Garden Fresh

The menu plan for the upcoming week's meals is all inspired by what vegetables are growing in our garden--and, for our non-vegetarian meals, what meat is eager to be defrosted from the freezer.

Monday:
Radish Greens Soup (from our garden)
Brown-bread Toast with Goat Cheese and Homegrown Radishes
Deviled eggs with Paprika and Homegrown Chives

Tuesday:
Roast Chicken
Homegrown Broccoli Rapini
Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Orange Zest
Arugula and Lemon Balm Salad (from our garden)

Wednesday:
Enchiladas with goat cheese, mushrooms, onions, and homegrown mustard greens
Wednesday Cocktail of the week--Mojitas made with homegrown mint

Thursday:
Chicken soup with Wild Rice, Leeks, and Homegrown Greens (made from leftover chicken from Tuesday)

Friday:
Steak Diane
Homegrown Salad with Arugula, Sorrel, and Radishes
Balsamic Strawberries with Ricotta Cream

Saturday:
Marcella Hazan's Simple Tomato Sauce
Telephone Cord Pasta
Assorted Salad Greens from the garden
Blueberry Muffins (dessert, to be held back from our CSA's "muffin luck" celebration of the opening of the season)

Sunday:
Homemade Vegetarian Sushi
Strawberries

I've found a few great online link lists of meal plans, including Menu Plan Monday and Mindful Menus. Check out all the inspiring links!

Meal Planning, Week 3

Although I've spent most of my life as a seat-of-the-pants cook who loved to invent dinner on the fly out whatever was in season (or in the pantry), I've really enjoyed the last few weeks of planning a week's worth of meals in advance.  I've over-ridden my intuitive instincts for a little while--and I'm trying lots of new cookbook recipes.  By doing this, I'm learning some new techniques, experimenting with some new flavors, and getting lots of ideas for the future.

Last week's meals were almost exclusively from Aviva Goldfarb's new SOS!  The Six O'Clock Scramble to the Rescue: Earth-Friendly, Kid-Pleasing Dinners for Busy Families. She, after all, was the person who got me intrigued with the whole idea of meal planning to begin with.  Her recipes are interesting and tasty, beautifully easy to follow, and really quick to make on busy evenings.  I loved the meals filled with all the wonderful flavors of spring.  And we especially enjoyed her Shrimp and Grits!



We also loved the leftover asparagus soup which we served chilled.  David and I ate it for lunch one day (while our son was visiting friends), along with homegrown radishes on toast with fresh butter:




*  *  *

This week, I thought I'd try out some recipes from the marvelous food memoirs I've been reading.

Monday:
Chicken Thighs with Cinnamon and Dates
   from Kim Sunee's Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Roasted Asparagus

Tuesday:
Wild Greens Turnovers with Lemon Bechamel sauce (vegetarian)
Basil Panna Cotta
   both from Cathy Erway's The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove

Wednesday:
Channa Masala over Brown Basmati Rice (vegetarian)
   from Shoba Narayan's Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes
Homegrown Broccoli Rapini
Mango Lassis

Thursday:
Out for a book signing by one of my son's favorite authors
Travel Salad (vegetarian)
   from Emily Franklin's Too Many Cooks: Kitchen Adventures with 1 Mom, 4 Kids, and 102 Recipes
Carried "to-go style" in our tiffin

Friday:
Flank Steak with Chimichuri
   inspired by Tara Austen Weaver's The Butcher and the Vegetarian: One Woman's Romp Through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis (but recipe here)
Assorted Salad Greens from the Garden
Sweet Potato Pie

Saturday:
Chicken Thighs Braised in Pomegranate Molasses
Roasted Cauliflower with Smoked Paprika and Cocoa Powder
  both from Shauna James Ahern's Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found the Food That Loves Me Back...And How You Can Too

Sunday:
Bouchon au Thon
   from Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table
Steamed Asparagus
Strawberries

* * *

I found a few online link lists of meal plans and have really enjoyed clicking to see how everybody makes their menus. Two of my favorites are Menu Plan Monday and Mindful Menus.

What are you thinking about eating this week?  Are you being inspired in the kitchen by books?  Or are you being most moved by all the asparagus, strawberries, garlic scapes, or fresh peas coming into the farmers market?

Great-Granny's Pound Cake

This has been a week full of celebration.  My birthday and my son's birthday fall just two days apart during this beautiful season of azaleas and dogwoods.  We both always want the same cake, so we often celebrate with it on the day between our birthdays.



The cake we both love so much is from a recipe my great-grandmother (for whom I was named) brought over from England when she immigrated.  Her daughter made it often, her granddaughter made it often, I make it often, and now my son can help continue the tradition.

