The Jaded Vegetarian

Little Cups of Chocolate

2010-01-08T16:04:00.000-08:00

It seems like it is always during the shortest days of the year that I get an overwhelming craving for chocolate and find myself with an inexplicable shortage of chocolate bars in the cupboard. My solution is easy and completely satisfying -- Chocolate Pots de Creme

1 cup cream or half-n-half

4 oz semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

3 egg yolks, lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla

Heat cream with chocolate until chocolate melts.

Slowly pour half the chocolate mixture into egg yolks.

Return everything back to the pan and heat for 2 minutes.

Stir in vanilla and immediately pour into dessert cups.

You can top it with whipped cream, etc. if you like.

For those who have followed this blog, I have a lot of explaining to do. I know. I decided to take a sabbatical from blogging last year. I didn't really plan for it to be an entire year, though. 2009 was, in a word, brutal. May 2010 be a much merrier year for all!

Frozen Green

2008-10-24T15:34:00.001-07:00

I took this photo this week while I was outside harvesting some salad greens in the morning. There's nothing quite like picking your evening's salad with numb fingers. But at least it was picturesque.

I found a great article on foraging for salad greens among the garden weeds, which expands upon one of my regular reader's suggestions regarding chickweed (thank you, Ericswan). In the article, Arthur Lee Jacobson, a Seattle-based horticulture author, insists that he never buys lettuce. It's no secret that wild plants contain more health-protective nutrients, but I also recently found out that during the Great Depression desperate people reverted to eating the leaves and roots of just such weeds. You may be surprised which weeds are edible, I know that I was.

Touching on this note, I also stumbled upon a great blog entry at Peak Oil Blues about the difference between being "green" and being, what is now described as "brown." Brown is essentially the extreme of being green, to the point of shunning consumerism.

With the economy the way it is, I invision more and more people becoming "brown" without necessarily doing it for environmental reasons and I could also see those who would-be "green" opting for "brown" or maybe they'd prefer to call themselves "frozen green?"

Harvest Mostly In

2008-10-10T16:32:00.000-07:00

Last night was our first freeze of the season. I scrambled to take in everything I could that I had not already brought in. As dusk hit and daylight quickly receded, I was pulling bean pods half-blindly. I noticed myself relying more on my sense of touch and less on straining my eyes to discern bean pods from stalks and felted leaves. While I may not have picked every last pod, I did fill a 2 gallon bucket to over-brimming.

The best part of my evening was actually sitting and removing the yin yang beans from their pods. After so many days this week of absorbing current economic events, it was relaxing to sit by a warm fire and watch my harvest amount to a humble, yet substantial hill of beans.

About a week ago, before regular rains returned to our area, I brought in the Indian corn to dry. I can't really explain to you how magical it was to pull back the different hued husks and find jewel-toned kernels shining in unpredictable colors beneath. That was quite a memorable moment.

There are still apples to be brought in from the frosts and fall veggies to be transplanted into their winter beds. The garden season is nearing a close but it remains a race to the finish.

Sleepy Bees

2008-08-22T16:09:00.001-07:00

I once had a friend who was fascinated by sleeping bumble bees. She would step out into her garden in the morning and marvel at them all, clutching their preferred blossoms, their fuzzy bodies often glistening with dew. She said she wanted to reach out and pet them and that if she did that they would "grumble" like they were groggy and grumpy and didn't quite want to be woken up yet.

I've been feeling sort of like a sleepy bumble bee lately. As though I've been working all day to the point of dozing off in the middle of my work and that I am waiting for the sun to warm me back up -- to give me the energy to keep going.

Sometimes the people in our lives can have the warming effects that the sun has upon the slumbering bumblebees. Our friends and family can see our visions and our toils and shine new light on our paths. Last month we were delightfully awoken to a visit from PeakEngineer and his lovely wife and beautiful child. More than just energy, they brought with them some synergy of perception that has strengthened our resolve. Because while they have wisely found an amazing community of like-minded individuals in which to live, my husband and I have plunged forward to go it alone. That was not a reasoned decision on our part to do it this way, just a decision to do what we felt we could when we had the opportunity. And while we have found people who share our core beliefs in a simpler lifestyle, our bigger picture views are not always the same.

Shortly after our delightful awakening, we had a visit from my grandmother. She looked at our yet unpolished projects and immediately saw the long-term dream. There was no doubt in her mind as to what we were doing or why and her enthusiasm was contagious.

And so, back into our projects we have plied ourselves. For all the disappointment of a lack-luster growing season, a few too many wild predators, and the aggravation of shortening days, we at least know that we aren't completely nuts, even if we have bought the farm.

But in the words of (yes, the ever-philosophical) Steve Miller* "you've got to go through hell, before you get to heaven."

*of the Steve Miller band, of course. ;)

Brewing Up Some . . . Veggies?

2008-08-22T15:10:00.001-07:00

If you still have a Starbucks in your neighborhood, and you've been working on your green thumb, you might want to stop in for a bit of an unusual to-go item -- used coffee grounds.

Spent coffee grounds aren't just a great addition to your compost pile, they also make a nutritious and, oddly enough, lingeringly fragrant garden mulch. The benefits of using grounds as a mulch, beyond the typical moisure-retentive and soil cooling effects of other mulches, are the rapid release of nutrients (most notably nitrogen, but also calcium, magnesium and potassium) and slug and snail deterrence.

Mulching with grounds will noticeably perk up any of your sulky or neglected plants and help prevent late blight in tomatoes.

Starbucks policy is to give "customers*" grounds for free on a first come-first served basis. When I asked around at locally owned (non-Starbucks) coffee shops, I quickly found out that most had pre-arrangements with other gardeners.

If the Starbucks store in your area does not already pre-package their grounds for your use, the baristas will give you their trash bags full of grounds. These bags do not contain any wastes that are not compostable and typically only consist of grounds. After making several requests for used grounds, the Starbucks we visit most regularly has begun to bag them in the nifty packaging pictured above. Honestly, I don't mind the grounds in a trash bag (no unecessary bags or extra labor), but if it helps get the message out to other customers and gardeners, then I am willing to cope with the spiffy packaging.

* I have never been asked to purchase anything in order to take away the spent grounds. After all, we gardeners are doing them a service by recycling the grounds and greening their image. It's a win-win for everyone.

Know Your Friends

2008-08-01T16:57:00.000-07:00

July has offered us many interesting guests. I'm hoping for a relatively quiet August and time to update this blog.

For now, I just wanted to share a chart that I found on identifying beneficial insects in their various stages of life. Often, what looks like a frighteningly nasty little bugger is really a teenage version of an insect ally.

When you buy over $200 worth of seeds . . .

2008-06-20T08:40:00.000-07:00

. . . you plant over $200 worth of seeds. And when your soil is rocky you do most of your digging with a pick axe. That's what I've been up to. Racing one bed at a time. Mind you, some of my beds are raised and filled with imported soil, just not all of them. This doesn't even bring into discussion all of the bareroot trees we had to get into the ground before summer drought season. So I'm entrenched in a garden battle.

I'd like to appologize to readers for the lack of continuity on this blog.

Ericswan had an interesting comment on my previous post about the health properties of a common garden weed -- chickweed. It is worth a read.

I'd also like to point readers over to The Easy Garden, which is a new forum for all things garden-related, aimed at helping new gardeners get themselves well-rooted. This is an off-shoot of The Backyard Chicken forum, which I highly recommend to anyone who raises poultry or is interested in learning about poultry husbandry.

I hope everyone's gardens are coming along! Let me know how yours is growing!

February Challenge -- Waste Not Want Not

2008-02-01T13:17:00.000-08:00

Modern Sculptural Art? -- salvaged spiral notebook wire, awaiting it's next useful application

"When we throw something away, what does 'away' mean? There's no such thing as 'away.' "

This little nugget of wisdom was brought to you by a 35 year old Berkely, CA resident, Ari Derfel, who decided to save the flotsam and jetsam of his life for one full year. These were my sentiments exactly when it came time to pack up and move house last year. I couldn’t just throw stuff away. My real estate agent, the sweetheart that he is, showed understanding but was unaccustomed to anyone turning away the welcoming arms of the 1-800-Got-Junk army -- who advertise themselves as the equivalent of a full-service trash dumpster.

Instead I invested the time and energy to donate to charities and to drop off re-usable materials for recycling.

How did we accumulate so much junk? A friend confided that she was surprised that my husband and I could have accumulated so much, since we aren’t really the “type” to acquire a lot of things. While this is true, we have, over the years, inherited possessions and hand-me-downs from family members, and we are also reluctant to dispose of anything that MAY prove useful one day. Lastly we are wickedly sentimental. If you bought me something atrocious that I really hated, I would probably still have that item several years later. In a box. In the basement. It’s labeled “sentimental hogwash” if you really must know.

What amazes me is that so many of these items that I considered absolute junk sold very well at the garage sale I had last fall. Never having participated in one before I concluded that: 1. garage sale junkies will probably buy just about anything, so long as it is cheap, and 2. Every item you own holds a little piece of your energy. That means getting rid of that item frees up a bit of your energy. Garage sales are great if you have the time and need to pad your wallet a little, but if not then giving your stuff to charity is just as beneficial.

Not only does each of our possessions absorb some slight slice of our time and energy, but as this article about Derfel states, “Each thing we throw away has been produced somewhere, shipped to a store, entered the home, and then is sent somewhere else - using up water, oil and land.”

If you’re a visual learner, have a looksie here. I must say that these images really make a big statement to me, one that numerical facts alone cannot convey.

OK, so you understand that the American way is just not sustainable, right? But the next time you go shopping, I’ll bet you will see something you just really fall in love with, something that you feel makes a statement about your personality or something that you actually feel you need. Whether you need it or you just want it might be a gray area. I know that holds true with me. I happened across an interesting suggestion for creating a “want book,” a place where you can record all those things you think you want or need and come back to them later with a clearer head.

But remember as you lean toward placing that object in your shopping cart that every object is in many ways an energy sink. We aren’t just draining worldly resources, there seems to be some evidence that we are also putting a damper on our own personal well-being:

“Researchers have found that low self-esteem and materialism are not just a correlation, but also a causal relationship where low self esteem increases materialism, and materialism can also create low self-esteem. The[y] also found that as self esteem increases, materialism decreases."

“The word 'believe' is the key here. People believe that buying more and more things will make them happy, when in fact research has shown time and time again that this simply isn't the case. What we do know for sure is that buying more and more unnecessary things is damaging our planet and contributing to global warming." (source)

Here are few suggestions of ways to cut back on the amount of waste we generate. I recommend choosing one of these options to work on for a month. If you like your results, you can always challenge yourself to do more.

Remove your name from mailing lists
Compost, compost, compost
Preferentially purchase items in recyclable containers
Look at your bad habits and try to minimize them
Shop with a list
Before you buy an item, decide on where it will be kept
If you don’t absolutely love an item, re-home it
For every item you bring in, get rid of two others (donate, garage sale, Craigslist)
Catalogue things in a want book before buying them

January Challenge -- Seeds of Change

2008-01-18T10:45:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m hoping to offer, every month, a suggestion of a small change we can all make to help conserve resources and green our corner of the planet. Often we will find that these same changes in our lives will help us conserve our own financial resources as well, which is an added bonus.

This month’s challenge was an obvious choice for me, as it was my own challenge to myself – ordering seeds to start this year’s garden. My husband also wants to join in the gardening in 2008. Like any new gardener, his aspirations are high. I have done my best to talk him down to starting small, with easy crops, so that he can get a few successes under his belt before he tackles more challenging crops. I also encouraged him to choose plants that will be successful in our short and often relatively cool growing season. Perhaps the most important lesson a gardener can learn is to grow those plants that suit one’s local conditions best. Otherwise gardening may become more of a disappointment than a delight.

Based upon my discussions with my own eager new gardener, I thought it would be helpful to outline a list of vegetable crops that most beginners, will have a good chance at growing well. For a brief outline on how to get a garden established, you may want to read the following article from the University of British Columbia. Even those of you living without a yard can join in the fun, as all of the suggestions below will also grow contentedly in containers. For a primer on container vegetable garden, you may want to read the following PDF from Iowa State University extension.

Need further incentive for this challenge? Salad greens and lettuce are extremely easy to grow and require only relatively shallow containers for those who don’t have garden space. As with all vegetables, green leafy vegetables are most nutritious when eaten shortly after harvesting. Yet how many of us are accustomed to purchasing our salad greens in those dreaded plastic containers that have flown in from California and then sat on the grocery shelves? Some of those same greens are fairly tolerant of extreme weather and can be grown early in the spring as well as well into late fall or early winter without added protection in some northern climates. With protection you may find yourself with fresh greens well into winter, even in harsher climes. Since salad crops grown in California are absorbing rocket fuel – which is disruptive to the human thyroid – you might also find your self-sown salads leave you feeling healthier and with a bit more energy. Bag the rocket fuel and grow your own rocket (more commonly known as arugula), which is a wonderful addition to any salad and has all the health benefits of the broccoli clan – technically it is a cruciferous vegetable and not a lettuce crop.

What many new gardeners are surprised to learn is that not all traditional vegetable crops grow well during the summer months. In fact, it seems that most of the easiest to grow crops thrive during the cooler months of spring and fall. The advantage of this is clear – your time and labor will be spread out fairly uniformly over the entire growing season. You will find yourself capable of growing a few crops in the spring, several different ones in the summer, and then be able to either repeat some spring crops in the fall or grow something completely different that will tide you over until winter encroaches. And speaking of winter, one gentleman has a fairly simple plan for extending his harvest well into the leaner months.

You will notice some of my links suggest using more conventional growing techniques. I recommend substituting organic methods.

Herbs are also easy to grow, especially mint, oregano, garlic, and Italian parsley. Some herbs will attract beneficial insects and all of them will save you a bundle at the grocery store.

Now for the cast of characters (this list is by no means exhaustive):

BEANS
When: warm season
Where: full sun; well-drained soil with plenty of organic matter*
How: in garden, or in a container at least 16” deep
Why: high in antioxidants, as well as a good source of iron, zinc, and protein for vegetarians and vegans

BROCCOLI
When: cool season crop (spring/fall)
Where: full sun; well-drained soil with plenty of organic matter*
How: in garden, or at least a 2 gallon (10” wide) container
Why: nutritional superstar, high in vitamins A, C, D, and also a good source of calcium

CARROTS
When: cool season crop (spring/fall)
Where: full sun; deep, loose, well-drained soil with plenty of nutrients
How: in garden, or at least a 2 gallon (10” wide) container
Why: antioxidants and carotenes

LETTUCE/GREENS
When: cool season crop (spring/fall)
Where: nearly any soil, but well-drained with plenty of organic matter* is best
How: in garden, or at least a 6” deep container
Why: good source of vitamins A, C, K; folate, manganese, chromium, and fiber

POTATOES
When: warm season
Where: full sun; light, loose, well-drained soil with organic matter* added during previous growing season
How: in garden, or in containers at least 16” deep
Why: high in potassium, high in vitamin B6 which is necessary for building the nervous system and may alleviate morning sickness in pregnant women

PUMPKINS
When: warm season
Where: soil with abundant nutrients and organic matter*
How: in garden, or in containers at least 16” deep
Why: good source of vitamin C, beta carotene and potassium

RADISHES
When: cool season (spring/fall)
Where: loose soil with plenty of organic matter*
How: in garden, or in at least a 2 gallon (10” wide) container
Why: moderately high in vitamin C and K, also has anti-bacterial and anti-microbial properties and is beneficial to cold and flu symptoms

* Organic matter is best added to the garden in the form of finished compost

Ushering in 2008

2008-01-10T16:22:00.000-08:00

Despite my silence in the blogosphere, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and planning in my life lately. 2007 was a mad dash from start to finish for my husband and I, ending with the inevitable crunch of the holiday season. Besides feeling reclusive, and protective of what little spare time I seem to be losing my grip upon, I am experiencing a strong seasonal urge to get my life organized, and in a way cleansed. Our recent downsizing of our living-quarters has made this need even more acute. I’ve discovered a great website for inspiration called Zenhabits, for anyone else who is similarly inclined.

Zenhabits got me thinking about goals. The author mentions that in order to actualize a goal in the time-frame of a year, we need to be very specific about attaining only one goal in one arena of our lives. This speaks to me, because I find myself pursuing so many interests that I never make any big breakthroughs in anything I’m applying my time to. Small ones for sure, ones that add up over time, but nothing monumental.

My first reaction was to find it somewhat confining to limit myself to one overriding goal for the year. But I knew what that goal would be almost instantly. It was somewhat pre-ordained. I need to get my organic garden established. So that will be my focus in my life.

Zenhabits also mentions cutting out the clutter in our lives – the things that distract us from our goals, regardless of our enjoyment of them. As much as blogging holds value in my life, it has never been a priority. I think I just need to be honest about that. That doesn’t mean that I will stop blogging. What this means is that I will limit my blogging to perhaps a monthly installment. I don’t see how I can commit to more than that. It may well be that I surpass my commitment and overload my archives, but I think I would rather keep things pithy for the most part.

What you will see here over the course of 2008, will be a monthly installment outlining small changes we can all make in our daily lives to ease the burden on the earth and offer hope for future generations. I may extrapolate through the month on my chosen topic, and I may interject some personal news here and there, but I will devote my blogging to my main goal.

I do hope these changes are to your liking. Feel free to let me know.

Every year I try to make a year-at-a-glance calendar with a photo and a quote. By the time I got around to it last year, I only needed to include the last 4 months of the year. This year’s quote, from an unknown source, is: “Always remember the beauty of the garden, for there is peace.” I hope re-reading this bit of wisdom, as I glance at my calendar, will inspire me to stay focused on my goal.

Cheers to all for a productive and awe-inspiring 2008!

Trip Down Memory Lane

2007-12-13T08:59:00.000-08:00

I believe this photo is over 10 years old. It's original format is a slide. For whatever reason the image still speaks to me, so I thought it would be fun to share it.

Besides the obvious juxtaposition of nature beautifying a graffitied city building, it also reminds me of a quote about happiness:

"Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

Stalking Wild Mushrooms

2007-11-16T14:49:00.000-08:00

Need a reason to fall in love with autumn? This time of year is often soggy and cold. It is universally viewed as a time of decline, as trees shed leaves and days grow aggravatingly short. But a walk in the woods this time of year can paradoxically lift one’s spirits, if one knows what to look for.

Like little party torches, mushrooms can be astoundingly vibrant and beautiful. Jack-o-lantern mushrooms are bright orange and glow in the dark! The fabled Fly Agaric mushroom is believed by some to be solely responsible for flying reindeer and santa’s red and white attire. Incredibly, there are even edible brilliant blue mushrooms.

Fresh edible wild mushrooms are a gourmand’s delight. While many of these wild mushrooms can be purchased in grocery stores, there is simply no comparing them to ones you may chance to pick for yourself. However, a hopeful mushroom hunter should follow this list of precautions:

If there’s any doubt as to the identity of a mushroom don’t eat it.
I started learning about mushrooms last year. I would spot them while I was walking, bring them home, study them, draw them, and then attempt to identify them based upon photographs and also based upon running through a classification key, both of which can be found in this trusty mushroom guide. Most would advise that you always get a second opinion from an experienced mushroom hunter before sampling.
Do not pick mushrooms, rather cut the stalk free with a knife.
That way you won’t accidentally dislodge some of the mycelium along with your mushroom.
Sustainably harvest
Preferentially take good quality specimens only when there are others in the vicinity that you will leave to spread spores, thereby increasing your bounty in the future. Mushrooms are the above-ground reproductive parts of the underground organism (the mycelium), so while taking the fruiting body does not hurt the mycelium, leaving some to stand and spread spores will be beneficial.
Don’t visibly mark your patch or brag to others about the whereabouts.
We are all curious creatures – most of us will investigate man-made markers in the woods. The fewer people know where you are scavenging, the more likely you can sustainably harvest your patch. Learn how to navigate by natural landmarks.
And on that note, keep track of where you are going.
While hunting down mushrooms, one tends to keep one’s eyes on the ground. In this manner it is very easy to get turned around in the woods. Being aware of natural landmarks can be helpful here.
When, at last, you discover a patch of wild edible mushrooms, know how to store and cook them properly.
Keep them dry and cool and eat them as soon as possible (the last part isn't that hard, really). If this is your first experience eating this particular mushroom species, only serve a small taste. Some people are more sensitive to certain mushrooms than others, so make sure your mushrooms agree with you before you indulge. Dust off humus and pine needles with a soft dish towel. Butter and garlic are your best friends. Slice your mushrooms so that they are uniformly sized. Heat, on medium, in oil and/or butter on one side for about a minute. Turn, reduce heat to simmer, add garlic and/or a splash of marsala, madeira, white wine, or sherry. Cook until you see light browning. Most mushrooms are best served without strong interfering flavors.

Want to learn more? Why not join a local mycology club or attend one of their mushroom shows?

