UW-Milwaukee Union

GENERAL INFORMATION

UNION MAP

CAMPUS MAPS

SITE MAP

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
UW-Milwaukee’s semester long experience of food, culture, & the environment

In the Fall of 2010, UWM will explore how food connects us to the environment, our culture, and to each other. Our daily choices reflect our values and personalities, all the while impacting our planet and our health. Through films, workshops, cooking discussions, an art exhibition and UWM’s new “green” book club, and building to the exciting visit by author and food activist Michael Pollan on November 10 in the Union Wisconsin Room, students, staff, and faculty can engage their taste buds and minds together and provoke a little food for thought.

Food for Thought is a collaboration of Student Affairs, the Office of Sustainability, the Office of the Provost, & Academic Affairs.

All programs, unless otherwise noted, are free and open to the public.
For more information, call 229-3111

Distinguished Lecture Series presents
An Evening with Michael Pollan
Author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food

defense
Wednesday, November 10 – 7pm
Union Wisconsin Room

Advance tickets:                                Door tickets (evening of event)
$5-UWM students                               $8-all students
$8-non UWM students                       $20-UWM Faculty/ Staff/ Alumni
$15-UWM Faculty/Staff/Alumni          $25-General Public
$20-General Public

For the past twenty-five years, Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where nature and culture intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in the built environment. He has engaged the population in conversations about how what we eat affects our health, as well as our environment, our economy and our political systems. In his talk at the UWM Union, Pollan will discuss how we can eat and raise food in ways that sustain our bodies and our environment with a message that reaches across communities and addresses one of the most urgent questions currently being asked – what should we eat?

Michael Pollan is the author of the bestsellersIn Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto and The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, which was named one of the ten best books of 2006 by the New York Times and the Washington Post. Pollan's previous book, The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World, was also a New York Times bestseller and his most recent book, Food Rules, was an immediate # 1 New York Times bestseller upon publication. Pollan was also one of the featured experts in the Academy Award-nominated documentary film, Food Inc. Pollan was named to the 2010 TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of the world’s 100 most influential people. In 2003, Pollan was appointed the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism.

For more on Michael Pollan, visit
michaelpollan.com

Sponsored by UWM Union Programming, UWM Union Sociocultural Programming, UWM Restaurant Operations, UWM Bookstore, UWM Office of Sustainability, Milwaukee Public Radio, with the assistance of other partners. Tickets may be purchased at the UWM Bookstore (starting August 30) in person or by calling 414-229-4201 or1-800-662-5668. For more information, call 414-229-3111.

The Eat Local Challenge

September 1 – 15

The Challenge is about taking time each year to reflect on what we choose to eat and our impact on the world around us. Challenge yourself – to see what you can live without and what new sources of foods you can find – and to enjoy. It’s really about thinking local first, doing what you can – and looking for local alternatives that support our communities and economy.

For more information, visit eatlocalmilwaukee.org

The Milwaukee Eat Local Challenge is a collaborative effort of Slow Food Wisconsin Southeast, Outpost Natural Foods, Urban Ecology Center, Fondy Farmers Market, and Westown Farmer’s Market.

College Food Rules Booth

Wednesday, September 1 • 4-6pm
Tuesday, September 7 • 11:30am-1:30pm
Klotsche Center/Pavilion Atrium

For UWM students only!
A registered dietitian will guide you on making good food choices

Sponsored by Recreational Sports and Facilities

Corn Roast

corn
Wednesday, September 8
10am-1pm – Spaights Plaza

Come enjoy some locally grown corn!

Sponsored by Student Association

Friends of Real Food Potluck

potluck
6-8pm – Urban Ecology Center

Savor and celebrate local food. Share a potluck dinner and discussion at a monthly gathering close to UWM at the Urban Ecology Center, 1500 Park Place in Riverside Park.

For more about sustainable food programs at the UEC, visit
www.urbanecologycenter.org/sustainablefood.html

All Things Food Brown Bag Series:
The Story of Food, with Mai Phillips

Monday, September 13
12-1pm – Union 340

All Things Food Brown Bag Series: The Story of Food, with Mai Phillips.
If Americans were to restrict their diet to foods strictly of North American origin, we would eat cranberries, blueberries, pecans and wild rice but not much else. Imagine Italian food without tomato sauce or Thai and Indian curry without chili pepper. Yet these vegetables were unknown in the Old World until Columbus set foot in the New World. Join us for a stimulating talk on the story of food.

Dr. Mai Phillips is the Coordinator of the Conservation and Environmental Science (CES) Program at UWM.