*  *  *

 Great-Granny's Pound Cake

3 cups sugar
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
6 eggs
3 cups flour
1 cup heavy cream
1 lemon, zested and juiced

1. Bring the butter and eggs to room temperature.

2. Prepare a tube pan or a bundt pan by greasing it with butter.  Sprinkle flour in the pan and shake to distribute.  Dump out any remaining flour.

3. Cream the butter and sugar until light and smooth.  A good stand mixer makes this process much easier, but you can do it with a hand egg beater if you are patient and strong.

4.  Add eggs, one at a time, and beat them in well.

5.  Mix in the lemon zest and lemon juice.

6.  Alternately add a little flour and a little cream and mix until all is incorporated.  Don't overbeat.

7.  Pour into the prepared cake mold, using a rubber spatula to get every last bit.

8.  Put the pan into a cold oven and set the temperature to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.  Cook for 90 minutes or until it is golden brown and smells heavenly.

9.  Let it cool a bit, if you can wait--especially if you're putting wax candles in, which will melt into the cake otherwise!

*  *  *

One of the tricks that makes this cake turn out so well is to use cream, butter, and eggs from grassfed animals.  I know those are the only things my great-grandmother had access to, but it means making a decision these days.  Going grass-fed means this gastronomical splurge is a bit better for you since these ingredients will be higher in vitamin E, omega 3 fatty acids, and conjugated linoleic acid than conventional eggs and dairy would be.  (You're also reducing the chance of food poisioning if you lick the delicious batter from the bowl!)

"Scrambling" for a Spring Menu Plan

Last week, I made an official meal plan for the first time--and loved the relaxed feeling it gave me at 5:30 or 6pm when I carried my laptop into the kitchen and turned on a podcast (often The Splendid Table) while I cut veggies for a meal already thought out. Although I've always adored reading cookbooks, I've rarely actually followed a recipe without major changes. I did this week--and we had a couple of meals that were quite different from the meals I normally create.

We did change a few things around. I forgot to defrost the chicken, so we had stuffed potatoes with goat cheese and rapini that night (instead of chicken, baked potatoes, and sauteed rapini). I changed the meal plan to reflect how we actually ate.

One of the best things about the week of meals had nothing to do with the planning itself. This was the first week when our local farmers market sold asparagus! We ate it for two meals--one roasted, and one steamed. Perhaps because we've spent a long winter deprived of these offerings, or perhaps because of my spring birthday, asparagus and strawberries are my absolute favorite foods ever. Well--and okra. And Brussels sprouts. Oh--and oysters, or shrimp.... And I couldn't live without rice.... (Yep, I'm a coastal South Carolina girl at heart, no matter where I live now.)

For those of you who read my first meal-planning post last week, you may remember that I was inspired to try meal planning by conversations with--and then a book talk by--Aviva Goldfarb, creator of The Six O'Clock Scramble and the author of the fabulous new eco-cookbook SOS! The Six O'Clock Scramble to the Rescue: Earth-Friendly, Kid-Pleasing Dinners for Busy Families.

This week will be a plan almost entirely inspired by recipes from Goldfarb's book.  All of these main dish recipes--and even many of the side dishes that accompany the mains--are hers (more or less), with the exception of Saturday evening.

*  *  *

Monday:
A Night at the Opera
Beef Empanadas (made with homemade dough)
Kale
Carried "to-go style" in our tiffin

Tuesday:
Indian-spiced Salmon over Brown Basmati Rice
Spinach with Mushrooms
Mango Lassi (dessert)

Wednesday:
Orzo Salad with Peas and Feta Cheese (vegetarian)

Thursday:
Cream of Asparagus Soup (vegetarian)
Assorted Salad Greens with Raisins, Cashews, and Sunflower seeds
Homemade Sourdough Bread

Friday:
Spice-tossed Shrimp with Parmesan Grits
Lemon-Pepper Broccoli
Rhubarb Crisp (dessert)

Saturday:
A Day at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival
Homemade Mushroom Pizza topped with Homegrown Arugula (vegetarian)
(dough recipe from The Greens Cookbook)

Sunday:
Lemon Parmesan Fusilli with Asparagus and Spinach (vegetarian)
Strawberries topped with Greek Honey Yogurt

* * *

I found a few online link lists of meal plans and have really enjoyed clicking to see how everybody makes their menus. Two of my favorites are Menu Plan Monday and Mindful Menus.

Next week: menus from great food memoirs!

Food, and Cognitive Dissonance

My 10yo son and I are reading next to each other on the couch.

My book: Cathy Erway's The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove. This book is a lighthearted romp through adventurous but non-restaurant-based eating in New York City. The author incorporates everything from news of her love life, details of parties, friendly information about food politics, and great recipes. It is all about the pleasures of food.