Bad Duck, Bad Duck . . .

2007-11-09T15:15:00.001-08:00

Watcha gonna do? Yep, I promised a mugshot or two of this little clown & his trusty side-kick. They are a little more personable than my other ducks, which means they will come right up to your face when you get the camera trained on them. Oh well, what would you expect from a clown? My mom helped me name them. They are known and notorious as Punch & Judy.

They are fawn & white runner ducks. Runners rival chickens in terms of egg production, whereas most ducks fall below the production rate of chickens. However, runner ducks typically do not have maternal instincts and will therefore not set their own eggs. To get another generation you either have to let another bird (like a chicken, goose, or duck) set the eggs or incubate them yourself.

These are the only ducks I have that will eat out of my hand. The others outgrew that when they became sexually mature. Punch and Judy are generally amiable and don't mind being picked up (unlike my other ducks) however, they are very loud and ornery when they don't get their way.

Falling Behind

2007-10-26T15:42:00.000-07:00

On blogging that is. But at least I've been a little better about getting out for fresh air and exercise for a change. The first day that I took a walk this fall, I walked for about 20 minutes and got shin splints! I am totally ashamed.

This is prime planting time in my neck of the woods and all those poor plants I dragged along with me all need a safe patch of ground to ride the winter out in. I am overwhelmed.

It doesn't help when I take pity on a poor, abused frog. One of my spastic ducks -- one I need to share a mug shot of -- caught a frog by the leg and proceeded to parade it around the yard, as the frog dangled and bounced around. It took a little finagling to force the frog out of the duck's bill. Once I did the poor little amphibian looked pretty beat up. Both his back legs were motionless and he had something hanging out of his mouth, which I was afraid might be internal organs. Not sure what to do, I just held him to keep him warm and alert. Eventually he swallowed whatever-it-was back down. Gradually he got some use back in one of his legs. The other leg, though, did not look promising.

So in the interest of giving him a safe place to heal, I put him in a jar and offered him a small caterpillar. He seemed to eat that, but turned his nose up at the cutworm I found -- I don't blame him, I wouldn't eat one either. So he spent the night in our house.

The next morning he looked somewhat improved, having regained complete use of his better leg and also use of the upper portion of his second leg. Not knowing that I would be capable of feeding him, I decided to let him free and check up on him later. He crawled under the canopy of my brocolli plants. When I went back to check on him, he was gone without a trace.

And then Fall Blew In

2007-10-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

Last Dance with Cherry, Plum . . .

How's This for Eye Candy?

. . . Pear, and all the rest. The tomatoes have been harvested. I never look forward to this process. This year it was a particularly sudden and upsetting affair, as a windstorm dismantled my temporary greenhouse. Rather than fight the elements for a few more days, in unpromising weather, I decided to take a hint and pull in the produce.

I’ve gotten pretty good at sorting out the promising tomato specimens for storage. When I first began storing green tomatoes, I gave them each a fighting chance. After a few years of checking their progress and watching a slightly perceptible speckled skin develop into a sickly freckled tomato, I’ve developed a keener eye and a harder heart.

One Mean Green Tomato

Or so I thought, until I got to my un-ripened Brandywines. One in particular had grown quite plump and promising. To toss it would be a shame. However my Brandywines had a propensity for cracking at the top (this is apparently due to our wetter than normal summer) and developing early blight around the stem, which would eventually spoil the fruit – here is a cool diagnostic website for tomato diseases. I decided to experiment and finally sample some Fried Green Tomatoes.

My recipe did not specify if I had to deep fry them or if I could just pan fry them. While I was investigating frying method – yeah, we don’t fry very often – I found out that oven frying is the healthiest option. Without the directions for oven-frying on hand, I ad-libbed and still managed to cook up some rather tasty appetizers.

I was so impressed I had to wonder why I hadn’t gotten up the nerve to try it before. If you have any green tomatoes on hand that you are sure could never ripen in storage, and you like to make use of what you have on hand, I advise you to give this recipe a try. Now I’ll have something to look forward to every year after cleaning, sorting, and storing my green tomatoes.

Oven Fried Green Tomatoes

2-3 green tomatoes
salt & pepper
1/3-1/2 cup milk
½ cup flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup crouton crumbs (use food processor to make croutons into crumbs)

Note: Be aware that the measurements are rough. I found I did not have enough crumbs to coat all of my tomato slices (Brandywines are fairly large) so I did not cook all of my 2 tomatoes. We still had plenty to eat.

Slice tomatoes into ½” thick slices. Sprinkle both sides with salt and fresh ground pepper (obviously you can only coat one side of the end slices). Dip slices in milk, then flour, then egg, then bread crumbs.

Lightly coat the inside of a cookie sheet with oil. Place tomatoes on sheet and then drizzle (or spritz) oil lightly on top and, if drizzling, then pat with a pastry brush.

I next broiled them on low until each side browned and then baked them in a 350° oven until the tomatoes had softened. Technically, to oven fry, you should put them in a 450° + oven for about 8-10 min per side.

Serving suggestion: In the future, I would serve them with a side of ranch dressing. They were great alone, but something creamy would make a nice addition.

In other news:

Adolescents Already

The young ducks are nearly as big as their parents now, although they are smack-dab in the middle of their “teenage” gawky period. They never stand around long enough for a decent photo. Their adult plumage is starting to come in, which is a relief because it will keep them weather-proofed in all the cold, wet, windy weather we seem fated to enjoy this year. Nice weather for ducks anyway!

Seasonally Appropriate Squash

I harvested my pumpkins from my brother’s garden. I really have to properly thank him for the use of his garden this year, because it tided me over. In fall, in particular, I am enormously grateful to see the harvest come in. It is very fulfilling.

And speaking of filling, I baked a new apple pie recipe. It was piled to the brim with fresh organic granny smith apples -- $10 worth. The recipe intrigued me because it calls for the skins to be left on the apple slices, for the slices to be roasted, and for an oat and flour crust. It seemed temptingly rustic. And it is as good as you can imagine. The recipe is in this month’s Better Homes and Gardens magazine. I only bake pies every two or three years and I always struggle to get the crust right. This crust worked like a charm for me, to my amazement, and my husband proclaimed it a blue ribbon pie. LOL

More Eye Candy

Proof of the Blue Ribbon Pie

Unexpected Dinner Guest

2007-09-14T15:52:00.001-07:00

This guy is a regular outside our kitchen window at night. We enjoy his company, but have yet to see him catch a meal. The moths really do tease him wickedly.

It is always well into darkness now by the time we start cooking dinner. There are still a lot of things to wrap up in and around our new home before the onset of cooler weather. It's a race against slackening daylight and that doesn't leave me much in the way of down time.

More updates to come.

Summer Days Dissipate

2007-08-24T14:16:00.000-07:00

Like the tiny bubbles in a mimosa drink, summer disperses into ether persistently yet slyly.

After missing most of berry season, I managed to get my wits about me and make the most of peach season. I now have a small fortune of frozen breakfast bars made with peaches. What started as just another breakfast bar crafted around a seasonable fruit – as I’ve been trying to do year-round –turned into an instantaneous new favorite, with a spontaneous new name: The India Peach Breakfast Bar. Let me introduce you:

India Peach Breakfast Bar
(Based upon Farmgirl’s Blueberry Breakfast Bar)

BOTTOM LAYER INGREDIENTS:
2 cups old-fashioned oats
¾ cup organic white whole wheat flour
¾ cup organic evaporated cane sugar
¼ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
8 Tbsp (1 stick) organic butter, melted
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

TOP LAYER INGREDIENTS:
1 cup organic white whole wheat flour
½ cup organic evaporated cane sugar
3 Tbsp organic butter
several handfuls of shredded coconut

MIDDLE LAYER INGREDIENTS:
3 medium-sized organic peaches
¾ cup organic evaporated cane sugar
3 Tbsp organic white whole wheat flour
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 heaping tsp organic dried ginger
½ tsp organic ground nutmeg

BAKING INSTRUCTIONS:
Grease a 9” x 13” pan. In a large bowl, combine all of the dry bottom layer ingredients. Meanwhile, melt the butter. While you are waiting for the butter to melt, add the top layer flour and sugar together and then blend in the butter, preferably with a pastry blender. Once your butter is melted, remove it from the heat and add the vanilla before mixing it in with the bottom layer ingredients. Spread this mixture evenly into the bottom of your pan, and set the bowl aside for combining the middle layer ingredients. Next pre-heat your oven to 425° F. Skin and slice your peaches into wedges about ½ inch thick, at their widest. In the large bowl, combine peaches with sugar, flour, vanilla, ginger and nutmeg. Toss to mix well. Evenly spread peaches onto bottom layer and pour remaining juices evenly in spaces not filled with fruit slices. Dust top layer evenly on top. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350° F and continue baking for 10 minutes. Sprinkle several handfuls of shredded coconut evenly across the top. Continue cooking for about another 10 minutes, or until edges and top begin to brown.

STORING INSTRUCTIONS:
Remove from oven and let cool at least 10 minutes. Slice into bars. Transfer any bars not to be eaten immediately to a cooling rack or a cookie sheet and allow to cool completely. Place in air-tight freezer bags and transfer to the freezer as soon as possible.

These shorter days of summer seem to be slipping away twice as quickly as the days around the summer solstice. I walked around the corner to our barn just a few days ago to hear a very familiar and pleasant sound – the sound of new arrivals. I was convinced my duck had been sitting on her nest for two weeks, but a little bird told me it had, indeed, been four.

My Ducks Don't "Quack"

2007-08-17T09:17:00.001-07:00

And I don't think it's only my ducks who can't seem to pronounce "quack." It seems to me that ducks are universally incapable of enunciating the "qu" sound. Instead they pretty much just say "wank wank wank," (heavy on the "wa" and light on the "k") which has led my husband and I to chide our ducks with the nomiker "wankers." Considering that this term has somewhat lewd connotations in the UK, I guess I can understand why biologists have agreed upon the term "quack." (As an aside: Here is a great chart listing the accepted mnemonics of bird calls).

Besides, it really wouldn't do to have a class of schoolkids in the UK singing "Old McDonald Had a Farm" with a "wank wank here and a wank wank there, here a wank, there a wank, everwhere a wank wank," eh?

Note: I posted this photo of a mallard drake because I really love it. This photo was brought to you courtesy of PD Photo.org.

Like a Snake in the Grass

2007-08-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

Note: I appologize for posting this with a modified time. I have to admit to being somewhat vain and wanting my blog to retain the visual appeal of the previous post.

On a hot summer's day, the garden hose becons us with the promise of cold clear refreshment. No I'm not recommending you drink from it, but many of us fill plastic pools for our children or lavish a little liquid refreshment on our garden beds. So what I'm about to tell you might upset you. Garden hoses have been found to leach high levels of lead, along with other chemicals associated with plastics. Granted the test protocol was to leave water in the hose, on a hot day, and test it after about 12 hours. Anyone who knows how to care for a hose would never leave one to nearly melt in the sun, nor would most of us chose to use that hot hose water for any prized plants or pools, but I have to wonder how much leaches with typical use. When the price of a food-grade hose (sold in marine or rv supply stores) is comparable to the price of a heavy-duty garden hose, I think the consumer has a right to know.

Instead the label on my newly purchased garden hose warns, "DO NOT DRINK FROM THIS HOSE" and follows that with an explanation that various attachments you might have, lawn chemicals you may use, or bacteria that multiplies in hot water are the main concerns. I find this misleading. Reading it gave me the impression there was more going on, but how many people read the instructions that come with a garden hose? Further my hose was made from recycled plastics, which sounds wonderful, but when you consider that contaminants are not removed during the recycling of plastic, I'm a little troubled at what all went into my new hose.

More depressing news on plastics and how there is now evidence that plastic food containers are most likely causing America's weight epidemic, along with infertility in women, can be found here.

GO, GO, GO!!!

2007-08-16T12:39:00.001-07:00

This is what happens every day when I let the little guys out of their pen. A blur of tail feathers streaks past, accompanied by the padded stampede of little orange webbed feet.

They look like school kids let out after the last bell has rung. But I don't blame them, as they never know what they are going to find for dinner. It is always tastier than the organic grains mom makes them eat. Sometimes they surprise me by scoring slugs the size of hot dogs. Whoever ferets one out of the grass proceeds to run about, while attempting to scarf the slimy thing down their throat. A chase ensues, as every duck tries to tackle and dislodge the "escargot" from the finder's bill. The slug carrier scoots along, head stretched high, pausing only long enough to change direction or gulp down another centimeter of slug. This cracks me up to no end. Whoever ultimately wins the prize spends quite some time struggling to swallow it, and shaking his head in a futile attempt to de-slime his palate.

I think I'll stick to organic grains, myself.

Current Events

2007-08-03T15:38:00.000-07:00

People will do anything for their children. So what happens when your children happen to sport bills? You buy them a farm!

That’s the short story. If you want to know how it all happened, here are the details:

We have been dreaming for a while now of owning land and starting a farm. Not a farm for profit, but for personal satisfaction. I believe that’s known in some circles as “hobby farming,” but I find that term to be somewhat condescending and belittling of what I feel is a noble pursuit – raising a greater portion of one’s own food at home. Since I began gardening with ornamentals on a city lot, I soon found my plot crammed full with no allotment for vegetables. I grew my tomatoes, peppers, basil and eggplants in a small greenhouse that my husband built on the sunny side of our deck. As I discovered the possibility of growing food crops into the leaner months, I realized that as much as I loved the forested park across from our house, it was limiting my ration of winter sunlight. The last straw came when I experimented with keeping ducks and realized I had fallen head over heels in love with the silly little creatures.

Our original set of ducklings came from the local feed store. We were very fortunate to watch them grow into two ducks and one drake (duck is the term for a female and drake is the term for a male). It soon became clear that while ducks are great egg layers, they are also, by far, the noisier gender. If I did not crawl out of bed at first light to let them out of their pen, they had sufficient lungs to probably awaken all of the adjacent neighbors, or at least the lighter sleepers among them. And while the used straw bedding makes a well-balanced compost addition, it also encourages flies to multiply in the warmer months. My neighbors were big-hearted enough to look past these flaws, but I felt a little uneasy about the situation. In my city, ducks are legally considered livestock and are not allowed on a city lot. But to me they were more like pets. We were fascinated with watching their behaviors. Seeing them swim in the pond we built for them was a perpetual joy. There is nothing quite like watching ducks splash around, dive, and “laugh.” Because, yes, they do make a laughing sound – often they will laugh when they do something they know we don’t want them to do. They also wag their tails when they are happy.

Even with visions of animal control officials raiding my backyard goading me constantly, I’m not the type of person who uproots easily, especially from a garden that I have poured my hopes and dreams into and which flourished and began to abound with all forms of life.

But circumstances have a funny way of pulling you along with their current, if you let them.

One mild February evening, after a second unusually long cold spell had passed, and with the promise of spring hanging in the air -- the daffodils were about to bloom and the grass grew visibly in the course of a single day – a raccoon came to prey upon my favorite duck. She was the one I referred to as “demure,” because she was slender and bright-eyed, with a shy and gentle temperament. Whenever I would dig in the garden, she would be right there by my side scavenging for worms, while our other duck would hang back and cluck at me if I got too close to her. This well-mannered duck had been the one duckling that adored swimming and diving above all else, so that when she grew she preferred to spend her time paddling around in the pond rather than foraging with the others. Of course that raccoon took my favorite. I was heart-broken.

Losing a pet hurts more than we would foresee. I think this is because we interact with them daily, and they become an integral part of our lives. Their absence is felt constantly throughout our days. I could easily have fallen into a fit of depression over her loss, even knowing that helps no one or nothing, however a thought occurred to me to make the most of the situation. I had begun letting her keep a few eggs on her nest, with the hope that they may awaken maternal feelings in her. I took her three eggs inside with me that night. I read all that I could read. My husband helped me throw together a homemade styrofoam cooler incubator. I obsessed over thermometer accuracy, temperature, humidity, and the proper intervals to turn eggs. This gave me something to focus on. I quickly realized my homemade incubator would be difficult to regulate, as I did not have a thermostat to keep the temperature constant, and as my source of heat was a light bulb. I was overwhelmed by unknowns – how the temperature differed based on location in the incubator, what I should be seeing when I candled – held light up to and peered through -- the eggs, or whether the embryos would even survive their first week, not to mention the four I had just signed up for. Before they were even old enough to be visible, I decided I had probably fried them during a temperature spike, so I took three more of her eggs out of the refrigerator, even though my odds of hatching them would be lower. Oh goody, more complexity, because with a staggered hatch you now need a separate hatcher (an incubator where you maintain slightly different temperature and humidity conditions for the hatch).

For a month I lost most of my sleep, catching short half hour to forty-five minute naps throughout the night, and could not keep any sort of regular attendance at work. Fortunately I work close to home and have a lot of flexibility in my schedule, but even then I was mostly absent. This was a labor of love. I don’t have children, so this is as close as I’ll probably ever get to a maternity leave and a frazzled, sleepless existence. I would read -- laying down on the couch (couldn’t bare to sit in a chair) -- to stay awake, so that I could check regularly to make sure the temperature was stable in the incubator, between naps. I haven’t read through that many books, in so short of a time, since college. And unless the book was exciting, and later even if it was, I would fall asleep holding the book up. By the third week I was so physically uncoordinated that I decided it was safest not to drive anywhere. It was pretty wicked and by then I couldn’t even tell if there was any life inside the shells. They just looked dark inside. Despite my uncertainty, I was determined to keep my faith in the resilience of life.

And what do you know? Even before their due dates, those little tikes pipped through their shells (made the first hole through which they can breathe oxygen). Then I was suddenly plunged into double duty, because I had two separate clutches separated by a few days of time, maintaining both a hatcher and an incubator within their respective temperature and humidity ranges. I became a nut case. I don’t actually remember a whole lot from this period of time, except feeling really tired and frustrated. I think I was ready to give up. I got desperate when the pips (the little guys that had broken through in one spot) did not continue to work their way out of their shells within a day. I was fortunate to find lots of good information at the Backyard Chicken Forum. Reading through the experience of others got me through this difficult time emotionally – I sure as h3ll wasn’t rational at this point -- and gave me the confidence to lend a small hand in the process (by dropping small amounts of warm water on the shells to ensure they had enough humidity to move around inside and break a circle around the shell). I noticed that helped them, so I guess my humidity wasn’t as spot on as I had thought. I referred to this as “inducing labor.”

Napping after a successful hatch

I could go on about how excruciatingly frustrating it was to watch them hatch. I think it took at least two hours of monumental struggling on their parts. I hated every minute of it. My husband couldn’t bear to watch at all. Some were lucky and found some traction inside the incubator against which they could leverage themselves out of the shell, but if they came out too soon, they didn’t have the opportunity to dry off during their exit and looked horribly fragile and bedraggled. One got his wing out and could not re-orient himself, so he just had to push and push and push and push. It was exhausting to watch and I think I really just wanted to cry at that point.

Breach? This guy came earlier than expected so he didn't have time to re-orient after the last time his egg was turned.

Fresh from the egg, still a bit sticky. Part of the shell is stuck to his back.

Hatching is very tiresome work

Too cute for this silly basket

A few days run into themselves at this point in my mind. Somehow I don’t remember a distinct break in the hatching between the two clutches. I think maybe things just kept rolling, with the next clutch piping once the first clutch hatched. Here we go again! Like any parents, we just ate cold meals between all the chaos. Cold, because something would always happen just before we could sit down to eat. By the time the last one hatched out of the final clutch it was some ungodly hour, getting on early morning. My wits were not about me. All I could do was dream about the opportunity for uninterrupted sleep. So, while technically you should leave your new hatchlings to fluff up in the incubator, I decided to dry the last one in my hand next to our woodstove. It went quicker that way, and it was a bonding experience. In retrospect, I should have dried them all that way.

I really didn’t mean to give you a treatise here. I enjoyed re-counting this, though. Looking at them all now, you wouldn’t imagine they could have once been so tiny and frail and tucked into a shell. I’m glad I have photos, because I simply couldn’t visualize them as fresh hatchlings when I was pondering this the other day. They are so big – some of the drakes are bigger than their father even. Out of 6 eggs, 5 were fertile and all 5 hatched. It is unusual to hatch eggs that have been refrigerated and it should have decreased my odds. It did not. All the fridge eggs hatched and I referred to them as “Fridgestock.” I also found out that lots of people have trouble with purchased incubators because they trust the thermometer readings. In other words, my homemade incubator, despite its flaws, gave me a good, albeit frustrating, lesson in thermometer accuracy. Most thermometers are off by at least a degree or more. When you are hatching, you need to keep your temperature within about a half to one degree (optimally) either direction of your target temperature. The best thing to do is to have at least three thermometers and take an average of your readings, before deciding which is most accurate and how discrepant it probably is. Thermometer accuracy was a lesson I did not have the luxury of learning the hard way, because I had only one chance to get this right. Out of 5 ducklings, I got four drakes and one duck. She is the spitting image of her mother.

