At this year’s Saratoga Wine & Food Festival, besides bringing your appetite and favorite designated driver, we’d suggest dusting off your thinking cap. In the days leading up to the festival, which takes place October 4-5 at the Saratoga Spa State Park, host the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) will be presenting a series of free, public educational events under the “Cultivate Series” heading, running from October 1-3. The arts organization has teamed up with Pitney Meadows Community Farm and Skidmore College to bring them to the public.
The Cultivate Series will begin on Tuesday, October 1 at 7pm at Skidmore’s Falstaff Pavilion with a presentation from Ayurvedic cooking expert Austin Peltier, entitled The Science of Life: An Introduction to Ayurvedic Cooking. At the end of the presentation, audience members will be able to taste the fruits of the Ayurvedic cooking practice.
On Wednesday, October 2 at Pitney Meadows, Leah Penniman, an educator, cofounder of Grafton, NY’s Soul Fire Farm and author of Farming While Black, will be leading a workshop entitled, “Building a Just Food System with Leah Penniman” at 3pm; and four hours later, giving a lecture, entitled “Farming While Black: African Diasporic Wisdom for Farming and Food Justice.”
The following day, the Cultivate Series will come to a close with a 7pm lecture by Adam Federman, author of Fasting and Feasting about Patience Gray, also at Pitney Meadows. Federman will be discussing his biography about the titular slow food and foraging pioneer.
Below, see a full schedule of Cultivate Series events (though free, each event requires a reservation, which can be made here):
Tuesday, October 1 at Skidmore College’s Falstaff Pavilion (7pm) – The Science of Life: An Introduction to Ayurvedic Cooking with Austin Peltier
Wednesday, October 2 at Pitney Meadows Community Farm (3pm – 4:30pm) – “Building a Just Food System” with Leah Penniman; “Farming While Black: African Diasporic Wisdom for Farming and Food Justice” (7pm)
Thursday, October 3 at Pitney Meadows Community Farm (7pm) – “Fasting and Feasting” with author Adam Federman