My son's book, being read for the local library's "Banned Books Club": Upton Sinclair's 1906 The Jungle. This book was perhaps the first major food expose, highlighting in VERY graphic ways the horrors of the meat-packing industry. If you think information about factory farms is grotesque, this book will blow you away. (Think workers falling in the rendering vat and being ground up with animal parts.) Although the author's intention was to analyze the terrible working conditions of working class and immigrant laborers, most readers came away shocked by food safety issues and ready to demand changes. As Sinclair said, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."

Menu Planning

Last night, we went to a fabulous talk at my favorite bookstore (ie, the first bookstore I knew was carrying my book). Aviva Goldfarb, creator of The Six-O'Clock Scramble meal planning service, talked about her brand new book, SOS! The Six O'Clock Scramble to the Rescue: Earth-Friendly, Kid-Pleasing Dinners for Busy Families. Aviva worked with David many years ago, and when we found out that she too was obsessed with food and the environment, he was thrilled to reconnect a bit with her.

For those of you who have read my blog for a while, you know I am a dyed-in-the-wool hippie who tries to live in an ecologically sound fashion--and that I often try to challenge myself to create new behaviors that reflect my commitments. Goldfarb's book introduces her readers to the importance of many of the actions my family has taken over the years, from carrying our own bags and shopping at farmers market to eating meat responsibly and beginning to compost. Her book is a great intro to eco-eating for those who are interested in the issue but haven't gotten deeply involved yet.

Although those of us who have been labeled "deep green" or "already off the deep end" may not learn much new green info, the thing I really like about Goldfarb's book is her emphasis on having a plan for the week's meals.

I love to cook and love to invent recipes on the fly. Although I've made detailed plans for Passover or for family visits where things get a bit more challenging, I rarely do more than sketch out a few possibilities for the coming week. Over the last year of so, I have occasionally signed on to Meal Outlaw to try to flesh out a bit of a plan and to spy on other people's methods--but often I wind up logging meals in retrospect.  In my usual real life, I just buy whatever looks great at the market and go from there.

This fly-by-night method works well for my personality about 75% of the time. It is an utter failure at other times. We wind up going out to eat or I talk my 10yo son into cooking or my husband into putting something together at some late hour.  I think I get enough pleasure from the relaxed intuitive cooking during the height of gardening and CSA season that I'm not 100% sure I am ready to totally abandon my method. I suspect that even if I do get hooked on planning, I won't really be sticking to other people's recipes much of the time.

But when I started hearing about Goldfarb's planning method, I was inspired to try something new. I am eager to try out her recipes now that I own her cookbook.  But before I bought it, I spent the past week with a bunch of cookbooks from the library, a pad of paper for making a map of the week, and the commitment to try things this different way.

In poking around online for alternative sources for meal planning, I also found two super-cool blog collectives, Menu Plan Monday and Mindful Menus. Reading the linked posts gave me lots of ideas and further inspiration.

* * *

So here is this experimental week:

Sunday:
Chicken Penne with Pesto and Artichoke Cream
     from Robin Rescues Dinner: 52 Weeks of Quick-Fix Meals, 350 Recipes, and a Realistic Plan to Get Weeknight Dinners on the Table
Roasted Asparagus

Monday:
Caribbean Vegetable Stew (vegan)
     from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day
Brown Rice
Papaya Salad with Ginger-Lime Dressing

Tuesday:
Egyptian Pasta en Crema
     from Hands-Off Cooking: Low-Supervision, High-Flavor Meals for Busy People
Assorted Salad Greens with Papaya Seed Dressing

Wednesday:
North African Cauliflower Soup (vegan)
     from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day
Assorted Salad Greens with Papaya Seed Dressing
Warmed Bread (from the farmer's market)

Thursday:
Butternut Squash Enchiladas with Spinach (vegetarian)
     from Hands-Off Cooking: Low-Supervision, High-Flavor Meals for Busy People
Crunchy Salad

Friday:
Baked Potatoes topped with Goat Cheese, Sauteed Rapini, Leeks, and Mushroom (vegetarian)
     to be improvised

Saturday:
***FAMILY BIRTHDAY DINNER***
Macaroni and Yeast with Broccoli (a special request and an old favorite) (vegan recipe)
     from Vegan Vittles: Recipes Inspired by the Critters of Farm Sanctuary
Assorted Salad Greens
Great-Granny's Lemon Pound Cake
     recipe forthcoming

Sunday:
Shrimp Pomodoro over Angel Hair
     from Robin Rescues Dinner: 52 Weeks of Quick-Fix Meals, 350 Recipes, and a Realistic Plan to Get Weeknight Dinners on the Table
Steamed Asparagus

*  *  *

I am hungry already...

Do you meal plan? I'd love to hear more about your experiences!