Once we had hatched our ducklings, in a brief respite of time, we looked at a piece of land. That parcel of land spoke to us like no other we had seen before in two years of searching. Just days after the ducklings were old enough to sleep outside at night, our house went on the market. I missed more work and more sleep, but now we have room to keep all of our ducks. Or rather all of our drakes. Its funny though, because shortly after discovering our affinity for ducks, I thought we should call our dream farm “Drake Maiden Farm.” Life has a sense of irony, I suppose.

Factory Formed Fats

2007-07-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

There’s a lot of hubbub about getting rid of trans fats, but not much news about what companies are replacing those trans fats with exactly. If you thought healthy, natural fats would replace chemically hydrogenated ones, think again.

Essential Tool for Buying the Farm

2007-07-20T12:27:00.000-07:00

I can’t imagine buying the farm, as it were, without getting your hands on one of these. OK, all pathetic attempts at morbid jokes aside, I’m all for doing certain chores the slow and old-fashioned way. It isn’t that I don’t have enough to do in my spare time, or that I don’t value my time, but more about prioritizing minimizing my footprint and actually enjoying necessary daily chores as much as possible. See I never have enjoyed mowing. Most lawn mowers are loud and how much does anyone really enjoy the monotony of mowing straight lines across one’s yard? Are there people out there who truly get out of bed on the weekends eager to give the lawn mower a run? I detest weed eaters. It isn’t that these mechanical devices aren’t marvelous tools for the job, but the noise is like a brick wall, so I have sworn off ever buying such a contraption. I prefer the sound of silence, punctuated by bird calls. What does that leave me with? Well, when I owned a small city lawn (or what was left of it after I had etched out plenty of garden beds) I bought a rather old and rusty reel mower. After a good sharpening it worked like a charm. Those old reel mowers were built to last and I have found they outperform the reel mowers you can buy new these days. The essential parts hold together on the old mowers, rather than falling by the wayside mid-mow as I’ve noticed on the newer models. And you can’t beat buying a solidly built lawn mower for $5.

But back to my main topic here, we just bought ourselves some acreage. 2.5 to be exact. We were dreaming of 5, but by the time we found the right piece of land, land prices had about doubled in our area (in a span of 2-3 years) and so we settled for something smaller. Maybe that’s good. 2.5 acres is a good chunk of land and I’m already overwhelmed with it. Horses had kept the grass sheared up until the point that we put our offer on the property, but by the time we got moved in it became obvious that we would be fighting tall grass. Honestly though, I do like tall grass. I like the way it arches, dries to a light earthy tone, and flowers all feathery and airy. Come fall it will be a decorative asset. But sometimes you need to walk and work in an area without wading through waist-high field grass.

After briefly running over my options in my head – ride-on lawn mower (not!), weed eater (never), goat (maybe someday) – I remembered there was a hand tool designed for just this task and that there are people out there actually practicing the art of using it – a scythe! Even considering using one feels like stepping back into the dark ages, but then I do like to be unconventional. Believe it or not, there is a book that details how to properly use one. I’m considering looking into this book and also maybe purchasing a state-of-the-art scythe. But as a temporary solution, and as an opportunity to experiment, my parents brought me a scythe that they happened to have in their garage. I guess my brother, horticultural wonder-boy that he is, bought this scythe back some time when he was still living with my parents. After a good sharpening, I took it out for a test run and was rather impressed. If you have any tall weeds that you prefer not to pull by hand, this tool will at least temporarily neuter the reproductive stalks. It slices right through blackberry vines too – no need to run to the tool shed for pruning sheers and/or gloves. I had fun sweeping it through the tall grass, and I could see why some people say that the process feels meditative, as the act left me feeling rather calm, but I have to admit to only clearing a small section. I’m not sure what I would report after a day long scything adventure in the back field.
While I was practicing my scything technique, I pondered the contrasts between hay and straw. Not that long ago I didn’t really know what the difference was between hay and straw, only that hay was valued as a livestock feed. Hay, typically dry grass, has no nutritional value to humans, yet is a staple for feeding livestock during the lean months. Straw, or dry grain-crop stalks, is a byproduct of human agricultural crops, and is used primarily as a livestock bedding material. There is a nice synergy there in how these crops provide for both livestock and humans, without waste or a whole lot of competition over resources.

Green Kitchen Tip #14

2007-07-20T11:49:00.000-07:00

Green Remodeling

When we first got the idea in our heads of remodeling our kitchen, I began considering how to incorporate “green” materials. I did a fair amount of research before realizing that my choices were going to be difficult. “Green” really comes in many shades of gray. There is no one shining example of green countertop materials, but rather various considerations one must make about what values to compromise. In my own case, I was fairly certain that my countertops should be some material that boasted a long useful life, which lead me to drool over granite and marble, before considering the possibility of permanent stains and the necessity of regular maintenance, which led me to consider engineered stone. I also thought about stainless steel, but even while considering all of these materials, I had to try to justify the high energy input in their production and transportation phases. Fascinated by the lower impact of durable goods, I skipped over the less permanent, yet greener options out there. Now I have a different perspective.

It seems that while durability is an important quality to consider when making any purchase, less permanent materials also have esteemable value. It is easy for us to envision our lives continuing along their current courses ad infinitum, especially if we are happy in our situation in life. However life, by its very nature, is all about change, and sudden changes at that. I was a little shocked at how abruptly we uprooted from a home we loved and never wanted to leave, but it happens, and often without a lot of warning. If I had outfitted my kitchen with those pricey engineered stone counters, I never would have realized any benefit from idolizing their durability. The next owner might have found my color choice too conventional and torn them out in favor of something trendier. These things have been known to happen. Actually I witnessed first-hand this haphazard re-decorating effect when I returned to our old home on some unfinished business, only to fully embrace the notion that there is no accounting for other people’s tastes. Not that I don’t have my own unconventional decorating ideas, or am one to talk. My point here is just that there is a value to impermanence.

So if you are thinking about your green remodeling options, bear that in mind. I know I did not.

But what is black and white and green all over? Why recycling of course. OK, there are still shades of gray in the act of recycling – take plastic recycling (not cut and dry), and the necessity of using water resources to clean recyclables, etc. But if you can stand to re-use someone else’s discarded goods, you are in fact recycling and making the world a “greener” place. There are tons of useful and valuable materials being sold on Craig’s list every day. I had never even considered the classifieds as an option for remodeling. I would not have at all (the credit goes to my husband here), if we hadn’t moved into a home that was desperately in need of ANYTHING better than what was there. We didn’t just find “anything” either. We found solid maple cabinets and engineered stone counters, along with the stainless steel under-mounted sink I’d always had an eye for. How is it that we found my dream kitchen, for a more than fair price, and that I can walk away from the transaction without feeling a twinge of guilt about it? Oh, indeed feeling positively beaming inside over it?

Well, it isn’t all sunshine and little drops of chocolate, mind you, because remodeling is still remodeling. Plumbing and venting need to be moved to accommodate the new sink and range placement, and the cabinets need to be positioned based upon what fits where, etc. All in all it worked out to fit our space almost perfect, but the devil is in the details and all.

Side note: Again with my theme of impermanence – the family who originally installed my dream kitchen as their own dream kitchen sold their home shortly after remodeling to a fellow who demolished the house and is currently building condominiums.

Overzealous Zucchini Fruits

2007-07-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

For a gardener, moving in the middle of the growing season is about the worst timing possible. Not only must one shun the bounty of green growing things in one’s favorite nursery haunts and try to look past those that taunt you at grocery stores, but further one is between garden plots in which to plant the plethora of seeds purchased way back in the dead of winter. To make matters more desperate, many avid gardeners must find the time and energy to transplant as many garden treasures as they can muster the strength and resolve for, in the midst of packing up everything else. Add to that watering the poor transplants daily, or twice daily, for months into the summer -- because summer is the worst imaginable time to be transplanting anything.

I was very fortunate. My brother has a vegetable garden into which I had recently invested several truck-loads of horse manure (reference “How Does Your Garden Grow” post back in February 07 archive), so he was more than willing to allow me an allotment in his growing patch. I managed to plant some of my seeds there on a drizzly day in May. The obligatory (and adored) pumpkins were planted, along with lettuce, beans, dill, carrots, and zucchini. I had already started tomatoes, basil, and eggplants in pots before we even envisioned ourselves moving, so besides eeking out a miserly existence in their neglected and pot-bound state, all of those crops survived and made the voyage. Oh yes, and the voyage was delightful . . . two full loads of plants in a 25’ long box-truck. Yeah, I was in denial that we had THAT many potted plants to move, but at least we only moved 8 miles away.

That day that I sowed my seeds in my brother’s garden, I had every intention of visiting them regularly and especially of harvesting the zucchini in a timely fashion. Nothing is more universally groaned at, by those in the know, than an over-sized zucchini fruit. Culinarily inclined gardeners probably all cloister them secretly into the heart of their steaming compost piles and forget about them. Those of you who grew up with a gardening parent, probably suffered through more than one preparation of monster zucchini. In fact, one of the stories my husband told me while we were first getting to know each other, and which stirred adoration in my heart, was a tale of his father’s run-away zucchini patch. See, his father was a minister with three kids to feed on a modest income. No food went to waste. Monster zucchinis were not harmlessly recycled back to the earth . . . they were painstakingly consumed. To the point that once my husband reached young adulthood, he decided he’d had enough jumbo zucchini goulash. One afternoon when he was home alone after school, he paid a visit to the zucchini patch with a bottle of ammonia in hand, and proceeded to pour liberally. Needless to say, his father was absolutely dumbfounded about what earth-scorching blight could possibly have struck his zucchini patch with such sudden and relentless wrath.

I resolved at an early age, that if ever I managed my own zucchini patch (and I never thought I would, by the way), that I would never unleash such a vegetative monster upon the dinner table. I was even convinced, as of this spring, that I would find the time to nip such behemoths in the bud, or rather when they were still of a servable size. But my dear brother recently brought me a bundle of my produce, since I haven’t made it out to his garden in months, complete with just such a specimen. What I haven’t mentioned, until this moment, is that our family finally found a way to enjoy, yes I said enjoy, these green giants.

It all happened when we were on summer vacation. My parents got it in their heads that we should drive cross-country, into the northern heart-lands of America. Among the proposed tourist destinations were places like Devil’s Tower, Yellowstone, and Mt. Rushmore. As we were just beginning to get a taste for all-day driving sprints, restaurant dinners, and spontaneous hotel choices, and while we were already growing road-weary, we found a site in Bonner’s Ferry Idaho featuring a string of detached cabins that had vacancies posted. It seems that we got a sniff of something sweet and chocolaty baking in an oven behind the clerk at the desk, so we enquired what it might be. That was the moment we acquired the recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Cake. It wasn’t very long before we realized the true beauty of the recipe – that it accommodated over-grown zucchini respectably.

When faced with my recent defeat against the notorious mammoth summer squash, I realized I only had one option, and I did not hesitate. Especially since I was recently suffering from an excruciating chocolate cake craving. Chocolate zucchini cake has got to be one of the easiest chocolate cakes you can throw together. The addition of clove is distinctive. This cake is exceedingly moist. In fact, I thawed some that had been in my freezer for probably several years (I know, I know, bad form for a foodie) and it did not suffer freezer burn at all. It was, in fact, divine! The chocolate chips sprinkled on top add melt-in-your-mouth interest, so that you won’t feel a whim to whip up any goopy frosting. The best part – you can make it in one bowl and bake it in one pan. Even better, for those cooking in half-baked (gadget deprived) kitchens, as I am at the moment, I easily managed to mix it up with just four commonly-used utensils: one large spoon, a set of teaspoons, a single half-cup measurer, and a grater. Life is good.

CHOCOLATE ZUCCHINI CAKE

In a large bowl, cream together:
½ cup softened butter
¼ cup oil
1 1/3 cup sugar

Then add:
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup buttermilk
2 cups unsifted flour
4 Tbsp cocoa
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp cloves

Add:
2 cups grated raw zucchini – I grated my large zucchini straight over the bowl

Pour into a greased 9 x 12 pan, or into muffin tins.
Sprinkle with:
¼ cup chocolate chips – I usually use more, a couple of handfuls

Bake at 350° F for 40 to 45 minutes.

Best served at least one day after baking. Freezes well.

A lot of catching up to do

2007-07-11T15:04:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of a tulip that was blooming in the midst of our home's time on the market. I did get around to downloading this image, but only now had a moment to share it. It is amazing to me to see how lush everything was not that long ago. Spring flew by and I hardly had a chance to take note of it. I remember grumbling, at the time I snapped this, about how I didn't really even have a moment to spare to photograph my tulips.

Actually, we are only now just getting started. After all the work of putting our house on the market, keeping it in show condition, making it through inspections, boxing our stuff up, boxing our stuff up, and yet more boxing our stuff up, we have henceforth carried all our earthly possessions to our new abode, set them down with as much organizational forethought as possible, and have proceeded to gut the new living quarters. And I thought a kitchen remodel was a nightmare. Silly me. Try keeping your kitchen in boxes in your car (where they will stay reasonably dust-free), cooking on a camp stove, and dining regularly with the mosquitos.

We are just glad it is summer and the living is supposedly easy.

More when I get another breather.

Is anybody actually still out there reading this neglected blog?

Interrupted by Life

2007-05-18T13:39:00.000-07:00

Please forgive my absence for the past month or so, as my husband and I are currently working to downsize and move house. This has been a dream of ours for several years now, so we are excited, but also anxious about how it will all come together. As we make progress, I will try to post updates. At the moment we are just trying to sell our house. If you've ever gone through the process, you understand how one's life can suddenly become absorbed into keeping the house in show quality condition, scheduling appointments for viewings, and debating the merits of various offers.

Meanwhile, I've stumbled upon a great website on the growing movement toward smaller houses.

Green Kitchen Tip #13

2007-04-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

Reducing Water Waste

I don't know about you, but when I need hot water in my kitchen, it has to travel from our basement waterheater across the width of a small room and then up through the floor boards. During its journey heat is disipated into the pipe and therefore a lot of water is wasted while I wait for hot water. This can be a significant source of wasted water.

In drier months, especially in drought years, I try to conserve every drop of water. This is the time of year that my plants begin to demand regular waterings, so I need to re-learn my seasonal habit of collecting otherwise wasted water. I bought a watering can specifically for indoor water collection, both at the kitchen sink and in the bathtub, so while I'm waiting for hot water, I have something productive to keep me occupied.

Once in the watering can, I usually let the water sit for at least half a day. This allows most of the chlorine to disipate before I use it on my plants. It also allows the water to come to room temperature, which is ideal for plant roots.

Factory Bee Farming

2007-04-20T10:54:00.000-07:00

Nature and mass production don’t mix. You can see many examples of this in the natural world – when deer populations explode, predator populations are quick to follow, thereby decimating deer populations. Or when plants or animals are crowded together, deadly diseases thrive. Now, as explained below, honeybee populations appear to be threatened due to large-scale management practices. The recent phenomenon of “colony collapse disorder” has seen the untimely loss of 30-70% of the honeybee population.

In the last two decades beekeeping has become increasingly commercialized and consolidated: beekeepers are trucking trailer-loads of bees from state to state in search of pollination contracts. Also, the bees have been bred in recent decades to pollinate rather than to make honey. In other words, the beekeepers are responding to the demands of the market [there is more demand for pollination services than for honey].
In February 2007, beekeepers and researchers convened in Florida to try to identify possible causes of this mysterious colony collapse disorder. They came up with the following possible reasons:
Stress: "Bees are being raised to survive a shorter off-season, to be ready to pollinate once the almond bloom begins in February. That has most likely lowered their immunity to viruses."
Insecticides: "Mites have also damaged bee colonies, and the insecticides used to try to kill mites are harming the ability of queen bees to spawn as many worker bees. The queens are living half as long as they did just a few years ago."
Pesticides: "A group of pesticides that were banned in some European countries [may be] affecting bees' innate ability to find their way back home."
This is not the first time that mysterious diseases are hitting honeybees but this is the first national honeybee epidemic. The previous diseases were local. Probably, the forced migration of bees in trucks turned this crisis into a national one. The diagnosis of colony collapse disorder is not yet final but all fingers are pointing in one direction: at the beekeepers' efforts to take full advantage of the opportunities that markets are presenting them. (Field Guide to the U.S. Economy)

Green Kitchen Tip #12

2007-04-13T16:48:00.000-07:00

Take-out Containers

We all have days when we don’t have the time or the energy to cook for ourselves. Take-out becomes a tempting option, even if it isn’t the healthiest choice. And while we may decide it is ok to put our healthy diets aside for a day, we may not wish to put our environmental concerns on the backburner.

Next time you opt for take-out, you might consider bringing your own clean, re-usable containers to be filled. I’ve brought my own reusable mug to espresso stands for years, and I’ve never had a problem, but the thought of bringing Tupperware to a restaurant seems entirely foreign to me and I’m a little concerned at what sort of reception I may get. But after reading this article, I feel re-assured that the idea is a mutually acceptable and beneficial one, even if it takes some getting used to.

Even better if you ditch the plastic (in an environmentally responsible manner) and buy a stainless steel contraption instead. For those of you who like to Christmas shop early, this would make a nice gift for those like-minded people in your life.

Now I've Learned my ACBs

2007-04-13T16:25:00.000-07:00

A. Irradiated food has not been proven safe

Speaking about 2-ACBs, the toxic molecules formed during irradiation of foods, Peter Jenkins, policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety proclaimed, "If any other food additive had as much science about health risks stacked up against it, the claim that it is safe would be laughed at" (source 1). 2-ACBs have been shown to cause “many and varied health problems in animals fed irradiated foods, including premature death, mutations and other genetic abnormalities, foetal death and other reproductive problems, immune system disorders, organ damage, stunted growth and nutritional deficiencies” (source 1). 2-ACBs are man-made chemicals – they have never been found in nature.

2-ACBs have been found in numerous [irradiated] foods that contain fat, including beef, chicken, pork, eggs, cheese, fresh- and salt-water fish, salmon, shrimp, mangoes and papayas. The types of fat from which 2-ACBs derive -- such as oleic, palmitic and stearic acids -- are contained in nearly all foods [emphasis added].
In one study, researchers found 2-ACBs in chicken that was irradiated 13 years earlier [emphasis added]. 2-ACBs are so easily detected and can be formed at such low radiation doses that they are often used as chemical "markers" to determine whether food has been irradiated. The European Union, for example, has officially adopted this technique to determine whether fat-containing foods have been irradiated (source 2).

Also, scientists discovered that they could not adequately account for most of a dose of 2-ACBs fed to rats. While very small amounts of 2-ACBs were detected in the fat of rats, most of the chemicals could not be recovered, implying that they are either stored in other parts of the body or transformed into other compounds (source 1).

C. It takes generations to prove safety

An increase in concentration of a mutagen in food by irradiation will increase the incidence of cancer . . . It will take four to six decades to demonstrate a statistically significant increase in cancer due to mutagens introduced into food by irradiation . . . When food irradiation is finally prohibited, several decades worth of people with increased cancer incidence will be in the pipeline (source 2).

or even worse, these cause-effect findings might be obscured by “background noise” because:

If food irradiation is adopted prematurely, research on its health effects will be hampered. Widespread use of the technology will make it impossible to detect any but the most obvious of adverse effects, because it will be impossible to define a control population for purposes of study [emphasis added]. (Quote from Donald B. Louria -- chairman of the preventative medicine department at the New Jersey Medical School in Newark, New Jersey. Quotation from June 1990, Vol. 46 No. 5, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists).

B. US Legislation is Lax

The EU only allows irradiation of “dried aromatic herbs, spices and vegetable seasonings,” while the US allows irradiation of meat, eggs, wheat, and fruits and vegetables, in addition to herbs, spices, and seasonings. Now the FDA plans to loosen labeling requirements so that irradiated food can be labeled as “pasteurized”.

How to Avoid Irradiated Foods:

BUY ORGANIC. Especially meat products and eggs, but also fruits and vegetables, wheat, and spices. Concerned about the fidelity of the organic label? Buy local whenever possible.

PREPARE YOUR OWN FOODS. Pre-packaged and prepared foods are exempt from labeling if only some of the ingredients are irradiated. For similar reasons, avoid eating in restaurants and cafeterias.

"Pasteurized" Will Mean "Irradiated"

2007-04-06T14:58:00.000-07:00

Orwell said, “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

What comes to mind? I think of white-washing, spin, and euphemisms; if you want to paint a pretty picture of something that is perhaps not so pleasant, don’t you pick your choice of words carefully? For example, instead of calling jumping out of an airplane (before we open the parachute) “free-falling” we coin it “sky-diving.” We say “Operation Enduring Freedom” instead of . . . .