Sponsored by CES and the Office of Sustainability

Food for Thought Film Series: Woman on Top

Thursday, September 16
7pm – Union Theatre

Isabella (Penelope Cruz), a Brazilian chef, has a talent for whipping up passion as well as spicy, sensual cuisine. Displaced from her home country and estranged from her husband, she nevertheless finds herself on top as her cooking show, Passion Food Live, is an instant hit in San Francisco. Woman on Top is a sensuous feast for the eyes and a beautiful portrait of home, friends and the magic stuff of life. Preceded at 6pm by a food tasting of a Brazilian dish in the UWM Union, room 240.

Sponsored by Union Programming, Union Theatre and Restaurant Operations

Broke Students' Guide to Eating Out on a Budget
Tuesday, September 21
12-1pm – Wisconsin Room Lounge

Interested in receiving insightful information on dining out in Milwaukee? Join food critic Stephen Carlson as he provides students with tips and ideas on where to find low cost meals, special deals, or unique budget-friendly places to eat on a budget.

Sponsored by Union Programming

Conspicuous Consumption
Friday, September 24
Opening reception – 5-7pm – Union Art Gallery
(Artist talk with Patty Chang – 4pm)

This art exhibition presents the work of three national artists, Mark Menjivar, Patty Chang, and John Riepenhoff whose art explores the idea that food reveals identity. Mark Menjivar’s series of photographs entitled You Are What You Eat examines the interiors of refrigerators in various homes across the United States. Exploring and testing the acceptable boundaries of taste and endurance, Patty Chang’s work often critiques perceptions of female sexual roles and exploration of the body.

Milwaukee-based artist John Riepenhoff will present Physical Pizza Networking Theory. Riepenhoff's practice as an artist investigates the specific workings of the contemporary art condition: cultural value, market influence, community aesthetics, art placement, as well as expanding the limitations of art as object and document.

For more information about the Union Art Gallery, visit
unionartgallery.uwm.edu

Sponsored by Office of Sustainability

Artist and food activist
Mark Menjivar
Thursday, October 7
7pm – Union Art Gallery

Artist and food activist Mark Menjivar will talk about his photographic series You Are What You Eat, showing in the Union Art Gallery exhibition Conspicuous Consumption.
(see 9/24).

For more on this artist, visit http://www.markmenjivar.com

Food for Thought Film Series:
Ratatouille
Saturday, October 9 – 3pm & 7pm
Sunday, October 10 – 5pm
Union Theatre

In this animated adventure, a rat named Remy dreams of becoming a great chef despite the obvious problem of being a rat in a rodent-phobic profession. When fate places Remy in the city of Paris, he finds himself at the restaurant made famous by his culinary hero, Auguste Gusteau. Despite the dangers of being an unwanted visitor in the kitchen at one of Paris’ most exclusive restaurants, Remy forms an alliance with Linguini, the garbage boy, who has discovered Remy’s amazing talents. They strike a deal, setting into motion a hilarious chain of events that turns the culinary world of Paris upside down.

Sponsored by Union Programming and Union Theatre

An Evening with
Heather Rogers, Author of Green Gone Wrong
Thursday, October 14 – 7pm
Union Art Gallery

Green Gone Wrong takes the reader into forests, fields, factories, and boardrooms around the world to draw out the unintended consequences, inherent obstacles, and successes of the products and practices that pledge to remedy today’s environmental woes. Reporting from a large-scale export-driven organic farm in Paraguay, a super low-energy “eco-village” in Germany’s Black Forest, biodiesel plantations in the slashed and burned rainforests of Borneo, and drought-plagued Southern India where trees are being planted to offset carbon emissions in the United States and Europe, Green Gone Wrong pieces together a global picture of what’s happening in the name of today’s environmentalism.

Sponsored by Union Programming

CAMPUS SUSTAINABILITY DAY
Wednesday, October 20

UWM participates with college campuses across the country in a day
celebrating sustainability with special events and activities.

7:30-10am – Union Ballroom
Organic Pancake Breakfast
Free for students with ID -- $3 for campus community

Feeling some mid-term stress? Come to the Ballroom for a healthy breakfast to feed your body and rejuvenate your spirit. Enjoy organic pancakes, fruit, juice and tea, locally produced syrup, and Fair Trade coffee. Treat both yourself and the earth well with a delicious and sustainable breakfast.

Sponsored by Union Programming and Restaurant Operations

4-6pm – Union 240
Green Book Club:
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
- By Michael Pollan

All students, faculty, and staff are welcome to the inaugural Green Book Club, hosted by the Office of Sustainability. Once a semester, the green book club will gather to discuss a book selected for its relevance to the sustainability movement. For the Fall of 2010 we will be reading Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food” in honor of the author’s visit November 10. Food, our potential daily interaction with the environment, has been reduced to food science, and not the product of nature. Pollan simply states: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Discussion will focus on our understanding of nutrition, food choices, and its relationship to sustainability.