Cooking Together

I've been enjoying Too Many Cooks: Kitchen Adventures with 1 Mom, 4 Kids, and 102 Recipes by Emily Franklin in short spurts over the last few afternoons.  It is a great book for picking up in those odd quiet moments that seem to happen here every once in a while--times when I know I can't get deeply into a project or serious book but do want to celebrate the few seconds I have.

Franklin's book is filled with stories of cooking and eating with her children.  She leaves this reader laughing, inspired, and occasionally feeling really lucky to have only one child!  Her stories are a great window into the life of her family--full of that patient-but-very-amused parenting style which feels just right in a book.  It is often too easy for cooks or parents writing memoirs to slip into what seems like a holier-than-thou attitude--and it is equally easy to be too self-critical.  Franklin takes a comfortable playful middle road, where she laughs gently at herself and her family in a way that shows how much she loves the whole shebang.  As she writes in one recipe, after mixing the ingredients into a batter, "let stand for 8-10 minutes or however long it takes you to change diaper/ send e-mail/ sing song/ divert toddler/ explain who Nixon was, or any other kid-related issue."

I immediately identified with the author when she recounts being with her mother in a kitchen shop--a scene which shapes the entire book: "Contained within the shelves there, packed away amidst the plain white plates and jelly jar glasses, were meals as yet uncooked, conversations unspoken, a whole future of smells and tastes and togetherness."  From the beginning, she knew that kitchens and cooking were about connections, about possibilities, and about love.

One Small Change: Eating In Recap

Last month, my "one small change" was to eat dinner every night at home. The month was quite a success--more than I could have predicted.

There were a few rough spots, but not many. On one afternoon, I was craving take-out pizza as we came home from a day at the Smithsonian museums, but by dinnertime we were ready to spend the effort for a home-cooked meal. On the night where I could just not stand the idea of cooking at all, my partner David took over the complete preparations.

One evening, our 10yo son served us a lovely candlelight dinner. He played both chief cook and waiter. He was even the evening entertainment, serenading us with his violin. (He did not play the role of chief bottle-washer, unfortunately.)

We went to a party at friends' house one evening where we had vegan take-out from a locally-owned Middle Eastern restaurant in town. It was yummy and we did not feel like we were cheating at all. There is something about time with friends that changes all the rules.

On the last night of the month, I stayed home recovering from a stomach bug while my fiddling son and his Papa went to a local Scottish pub for a children's Irish music session. (As odd as it sounds, I suspect Irish and Scottish pubs in this country probably do a lot of crossing over....) Like eating at our friends' house, this meal seemed right, even though it technically broke the rules.

So what is it that made these seem like times to bend our self-imposed regulations? I think it is because both times we were after something special--not just the default position. A special event, a time of togetherness, a celebration--these are things I do not want to miss as time goes forward. Even a special meal--be it a cuisine I've never tasted, or a meal at a new downtown restaurant in our little inner suburb, or a feast at an organic or local restaurant--could certainly count. We have no intention of continuing this "one small change" in its extremity--but it has set us up to be more deliberate about our choices.

Of course, when I began to eat again after my stomach bug, it was March--and we immediately went out to my favorite Pho soup restaurant. (David chose a vegan dish, mostly to avoid what is probably CAFO meat. Sometimes, especially in the face of Pho, he is simply a better person than I am.)

I knew I had soul-mates on this eating-in journey, but I had no idea how many I would find. As I mentioned before, my initial inspiration came from The Conscious Shopper--but during the course of February, I also discovered Cathy Erway's blog and also her brand-new book The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove. To celebrate the release of the book, Huffington post sponsored The Week of Eating In--which drew an enormous number of other folks to the same challenge I was setting for myself. And what I thought might be a challenge that could isolate us introduced us to a whole new online community!

Tomorrow: One Small Change for March.

One Small Change: Staying Home

Last month, my "one small change" was to take reusable containers with us when we were out of the house.  We were very good about making sure we had not only our stainless steel water bottles or coffee cups as well as cloth bags with us--perhaps because these have been habits for years.  But this month we were much more consistent about bringing utensils, cloth napkins, and even tiffins or lunchbots with us when we went to restaurants, so we could pack away our leftovers.

This month, inspired by the Conscious Shopper, our goal is to avoid going out to restaurants at all.  For a long time we've been committed to spending the majority of our restaurant dollars at locally-owned places--but for this month, every dinner will be cooked and served at home.

This one small change will dramatically reduce our wastes, potentially reduce our waists as well, definitely lead to healthier meals, lead to a healthier pocketbook, save a bit of gasoline, and give us some extra family time to boot.

I'm a bit late getting this post up--but that simply means I've already had a week on this challenge.  Although I did have one evening where I was craving pizza and a movie, we survived on leftovers and a movie instead.  One of the keys to success seems to be to have the makings for both easy throw-together meals and meals that satisfy the foodie in me.