In George Orwell's 1984, newspeak is a political language designed to narrow the range of thinking among the citizenry to the point that they lack the terms to think for themselves. "Freedom" is defined as slavery and "slavery" as freedom. That should convince everyone to be happy slaves. It is not surprising that those who direct wars would want to narrow the thought of the nation behind them to thoughts of acceptance and support. (source)

And what about the assault on our food system? It appears the FDA is getting in on the linguistical disinformation act, as they are proposing to allow irradiated foods to be labeled as “cold pasteurized,” “electronic pasteurized,” or other yet-to-be-determined terms rather than “irradiated.” So even while the FDA is proclaiming food irradiation to be safe, they are attempting to downplay, in the marketplace, how our food has been “sanitized.”

Consumer confusion over labeling changes has been considered, in a calculated manner. In the words of the FDA’s Assistant Commissioner for Policy, Jeffrey Shuren:

In the short run, there may be increased consumption of irradiated food if those consumers who do not want irradiated food do not equate the alternative term with irradiation.

In other words, there won't be any public information campaigns over the label changes. I have posted several times about the health concerns of irradiated foods and I am adamant that consumers be educated and informed.

Simultaneously the FDA proposes to drop the requirement to label some foods as irradiated. Here is the proposal in its entirety:

only those irradiated foods in which the irradiation causes a material change in the food, or a material change in the consequences that may result from the use of the food, bear the radura logo and the term "irradiated," or a derivative thereof, in conjunction with explicit language describing the change in the food or its conditions of use.

Conditions of use? Now you are going to tell me how to prepare my own food too?

But don’t despair, because here is a nugget of sage advice embedded in all of this:

firms will only start using irradiation if they believe doing so will increase profits.

So there you go – vote with your money. Buy organic! To qualify as organic, a food cannot be irradiated.

The FDA will allow public comment for 90 days (ends July 3, 2007). To read the proposal, search their site for FDA-2007-0189-0001. Your result will be a page from which you can open the 16 page PDF. Here are the FDA’s instructions for commenting:

You may submit comments, identified by Docket No. 2005N-0272 by any of the following methods: Electronic Submissions Submit electronic comments in the following ways:• Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov/. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.• Agency Web site: http://www.fda.gov/dockets/ecomments. Follow the instructions for submitting comments on the agency Web site. Written Submissions Submit written submissions in the following ways:• FAX: 301-827-6870.• Mail/Hand delivery/Courier [For paper, disk, or CD-ROM submissions]: Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305), Food and Drug Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852. To ensure more timely processing of comments, FDA is no longer accepting comments submitted to the agency by e-mail. FDA encourages you to continue to submit electronic comments by using the Federal eRulemaking Portal or the agency Web site, as described in the Electronic Submissions portion of this paragraph. Instructions: All submissions received must include the agency name and Docket No. 2005N-0272 or Regulatory Information Number (RIN) for this rulemaking. All comments received will be posted without change to http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/default.htm, including any personal information provided. For detailed instructions on submitting comments and additional information on the rulemaking process, see the Comments heading of the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document. Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/default.htmand insert the docket number, found in brackets in the heading of this document, into the Search box and follow the prompts and/or go to the Division of Dockets Management, 5630 Fishers Lane, rm. 1061, Rockville, MD 20852. Information Collection Provisions: Submit written comments on the information collection provisions to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget (OMB).To ensure that comments on the information collection are received, OMB recommends that written comments be faxed to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OMB, Attn: FDA Desk Officer, FAX: 202-395-6974.

More on Mercury Woes

2007-04-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know how I feel about methylmercury-polluted fish, but this article (that I have quoted below) fleshes out a few more details and considerations, for those of you who are interested. Until we reduce our consumption of goods that cause the release of mercury into the environment (here is a list – the auto industry is the largest source), we have merely managed to push our pollution to the far corners of the globe, as well as on to everyone's dinner plate.

The health risks posed by mercury contaminated fish is sufficient to warrant issuing a worldwide general warning to the public -- especially children and women of childbearing age -- to be careful about how much and which fish they eat. That is one of the key findings comprising "The Madison Declaration on Mercury Pollution" published today in a special issue of the international science journal Ambio. . . .
Methyl mercury levels in fish-eating birds and mammals in some parts of the world are reaching toxic levels, which may lead to population declines in these species and possibly in fish populations as well. . . .
Increased mercury emissions from developing countries over the last 30 years have offset decreased emissions from developed nations. . . .
New evidence indicates that methylmercury exposure may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, particularly in adult men. . . .
The concentration of methylmercury in fish in freshwater and coastal ecosystems can be expected to decline with reduced mercury inputs; however, the rate of decline is expected to vary among water bodies, depending on the characteristics of a particular ecosystem.

Displaced Daylight

2007-03-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

In our home we quit observing time changes. Part of the reason is that our digital alarm clock, circa 1990, has become temperamental about having its buttons pushed. But I also just plain don’t appreciate having to drastically re-adjust my perception of time twice a year. I truly prefer to glean the hour of day by the angle of the sunlight and the season, not by social convention. So instead of changing our clocks every equinox, my husband and I prefer to stick to summer time and tabulate the difference in our heads through the cold, dark days of winter.

I figure we are somewhat atypical in this respect, but my mother alerted me to the fact that my maternal great grandparents – also avid gardeners -- were the same way. So obstinance runs in the family, I guess.

This nouveau daylight savings time schedule has me a little puzzled. I can’t see how more energy will be saved.

This new schedule was introduced to try to help save energy, since people aren't expected to need their lights on as early in the evening. But there is still some debate about how effective the change will be at reducing energy consumption.
A 2006 report from the U.S. Department of Energy anticipated electricity savings of four-tenths of a per cent per day of extended daylight savings time, totaling three one-hundredths of a per cent of annual electricity consumption.
As to the environmental impact, the non-profit group American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy estimated 10.8-million-tonne drop in carbon emissions. (source)

I get that people will not need their lights on in the evening for that extra hour, but what about the extra hour of darkness in the morning as they prepare for work? I don’t know about you, but in the evening I’m more sedentary. I only use one or two light bulbs at a time. In the morning, I’m scrambling around the house, so I tend to require at least three light bulbs. That may just be me talking, because not everyone awakens or leaves the house at the same time as I do. Does anyone else have a perspective on whether they think this will work?

What I do like about the change is that it allows me more time to get out in the garden after work. This has been a treat. I’m not complaining at all. After all, I prefer summer (daylight savings) time all year round.

Green Kitchen Tip #11

2007-03-16T10:37:00.000-07:00

Shopping Habits

In the last few years I have drastically changed my shopping habits. Part of this is due to my growing older and knowing how to spend my time more wisely, but part of this is also due to increased fuel prices. While I still am of the mind-set that it is ideal to shop daily for whatever it may be that sounds appetizing or looks fresh and inspiring, unless you live near your market and are vigilant about walking there regardless of the weather, catching a bus, or combining your trip with other necessary travels, there are obvious advantages to consolidating shopping runs. Now when I shop with my car, I make it count. I hit all the stores on the same day and I stock up for at least a month. Of course, I still make regular trips to the grocery store down the street, but most of my shopping is very energy efficient – except, of course, in terms of my own personal energy efficiency, because I’ll tell you, by the time I get home from “power shopping,” I’m exhausted! I’m definitely not of the shop-till-you-drop set. That said, my exhaustion is well worth the time I can spend the remainder of the month not shopping!

While it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, this is a great way to conserve fuel, as well as time. Drive once. Eat for a month! Of course, that said, it helps if you can supplement fresh vegetables, fruits, and herbs from your own garden. And believe me, it helps to prepare in advance a separate list for each store you plan to hit.

Once at the store, as you reach for one of your favorite products, consider buying the largest container available. There are several advantages to buying items in bulk, whether you browse from bulk bins, you brave big box stores like Costco, or you just grab the biggest lot on the shelf. Buying in bulk means you make fewer trips to stock up on the items you use regularly. Additionally, it typically costs less to buy in bulk. This may correlate with another important advantage – less packaging per unit. Because apparently, “Consumers spend approximately ten cents of every grocery dollar on packaging, making packaging the fourth largest industry in the United States” (source). To top that off, I’ve noticed that when I shop at Costco I have no need for shopping bags of any sort, nor do I require any of the cardboard boxes that they graciously offer for re-use.

If your bulk purchase is non-perishable you can store your bounty and use as needed, knowing well in advance when your stockpile begins to dwindle. Some products, such as dish soap, are easier to manage in bulk if you portion them out into smaller containers. If you are short on space, or the item spoils before you can use it all, consider splitting your purchase with friends or family.

And speaking of friends and family, if you live close to them, consider either shopping with them or asking if you can pick anything up for them while you are out. Chances are high that they will return the favor at an opportune time, and that some fuel will be saved in the deal.

For more environmentally friendly shopping tips, please visit this site.

Green Kitchen Tip #10

2007-03-09T13:44:00.000-08:00

Grocery Bags

It seems like everywhere you shop these days, whatever items you purchase are automatically slipped into a plastic bag or two. Unless you inform your checker, the assumption is made that even one easily hand-held item necessitates wrapping in a thin plastic sleeve. When you think about it, most of the produce we buy either gets grouped into its own plastic bag or else comes in a pre-packaged plastic shell.

Apparently every year 500 billion plastic bags are dispensed from stores across the globe. Many of these plastic bags are showing up in the ocean and in the internal organs of ocean mammals, of all places. Probably the majority of plastic bags end up in landfills, but only 1-3% will ever be recycled.

And it isn’t just hearsay that plastic bags have environmental advantages over paper bags. It takes four times as much energy to produce paper bags than it does to extrude plastic ones. 14 million trees were sacrificed in 1999, in order to fabricate 10 billion paper bags for American shoppers. Those were trees that once contributed to sinking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. The paper bag industry avoids recycled pulp, because that would undermine the integrity of the finished bag. During production, paper bags contribute 70% more air pollution and 50 times more water pollution than do plastic bags. At recycling time, it takes 91% more energy to recycle the equivalent weight of paper bags as it does plastic bags.

But that doesn’t negate the fact that the decomposition products of plastic bags are rather toxic and that plastic can be difficult to recycle unless it is free of contamination (including dyes often used to brand the bags with a store’s logo). In fact recyclers find plastic bag recycling to be uneconomical, therefore many of those to-be “recycled” plastic bags are showing up in India and China, where an absence of strict environmental laws allows them to be incinerated. During incineration plastics release toxic chemicals, including dioxins, which can lead to increased cancer rates.

So how do we stem the tide of plastic bag saturation?

Many grocery chains have noticed it is profitable to market their own re-usable grocery totes. I have found that the capacity of these totes is much higher than a plastic bag, which is handy when I buy a large amount of groceries. Juggling too many plastic bags can be encumbering. The trick with these totes is to get into the habit of bringing them not only with you, but also into the store with you. Store them in your car, or by the door if you walk to buy your groceries. Make sure they are in a very visible location, so you see them as you exit your vehicle, or your house. Keeping them in the trunk may seem the tidy thing to do, but they are easily forgotten there.

Even with the best intentions we can still attract miscellaneous plastic bags. The clean ones with holes should probably be recycled (hope for the best), the ones without holes can be re-used. Here are some ideas for re-using plastic bags:

Why buy additional plastic garbage bags, when you can reuse your grocery bags for this purpose? Purchase a small garbage can that is short enough to support the weight of a filled bag. You may have to take the trash out more frequently, but this will reduce the chances of any lingering trash odors in your house.
Store some in your car, or in any bags or purses you own. You never know when you might need a garbage sack. If you like to hike or walk in parks, you can do a good deed and pick up litter along the way.
Donate them to daycare centers or thrift stores.
If you walk your dog, or if pets use your lawn as a rest-stop, use them as temporary gloves to pick up deposits, then carefully turn them inside out, and knot them up.
If you are particularly crafty, you can cut them in strips and crochet yourself a beautiful hand bag that will be more durable than a single plastic grocery bag. You could also weave floor mats in this manner. Someone should seriously sell these, for those of us who don’t enjoy crocheting. However, be careful to avoid exposing such items to excessive sunlight, as the plastic will degrade in UV light.

Source for most of my statistics.

Green Kitchen Tip #9

2007-03-02T11:26:00.000-08:00

Those Ubiquitous Rubber Gloves

Those of you who have already made the switch to environmentally friendly dishwashing soaps, have probably noted that you no longer require rubber gloves to protect your hands while hand-washing dishes. If you haven’t yet made the switch, here is a review of several brands of greener dishwashing liquids. These formulas are based upon vegetable oils rather than petroleum and they avoid harsh chemical additives.

The less frequently you require gloves to hand-wash dishes, the less likely you are to accidentally tear a hole in one of the fingers, which means whatever gloves you own will last longer.

Those of you who have quit or reduced your use of bleach, have probably noticed that your household cleaning gloves last much longer, since they aren’t regularly bathing in a caustic solution.

But inevitably rubber gloves have a finite lifetime. Often we are left with a lonely glove that has lost its mate. And most likely these widowed gloves will refuse to pair up with another bereaved glove, due to handedness factors.

Rubber gloves have an undeniable impact on the environment, both in production and disposal. Synthetic rubber is made from petroleum. Additionally, synthetic rubber production is energy intensive and involves the inclusion of many additives – polymers, vulcanization accelerators, activators, vulcanization agents, fillers, fire retardants, anti-degradants, colorants, and plasitcizers. So how can we best put these gloves back to work?

Patch the torn finger from the inside with duct tape. They won’t be fully water-tight but can be used for other tasks, such as gardening.
Cut the remaining fingers from the glove, add them to your first-aid kit and use them as finger “condoms” to protect bandaged fingers from moisture and messes. Secure them to your finger with first aid tape.
You can cut your own rubber bands out of the forearm portion, if you are clever with a pair of scissors
Cut out the palm portion and use it to aid in opening tight jar lids

Rubber can be recycled. In fact, recycling rubber is less energy intensive than producing new rubber. However, since gloves are small compared to tires, it appears that recycling them is currently mostly overlooked. Perhaps some day all our rubber gloves will be granted a second life as tree-saving sidewalks.

Green Kitchen Tip #8

2007-02-22T11:27:00.000-08:00

Cooking oil

Oil and water don’t mix. That includes waste cooking oil and sink wastewater. Even mixing oil with soap or detergent before sending it down the drain is a bad practice. Fats, oils, and greases (collectively coined FOGs) cause pipe clogs and increase wastewater management expenses.

Try not to absent-mindedly toss your FOGs in the trash either. Animal fats, when cooled in a jar, can be thrown out, but vegetable oil is a different beast. If you must discard of vegetable oil, collect it in a container and then mix it with cat litter, dirt or something similar, in order to incorporate it into a solid substance before tossing it in the trash. But even then, landfills frown upon disposing of large quantities of FOGs. If you have a large quantity of FOGs to dispose of, try to break up the disposal over the course of several weeks.

But why throw it out if you can reuse it? Considering that “conventional methods for extracting oil from plant materials require enormous amounts of energy, which in turn produce significant greenhouse gas emissions,” we should be looking to make the most of this energy-intensive product. Here are some ideas for re-use:

Depending on where you live, you may be able to recycle your oil at a recycling facility
Some people make their own biodiesel with used cooking oil, try to find someone in your area who makes his or her own biodiesel
Contact a local restaurant that you have a good relationship with, if they recycle their oil they may be willing to add yours to the pot
If you heat your home with a woodstove or fireplace, you could mix used oil with sawdust and use it to light your fire. Use this sparingly, as oil has a tendency to produce black smoke and probably leaves a residue in the stack.
In small amounts, you can add vegetable oil to your compost, however mix it well with leaves, grass clippings and wood chips. In urban areas, it is best to avoid composting animal fats.

Critical Analysis of Food Irradiation

2007-02-16T10:28:00.000-08:00

In addition to potential cancer promotion due to products formed by irradiation of fat in foods (see my ongoing rant in the previous post), there are further concerns linking food irradiation to cancer risk.

Amazingly, it seems most vitamins remain intact after irradiation, with the distinct exception of Vitamin D and folate, both of which are diminished by irradiation. Interestingly enough, a lack of both sufficient vitamin D and folate are linked to an increased risk of cancer.

This association [of high vitamin D and calcium levels with low cancer rates] remained significant after adjustment for age, daily cigarette consumption, body mass index, ethanol consumption, and percentage of calories obtained from fat (source).

There is overwhelming evidence that folate is protective against cancer.

Collectively, the evidence from epidemiologic, animal and human studies strongly suggests that folate status modulates the risk of developing cancers in selected tissues, the most notable of which is the colorectum. Folate depletion appears to enhance carcinogenesis whereas folate supplementation above what is presently considered to be the basal requirement appears to convey a protective effect (source).

There appear to be several mechanisms whereby irradiated foods could increase a consumer’s risk of cancer. If irradiated produce starts hitting the market, in a big way, I recommend vitamin D and folate supplementation, at the very least.

Fear & Genotoxins

2007-02-15T16:07:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot of positive press lately about the purported food safety benefits of irradiated foods. Very little attention has been given to skeptics, at least few have been allowed to flesh out their arguments with cold, hard facts. As a result, I feel I need to share with you the work of a prominent toxicologist from the Univeristy of Texas, William Au, who present a well-informed voice of dissent.

Forgive me for lengthily quoting from a court document, wherein he presents expert testimony against the construction of a fruit irradiation facility in Hawaii, but I felt this was highly relevant to the recent interest in irradiating produce. I have attempted to bold-face information I find particularly informative, for those of you who would prefer to skim through it.

The use of radiation to treat produce destined for human consumption for fruit flies and other agricultural pests should be evaluated for health concerns very carefully. Radiolytic products are formed during the irradiation of food (Schubert, 1969). Some radiolytic products are unique to the food irradiation process, and there are scientific data indicating their potential health hazards. More research is needed on the products that are unique to the irradiation process.
A recently-discovered unique class of radiolytic products that are generated from the irradiation of fat-containing food is 2-alkylcyclobutanone (2-ACB) with saturated and monounsaturated alkyl side chain: 2-decyl-, 2-dodecyl-, 2-dodecenyl-, 2-tetradecyl- and 2-tetradecenyl-cyclobutanone (Miesch et al., 2002). Studies have confirmed the presence of 2-ACBs in irradiated mango and papaya, two types of fruit proposed for processing at the Pa’ina Hawaii facility, should it be approved (Ndiaye et al. 1999; Stewart et al., 200).
Since 1998, concern regarding health hazards from the consumption of irradiated food has been focused on the toxicity of 2-ACB. Using in vitro assays, 2-ACB has been shown to be genotoxic and mutagenic (Delincee and Pool-Zobel, 1998; Delincee et al., 1998; Delincee et al., 2002; Burnouf et al., 2002). 2-ACB has also been tested in experimental animals. In one report (Horvatovich et al., 2002), laboratory rats were fed a very low concentration of 2-ACB in drinking water, and the absorption and excretion of the chemical were monitored. The study showed that less than 1% of the administered chemical was excreted in feces. A portion of the chemical crossed the intestinal barrier, entered the blood stream and accumulated in the adipose tissues of the animal. It follows that consumption of irradiated food for a long time can cause accumulation of toxic 2-ACB in the adipose tissues of human consumers.
The recent findings by Raul et al. (2002) raises a high level of concern. In the study, Wistar rats received a daily solution of 2-tetradecylcyclobutanone or 2-(tetradec-5’-enyl)-cyclobutanone and a known colon carcinogen (azoxymethane [AOM]). Observations were made at two distinct intervals. At three months after initiation of the exposure, no significant changes in the number of pre-neoplastic colonic lesions were observed among the rats (all were exposed to AOM). At six months, however, the total number and the overall size of tumors were markedly increased in the 2-ACB-AOM treated rats as compared to the ethanol-AOM control rats. This demonstrates that compounds found exclusively in irradiated dietary fats may promote colon carcinogenesis in animals treated with a known carcinogen and identifies a new area of toxicity that neither the U.S. Food and Drug Administration nor the World Health Organization has yet examined.
A promoting agent does not usually cause cancer by itself but alters cellular functions (Zheng et al., 2002; Yamagata et al., 2002). The unique concern with promoters is that they can significantly enhance the carcinogenic effects of known carcinogens (Hecker et al., 1980; Slaga, 1983; Langenbach et al., 1986). Experimental animals that are treated with both promoters and carcinogens develop tumors much earlier and have more tumor nodules than animals treated with the carcinogens alone. Animals treated with the promoters alone would not develop tumors more often than the untreated animals.
Colon cancer (as was discovered in the rat study on 2-ACBs) is a serious health problem in humans, causing approximately 60,000 deaths per year in the United States. Consumption of improper diet is a major cause for colon cancer: foods that are high in fat especially from animal sources, meat cooked with high heat, charred meat, and food with high content of aromatic/heterocyclic amines (Colon cancer folder in the American Cancer Society website – http://www.cancer.org/; Lang et al., 1986; Vineis and McMichael, 1996). Consumption of the improper diet together with food that contains 2-ACB, which acts as a tumor promoter, can increase the risk for the development of colon cancer. Under this scenario, individuals who would normally outlive the risk for colon cancer might develop the cancer.
Numerous other peer-reviewed published reports have long indicated the mutagenic activities of irradiated foods fed to mammals (Anderson et al., 1980; Bhaskaram and Sadasivan, 1975; Bugyaki et al., 1968; Maier et al., 1993; Moutschen-Dahmen, et al., 1970; Vijayalaxmi, 1975, 1976, 1978; Vijayalaxmi and Rao, 1976; Vijayalaxmi and Sadasivan, 1975). While the health concerns for consumption of irradiated food simply cannot be considered to have been resolved conclusively (Louria, 2001), the data indicate that consumption of irradiated food can cause genotoxic effects and therefore health hazards in the population. Moreover, there may be subpopulations, such as children, who are most susceptible to toxic effects of irradiated food. Strong reasons exist for considering children generally to be especially susceptible to toxic materials (Au 2002).
In the final analysis, the only thing certain about the impacts on human health associated with the consumption of irradiated food, including the papayas, mangos, and other produce proposed to be processed at the Pa’ina Hawaii facility, is that it is the subject of considerable scientific debate. A recent article I co-authored summarizing the controversy over this issue (Ashley et al., 2004) is attached hereto as Exhibit “C” and incorporated herein by reference.

