One of the reasons I love living near New York City is the opportunity to attend events like I did last night. I had the great fortune of spending an evening with Frances Moore Lappe, her daughter Anna Lappe, and 100 of their closest friends. It was the 10th Anniversary of their Small Planet Fund, and an auction was held to benefit this year’s grantee, Real Food Now (see realfoodchallenge.org). The event took place in a beautiful private loft in Soho, NYC, and guests included many from around the region who work to support local food production, fresh food access for all, and healthy options in schools — such as Catherine Gund, maker of the film “What’s On Your Plate?” and Bhavani Jaroff, of Slow Food Huntington. It was a pleasure to meet Frances Moore Lappe, whose seminal book “Diet for a Small Planet” published in the 1970s created such a wave of awareness, and it is doubly inspiring to see how her daughter Anna has followed in her footsteps. They co-authored the book, “Hope’s Edge” several years back, and each have newer books out since then: Frances has written “Eco Mind” about the psychology of changing our attitudes towards the earth, and Anna has written “Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It.” See smallplanetfund.org.