Although many people swear by having a fixed menu plan, I really like having a list of meals for the week, then stocking the fridge and pantry with those ingredients so we can have the flexibility to choose each afternoon or evening what we would like to prepare.

Things have been really easy for the last few days--since we've been snowed in!

We've set ourselves this challenge just for the short month of February.  We have no intention to keep ourselves completely out of restaurants after the month is over--but I want us to learn from this one small change to keep eating out special--to always be conscious of the choice rather than have it as a default when we're tired.

In the Pot

One of the presents I received for the holidays was a beautiful 4.5 quart enameled cast iron Le Creuset French Oven (usually called a Dutch Oven in this part of the world).

As a big fan of both non-enameled cast iron skillets and slow cookers, I had a feeling that this would be a pot I would love.  And I certainly do: the "French Oven" holds heat tremendously well, it is naturally nonstick (more or less), and it looks absolutely beautiful sitting on the stove or on the table.

Some people love all the bright colors that Le Creuset comes in--but as a confirmed plain-jane, I'm ecstatic about onyx (pure black) and dune (off-white).

* * *

In these cold days and in our cold house, stews and braises feel just perfect. I scoured the library for cookbooks and found several--and know I can adjust slow cooker recipes as well. I'm looking forward to more experiments with this pot.

I also found an interesting cookbook called Glorious One-Pot Meals which uses a technique very different from slow braising. Instead, you layer raw ingredients into the pot, cover, and cook in a very hot oven for forty-five minutes or so.

The technique, which author Elizabeth Yarnell calls the infusion method, is incredibly convenient. All the cook needs to do is chop the ingredients, layer them in the pot, insert the pot in the oven, and head to the couch with a glass of wine and some good company to await the glorious smells which will soon emerge from the kitchen.

The recipes in Yarnell's book are all fairly vegetable-heavy.  As a confirmed veggie fanatic who loves to cook but hates to clean up, I thought I might have found a perfect match with this book.

After cooking a few dishes, though, I am only partly convinced.

While the meals are easy to put together, easy to clean up, and in general quite healthy, they sometimes are a bit pedestrian in their flavors. Although Yarnell takes inspiration from a variety of ethnic cuisines, the recipes are all substantially Americanized--or perhaps "Mid-Westernized" would be more accurate.  Fine--I can spice things up to my own tastes. And pedestrian is just fine for most of our weeknight meals, anyway.

The larger problem for me is that the individual ingredients don't always need the same amount of cooking time, even though by definition that is what they get in this cooking method. Last night's meal (Argentinian Beef) featured both mildly crunchy rice and somewhat limp broccoli.  Perhaps the special South Carolina-grown rice I used had too much bite for this cooking method?  I plan to do a bit more experimenting to see what will work.

One of the things I do like about the cookbook is that while it offers plenty of recipes, it also emphasizes the wide range of possibilities this method makes available to a cook adventurous enough to try out his or her own combinations.  The author actively encourages the reader to imagine new possibilities.  What if I were to skip the rice and add a few root veggies instead?  What if I were to replace the broccoli with mustard greens?  In fact, for tonight's meal, we'll be replacing chicken with some tempeh we've had in our freezer for much too long.

On a cold day, a hot stew coming out of the dutch oven can be just the thing to make us warm.  But having stew after stew, night after night, can get old.  Yarnells's Glorious One-Pot Meals are recipes that are not simply more stews. Although the ingredients are all cooked together, they in general remain quite distinct.  This makes for a nice variation from usual Dutch Oven recipes.

Another thing I really like about the cookbook is that the recipes are written for just two people.  For our family of three, I usually double the recipes (which the author encourages) and pack leftovers for lunch the next day.  But cooking a single recipe--and augmenting with salad or soup or dessert if we need to--might make a lot of sense for us sometimes.

So, in summary: although I do have some reservations about this cookbook, it seems like it will add ease and variety to our basic no-time-to-think weeknight meals.  We'll probably use some of the recipes for nights when we do have time, too.  But I don't foresee this being a go-to cookbook for special meals with company.

Have any of you tried out this book?  Do you have other favorite cookbooks or recipes for the Dutch Oven?

A Young Omnivore's Dilemma

A guest post by my 10yo son Abe, who has just started a new blog. Check out his beautiful first post over there!


The The Omnivore's Dilemma talks about four meals the author eats that can teach us about the different ways food is produced and eaten in the United States. I read the new version for young readers, The Omnivore's Dilemma for Kids: The Secrets Behind What You Eat.


