On September 18-25, we attended a slow cheese festival as part of the Slow Food movement, people dedicated to food of all kinds being “good, clean, and fair.” It’s an international event in the heart of Italy´s Piemonte region, in a little town called Bra. There were aperativos (tastings), conferences, guided visits and tour groups, workshops, film screenings of a documentary, and live music and vendors. It’s led by Chef Barb Alexander, the Culinary Director. Bra is the Slow Food movement’s headquarters, being that Bra is a designated Slow Food town, and they organize and put on this Cheese Festival every 2 years. They have numerous other events for other specific foods at different times of the year. There are booths placed throughout the town, cheese vendors being the majority and the main attraction, but there were many other vendors as well. From beekeepers with honey, any sweet flavor you can imagine— any berry, chocolate, coffee flavored, to bread and pastries from bakeries, cannoli, gelato and sorbet makers, organic milk producers, butchers and their meat, breweries, wineries, I could go on. It was awesome to see so many people come together to celebrate sustainability and support small businesses in the process. Even something like having separate recycling bins for sorting different types of recyclables and having very little trash is more than most places are doing. Taking the steps to reduce waste as much as they can, I believe earns them respect. They’re setting an example for other towns to begin to follow, and that’s how real change on a larger scale spreads.