annual Farm Aid concert, a marathon of music and food held this year—for the first time—in New York City. Between bands I recorded a few highlights:

• Eating a slice of spicy sausage pizza from American Flatbread, made from Vermont ingredients.
• Watching The Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz getting booed for drinking Fiji water onstage.
• Running into a crutches-bound Michel Nischan (broken foot, climbing accident), who tells me about his latest project, Greenwave, which will turn locally grown ingredients into prepared foods for colleges and universities. He’s test-piloting the concept at Vassar right now.
• Running (literally) into Daryl Hannah at the recycling bin (compost compartment).  I’m never going to throw a banana peel in the garbage again.
• Listening to a fellow from the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance give a long, expository explanation of the chemical processes behind the conversion of animal fats to fuel, then following it up with the question, “Does chicken-fat fuel smell different than pork-fat fuel?” (The answer is yes, and I’m told the best-smelling fuel comes from french fry–infused vats of lard.)
• Eating a juicy pork brat from Patchwork Family Farms and washing it down with a hoppy Peak Organic Beer.
• Willie Nelson shilling for soy milk: “Let’s give it up for Silk Soy!”
• Kristin calculating the carbon miles of beer: “Which is more eco-friendly: Heineken in plastic cups or Budweiser in a bottle?”  
• Making a mess of myself while eating an ear of butter-soaked grilled corn from Sparky’s All-American.
• This profoundly confusing statement from Dave Matthews: “Good food makes better people. Good people like better food.”
• And in his next breath: “[That tomato] made my mouth hurt it tasted so good.”