First, the fast food meal.
For his first meal, Michael Pollan ate the classic fast food meal, a hamburger. But what a hamburger means now is very different from the what it used to mean. Farmers get paid very little and aren't always treated fairly. Both chickens and cows often live in feedlots where they are tightly packed together and often kept in the dark. It turns out that cows are not even eating grass anymore. Instead, they now eat corn. And the corn they eat is sprayed with harmful chemicals. Cows eating corn is not healthy for cows and is not healthy for people who eat hamburger, either. One of the problems is that when a cow eats corn, a type of harmful e-coli can develop more easily. The bacteria live in the meat and can kill people who eat it.  Raising food this way is also harmful to the environment.

Second, the industrial organic meal.
For this meal, Pollan cooks only with organic ingredients—that is, foods that are grown without pesticides and chemical fertilizers. With meat, the situation is often the same as above, except the corn is not sprayed. When you eat organic vegetables, you can guarantee that fewer chemicals get in your body. So organic is definitely a step better than the conventional fast food meal. But the way the animals are raised is still a problem and the ways workers are treated also needs fixing.  Also, the food has to be shipped a long way from where it is grown, meaning it requires a lot of oil to get food to the grocery store.  This is bad for the environment.

Third, food grown on a farm.
Joel Salatin calls himself a grass farmer. His cows feed on grass and weeds in the farm's large open pastures. The cows' manure attracts flies and then his chickens eat the flies as natural protein. The manure also feeds the grass and weeds which his cows eat. It is a natural circle that continues without any pesticides or fertilizers or food grown elsewhere. Salatin’s farm Polyface is near DC. I have friends who get their meat from there. Michael has friends that live near Joel’s farm too and so he travelled there to cook a meal for them. On the menu was applewood-smoked BBQ chicken, roasted sweet corn, arugula "rocket" salad, and a chocolate soufflé. This sounds so delicious!  Pollan knew the animals on the farm had lived a good life, the workers there were treated well, and the food was healthier.

Fourth, a hunter-gatherer meal.
For this meal, Pollan only served food that was hunted, gathered, or grown by someone he knew. Angelo Garro is an avid hunter and mushroom gatherer who also fishes and gathers wild plants like fennel. Michael hunted boar with him and also went mushroom foraging. He then held a party and almost everyone who came brought something they had created themselves from special ingredients they found or grew.  I like the way the author talks about how connection with the food we eat means our meals become special.

*  *  *

This book talks about how the food system works. It explains how much is bad and how we can start to fix the problems.  I thought the book was really inspiring.  I knew a lot of the information already from my parents (who read the grown-up version when it came out), but reading this book myself really pressed the information home for me.  Now I often don't order eating meat at a restaurant if I think was raised on feedlots.  (Though I still love Vietnamese Pho soup....)

I highly recommend this book to young readers, as well as to anyone who doesn't have a lot of time or background about food issues.

School Gardens and the Seeds of Change

Poster uploaded by Joan Thewlis


Have you seen the critique of school gardens published recently in The Atlantic?

Imagine that as a young and desperately poor Mexican man, you had made the dangerous and illegal journey to California to work in the fields with other migrants. There, you performed stoop labor, picking lettuce and bell peppers and table grapes; what made such an existence bearable was the dream of a better life. You met a woman and had a child with her, and because that child was born in the U.S., he was made a citizen of this great country. He will lead a life entirely different from yours; he will be educated. Now that child is about to begin middle school in the American city whose name is synonymous with higher learning, as it is the home of one of the greatest universities in the world: Berkeley. On the first day of sixth grade, the boy walks though the imposing double doors of his new school, stows his backpack, and then heads out to the field, where he stoops under a hot sun and begins to pick lettuce.

The author continues that schools should never be "a venue in which to advance a social agenda." They should not try to teach self-sufficiency in the growing and eating of healthy food. She suggests, although rates of diabetes and heart disease are astoundingly high among inner-city communities and others living in poverty, the "suicidal dietary choices of so many poor people are the result of a problem, not the problem itself." Instead of teaching students about gardening and cooking, "the solution lies in an education that will propel students into a higher economic class, where they will live better and therefore eat better." Therefore, the only question educators should consider is "What are you doing to prepare these kids for college?"

At a certain level, I agree with the author: poverty is the problem at the root of so many of our society's ills. And I also agree that the answer to addressing poverty goes way beyond school gardens.

But honestly, addressing poverty also goes way beyond trying to send all students to college.

Students raised in a family and community with less than they need often struggle in academic settings. Yes--college is absolutely a way out of poverty for exceptionally bright students who can fight against the odds. But poverty also prevents many just reasonably bright students from succeeding in academia, no matter how much their teachers drill them in test-taking skills or even teach them great literature. This is terribly wrong--but it is true none the less. Those of us who grew up middle class with educated parents often have an easy time in the classroom, even if we're NOT reasonably bright.   And honestly, not all students (and this has nothing to do with whether they are poor or rich) should be told that college is their only option for creating a productive life.

While school gardens might not solve the problems of poverty, I do believe that they begin to address far more than just the eating habits of students.

