Movie star Salatin coming to town

Next week, Charlottesville gets a visit from the most famous farmer from the Shenandoah Valley town of Swoope, Joel Salatin. He'll be signing copies of his new book, Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front, at the New Dominion Bookshop, to kick-off a veritable Salatin extravaganza.

Salatin, a star of the local food movement ever since his Polyface Farms' leading role in Michael Pollan's 2006 book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, is featured prominently in two food industry documentaries hitting theaters across the country:

• the hard-hitting Food, Inc., from the same folks who brought you the Oscar winning Al Gore-backed documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and
• Fresh, which focuses more on the positives of smaller, sustainable food businesses.

There'll be a screening of Fresh at Vinegar Hill Theater at 7pm on July 29, right after Salatin's 5pm book-signing at New Dominion, and the star farmer will join a panel discussion at Vinegar Hill after the film. (Food, Inc. opens Friday, July 24 at Staunton's Visulite Cinemas.)