I find it interesting that Exhibit “C” was not, in fact, to be found attached, even while Exhibit “B” was clearly included, but after a little sleuthing, I found the abstract for the document, titled “Health concerns regarding consumption of irradiated food.”

Food irradiation is being promoted as a simple process that can be used to effectively and significantly reduce food-borne illnesses around the world. However, a thorough review of the literature reveals a paucity of adequate research conducted to specifically address health concerns that may directly result from the consumption of irradiated food. . . . As a result of this review, the authors conclude that current evidence does not exist to substantiate the support or unconditional endorsement of irradiation of food for consumption. In addition, consumers are entitled to their right of choice in the consumption of irradiated versus un-irradiated food.

This man is truly worth his weight in gold (Au). ;)

Green Kitchen Tip #7

2007-02-15T10:38:00.000-08:00

Refrigerator Space

Keeping an orderly refrigerator is especially important if you are trying to minimize your ecological footprint by purchasing the smallest refrigerator feasible for your needs. Downsizing your cooling space can have a positive impact on your life, as long as you invest a little time and thought into how you organize and maintain your refrigerator.

A cluttered refrigerator has the following negative attributes:

You spend more time with the door open (energy wasting behavior) looking for ingredients
Clutter, if stacked thoughtlessly, can interfere with the air flow in the refrigerator making the appliance work harder and potentially not keep the interior optimally cool
Clutter is mentally disturbing, even if only subconsciously
In a cluttered refrigerator, frequently used items tend to migrate to the front of the refrigerator, while things like leftovers and rarely used items can lurk in the background and foul in obscurity.

Furthermore, food that cannot be eaten, and is possibly too revolting to introduce to your compost bin, most likely will end up in a landfill, where it produces methane as it decays and contributes disproportionately to global warming.

Not only that, but an unnamed food blogger once publicly admitted that she prefers to throw away Tupperware that harbors vigorous cultures of unmentionables. While this actually makes sense, because plastic containers are relatively porous and therefore cannot be disinfected as thoroughly as glass containers, the thought of failing to recycle plastic containers was nevertheless upsetting to me.

I have compiled a few tips to help us all (yes, I still need a reminder every once in a while, as well) be better stewards to the earth through our food storage habits --

Have a system of organization – this helps because if all your cheeses and all your condiments are together in one area of your refrigerator -- items with relatively long shelf-lives – you won’t need to shuffle through them to check for spoilage as often. Make sure everyone in the household agrees to and abides by the system. If one member of the family disregards the system, it will mean extra work for the person who regularly cleans out the refrigerator, as well as time and energy wasted searching for errant items.
Choose a day of the week to perform a regular refrigerator check-up. Keep in mind that if done weekly, it will only take a fraction of the time that it takes to clean a neglected refrigerator.
I hesitate to recommend labeling dates on your containers of leftovers, because I know for myself this would encourage me to procrastinate until the final hour of utility, but such a system may work for some.
Eat leftovers within the week, or be firm about tossing or composting them. Leftovers are rarely as appealing as their freshly made counterparts, and they rarely age well. Rather than planning lunches on weekend days, I have started foraging on leftovers, since I often eat these meals alone and typically don’t have time to do anything extravagant anyway. Occasionally I’m amazed by available leftovers, which I would have forgotten were there.
If your typical day-to-day schedule has been disturbed (due to illness, vacation, power outages, or what have you) make it a priority to sift through your fridge, as soon as you get a spare moment.
If you are an adventurous home cook, occasionally you will find yourself with a large quantity of an ingredient you don’t typically cook with. Such ingredients are especially easy to overlook and find spoiled some time later. Use these instances as opportunities to expand your horizons. These atypical ingredients can challenge you to create or search for further recipes featuring the ingredient in question.

Thanksgiving in Storage

2007-02-14T16:00:00.000-08:00

Some years the seasons don't unfold exactly as expected. You'll get a cold snap when you should be planting seeds or perhaps you may enjoy warm evenings well into fall that will continue to ripen your straggler tomatoes. Every year is different, and some years crops don't yield as well, as a result.

Last spring brought us cool temperatures well into the spring planting season. Fate had it that I forgot to plant my pumpkin seeds, and consequently they went into the ground a month or so late. Gardeners I spoke with on the subject, confirmed my suspicion that it probably didn't matter that I was late, since the weather hadn't been cooperating anyway. So I didn't fret. Even as I watched the flowers begin blooming late, the pumpkins growing at an aggravatingly slow pace, and eventually the vines fail around harvest time. As the threat of frost crept into the forecast, I rescued my pumpkins, even while they were naturally separating themselves from their earthly umbilical cords, and despite the fact that one of them had failed to ripen entirely.

As you see it pictured here, you see that it still retains a mark of late ripening. But from the field it was plucked nearly half green. I know that pumpkins and winter squashes will store through the better part of the winter, if cleaned well and given a cool, dark location. What I was unsure of was whether I could encourage further ripening.

After a thorough cleaning with vinegar, I set both pumpkins near a window receiving indirect light, in an unheated room. I checked occasionally to ensure they were resisting decay. By early February, I was satisfied at the state of ripeness and decided it was time to, at long last, prepare pumpkin pulp.

I grew up loathing pumpkin pie, until my mother started making pumpkin pies from the pumpkins she grew in her garden. Pumpkin pulp in a can is shameful. I'm sorry, but it just is. If there are no fresh pumpkins, I'll pass on pumpkin pie, thank you very much.

Here is the magical conversion from vine to pie pulp (and, yes, pumpkin pulp can be used to make many other wonderful recipes, as well):

Split pumpkins in half -- Organic Sweet Pie Pumpkins are best
Scoop out seeds and spongy flesh -- I find an ice cream scoop works really well
Place each half of a pumpkin, cut-side down on a baking sheet
Roast in a 375° F oven for about 45 minutes, or until tender -- use a fork to check for tenderness
Let cool, cut-side up, until easily handled
Scoop flesh from skin and process in a food mill, food processor, or blender.
If not using right away, store in measured quantities in tightly sealed bags in the freezer. You want to make sure you remove as much air as possible from the bags for long term storage. It further helps to record the date, quantity, and type of pumpkin used on the freezer bag.

Valentime

2007-02-09T15:41:00.000-08:00

Happy, Happy Valentine’s Day to you all!

I made these festive truffles for my friends & family. It’s a shame I can’t share them with you all as well.

I couldn’t help but make a list of the things I most hate about Valentine’s day:

People who send flowers to their significant others at work or school (no one needs to see that sh!+)
For that matter, PDAs (get a room)
Cut flowers -- instead buy your love a plant s/he can cherish for YEARS to come
Sappy “journey pendants” and miscellaneous other romantic themed jewelry
And last, but by no means least, Valentine’s Day menus at restaurants

Hey, they don’t call me jaded for nothing.

What I WILL endorse is a romantic dinner at home with candles, your mutually favorite CDs, perhaps a bottle of wine or champagne, etc. . . . oh and don’t forget the chocolates!

Green Kitchen Tip #6

2007-02-09T14:50:00.001-08:00

Dish Washing

Since beginning a re-model on our kitchen, I’ve had the opportunity to chose new, more energy efficient appliances. I actually got lucky on timing my purchases, because shortly after buying my new ones, the old ones began to fail. However, the one appliance I’ve held off on buying is a dishwasher.

Our kitchen came complete with ivory & black appliances from what I suspect was the 1980’s. Along with the giant side-by-side energy guzzling refrigerator, we inherited a standard electric range and a dishwasher that I refused to ever run. My rationale was that it consumed far more water and energy than I would ever use by handwashing two people’s dishes. Besides, I later justified, those detergents are more harmful than dish soap.

Times change, and now it actually costs more in energy and water, not to mention potentially productive hours, to get those dishes cleaned up by hand, than it does to use a modern dishwasher. Now I’m finding that the reasons to get a dishwasher are stacking up against me:

Scientists at the University of Bonn in Germany who studied the issue found that the dishwasher uses only half the energy, one-sixth of the water, and less soap than hand-washing an identical set of dirty dishes. Even the most sparing and careful washers could not beat the modern dishwasher. The study also found that dishwashers excelled in cleanliness over hand washing. (source)

Modern dishwashers heat water inside the machine, so heat is not dissipated on its journey through the piping from the home water heater, as it is in older machines.

But, all things considered, in order to minimize your impact on the environment, please follow these tips:

Wait until you have a full load to wash in the dishwasher
Don’t pre-rinse
Air dry
Use an environmentally friendly detergent, such as Seventh Generation.

Now is a great time to shop for a new dishwasher, because the Energy Star requirements for energy efficiency just became stricter, as of January 1, 2007.

If you chose to upgrade your dishwasher or other appliances, find a recycling facility in your area for your old appliances. Large household appliances are known as “white goods” – a relic from the old days when they were finished with white enamel.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2007-02-08T10:03:00.000-08:00

I thought I was referencing a light-hearted nursery rhyme, but I guess not.

However, I did spend my past weekend in a light-hearted manner. I picked up some “organic fertilizer” from a nearby horse-boarding facility. I had forgotten how much esteem I have for horses, so it was enchanting to find myself in their midst.

Now I have a mildly odiferous pile in my front garden. There it will sit for 2 months to age, before I apply it to my garden beds. And why would I introduce such an unrefined spectacle to my urbane neighborhood, you might ask? Such an inefficient method of applying N-P-K, others might say.

Well, here’s the scoop:

Organic matter encourages the proliferation of soil microorganisms. “The microbes slowly release not only nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium but also a host of other nutrients in ratios difficult to replicate with synthetic fertilizers.” Ratios that allow proper absorption of necessary nutrients, which might interact unfavorably if too much of one is added from a synthetic source.
Furthermore, “microorganisms that typically inhabit organically managed fields also produce substances that combine with minerals in the soil and make them more available to plants, a function that can be especially important for iron absorption. Iron is usually present in soil, but it is often in an unavailable form.”

The reality is that conventionally grown crops are becoming nutritionally bankrupt, in terms of offering trace minerals and certain vitamins. Trace minerals are important to optimum human health and can influence vitamin assimilation. Vegetarians, who rely on attaining these nutrients from produce sources, should be particularly concerned. The good news here is that organically grown produce offers higher levels of minerals, vitamins, and even antioxidants.

Note: The source of both quotations is the same source that I linked in the final paragraph.

Green Kitchen Tip # 5

2007-02-02T11:53:00.000-08:00

Kitchen Scraps

Have you ever considered what happens to America’s food wastes? Nearly a quarter of all trash we toss in our garbage cans are kitchen scraps and yard clippings, both of which could be recycled into compost. If you include paper wastes, that adds up to nearly half of all solid wastes. Instead of being composted, a lot of those wastes end up in landfills. As they rot in landfills, they emit methane, a powerful greenhouse gas thought to contribute 20 times as much to global warming as carbon dioxide. I had no idea we each made that much of an impact, in such an off-handed manner.

If you have a garden, composting is intuitive. But not everyone has the space or even an outdoor location for a traditional compost pile or bin. No worries, a young inventor by the name of Russ Cohn, has created a composting machine that is small enough to fit under your sink, and more efficient than a neglected pile out in your backyard. In his own words:

It's great to buy a hybrid car, but without composting you might as well have an invisible SUV running around your kitchen. Most people don't yet realize the staggering imipact of kitchen waste on greenhouse emissions, or how simple it is to divert so much landfill fodder to healthy and sustainable use. My goal is to make it easy, fast and painless for people to do this.

I really like the idea of his small, efficient machine, but I don’t have one yet. I keep a container on my counter for kitchen wastes to be composted, and I’ll tell you it isn’t always a pretty sight, even though I carry it out to my compost pile several times a week.

Another option for getting rid of your kitchen scraps is vermiculture (worm bins). I include worms in my compost pile (I go with the laziest method of composting), because they add what some would call “black gold” – their castings improve soil structure and microbial activity. In order to grow worms in a compost pile, just ensure you add soil and keep things moist for them(or give them an escape route into the earth).

But if you really mustn’t be bothered with recycling, the most conscientious thing you can do is get yourself a sink garbage disposal, and divert those wastes to the wastewater treatment facility. Not only will you be diverting methane production to a facility that might have the capacity to burn it for energy, but macerated kitchen wastes can aid in phosphate and other nutrient removal from the wastewater stream, which is good news for all the little fishies downstream.

Methyl Mercury and the Three Omega 3's

2007-01-26T11:11:00.000-08:00

Note: This is an article I wrote for the Well Fed Network last spring. It is long and somewhat technical, but I feel it is important, which is why I've chosen to re-publish it here. Omega 3 fatty acids are very important in the development and maintenance of the central nervous system (CNS). This is well understood by the general public, however the effect of methyl mercury (in fish sources of omega 3s) on the adult CNS is often down-played or ignored. Fetuses are particularly vulnerable to accumulating mercury, and this can impact their development even when the mother has only a moderate intake. I checked all of the links and some of them needed to be updated. As certain medical journals have a tendency to move articles around in cyberspace, I have chosen to use a more formal (but as brief as possible) citation on updated links, so they will be easier to track down should they go missing in the future.

Once upon a time obtaining dinner meant picking a few berries off that shrub over there, and spearing a salmon out of the stream. Then we got it in our heads that we might want to keep a chicken around for a reliable source of eggs and maybe tend a patch of wheat. Now it means grabbing a pre-packaged, chemical cocktail wrapped in plastic. Slowly our diets have changed drastically from wild foods to cultivated foods to genetically modified and chemically adulterated foodstuff. Along the way, we have lost access to vital nutrients, including healing fats.

Essential fatty acids are those fatty acids that the body cannot synthesize from other dietary components; therefore they must be included in the diet. There are two such fatty acids – omega 3 and omega 6. Omega 3 refers to the position of the first unsaturated (double) bond in the fatty acid. There are three molecular forms of Omega 3 – eicosapantaenoic acid (EPA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). EPA and DHA are known as the long forms, as their structures contain longer fatty tails with 5 and 6 double bonds respectively. They appear to be found in nature mainly in marine life forms, such as marine algae, kelp, and the fish associated with such ecosystems. ALA is structurally known as the short form, as it contains only 3 double bonds on a shorter fatty tail. Common sources of ALA are terrestrial plants such as grasses, flax seeds, and wild greens; as well as the animals which graze upon them, such as free-range chickens, cows, etc. While it is possible for the human body to convert ALA to EPA and DHA, the conversion is far from efficient.

The modern human’s diet is grossly deficient in omega 3 fatty acids, while simultaneously gluttonous upon omega 6 fatty acids (the other essential fatty acid). This imbalance in essential fatty acids has been linked to the increased risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, as well as autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. An ideal healthy ratio of omega 3:omega 6 is in the range of 1:2 to 1:4, while the average American’s profile is 1:15 or worse. What are the root causes of this imbalance? Primarily our food cultivation practices. Wild plant foods are much higher in ALAs than cultivated varieties. The practice of feeding farm animals with corn and grains, rather than allowing them to free-range in pastures skews their essential fatty acid composition. Fish farming contributes as well, because farmed fish cannot forage on foods rich in EPAs and DHAs and most fish farmers feed their fish grains. Another contributing factor is our heavy reliance on cooking oils which are high in omega 6s such as corn, soy, cottonseed, and peanut.

With the increasing awareness of the importance of omega 3 fatty acids, more and more products are sporting omega 3 labels. Omega 3 eggs come from chickens fed flax seeds. Flax seeds and flax oils are being added to many products. But remember that products based upon flax oils will mostly contain ALA and not EPA or DHA, which appear to be more important to human health. According to the Institute of Medicine, “ALA is not known to have any specific functions other than to serve as a precursor for synthesis of EPA and DHA.” However, it is interesting to note that cultures with high ALA consumption are also those known for the greatest longevity.

Regular consumers of animal products, including dairy products, would be doing themselves a favor by purchasing products from free-range, grass-fed animals. Not only are the animals treated more humanely, but their bodies have a more balanced essentially fatty acid profile, the benefits of which get passed on to the consumer. Any actions you can take to re-balance your omega 3:omega 6 ratio should benefit your long-term health. For those who choose to avoid fish, there is some good news, as it appears that so long as your omega 3 to omega 6 ratio is 1:4, your ability to convert ALA to EPA will be optimized. Further evidence shows that if your diet is high in saturated fat, as opposed to omega 6s, your conversion rate may be as high as 6% for EPA and 3.8% for DHA. (International Journal for Vitamin and Nutritional Research, 3/1998, Gerster, "Can Adults Adequately . . .") That’s up to 50% greater conversion than for a diet high in omega-6 fatty acids.

Several recent studies confirm the hypothesis that omega 3 fatty acids, specifically EPA and DHA, can inhibit the growth and discourage the spread of certain cancers. Additionally, conjugated linoleic acids, which are found in higher percentages in the meat and dairy products of grass-fed animals, have been shown to significantly reduce cancer risk.

There seemed to be clear evidence that EPAs and DHAs also improve cardiovascular health, until recently. According to Dr. Mike Knapton, director of prevention and care at the British Heart Foundation, this uncertainty may be due to the effect of methyl mercury being thrown into the equation. Methyl mercury has been shown to diminish the positive effects of omega 3 consumption on heart health. Specifically methyl mercury can increase the risk of heart attack, and can lead to thickening of the major arteries that lead from the heart to the brain, in addition to encouraging accumulation of plaques in these arteries.

Omega 3 fatty acids contribute to brain cell development and maintenance. DHA is an important component of neuron membranes, where it facilitates ion exchange necessary for signal transmission. DHA deficient diets appear to lead to decreased neuron size and reduced spatial memory in developing brains (Nutritional Neuroscience, vol 5 #2 2002, 103-113, Ahmad et. al., “A Decrease in Cell Size . . .”). There is some evidence that low DHA levels are further linked to depression, memory loss, attention deficit disorder, and an increased risk of Alzheimer’s. One study, currently in progress in the UK, suggests that omega 3 supplementation may ameliorate the symptoms of Attention Defecit Disorder. However, fish consumption again looks like a two-edged sword, because mercury has a degenerative effect on neurons, potentially causing neurological problems in the developing brains of children. Adults should also be concerned, because methyl mercury accumulates in the brain, and elevated blood mercury levels appear to be associated with Alzheimer’s. Chronic low doses of methyl mercury may lead to accelerated brain aging later in life.

If you would prefer to benefit from the protective effects of omega 3 long chain fatty acids, without worrying about exposure to methyl mercury, there are a few options. To just minimize your mercury exposure, choose fish lower in mercury content. Fish oil supplements may be a better way to avoid mercury altogether, as many of the supplements have tested negative for mercury in the past. If you are vegetarian, look for DHA eggs, from chickens fed fish oils or marine algae, or else find recipes that incorporate fresh kelp.

Green Kitchen Tip #4

2007-01-26T09:58:00.000-08:00

Bean Residue

Soon after changing over to a mostly vegetarian diet, black beans became a favorite meat substitute in my diet. Beans are a great source of protein and iron, but little did I know that black beans offer many other amazing health benefits that you probably don't get from a serving of beef or chicken. But, I noticed that when I cooked beans in a stainless steel pan, they tend to leave a residue that does not wipe off with washing. My husband would inevitably attempt to scrape it off with steel wool, to my chagrin, but to no avail either. Even baking soda fails at this task. I did notice, at one point, that cooking something tart, like tomato chutney would render the pan back to its shining glory. I put two and two together and realized the bean residue must be basic in nature, thereby needing acid to remove it. Sure enough, soaking momentarily in vinegar will remove this residue, almost like magic.

Before

After

Vinegar also makes a very good glass cleaner. I keep vinegar in a spray bottle and use it to wipe windows (with a washable cloth).