Berkeley's Edible Schoolyard is located at a school with a high number of brand new immigrants who speak little or no English yet. While learning English can happen in a classroom with a textbook, language also gets learned in real life when students of many cultures come together in a more relaxed place to grow, cook, and eat food together. They share their native plants, the recipes of their cultures, and their traditions of hospitality. This makes for a place where people can both appreciate each others' differences and see each others' similarities.

For those students who do struggle in the classrooms, the garden offers a place where learning happens in a different fashion--just as the art classroom and the music rooms can. Should these subjects be offered completely INSTEAD of teaching a skill that (as the author states) clearly "improves a child’s chances of doing well on the state tests that will determine his or her future"? No--but leaving these other subjects completely behind--and suggesting they are not at all valuable as real education--denigrates those who now create their lives in fields like these. And of course denigrating the growing of food means that that farmers will never be paid enough or respected enough. It is a vicious circle.

As our world moves rapidly into a time when we have to confront both climate change and severe resource depletion, it seems likely that farmers will be in great demand and treated with much more respect than they have been recently. All students--those who have grown up in families of farmers and those who have grown up thinking food comes from Wal-Mart, those who are living in poverty and those who are living in McMansions--need to know about how sustainable agriculture works.

Barbara Kingsolver approached these issues long before the author of the Atlantic article wrote her inflammatory attention-seeking piece:

The baby boom psyche embraces a powerful presumption that education is a key to moving away from manual labor, and dirt--two undeniable ingredients in farming.  It's good enough for us that somebody, somewhere, knows food production well enough to serve the rest of us with all we need to eat, each day of our lives.

It is our disconnect from growing food and our disrespect for the manual labor that sustains us that leads Americans to, as Kingsolver says, "consider the food industry to be a thing rather than a person. We obligingly give 85 cents of our every food dollar to that thing, too--the processors, marketers, and transporters." The corporatization of our food supply and the high degree of food processing have made farmers almost invisible. If we were more educated about the process of what farmers do to grow our food, perhaps we would "want to compensate or think about these hardworking people."

* * *

So my family plants a few seeds in our tiny garden--partly to produce a few treats here and there and partly to remind ourselves of the skills and labor of those who grow more. We have a CSA share and we meet the amazing growers who work there. We shop at the farmer's market in order to remind ourselves that the food we grow has been nurtured by human hands.

My homeschooled son jokes that this is our own school garden, our own edible schoolyard.

Turning Off Your Brain

Although we do not have a television at home, my entire family gets sucked in by TV when we're staying in hotels. In our travels over the last three weeks, we've fallen in love with the Food Channel.

The fact that it is such a draw and manages to eat up so much time is exactly why we don't have a TV at home!

I especially enjoyed the focus on local and sustainable cooking during the White House Iron Chef show. Did you hear about it?

But last night, as we watched the terrific television personality Alton Brown, I was stunned by the commercials for high fructose corn syrup. Despite all the medical concerns suggesting that its safety is not a given and the agricultural/environmental concerns about monocropping corn, the Corn Refiners Association has put out a set of advertisements designed to get us not to question their product.

Every ad I saw seemed to follow the same basic plot-line. One person would suggest that the other should not eat something because it contained HFCS. The other would dismissively say something like, "Why? Because it is natural, has no more calories than sugar, and is part of a healthy diet when eaten in moderation?" And then person A would reach out his or her grateful hand and scarf down the product containing high fructose corn syrup. In each case, the person trying to avoid the product seems not to have any idea why her or she is avoiding it, and the person who supports us can persuade person A just by saying that it is fine to eat it. There is no real convincing, just Consumer A waiting for permission to eat some forbidden fruit and someone else telling him or her to just do it.

Honestly, even if you read a non-politicized article about the process used to make high fructose corn syrup, I have trouble believing that anyone thinks it is natural. Sweet? Yes, although many complain about the flavor compared to table sugar. Cheap? Yes, thanks to government subsidies. Useful in making processed foods last longer on the shelf, and therefore a boon for corporations? Supposedly yes, although this is totally freaky. But NATURAL?

I am especially amused that on the website the advertisement leads the viewer to, the refiners make the argument that HFCS is natural because it is made from corn--but then argue that it is very unlikely to be allergenic since any corn proteins left in the product are so altered.

The website also states that HFCS has no discernable corn DNA in the product (in the effort to say that using GMO corn to make HFCS is not a problem). If there is no corn DNA in it, doesn't that make it clear that it is not a natural corn product?

I'm not out to convince anybody to avoid HFCS. But I do strongly urge you to watch advertisements critically and realize when the ads are designed to shut down your critical brain.