6-7pm – Union 240
Get Involved, Local Food & Garden Exhibit
- By Michael Pollan

Meet local organizations that are engaging in local foods,
victory gardens, and healthy eating.

Sponsored by UWM Office of Sustainability

7pm – Union Theatre
The Great Food Revolution – 24 Hours, 24 Million Meals: Feeding New York

The Big Apple– one of the major world centers of art, culture, finance, fashion, and food. Eight million people clamor for three square meals a day. How does one of the world’s most populous centers, a city of concrete, glass, and steel, feed itself? 24 Hours, 24 Million Meals shows the complex choreography of distribution that keeps New Yorkers fed. It’s a dance of supply and demand that happens in cities all over the world, every day.

Sponsored by Union Programming and Union Theatre

Cultural Cinema presents
The Meaning of Food: Food and Life (1st in a 3-part series)

Monday, November 1
7pm – Union Fireside Lounge

The Meaning of Food is a three-part documentary series that explores our relationships to food and reveals the connection food has to our identity. Travel across America to learn how food does much more than nourish the body, but how what we eat and with whom we eat can inspire and strengthen the bonds between individuals, communities, and even countries.

Sponsored by Union Sociocultural Programming

Broke Students' Guide to Grocery Shopping and Healthy Eating

Tuesday, November 2
12-1pm – Wisconsin Room Lounge

Learn unique ways to save money and eat healthy on a budget. Get insider tips and advice that actually work for a college students' budget.

Sponsored by Union Programming

Food for Thought Film Series:
Babette's Feast

Wednesday, November 3
7pm – Union Theatre

One of the most beautiful food films ever made! Set in the late 1800’s on a remote and barren coast of Jutland in Denmark, Babette’s Feast is the story of two devout older women, sisters who take in a French woman fleeing from political violence in Paris. Babette stays with them for fourteen years as their cook until one day, she wins 10,000 francs in the Paris lottery. The goodbye meal she prepares for the sisters and the old members of their religious sect is a sumptuous feast of French food and wine that causes the sisters to fear for their souls.

Preceded at 6pm by a food tasting of a specialty dish in the UWM Union, room 280.

Sponsored by Union Programming, Union Theatre and Restaurant Operations

Cultural Cinema presents
The Meaning of Food: Food and Culture (2nd in a 3-part series)

Monday, November 8
7pm – Union Fireside Lounge

In 1825, renowned gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote “Tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell you who you are.” Explore how food shapes us and our culture, and learn how it can be the thing a culture clings to with the greatest passion, against the tide of mainstream America.

Sponsored by Union Sociocultural Programming

All Things Food Brown Bag Series:
Food Labels with Julia Syburg

Monday, November 15
12-1pm – Union 340

What is Maltodextrin and what is it doing in my food? Please join Julia Syburg from Norris Health Center in examining how to read our food labels.

Sponsored by Recreational Sports and Facilities and Office of Sustainability

Cultural Cinema presents
The Meaning of Food: Food and Family (3rd in a 3-part series)

Monday, November 15
7pm – Union Fireside Lounge

Food is a tie that binds families together in powerful and pervasive ways. Through the rituals of shopping for food, preparing it, and even eating it, bonds are forged and memories are created. Come view how food plays a large part in defining family roles, rules, and traditions.

Sponsored by Union Sociocultural Programming

Culture Café

Tuesday, November 16
12-1pm – Wisconsin Room lounge

Culture Café creates a time and a space for all globally-minded members of the UWM community to interact and get to know one another over snacks and a brief presentation on the featured culture. Join us for this special event during International Education Week and the focus will be Middle Eastern culture. All are invited to attend and share their insights and expertise.

Sponsored by Center for International Education and Union Sociocultural Programming

If You Are What You Eat, Shouldn't You Know What's In Your Food?

Wednesday, November 17
12-2:45pm – Union Concourse

Join the students of Conservation and Environmental Science Course 490 as they present their findings on the source and origin of ingredients found in commonly processed foods.

Sponsored by Conservation and Environmental Sciences

Food for Thought Film Series:
Eat Drink Man Woman

Thursday, December 9
7pm – Union Theatre

A visually delectable film set in Taipei that tells of age-old family tensions as a chef shows his love for his three daughters by preparing elaborate Sunday dinners while they rebel against the traditions he and the food represents. A story about fundamental needs – family, love, food, sex – that unfolds in modern China, framed by the unique artistry of Chinese cooking and cuisine.

Preceded at 6pm by a food tasting of a specialty dish in the UWM Union, room 280.

Sponsored by Union Programming, Union Theatre and Restaurant Operations