Killing Our Crops with Compost?

2007-01-25T15:57:00.000-08:00

So I’m harmlessly going about the simple task of procuring some compost for a few garden projects, when I stumbled upon some mind-numbing information. The very compost we organic gardeners depend upon for enriching our soils and fertilizing our crops, could very well be undermining our garden’s productivity. No, the act of composting is not to blame, but the prevalence of a certain herbicide, applied to the precious raw materials used to make that compost. If your organic tomatoes didn’t thrive this past season, listen up!

Here’s the deal: growers of grass crops have been using a product called clopyralid, which kills broad-leaved weeds, like dandelions, thistles, etc. So everything from lawn clippings in yard waste, to straw animal bedding, to manure from animals fed hay has potentially been contaminated. This product is particularly slow to break down during composting. But the most troubling fact is that this herbicide will damage (photos of damage):

Peas
Beans
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Eggplant
Potatoes
Peppers
Sunflowers

While some (in the literature I read) might dismiss the impact on food crops as not being broad-range, those are fairly significant crops, in my opinion. That is nearly the totality of what I grow in my vegetable garden.

It also means you can forget about truly growing organic, unless you have maintained strict vigilance over your own compost production.

Washington State has done much to regulate the use of clopyralid, and the amount found in compost has decreased dramatically since it was first found (about 2001), however, according to Cliff Weed, Pesticide Compliance Program manager at Washington State Department of Agriculture (no I’m not making his name up, truth is more amusing than fiction):

the ban is not nationwide and . . . there are instances where animal feed or bedding brought in from other states or Canada may be contaminated with the herbicide. As a result, Washington will probably not completely eradicate it from compost. (WSDA link)

That also means you might want to check out your state’s stance on clopyralid and whether it has been found in significant concentration in compost in your region.

The Harvester, The Trucker, and The Produce Handler

2007-01-25T13:29:00.000-08:00

As I was preparing dinner last night, I unbundled a bunch of scallions (green onions) and had to wonder about how much energy goes into grocery market produce, as compared to the produce that you harvest from your own yard. It started with my consideration of the two thin, blue rubber bands used to bundle the scallions together, but my perspective broadened to include the harvester, the trucker, and the guy who trims the tips off the scallions and arranges them neatly on the produce shelf at my local grocery store. Compare all those costs and energy inputs with just walking outside and pulling produce from your garden. It seems so overwhelming to imagine all the little price tags that add up to the cost of something so small as a bunch of scallions.

I was searching an entirely different topic at the time, but here’s what I came across – For every dollar we spend on produce, only about 19 cents goes back to the farmer – astonishingly all the rest goes into getting the product to the consumer. It makes me glad I stumbled upon a second, unintentional internet find – a local u-pick, organic, blueberry farm. I’ve been meaning to find one for years, but for some reason had not been aware that there was one very close to my home. I can’t wait for July now.

The cost of marketing farm foods has increased considerably over the years, mainly because of rising costs of labor, transportation, food packaging materials, and other inputs used in marketing, and also because of the growing volume of food and the increase in services provided with the food. . . . From 1990 to 2000, consumer expenditures for farm foods rose $211 billion. Roughly 92 percent of this increase resulted from an increase in the marketing bill. (USDA link)

Lifestyle vs. Adaptation

2007-01-19T11:15:00.000-08:00

I’m almost ashamed to admit this, but I have a point to make, so I’ll fess up.

Here it is: My husband and I watched “The War at Home” last night. If you don’t know what show I’m talking about, don’t worry. I had to (with dread in my heart) surf the Fox Channel website to find the name of the comedy we had viewed.

I think what sucked us down that rabbit hole was the preview clip they showed that featured a Smartcar! Well, we were poorly disappointed, because the show ended up bashing on environmental consciousness. In particular, the Smartcar was referred to as looking like “something a larger car pooped out.” The general message from the family was that, yeah, we care about the environment but we aren’t about to give up our lifestyle.

This reminds me of a Taoist principle:

Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard.
Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry.
Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death.
Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life.
The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail.

That doesn’t even address how being small affords you parking advantages. ;)

Green Kitchen Tip #3

2007-01-19T10:15:00.000-08:00

Soda Scrub

I grew up in a household where there was a chemical for every cleaning chore: furniture polish, window cleaner, disinfectant, chemical pot cleaner, and a myriad assortment of others. The chemical pot cleaner was used about as regularly as the pots were utilized to cook something. It wasn’t until I struck it out on my own that I questioned the use of pot scrubbing chemicals. But it took me a while, of less than sparkly pots and pans, to figure out alternatives. It is ironic that at this time, when I was living with less than bright & shiny cookware, an organic chemistry professor, who’s class I was taking, expressed his enthusiasm for sodium biocarbonate – baking soda. I just figured he was pleasantly nutty. It wasn’t until years later that I learned what generations of housekeepers knew before the days of “Better Living through Chemistry” – baking soda makes an excellent scrubbing aid.

Now, even I’m amazed at the utility of baking soda. It not only diligently scrubs stainless steel cookware, but can also be used on cast iron and even non-stick pans (please read up on instructions before attempting). Further, if you add it to dishwashing liquids and detergents, you can get away with using less. You can even use baking soda, in combination with vitamin C, as a yeast substitute when baking bread. Who knew? Want to be amazed too? Check it out!

Citrus Slushies

2007-01-18T11:09:00.000-08:00

As light-hearted as I've titled this post, I do not mean to make light of the recent freeze in California. Not only were citrus crops effected, but so were other crops:

Each crop meant different worries, including blossoms frozen on avocado trees that would hurt the harvest next year and lettuce, cabbage and celery's starting to seed, a natural defense that renders many plants unmarketable. (NY Times)

Considering how much produce comes out of California, this is a bad situation. What is interesting is the unusual weather patterns lately in the region:

This is the third freeze to hit the Central Valley citrus belt since 1990. There had not been a freeze for 55 years before that. (source)

I was wondering if they could salvage some of the citrus by turning it into juice, however it appears that not only was it frozen, but it was unripe when it froze, so it doesn't appear they can salvage much.

The problem with our current big-ag dominated food system, is we appear to have all our eggs in one basket.

"It'll put a dent in a lot of different crops," Tatter said. "They also grow tomatoes and other vegetables in California. Canned food makers will be affected and may pass that on to consumers." (source)

Green Kitchen Tip #2

2007-01-12T13:35:00.000-08:00

“Dump” the Bleach

Following along the lines of my first Green Kitchen tip, my second tip addresses the problem of household chlorine bleach in the waste water system.

Chlorine products -- bleaches -- are another problematic waste stream. . . . Most people probably live in the mistaken belief that such products could only have a beneficial effect on the drains, because they kill germs, but this is not the case. With so much organic material and ammonia in sewage, the chlorine products react with these rather than bacteria, which is why chlorine is never added in the early stages of sewage treatment.
The problem is that these chlorine based products react with organic chemicals to produce chlorinated organics -- the same group of chemicals as the weedkiller DDT, PCB's and pesticides. They are not biodegradable, they persist in the environment and have a cumulative effect. They are not removed in the sewage treatment process. [emphasis added] Many Experts predict there will be a general presumption against the use of chlorine products in the future, apart from as a residual biocide in the water supply. (source)

Chlorine bleach is primarily used for two purposes in the home: as a stain remover and as a disinfectant. Though chlorine bleach does not kill mold and is not recommended for this purpose.

An alternative, non-toxic, stain remover is oxygen bleach. When using oxygen bleach, note that it takes longer to erase stains, so it will require a little patience.

If you are more concerned about microbes, there are a few things you can do to limit your need for disinfectants, and there are also greener alternatives should you need to disinfect. Microbes multiply in moist and messy environments, so if you clean up with soap and hot water right away, you won’t need powerful disinfectants. In fact, the EPA states that:

Practically no surface treatment will completely eliminate bacteria. Try regular cleaning with soap and hot water. Or mix 1/2 cup borax into 1 gallon of hot water to disinfect and deodorize. Isopropyl alcohol is an excellent disinfectant, but use gloves and keep it away from children.

Imagine those microbes that aren’t eliminated (the 1% left behind after bleaching) and how they could develop resistance to the disinfectant, leading to the evolution of superbugs. It has been shown likely in the case of the disinfectant in anti-bacterial soap.

Chlorine bleaches are often added to dishwashing detergents, so choose a green dishwashing detergent, such as Seventh Generation.

Cold Comfort

2007-01-11T08:44:00.000-08:00

Don't get me wrong, I love snow. It's one of those things I can never really get enough of. As soon as I see sparkly snowflakes swirling on the breeze, I'm the first one out the door to take a nice long walk in it. After I've had enough time out in the snow, I celebrate snow days by plugging in strings of lights, dusting off my Nutcracker CD, building a toasty fire, and cooking up some fatty treat or other. This year, however, it seems I've had my share of snow (and accompanying bitter cold) and it is leaving me with an unsettled feeling. It doesn't help to hear that the East Coast is concurrently experiencing unusually tropical temperatures.

According to NOAA, chaotic weather currently prevails:

NOAA REPORTED 2006 AS THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD, WITH THE 2006 AVERAGE TEMPERATURE 2.2 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT ABOVE THE 20TH CENTURY MEAN. WET CONDITIONS ACROSS THE EASTERN THIRD OF THE UNITED STATES AND ALONG THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST COAST DOMINATED CONDITIONS THIS LAST WEEK. SEVERE WEATHER AND FLOODING RAINS WERE COMMON ALONG THE GULF COAST IN LOUISIANA, WHERE 5 + INCHES OF RAIN WERE RECORDED ALONG WITH NUMEROUS TORNADOES.
THE PLAINS AND MIDWEST. . .
WITH SMALL AMOUNTS OF PRECIPITATION RECORDED THIS WEEK, THE DROUGHT DESIGNATION REMAINED UNCHANGED FOR ALMOST THE ENTIRE REGION. . . .

I've had a sinking feeling that spring will be late to arrive here this year, and sure enough it seems we, in the PNW, are due for even more intense snow in mid to late February, and additional stormy weather in mid-March. It will be a bad year for starting early seedlings.

Yuletide & Global Warming

2007-01-05T09:37:00.000-08:00

Just a thought.

More of the like can be found here.

Green Kitchen Tip #1

2007-01-04T16:48:00.000-08:00

Limiting Discharge

If you are hooked up to a sewer system, please remember that most of what you put down the sink eventually ends up in natural bodies of water. It is easy to believe that what you are dumping down the sink will be rendered harmless at a sewer treatment facility – not exactly. A recent study at a Seattle area sewage treatment plant found a spike in natural spices, discharging into the Puget Sound, that correlated with the holiday baking season. “When we bake and change the way we eat, it has an impact on what the environment sees. To me it shows the connectedness,” stated Rick Keil, one of the researchers. This increase in cinnamon, pure vanilla as well as artificial vanilla, while relatively harmless to aquatic life, shows the impact our habits, en masse, can have on our environment. Far more toxic substances, like prescription drugs, pesticides, chemical cleaners, and even caffeine have a more deleterious impact. While most of us can’t quit pouring substances down the drain, we can be more selective about the products we use, how we dispose of them, and how often we really need to use them. Often times just cutting our use in half can make a significant impact (no, I'm not recommending anyone cut their prescription drug doses in half).

Here’s an example. Do you use anti-bacterial soap? It appears that not only is the chemical responsible for the anti-bacterial properties typically ineffective (due to undereducated users – you technically should suds up for about 20 seconds before rinsing), but now that (toxic!) chemical is showing up downstream. Even worse is how it is getting into the environment. It goes from your sink to the sewage treatment plant, where it is concentrated into sludge, which is then spread onto farmland to grow crops for human consumption. No kidding.

Changes for 2007

2007-01-03T15:06:00.000-08:00

I waded into blogging with a bit of trepidation. Some time in 2004-2005, after finding myself drowning in depressing news stories, I started surfing for food-related content. Classic avoidance, pure and simple. Carpe Diem, if you will. I wrote for the Well Fed Network for a while in 2006, and half-heartedly launched the Jaded Vegetarian, as a cookie-cutter food blog. But for those of you who have been following along, you have probably noticed the content has shifted towards more worldly events. And guess what? I've been blogging more regularly.

So I plan to continue down this road, while occassionally dishing out some "fluff" in the form of recipes and whatnot. I've changed my links to reflect my changed course, and I hope to expand the list in the months ahead. A plan I hatched, with the changing of the year, is to regularly write Green Kitchen tips . . . things we can all do to treat the earth a little more gently. I hope Jaded Vegetarian can become a place that dishes out food for thought.

Healthy Hearts in the City

2006-12-29T12:54:00.000-08:00

Research indicates that air pollution affects not just your lungs, but also your cardiovascular health. Particulate matter, in particular, appears to thicken the blood by increasing clotting factors. Other affects of air pollution are an increased inflammatory response, which could result in increased susceptibility to allergies and asthma, and degradation of immune cells.

If you live in a city, this is very disheartening news. It can leave you feeling apathetic. But take heart! What you eat could help protect you.

Let’s start with the least obvious and most appealing of your options . . . a cup of coffee! Yes, believe it or not, researchers studying antioxidant content of foods common in the American diet, in combination with likely portion sizes consumed, have discovered that coffee offers the most protection in the standard American diet.

They concluded that the average adult consumes 1,299 milligrams of antioxidants daily from coffee. The closest competitor was tea at 294 milligrams. Rounding out the top five sources were bananas, 76 milligrams; dry beans, 72 milligrams; and corn, 48 milligrams. According to the Agriculture Department, the typical adult American drinks 1.64 cups of coffee daily.

But really, any antioxidant source would be helpful, whether that be Vitamin A, beta-carotene, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, selenium, or any of the myriad awkwardly monikered antioxidants found in various natural foodstuffs.

Anyone who has bothered to listen to my diatribes in the past, knows my passion for Vitamin C. Unlike the other antioxidants available as supplements, it would be very difficult to accidentally overdose on Vitamin C. In fact, “There are very few research studies that document vitamin C toxicity at any level of supplementation, and there are no documented toxicity effects whatsoever for vitamin C in relation to food and diet

It has been proposed by some researchers that Vitamin C not only keeps the cardiovascular system healthy, but also the lungs: “Vitamin C is the major antioxidant substance present in the airway surface liquid of the lung, where it could be important in protecting against both endogenous and exogenous oxidants.” (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 61, “Asthma, inhaled oxidants, and dietary antioxidants,” GE Hatch).

My favorite vitamin C supplement is Emergen-C. Along with Vitamin C, it contains important minerals and electrolytes. Rumor has it that some people use this stuff to “cure” their hangover symptoms. It is easy to carry with you, as 1 g doses of Vitamin C are individually wrapped. You only need a glass of water to dilute it into. I recommend the Lite flavor, because it has less added “fluff.” As Vitamin C is water soluble, the best way to maximize your benefit from a supplement, is to take small doses over the course of the day.

Again, protecting yourself from the ravages of the city doesn’t have to be a chore. A nibble of chocolate can be protective, as can a sip of red wine. Red wine appears to both help thin blood and act as an antioxidant. There is also a Spanish study that shows red wine consumption may reduce lung cancer risk.

Cheers!

Mystery Soy "Meat"

2006-12-28T14:51:00.000-08:00

How much of the soy in your soy burger, or your loaf of bread for that matter, is genetically modified? If you eat a lot of processed foods, you should be particularly concerned because, “it is estimated that over 70 percent of the foods in grocery stores in the U.S. and Canada contain genetically engineered ingredients.” Unlike other countries, American governments have left us in the dark, so that, “citizens in the United States and Canada are engaged in the largest feeding experiment in human history and most people are not even aware of the fact.” (click here for more info)

The FDA has not been policing engineered foods, therefore rigorous scientific protocol which calls for “Animal studies using large doses of the additive for long periods [of time] . . . to show that the substance would not cause harmful effects in people when eaten in expected amounts” has not been applied.

Not outraged yet? Maybe that’s because the media has not reported on recent studies which show that some GM foods are proving to have negative health implications. This is just one of many censored news reports you won’t be hearing soon on your television news channel.

#11 Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed
Research by the Russian Academy of Sciences released in December 2005 found that more than half of the offspring of rats fed GM soy died within the first three weeks of life, six times as many as those born to mothers fed on non-modified soy. Six times as many offspring fed GM soy were also severely underweight.
In November 2005, a private research institute in Australia, CSIRO Plant Industry, put a halt to further development of a GM pea cultivator when it was found to cause an immune response in laboratory mice.
In the summer of 2005, an Italian research team led by a cellular biologist at the University of Urbino published confirmation that absorption of GM soy by mice causes development of misshapen liver cells, as well as other cellular anomalies.
In May of 2005 the review of a highly confidential and controversial Monsanto report on test results of corn modified with Monsanto MON863 was published in The Independent/UK.
Monsanto GM soy and corn are widely consumed by Americans at a time when the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization has concluded, "In several cases, GMOs have been put on the market when safety issues are not clear."

Burning the Candle at Both Ends

2006-12-28T10:56:00.000-08:00

My husband and I recently rented “Who Killed the Electric Car?” Not exactly the cheery, mind-numbing holiday classic that most of the rest of the country was undoubtedly watching. It got me thinking. Not just about how I’m going to boycott the auto industry by refusing to buy a new vehicle until fully electric cars are back on the market, and not just about how I’ll continue my on-going boycott of fossil fuel by continuing to severely limit my driving and keeping my home at a tepid “European” temperature, but less reactive and farther a field thoughts about the economic impact of biofuel on our dinner tables.

I’ve written before about the impacts of global warming, depleted water resources, and dust-bowl level droughts on the food supply (which translates into higher costs for grains), but I failed to see the other end of the equation – the fact that some of our grains are further being used as fuels, thereby increasing the demand and cost of the very grains we are finding increasingly difficult to grow.

Historically, countries have kept surpluses of grains on hand to feed the people in hard times. Increasingly these surpluses have been whittled away, for political reasons in the past, but now also because of decreasing yields due to environmental impacts. I recommend you read the full article yourself, here, but in case you don’t, at least read the following excerpt. Keep in mind, this was written in 2004, two years prior to the most current “dust-bowl” harvests in the mid-west:

It has been an almost unprecedented run of misfortune: four back-to-back meagre harvests, as heat waves, drought and pestilence took their toll -- something that hasn't happened since at least 1960.
As a result, since the turn of the millennium, the amount of grain held in the world's stockpiles has been falliing. At the end of the 2003 harvest, the amount of wheat, corn, rice and other grains had fallen to about 280 million tonnes. In 1999, it was more than 500 million.
That seems like a lot of grain because bakers can make about 2,000 loaves for every tonne of wheat milled into flour. But considering that the grain has to support both the world's population and its billions of livestock, there is precious little to go around.
Measured against consumption, there is enough grain left in the planetary larder to last for only 59 days, one of the lower figures on record. After it is used up, people will go hungry if the next harvest fails.

The same article gave the following statistics:

Reserves as a percentage of consumption
1980: 21.4%
1990: 28.9%
2000: 29.3%
2003: 16.2%
SOURCE: USDA

Now consider some of the reports for the most current growing season. In particular, Australia is so hard hit they are considering curtailing exports and re-energizing their grain stockpiles instead.

A more contemporary article than the 2004 one above, echoes the concern about dwindling stockpiles, but details the case of corn (currently being promoted as an important alternative energy source), in particular:

"The concern now is what hapens next year. If we have poor conditions for growing wheat again, supplies could get very tight and we might see some demand rationing," said Dan Cekander, grains analyst at Fimat.
James Barnett, grains analyst for Man Global Research, part of the Man Group, said there is more concern in the global corn market after the USDA cut crop estimates in the US by 209m bushels to 10.9bn after it said that 800,00 fewer acres were growing corn than had previously been expected. The US is the world's largest corn grower.
"We are looking at a structural change in the corn market, because demand is going to increase next year from the ethanol industry, and we might not be planting corn in enough acres to satisfy that demand," said Mr Barnett.
Analysts estimate ethanol to consume between 20 and 25 per cent of the US corn crop next year, which is estimated at about 11.1bn bushels, and forecast to account for about 35 per cent of the following year's crop.

What all of this effectively points to is the rising cost of our “daily bread,” whether you are eating corn bread, artisian loaves, or wonder bread. “In 2006, corn and wheat prices in the US jumped by 70% and 60% respectively. Much of this jump occurred between September and December.” (click here for full article, Asia Times)

There is already a widening economic gap between the uber-filthy-rich and the working poor (soon to include the former middle class). When those who can afford it are driving ethanol burning SUVs around town, what will the rest of us be eating? Certainly not factory farmed meat, because we won’t be able to afford a corn-fatted cow on our table. Sure this is an extreme picture I am painting, one we hopefully will never experience, but one that merits consideration, I believe.