Proselytizing

For many years, David and I have talked about the politics of food with his parents. Before this year, those conversations have gone nowhere. Usually, they just humor us as we buy whole wheat bread and organic milk when we visit them. They nod mindlessly as we drone on about sustainable local, seasonal, or organic “real” food. Those kids! Once the discussion erupted into the closest thing to an argument I have had with them in all the time I have loved their son.

Both of David's parents grew up in post-WWII New York City immigrant communities. Although food was an incredibly important part of Jewish culture and even Jewish religion, the people in their community had relatively little direct connection with the actual growing of the food they ate. Both my MIL and FIL were instilled with beliefs in Americanization, in progress, and in a post-rural economy. They are loyal and trusting people who believe deeply in justice—but I think they have trouble believing that anything that looks to the future could possibly be wrong, that anything that is a convenience or a small luxury could possibly be bad for them or the world.

I first met Jay when he was in the ICU after a heart attack. (Interestingly, the day I was supposed to meet David’s parents was two months earlier--the day I was admitted for my brain surgery.) He is a diabetic who has lost much of his sight and had other complications from the disease as well. Sue--the recipient of some of my finest knitting (like this silk lace shawl, and this beaded one, and this lightly multicolored one) because of her petite size--carefully watches her weight and her family member’s weights. Recently, she has some recurring heart issues--and had a somewhat high blood sugar reading at her last appointment as well. Eating a healthy diet is something extremely important to her—although she approaches healthy eating with a shopping cart full of iceberg lettuce, margarine, low-fat American cheese, artificial sweeteners, and diet sodas. Her sweet tooth doesn’t always make it easy to avoid the highly processed goodies she can find in the local grocery stores here in south Florida (like chocolate babka and rugelach, or that fat-free/sugar-free chocolate that tastes like Styrofoam to me).

When the movie Food, Inc. came out this year, we wondered if this might be the perfect way to bring up these issues again. But after much thought and discussion, we decided not to mention it this year. Yes, we’d buy our own milk and the like, but this time we wouldn’t say a word about their choices. They've suffered through that discussion quite enough. At some point, we recognized that our connection with them had to lead us to at least try to respect their food decisions.

But then Sue surprised us by describing a show she had watched on Ellen Degeneris. What she could remember is that it was a young man with a new baby who talked about how industry is doing bad things to food and that we need to use our dollars to support what we believed in. She was excited to pass this information on to us. After searching on Ellen's site, I think the interview she saw might have been with Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Eating Animals. You can watch the clip over at Ellen's site.

I was thrilled--and immediately started thinking that perhaps this was the right time to do a little proselytizing after all!

We started telling them about Michael Pollen's The Omnivore's Dilemma, his next book In Defense of Food, and Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. As we were talking, Jay picked up the phone and dialed the number of the service that provides audio books for the blind to him at his request.  He ordered all three. If after listening to these he is still itching for more, I think I'll recommend Fast Food Nation to him.  It was the book that really pushed us into this issue when it first came out.

Jay commented to Sue that it would be hard for them to listen to the books together because of the way the technology works. So we also bought paper copies of In Defense of Food and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle for Sue to read in print. When she finishes those two, if she wants more I might give her the new young reader's adaptation of The Omnivore's Dilemma which my son has enjoyed.  I’ve also heard about the guidebook that accompanies the Food Inc. (Anyone know if any good?  I think I'll have to go check it out.)

After seeing their interest, we started to reconsider showing Food Inc.  It is currently available for instant watch on Netflix, so we pulled it up on their large-screen computer and gathered our chairs around.

After watching the film, we sat at the kitchen table and talked a bit. Sue was very moved by the film and interested in making changes, but she was at a loss as to how to go about it. “Are there still any farms around here?” she asked—a good question since gated retirement communities (including their own) are replacing farms everywhere you look.

Immediately I popped on Local Harvest and found the address of the farmer’s market nearby, a farm stand, and even a CSA. I don’t think they are quite ready for a CSA since they are not yet serious fresh vegetable eaters and Jay is pretty picky about what vegetables he’ll even taste. (Serving broccoli and asparagus to him will illicit cries of “Are you trying to poison me?!”) Nevertheless, I do think finding places where they could make their own choices might work.

The south Florida growing season is during the winter, so the markets are open and full of abundance right now:







As a DC gal, I'm blown away by their "homegrown" labels on things like mangos, avocados, and bananas!



For New York transplants, these pickles are a welcome sight.

* * *

David knows it won’t be easy for his parents to break habits they have had for decades. And we’ll be miles away from them as they navigate this new terrain, unable to offer regular shopping support. We tried to think of a few first steps to help them out.

1. Buy organic milk when you go to the grocery store.

2. Commit to going to the farmer’s market or a farmstand at least every two weeks. Plan to spend at least $20 of your food budget on foods you can buy from a local grower.

Do y’all have any other suggestions for those just getting started on this path?