Happy Friday, all!

I am so glad for the weekend. This week, much like last, was incredibly slow at work. I’d rather be busy than searching for things to do in order to appear busy, but I survived.

Something that did help the week go by, however, was seeing a film at the Crescent Theater last night and getting gyros to go from Mediterranean Sandwich Company (my favorite!) afterward. (Keeping with my month of thankfulness theme, for #8, I’m thankful my job doesn’t require overtime or weekend hours; for #9, I’m thankful to live in a city with an abundance of good food.)

Normally, we stay at home on weeknights, but I think we’re going to start getting out one night a week—whether it’s just for a meal, a movie, or some other local event. We may be past our college days of partying one night and surviving work/class the next, but we’re still in our 20s for God’s sake!

I want to talk about the documentary we viewed, “Eating Alabama.” Directly from their website:

A story about why food matters.

In search of a simpler life, a young couple returns home to Alabama where they set out to eat the way their grandparents did – locally and seasonally. But as they navigate the agro-industrial gastronomical complex, they soon realize that nearly everything about the food system has changed since farmers once populated their family histories. A thoughtful and often funny essay on community, the South and sustainability, “Eating Alabama” is a story about why food matters.

I enjoyed the film primarily because I share some of the same curiosities and feelings about our food industry as the couple. After viewing films like Food, Inc. and reading books such as Food Matters and In Defense of Food, I’ve made an effort to change the way I eat. While my ancestors were not farmers like this couple’s, my paternal grandmother’s family owned large amounts of land in the neighboring county, which is historically rural. They no longer own land, but I do feel a connection to the few remaining farms that are interwoven between subdivisions and strip malls.

Upon moving back to Alabama, Andrew Beck Grace and his wife, Rashmi, embark upon the challenge to eat entirely locally-sourced foods for one year. The film is often funny—like when Grace loads a hunting rifle for the first time or when he dubs their several-hundred mile “grocery trip” from north Alabama to the coast an “unsustainable model of sustainability”—but it’s serious, too.

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Throughout their journey, the couple learns where some of their food is grown and how it’s processed. They join a CSA while also planting their own garden. The filmmaker broaches the subject of the corporate nature of farming (i.e., proprietary seed and the over-use of harsh pesticides) after hearing the stories of a few remaining small farmers, one of whom was sued for copyright infringement by Monsanto.

The film also shares the more personal story of the filmmaker’s grandfather. His grandfather grew up on the same farm worked by several previous generations, yet left as a young teenager. It’s through his grandfather’s stories—and photos—that the filmmaker questions his own naïve, romanticized view of farming and, in the end, adopts a hopeful, less cynical view of its future.

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“Eating Alabama” premiered at Austin’s SXSW Film Festival this past March; it’s also been a selection at several small festivals throughout the country, even winning best film at the Indie Grits Festival in Columbia, SC.

If you live in the San Francisco area, you can catch the film this weekend. It’s playing tonight (8:30) and Sunday (10:00 AM) at the Napa Valley Film Festival. It will also play at the San Francisco Doc Fest Sunday (2:45) and Monday (7:15 PM).