According to the “Who Killed the Electric Car?” website, E85 (fuel composed of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline by volume) is an inferior source of alternative fuel, although pure ethanol is, in fact, a minimally-polluting source of fuel. “E85 is as costly or costlier for consumers as gasoline and few fueling stations, mostly concentrated in the Midwest, offer E85 for sale. On balance, ethanol derived from corn is not an energy-efficient product or a significant clean-energy improvement over petroleum.”

What really ticks me off about the disappearance of electric cars from the market is the fact that an electric car doesn’t have a combustion engine, and therefore does not have all the maintenance nightmares of the cars we drive today.

But, back to my main line of thinking -- Even as many of their crops have failed in the withering heat of the summer of 2006, people in the Mid-west are apparently discovering that it is much cheaper to heat their homes with their corn crops. Just one more example of how, “The continued rise of global energy prices in 2007, paired with growing demand for renewable energy, will produce further strong increases in international grain prices.” (Asia Times article again)

Unless you are independently wealthy, start tightening your belts. Your grocery bills may start to sky rocket in the years ahead. Don’t expect your government to pick up any slack, if times get bad. Most aren’t storing anything for “rainy” days.

Modular Greens

2006-12-08T14:37:00.000-08:00

In the course of experiementing with starting greens in late summer and early autumn, I really had to scratch my head and consider what to plant them in . . . the ground can be very inhospitable in my neighborhood, as the ferral cat population tends to claim freshly fallow fields as public facilities. Meanwhile, all my pots were already occupied by edible plants and I was in no mood to construct any more cat barriers, as pictured below:

Buidling those barriers was a good excuse to play outside in the spring, but in the wilting heat of summer, I'd rather find a lazier solution. So, as I paced my garden, fretting that all my pots were planted and growing veggies, yet desperate to start some low-labor greens. Why not experiment?

About the first week of September, I lined the bottom of a plastic flat with organic matter, tossed in a little soil, sprinkled some seeds on top, and gently watered them in. I wasn't holding my breath, here, just seeing what would happen. And while they didn't grow as big as the greens I planted in late August, they seem to have held up better over the long haul, since in our damp conditions, there is less soil depth to trap moisture. The ones planted in August, in a deeper pot, actually started to rot a little bit and I lost about half of the greens. These flat-planted ones are healthy as could be and I could have made a nice baby green salad for Thanksgiving, if I'd planted a few more flats (in order to feed 8). What I love about this set-up is the modularity of it. Flats are easy to carry or set on a shelf in a nice neat row. I plan to grow my greens this way next year.

Funny that after patting myself on the back for being so original, I found this method of growing greens mentioned in my seed catalogue.

Speaking of seeds, I've just shipped off my seed order. Perhaps a little premature, as I usually wait until after the first of the year, but I find it speaks to me more loudly than the inevitable Christmas shopping. I guess maybe I subconsciously decided to prioritize my spending this year. I'm excited to try a few new edibles, and I'll post my progress here, if I remember. What always amazes me is how seed packets that only cost several dollars can all add up so fast. Even with a small garden and practical-minded constraint, I still managed to rack up almost $60 worth of seeds.

Fairy-tail Farms

2006-12-04T11:41:00.000-08:00

For those of you who missed the green-pasture-shattering article "The Organic Myth" in Business Week, here is a quick re-cap:

Next time you're in the supermarket, stop and take a look at Stonyfield Farm yogurt. With its contented cow and green fields, the yellow container evokes a bucolic existence, telegraphing what we've come to expect from organic food: pure, pesticide-free, locally produced ingredients grown on a small family farm.
So it may come as a surprise that Stonyfield's organic fam is long gone. Its main facility is a state-of-the-art industrial plant just off the airport strip in Londonderry, N.H., where it handles milk from other farms. And consider this: Sometime soon a portion of the milk used to make that organic yogurt may be taken from a chemical-free cow in New Zealand, powdered, and then shipped to the U.S.
. . .
Just as mainstream consumers are growing hungry for untainted food that also nourishes their social conscience, it is getting harder and harder to find organic ingredients.
. . .
As food companies scramble to find enough organically grown ingredients, they are inevitably forsaking the pastoral ethos that has defined the organic lifestyle. For some companies, it means keeping thousands of organic cows on industrial-scale feedlots. For others, the scarcity of organic ingredients means looking as far afield as China, Sierra Leone, and Brazil -- places where standards may be ahrd to enforce, worker's wages and living conditions are a worry, and, say critics, increased farmland sometimes comes at a cost to the environment.

. . .
Hence the organic paradox: The movement's adherents have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, but success has imperiled their ideals. It simply isn't clear that organic food production can be replicated on a mass scale.

Chemical Cocktail & Your DNA

2006-12-04T10:24:00.000-08:00

Back when I took Organic Chemistry in college, I mindlessly took a big whiff of some clear liquid in a test tube, in order to confirm that I was holding a tube of ethanol. I nearly landed myself flat on the floor, because I had just inhaled a big dose of straight-up toluene! (This is a big part of why I have decided it is much safer for me to practice "chemistry" within the safe confines of a kitchen, with such mundane "reagents" as eggs and butter). At the time I chastised myself for potentially shortening my life, but I had no idea of the larger picture -- I could very well have doomed future generations to permanent genetic weaknesses. Thankfully I don't have plans of pro-creating.

The following are excerpts from an article on how industrial chemicals are changing our biology. First, note the prevalence of under-researched chemicals in our daily lives:

On average, 1800 new chemicals are registered with the federal government each year and about 750 of these find their way into products, all with hardly any testing for health or enviornmental effects.

Brominated flame retardants, phthalates [plasticizers that can leach from plastic food containers], bisphenol-A, PFOA (related to the manufacture of Teflon) are the toxins thathave gained our attention at the moment. By working overtime for 10 or 15 years in the traditional enviornmentalist way, we may be able to ban a half-dozen of them. But during that 10 or 15 years, the chemical industry (and the federal EPA) will have introduced somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 new chemicals into commerce, almost entirely untested. This destructive merry-go-round is accelerating.

[But starting at the beginning at the article . . .]

During the 1990's, it came as a surprise that many industrial chemicals can interfere with the hormone systems of many species, including humans.
. . .
Now new evidence is piling up to show that some of these hormone-related changes can be passed from one generation to the next by a mechanism that remains poorly understood, called epigenetics. Until very recently scientists had thought that inherited traits always involved genetic mutations -- physical changes in the sequence of nucleotides that make up the DNA molecule itself. Now they know that there is "second genetic code" that somehow influences the way genes operate, and that by some poorly-understood mechanism can be passed along to successive generations.
. . .
But the dark side of this new understanding is that stress, smoking, and pollution can cause epigenetic changes -- including many serious diseases like cancer and kidney disease -- that apparently can be passed along to one's children and even grandchildren. For example, Dutch women who went hungry during World War II gave birth to small babies. These babies, in turn, gave birth to small babies even though they themselves had plenty to eat. "It changes the whole way we think about inheritance," says Dr. Moshe Szyf at McGill University in Toronto.
Just last month professor Michael Skinner at Washington State University in Spokane announced results of laboratory experiments showing that environmental pollution could permanently reprogram the genetic traits of a family line of rodents, creating a legacy of sickness. This research "highlights the long-term dangers from environmental pollution, " professor Skinner said. Dr. Skinner showed that a single exposure to a toxic chemical in the womb could produce a sick litter of offspring, which in turn could produce its own sick offspring. "It's a new way to think about disease," Dr. Skinner said.
. . .
"It introduces the concept of responsibility into genetics," says Dr. Szyf . . . . "You aren't eating and exercising for yourself, but for your lineage."

Creme de la Crema

2006-12-03T10:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I played a tourist in my own backyard.

I can't believe that I only now got around to exploring one of Seattle's finest espresso houses. This is no Seattle's "Best" or Starbucks. I'm talking a mecca for espresso hounds -- Espresso Vivace. I read about this place for years, because I have a penchant for fine espresso. Enough of an addiction to know about such obscure things as microfoam and crema. If you drink your brew at Starbucks you really have no clue of what I speak.

Anyway, Espresso Vivace is renowned and adored. So I felt confident ordering a cappuccino, whereas I tend to typically order half-chocolate double tall mochas. And while I really do believe that you can't make a judgement based upon a first-impression, I have to admit that I wasn't impressed. I've had better espresso, closer to home. It is just a shame that the woman, master espresso shot puller, shut her business down because it was too popular and cutting into her quality of life.

I think that makes me the first person who dares to rate Espresso Vivace as only slightly above average. But I have to admit being a little soft-hearted over their microfoam art.

Cultivating Hope

2006-12-01T14:57:00.000-08:00

I guess I’m not the only one who’s been contemplating the future of our food system. I find the Cuban example inspiring. The following are excerpts from the following speech (click here for full speech text):

Fifty Million Farmers
by Richard Heinberg

Modern industrial agriculture has been described as a method of using soil to turn petroleum and gas into food. We use natural gas to make fertilizer, and oil to fuel farm machinery and power irrigation pumps, as a feedstock for pesticides and herbicides, in the maintenance of animal operations, in crop storage and drying, and for transportation of farm inputs and outputs. Agriculture accounts for about 17 percent of the U.S. annual energy budget; this makes it the single largest consumer of petroleum products as compared to other industries. By comparison, the U.S. military, in all of its operations, uses only about half that amount. About 350 gallons (1,500 liters) of oil equivalents are required to feed each American each year, and every calorie of food produced requires, on average, ten calories of fossil-fuel inputs. This is a food system profoundly vulnerable, at every level, to fuel shortages and skyrocketing prices. And both are inevitable.

. . .

Today so few people farm that vital knowledge of how to farm is disappearing. The average age of American farmers is over 55 and approaching 60. The proportion of principal farm operators younger than 35 has dropped from 15.9 percent in 1982 to 5.8 percent in 2002. Of all the dismal statistics I know, these are surely among the most frightening. Who will be growing our food twenty years from now? With less oil and gas available, we will need far more knowledge and muscle power devoted to food production, and thus far more people on the farm, than we have currently.

The third worrisome trend is an increasing scarcity of fresh water. Sixty percent of water used nationally goes toward agriculture. California’s Central Valley, which produces the substantial bulk of the nation’s fruits, nuts, and vegetables, receives virtually no rainfall during summer months and relies overwhelmingly on irrigation. But the snowpack on the Sierras, which provides much of that irrigation water, is declining, and the aquifer that supplies much of the rest is being drawn down at many times its recharge rate. If these trends continue, the Central Valley may be incapable of producing food in any substantial quantities within two or three decades. Other parts of the country are similarly overspending their water budgets, and very little is being done to deal with this looming catastrophe.

Fourth and finally, there is the problem of global climate change. Often the phrase used for this is “global warming,” which implies only the fact that the world’s average temperature will be increasing by a couple of degrees or more over the next few decades. The much greater problem for farmers is destabilization of weather patterns. We face not just a warmer climate, but climate chaos: droughts, floods, and stronger storms in general (hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, hail storms)—in short, unpredictable weather of all kinds. Farmers depend on relatively consistent seasonal patterns of rain and sun, cold and heat; a climate shift can spell the end of farmers’ ability to grow a crop in a given region, and even a single freak storm can destroy an entire year’s production. Given the fact that modern American agriculture has become highly centralized due to cheap transport and economies of scale (almost the entire national spinach crop, for example, comes from a single valley in California), the damage from that freak storm is today potentially continental or even global in scale. We have embarked on a century in which, increasingly, freakish weather is normal.

. . .

In some respects the most relevant example is that of Cuba’s Special Period. In the early 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba lost its source of cheap oil. Its industrialized agricultural system, which was heavily fuel-dependent, immediately faltered. Very quickly, Cuban leaders abandoned the Soviet industrial model of production, changing from a fuel- and petrochemical-intensive farming method to a more localized, labor-intensive, organic mode of production.
How they did this is itself an interesting story. Eco-agronomists at Cuban universities had already been advocating a transition somewhat along these lines. However, they were making little or no headway. When the crisis hit, they were given free rein to, in effect, redesign the entire Cuban food system. Had these academics not had a plan waiting in the wings, the nation’s fate might have been sealed.
Heeding their advice, the Cuban government broke up large, state-owned farms and introduced private farms, farmer co-ops, and farmer markets. Cuban farmers began breeding oxen for animal traction. The Cuban people adopted a mainly vegetarian diet, mostly involuntarily (Meat eating went from twice a day to twice a week). They increased their intake of vegetable sources of protein and farmers decreased the growing of wheat and rice (Green Revolution crops that required too many inputs). Urban gardens (including rooftop gardens) were encouraged, and today they produce 50 to 80 percent of vegetables consumed in cities.
Early on, it was realized that more farmers were needed, and that this would require education. All of the nation’s colleges and universities quickly added courses on agronomy. At the same time, wages for farmers were raised to be at parity with those for engineers and doctors. Many people moved from the cities to the country; in some cases there were incentives, in others the move was forced.
The result was survival. The average Cuban lost 20 pounds of body weight, but in the long run the overall health of the nation’s people actually improved as a consequence. Today, Cuba has a stable, slowly growing economy. There are few if any luxuries, but everyone has enough to eat. Having seen the benefit of smaller-scale organic production, Cuba’s leaders have decided that even if they find another source of cheap oil, they will maintain a commitment to their new, decentralized, low-energy methods.

. . .

Let us, then, consider an indigenous historical example. During both World Wars, Americans planted Victory Gardens. During both periods, gardening became a sort of spontaneous popular movement, which (at least during World War II) the USDA initially tried to suppress, believing that it would compromise the industrialization of agriculture. It wasn’t until Eleanor Roosevelt planted a Victory Garden in the White House lawn that agriculture secretary Claude Wickard relented; his agency then began to promote Victory Gardens and to take credit for them. At the height of the movement, Victory Gardens were producing roughly 40 percent of America’s vegetables, an extraordinary achievement in so short a time.
In addition to these historical precedents, we have new techniques developed with the coming agricultural crisis in mind; two of the most significant are Permaculture and Biointensive farming

. . .

As of 2002 . . . Only 9 percent of primary operators on farms with one operator, and 10 percent on farms with multiple operators, report all of their income as coming from the farm.

Big Pharma Plot to Steal Your Vitality

2006-12-01T11:05:00.000-08:00

For those of you who care about your health and thereby the nature of the food you eat, you really need to know about the proposed future of organic foods, conventional food handling practices, and vitamin regulation. This is a complex issue -- for the full story, please visit this informative website -- so I will take one angle in all of this, the case of vitamin C. Vitamin C is an antioxidant and also a vitamin essential in many cellular processes. Vitamin C is water soluble, so effectively you can never overdose, because your body can clear excesses from your system without any harm being done to your body, and with only minimal discomfort. Being aware of the "overdose" symptoms makes it easy to keep to a proper dosage. Doses in the grams (g) are often recommended for those suffering infections (including colds and flus). Yet the world government wants to limit your access to only 225 mg a day (0.225 g), a dose which would be ineffective at protecting you against damage resulting from excessive environmental stresses, colds, flus, or infections.

"If there were ever a time to rise up and stage a health freedom revolt,
this is it. This is a cause worthy of a fight, because you're fighting for the
protection of the very laws of nature. Basic human biochemistry demands that we
intake certain nutrients in order to live. Human bodies simply do not
manufacture vitamin C, and thus we must ingest it. Banning this vitamin is akin
to outlawing fresh air, clean water or natural sunlight."

This quote is from an article describing proposed legislation in Europe, but the driving force behind these regulations is even more sinisterly wide-reaching -- the Codex Alimentarius Commission.

This nouveau nutritional regulation isn't proposed just for us over-fed Europeans or Americans (for those of you who have already heard about it), this is a world-wide food and vitamin regulation program, under the auspices of the UN's World Health Organization, set to go into effect as of 2009. It amounts to outlawing nutritionally releveant levels of supplements and vitamins, while simultaneously promoting irradiation of foods -- a practice that potentially degrades essential nutrients in the foods we eat, especially at high doses of irradiation. It also proposes to laxen organic farming standards (just in time for Wal-Mart's foray into the organic foods market?) and keep genetically modified foods hidden from consumers. For all the consequences of this proposed policy, click here.

One doctor believes this nutritional policy has arisen due to his finding that vitamin C can prevent arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and heart attacks. Big Pharma won't be able to sell you expensive drugs for your heart and circulatory health if you find out you can pop a few vitamins for a cure. Read this paper, if you'd like to learn more about this doctor's research with vitamin C and cardiovascular health.

With the cost of health care soaring, we need more than ever to focus on preventative health care methods and naturopathic curing. Already we have seen a spike in interest in organic and natural foods. The problem is that these foods can never be mass-marketed. We live in a factory farmed reality. There just aren't enough green pastures these days for everyone to feast from, and farmers are still unappreciated in this askew social structure. Small farmers are the tireless saints who keep you alive and healthy, they deserve our adoration, respect, and support.

I want to see all of you at the Farmer's Market this spring!

Just for Fun

2006-12-01T10:55:00.000-08:00

You Belong in Fall

Intelligent, introspective, and quite expressive at times...

You appreciate the changes in color, climate, and mood that fall brings

Whether you're carving wacky pumpkins or taking long drives, autumn is a favorite time of year for you

What Season Are You?

Well, yes, I do adore the fall. But I love spring too. And winter has its charms . . .

Your turn!

Credit: Found this at Tina T-P's blog.

Just Say No to Dead Cattle

2006-11-16T16:27:00.000-08:00

When did you last eat a hamburger? Or bit of red meat for that matter? I'm proud to say I was 18 years old, though I'm not so proud to divulge the name of the restaurant I consumed it in.

Proud, because recently published scientific research indicates that young women shouldn't be eating red meat regularly. In fact the researchers found that, "Greater red meat intake was strongly related to elevated risk of breast cancers that were estrogen and progesterone receptor positive. . ."

According to Rob Stein, of the Washington Post:

“The study of more than 90,000 women found that the more red meat the women consumed in their 20s, 30s and 40s, the greater their risk for developing breast cancer fueled by hormones in the next 12 years. Those who consumed the most red meat had nearly twice the risk of those who ate red meat infrequently.”

. . .

“Why red meat might increase the risk for breast cancer remains unknown, but previous research has suggested several possible reasons: Substances produced by cooking meat may be carcinogenic, naturally occurring substances in meat may mimic the action of hormones, or growth hormones that farmers feed cows could fuel breast cancer in women who consume meat from the animals.”

Here is the original study information, in case the link changes, which seems to happen with some of those pesky on-line medical journals, for whatever reason:

Red Meat Intake and Risk of Breast Cancer Among Premenopausal Women

Eunyoung Cho, ScD; Wendy Y. Chen, MD, MPH; David J. Hunter, MB, BS, ScD; Meir J. Stampfer, MD, DrPH; Graham A. Colditz, MD, DrPH; Susan E. Hankinson, ScD; Walter C. Willett, MD, DrPH

Arch Intern Med. 2006;166:2253-2259.

The Benefits of a Busy Lifestyle

2006-11-08T15:52:00.000-08:00

It took me a week to get to processing my final jalapeño harvest of the season. Meanwhile, quite a few decided to continue the ripening process on the counter. These are the same ones in the second photo of my last post.

There is something distinctly mind-numbing about washing, drying, slicing, and de-seeding several dozen small hot peppers. That is, until you swoon over their disected shells and catch an enlivening whiff of capsaicin.

Keeping Warm in Winter

2006-11-01T14:58:00.000-08:00

Above was my early October ripe jalapeño harvest. Below are the green and half-ripened jalapeños that I harvested just before our first frost of the season. All of these peppers came from just seven plants, each about a foot tall. This was definitely a banner year for jalapeños. My tomato plants did not enjoy such a prolific year.

My favorite use for these peppers is jalapeño cornbread. But some will be macerated into chutney, and I may just break down and make some chicken vindaloo.

Experimental Quince Pectin

2006-10-13T16:31:00.000-07:00

Evidence of what I've been up to. Havesting and putting up what I can from my small urban plot.

I also made some blackberry jam with about half the quince pectin that was recommended to make a good jelly. The flavor was rather strongly sour, and the consistency verged on that of a fruit roll up. LOL! I still used it and it is certainly edible, but mostly it was a learning experience. It's ok, I still love my quince.

Jammin'

2006-09-29T09:48:00.000-07:00

I don’t eat jam. So why did I just spend 4 hours obsessing over hygienically converting 2 flats of raspberries into 6 little canning jars of jam? Well, OK, I use jam to make things like cookies and cakes.

For you sharp readers out there, I froze the raspberries until I had time and cooler temperatures to deal with them properly.

Why 4 hours? Because I’m a perfectionist who hasn’t canned in a year, and my sterile techniques were a bit rusty. The last thing I was going to do was cut corners, so I ended up having to bring my large canning pot to a rolling boil more frequently than I should have needed to should I have been on top of my game. And then, when I was all ready to start dispensing hot jam into my sterile containers, the freshly sterilized ladle fell on the floor, so there was even more boiling to do.

The best part of canning is always the space of time after the actual process, when you linger in the steamy kitchen listening for the popping of the seals.

I will record my jam recipe here for my own reference, as it contains only a small amount of quince pectin, which threw off the sugar ratio somewhat. In general, a good berry jam recipe is to use 6 cups of sugar to 9 cups of berry juice.

Nearly Seedless Raspberry Jam

Process raspberries a handful or so at a time through a food mill to extract the juice from the seeds. Some seeds will make it into the juice, but most of them won’t.

Measure out juice – I had 7 cups of juice

Calculate the amount of sugar you need to add with the following formula: (amount of juice) * 2/3 --
I rounded up and used 5 cups of sugar, because I was also adding ½ cup of quince pectin.

Mix juice with sugar (and pectin) in a large pan over medium to high heat and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Be careful as your jam reaches the boiling point, as it will begin to froth quite a bit. Remove from heat as necessary to keep the jam within the pot, and keep stirring until it settles down while still boiling. Then reduce until it thickens to your liking. One way to test thickness is to watch how it drips off your spoon. As the individual drips begin to flow more into a sheeting action (mine never really reached a true sheeting action), your jam should be at a reasonable reduction. Pour into sterile jars to can in a boiling water bath, or pour into clean jars to store in the refrigerator.

The extra jam I had after filling my canning jars jelled very well once it cooled. This is not representative of the jelling in the canned jars, since the extra processing during canning can compromise the jelling somewhat.

Thai Green Curry

2006-09-29T09:43:00.000-07:00

One of my all time favorite Thai dishes.

I first sampled this dish at an easily overlooked and under-acknowledged Thai restaurant in the University District of Seattle. I didn’t even know the restaurant was there at first, until it came to my attention by word of mouth. It is below street level on one of the minor streets that run perpendicular to “the ave.” I’m not sure what the name of it is or if it is even still there. But back in the day, I rarely ordered anything besides their Thai green curry.

Since then I have tried to relive that Thai green curry experience at many a Thai restaurant, by endlessly and obsessively ordering Thai green curry dishes. These explorations usually end in disappointment. Usually green curries include what I consider bland chicken or tofu and various vegetables that don’t excite me as much as eggplant – zucchini for example. So if I want Thai green curry done right, or rather to my personal taste, I have to roll up my sleeves and do it myself. It really doesn’t take that long to make once you have green curry paste on hand. Even better if you have a supply of homegrown organic ingredients outside your door. My green curry paste is aging, so I added a little extra lemon grass -- one of the more volatile components of the paste. I was fortunate enough to only need to slip out into the garden and snip off a small stalk. I had plump Indian eggplants that were contemplating growing dull and “bitter”. I even had a few Thai basil leaves left to collect before the cooler temperatures stifle their vigor.

In this recipe it is important to note that technically coconut cream is the undiluted contents of a can of coconut “milk”. Coconut milk is coconut cream diluted with an equal amount of water. Open a standard size can of coconut “milk” (about 2 cups) and dump the contents into a bowl. Mix well. Then measure out ½ cup to use in the recipe as cream and add 1 ½ cups of water and stir well to add later as milk.

I make my own green curry paste. I haven’t even bothered with the packaged variety. There are a lot of volatile flavors that I suspect won’t preserve well during processing. The green curry paste recipe is a bit labor intensive, but if you can find all the ingredients it is fun to make and very rewarding. It makes enough paste for quite a few meals. I freeze the excess and it keeps well for at least a year. If you’d like to try the green curry paste recipe, please reference Nancie McDermott’s book Real Thai: The Best of Thailand’s Regional Cooking. If you enjoy Thai food, this book is a wonderful investment, even though it includes a lot of meat dishes. Use your creativity to get around relying on meat, but I don’t think you can really substitute anything suitable for fish sauce. Some people sub soy sauce. Fish sauces are usually made with anchovies, which are a relatively unpolluted source of beneficial omega 3’s.

If you accidentally combine the lime zest and lime juice, go ahead and add them together when the recipe calls for lime zest. The flavor of the resulting dish won’t be negatively affected.

If I remember correctly, this is a version of a green curry recipe from Nancie McDermott’s book, that I altered to imitate the object of my original green curry affection. It is nearly spot on, by the way. If anything, it only differs in tasting a bit healthier and fresher.

Mostly Vegetarian Green Curry

Vegetable oil
½ yellow onion, sliced into rings and then in half
½ cup coconut cream
¼ cup green curry paste
3 cups coconut milk
1 ½ cups stemmed and quartered Thai eggplant (or other eggplant cut into bite sized pieces)
2 Tablespoons fish sauce
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
½ teaspoon salt
12 fresh wild lime leaves (or ½ tsp lime zest and juice of ½ lime)
½ cup Thai basil leaves (or other fresh basil leaves)
9 thin red bell pepper strips

Heat some oil in a large skillet and saute onion until golden. Set onion aside.

To the same pan, add coconut cream over medium heat. Allow the coconut cream to boil gently and then lower the heat so that it is just warm enough to keep the cream boiling gently. Cook for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. When tiny pools of oil begin to glisten from the surface of the cream, add the curry paste and stir to dissolve it into the cream. Cook for another couple of minutes, until the mixture has a pleasing aroma.

Increase the heat and add the coconut milk, eggplant, fish sauce, sugar and salt. Mix well. Add half the lime leaves or the lime zest, then reduce the heat to maintain a gentle, active boil. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the onion and cook until the eggplant is tender. Adjust seasoning as desired. If using, add the lime juice, and immediately remove from the heat. Transfer to a serving bowl. Add basil, bell pepper, and remaining lime leaves and stir before serving.

When Life Gives You Quince . . .

2006-09-28T10:47:00.000-07:00

. . . make quince pectin! Years ago I planted a Japanese quince in my garden. While my main goal was to attract hummingbirds with its early-blooming red flowers, I began to wonder if the fruits of their pollinating labor were useful as well.

Searching on the internet, I didn’t find much hope, as various sites defined the fruit of the Japanese variety of quince as inedible. Upon further investigation, I’ve come to find that those sources really meant “unpalatable” as opposed to “inedible”. That is a huge difference! Quince fruit are best described as tasting like a mixture of green apple and lemon. They are just slightly less tart than a slice of lemon. I can just barely eat them slowly, a slice at a time, but then I’ve been known to eat lemon when I have a nasty cold. Also in high school I was addicted to those crazy Japanese sour lemon candies. All that natural sour fruitiness has its pluses – quince are high in vitamin C. Not only that, quinces are much higher in pectin than sour apples.

There is rumor that quince was the alluring apple from the garden of eden.

And here I was bemoaning the fact that I didn’t have an apple tree, after I read that I could make pectin out of green apples. Meanwhile my quince fruits were plumping up and ripening to a lovely chartreuse. What could I do, but immediately pluck a few and commence pectin extraction.

See I’m one of those crazy purist types who refuses to buy commercial pectin to add to homemade jam to ensure jelling. Many fruits can be made into jam without added pectin, however I’ve found that when making nearly seedless blackberry jam, I don’t get jelling, despite the supposedly high pectin content of blackberries. Apparently I’m too much of a perfectionist when it comes to picking blackberries, because the riper berries contain less pectin. So inevitably I’m enchanted with the idea of making my own pectin from a natural source, and especially thrilled that I can use an otherwise “unpalatable” fruit growing organically in my backyard.

The only change I made to accommodate the quince fruit in place of the apple, in this pectin recipe, was to cut the quince into sixths instead of eighths, because the quince are notably smaller. Of further note, I used a mixture of semi-ripe and ripe quince, whereas if you are using apple you’ll want to use strictly under ripe fruits.

Homemade Pectin

For every pound of washed and sliced apple, add 2 cups of water and combine in a large pot. Cover pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Fruit should be tender. Cool to a workable temperature.

Pour the contents of your pot through a jelly bag, cheesecloth or a clean kitchen towel, into a large bowl. Gather the corners of the cheesecloth or towel and tie to a knob, faucet, or somewhere you can leave it suspended over the bowl over night. [note: after some deliberation I chose to use my standing blender and the blender bowl].

The next day pour the juices from the bowl into a suitably sized pot. Note the level of the liquid in the pot (either measure it or just eye it if you feel confident you will remember). Boil over high heat and cook until reduced by half. [note: my pectin left a mark where it began evaporating from, so it was fairly easy to tell when it was half reduced, even without measuring]. Cool and then either refrigerate and use within 4 days, or freeze for up to 6 months.

In an old canning booklet, I read that you should use 1 cup of apple pectin for every cup of fruit juice when making jelly. However, if the fruit you are using has good pectin content, you can probably get away with less. For reference, I used 1 ¼ pounds of quince fruit and got about ½ cup of quince pectin.

Thai Green Bean Salad -- Eating in Season

2006-09-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

The people of France know how to eat well. I hear they shop at street markets every day to pick up fresh produce, spices, and other ingredients. When I was in college I tried to emulate this lifestyle as much as possible. It was refreshing to eat what I happened to be craving that day, walk to the store (as much as half an hour away by foot), and buy what I required. I quickly noticed that our society here in America does not generally embrace this method of grocery shopping. Often I would cringe at the shopping carts brimming over with packaged food in front of me in line. Over the years I came to the conclusion that waiting in line like that was a huge waste of my time and sanity.

Since my appetite for organic and more exotic foods has increased exponentially, my preferred market for grocery shopping is only reasonably reached by vehicle. Always the fuel conscious individual (even back in the late 90’s when gas was cheap), I cannot justify driving to the market without combining it with another errand that takes me to that general vicinity. Therefore, I have, out of necessity, adapted to planning my menus a week or so in advance, compiling a list, and nearly filling a half-sized shopping cart. Gone were my days of reckless shopping spontaneity. Or so I thought.

Lately I’ve begun to try to buy more seasonable organic produce and use my finds as inspiration for my menu selections. This adds nouveau spontaneity to my shopping adventures, as well as my culinary explorations. Some times I know what I can make with the produce du jour, sometimes I’m not prepared with a recipe, and will eagerly ferret one out of my various recipe resources. This past week I couldn’t resist the organic green beans, even though I generally have disturbing memories of over-cooked green beans from childhood. But I knew the perfect recipe for them, a Thai vegetable dish that I first tried this spring when Chinese long beans were on sale.

For every recipe that I am familiar with there are certain ingredients I can count on in my cupboard, and certain ones that need to be bought fresh. Usually I am pretty good about remembering the ingredients that I need to buy without a list, but often times I overlook one or two. The first time I tried this recipe with the green beans, I had not looked at the recipe in over a year, nor had I cooked it yet. However, the recipe title was reassuring enough that I felt I had a good chance of remembering the necessary produce. Sure enough, the green beans, cherry tomatoes, and asian eggplants were the only ingredients not in my cupboard already. Not only was my shopping a success, but so was the finished product.

I would consider this to be a cold Thai salad. I found this recipe at Epicurious. What it lacks in stomach-filling properties, it more than makes up for on the palate. It goes well over warm rice. I’ve tried it with both white and brown basmati rice and I have to recommend the brown rice, which adds some earthy flavor to the meal. I must chastise myself for not serving this more over the summer months, because it is quick to throw together and satisfying on a warm night.

Tangy Eggplant, Long Bean, and Cherry Tomatoes with Roasted Peanuts

½ pound long thin Asian eggplants (about 2)
½ teaspoon vegetable oil
1 ½ Tablespoons fish sauce
4 teaspoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
½ pound long beans or other green beans
10 cherry tomatoes
2 Tablespoons fresh cilantro leaves
1 Tablespoon roasted peanuts

Cut eggplants at a 45 degree angle in ½ inch thick slices. Brush both sides of the slices with olive oil and place on a baking sheet. Broil on high 3 to 4 inches from heat for about 4 minutes, or until slices begin to brown. Turn slices and repeat.

While the eggplant is broiling, mix fish sauce, sugar, and lime juice in your medium or large serving bowl. Stir until all the sugar dissolves.

Once the eggplant has broiled, add to the fish sauce mixture and combine until the eggplant is well coated.

Now blanch the beans. Boil lightly salted water in a medium sized pan. Cut beans into 1 ½ inch lengths. Add to the boiling water for 2 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare an ice bath (ice plus water). After 2 minutes of boiling, immediately drain the beans and add to the ice bath. Drain and add to the eggplant mixture.

Cut your cherry tomatoes into bite-size slices. Coarsely chop cilantro. Finely chop peanuts. Add tomatoes, cilantro, and peanuts to the eggplant mixture and mix well.

Holy Basil

2006-09-27T16:20:00.000-07:00

Every year I grow Thai Holy basil for one dish, and one dish only. Chicken with Holy Basil. My husband and I first tried this dish at a great Thai restaurant in Seattle, called Racha.

All basil plants love hot weather, but Holy basil is particularly finicky. We had cool rainy weather most of the way into June, so I was afraid my Holy basil was doomed. I did manage to nurse along 3 plants and with cooler weather returning, it was time to harvest and feast.

Thai basil is an unusual basil plant in that its leaves resemble a cross between mint leaves and basil leaves.

The only complaint I have with this dish is that I could easily double the basil content. This recipe comes from my favorite Thai cookbook: Real Thai: The Best of Thailand’s Regional Cooking by Nancie McDermott.

Gai Paht Bai Graprao

1 chicken breast half
1 chicken thigh
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
1 Tablespoon coarsely chopped garlic
1 Tablespoon fresh Serrano chili, minced
2 Tablepoons fish sauce
1 Tablespoon water
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1 cup holy basil leaves, cut in thin strips (or substitute half basil and half mint leaves)
9 long, thin sweet red bell pepper strips

Cut your chicken into bite-sized cubes.

Mix the fish sauce, water, soy sauce, and brown sugar in a small bowl.
Heat a deep pan over medium-high heat. Add oil and coat the inside of the pan well. Once the oil is heated, add garlic and chili. Saute until golden. Add chicken and stir-fry about a minute. Add the fish sauce mixture and continue stir-frying for another minute or so. Once your chicken looks thoroughly cooked, add basil and bell pepper. Mix until basil begins to wilt.

Lemon Truffle Cake

2006-09-21T14:26:00.000-07:00

I must confess to having an affinity for See’s cream-filled chocolates. Among my favorite flavors is the lemon cream. It used to be the raspberry one, but I’ve begun to discern the jarring chemical taste of the artificial flavoring. So, back to the matter at hand: Lemon & chocolate – not a traditional or even intuitive combination, but one that has begun to fixate me. Could it be the combination of sour, bitter and sweet that has me so fascinated? I’m intrigued enough that I decided to make a cake that would combine the tart lemon flavors with the darker nuances of chocolate. I chose to pair a moist, almost moussey chocolate cake with lemon curd. My husband always doubts these adventures off the beaten culinary path, but once again, he had to eat his words.

A second confession: I have piles of clippings and print-outs from the internet with recipes I have never, ever gotten around to making. Believe it or not, I’ve been saving recipes from magazines since I was a child, barely allowed to navigate the kitchen. I remember working on a school project in fifth grade that required clipping pictures from magazines. In the process of completing my assignment, I clipped out a small fortune of recipes that I wanted to try – not surprisingly most of them were dessert recipes.

This chocolate cake recipe was from a Seattle Times butter commercial from 1996 that my mother saved for me. The cake is a recipe from the owner of Borracchini’s Bakery and Mediterranean Market, in Seattle.

Remo Borracchini’s Chocolate Fudge Cake

¾ cup butter, softened
½ cup cocoa
1 ½ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 egg yolks
2 ¼ cups flour
3 Tsp baking powder
1 cup cold water
3 egg whites

Grease and flour two 9 x ½ round pans.

Sift flour and baking powder into a small bowl.

In a large bowl, beat cocoa into butter. Add sugar gradually. Beat until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and then egg yolks one at a time. Add flour and baking powder a little at a time. Add water and beat until smooth. [note: I had to add some water before I finished adding dry ingredients, because the consistency was unmanageable]

In a small bowl, beat egg whites until stiff. Fold egg whites into cake batter.

Bake at 300 degrees F for 30-35 minutes. Cool.

Lemon Curd

4 eggs, slightly beaten
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp grated lemon peel
4-5 Tbsp lemon juice
2 cups granulated sugar

In a saucepan, add all ingredients and heat slowly over medium heat, while stirring constantly, until it begins to thicken and bubble – 5 to 10 minutes. [note: be very careful not to overheat the egg or else use a double boiler] Remove from heat and cool at least 2 hours or 1 day.

Assemble Lemon Truffle Cake

Cut one of your cakes flat on the top. Pour a portion of the lemon curd on top, making a thin layer. Place your second cake on top. With the remaining curd, you can either drizzle some on top or pool it below slices as you serve. Pooling the curd has the advantage of allowing the diner to control the amount of curd they eat with each forkful of cake.

To be safe I stored my cake in the refrigerator, along with the extra curd. I’m not sure if the curd is safe to sit at room temperature*, but in any case refrigeration (along with covering) seems to keep the cake exceptionally moist.

* Proof you can find just about anything on the internet – here’s some information on shelf stability of lemon curd, which recommends refrigeration, by the way.

Foodie Pandemic

2006-09-21T10:03:00.000-07:00

With the pitter patter of little raindrops falling on my roof, and with daylight dimming to nearly perpetual dusk behind deep charcoal gray clouds, I'm feeling symptoms of the cooking virus re-surfacing. Better step back, I think it might be contagious.

Dust Bowl Re-Visited

2006-09-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

The following are excerpts from an article titled "Dust Bowl 2006?" found here:

More than 60 percent of the United States is in drought or experiencing abnormally dry conditions, according to Mark Svoboda, a climatologist for the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, who said the drought stretches from Georgia to Arizona and north as far as Wisconsin, Minnesota and Montana.

The Dakotas are the worst-hit, where weeks of unbroken 100-degree days have scorched crops and dried up ponds and streams, leaving dry alkali dust free to be picked up and blown by the wind, a phenomenon that hasn’t been seen in the area since giant dust storms swept the Midwest during the Great Depression in the 1930s.

"The 1999 to 2006 drought ranks only behind the 1930s and the 1950s. It's the third-worst drought on record—period," Rippey said.

Susie White, who runs the Lone Steer motel and restaurant in Steele, North Dakota, a town of about 760 people, told the AP that even out-of-state travelers have been noticing the effects of the drought on local farms and ranches.

"Even I never paid attention to the crops around here. But I notice them now because they're not there," she said. "We're all wondering how we're going to stay alive this winter if the farmers don't make any money this summer."

High Fuel Costs and Your Food Supply

2006-09-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

The following is an article titled "Agriculture Facing its own Katrina" that I found here:

Agriculture today is facing a major catastrophe not experienced since the Dust Bowl days of the Great Depression. Based on expert economic projections, for the first time in decades, many U.S. farmers cannot possibly "cash flow" a crop or crops for the year 2006. Bankers are saying "No." Many of us will not be able to farm this year or the next. The doubling and tripling of fuel and petrochemical prices are the last link in a chain of bad economic events.

Since Aug. 29, the entire world has been focused on the aftermath of the terrible destruction of Hurricane Katrina. Then, to make a terrible tragedy even worse, Hurricane Rita slammed into Southeast Texas and Western Louisiana on Sept. 24.

These two storms had an impact on the nation's fuel refining capacity, increasing prices beyond an already dismal situation. In agriculture, we cannot pass these prices along as other industries do. Ultimately, it means the numbers don't add up. If we can't show positive cash flow, we won't get our operating loans.

For farmers, a Katrina-like disaster is building. It will soon swamp many family farming operations. Astronomical fuel prices, fertilizer and chemical costs have reached the point that even a modest profit is impossible.

Farmers are receiving the lowest price for commodities that myself or most farmers can remember. Farmers are a proud group, usually not willing to protest. This time, I hope someone is listening. We are literally at the end of the turn row. That's a metaphor for desperation. Agriculture is in serious trouble.

A friend of mine and long-time Central Texas farmer sums up the current crisis in a unique way: "It's a lot easier to do nothin' for nothin' than somethin' for nothin'." Why invest huge amounts, work from daylight to dark and struggle for a profit when you know you have no chance?

What if, one by one, many farmers are forced into the painful decision that they can't afford to plant this year and the next? How many such decisions will it take to produce, nation-wide, the bare grocery shelves brought about by Katrina and Rita?

Granted, food can and will be imported. If we allow American agriculture to wither and die, that will be our only choice. If this sounds familiar, it's exactly what we did with energy. Does anyone like what they are paying at the pump now? Do we really want our food supply at the mercy of producers outside our own borders?

With this dismal prospect in mind, we can begin to view the federal farm program as an investment in keeping farmers on the land and preserving the ability to feed our own people at a reasonable cost. Congress and the Bush administration have proposed drastic spending cuts in the federal farm program, while preserving lavish pork barrel spending. Are our priorities really that far out of whack?

U.S. agriculture can feed the world if the profit is there. The federal farm program is a safety net that equally protects U.S. farmers and consumers. Under the current protectionist trade policies in the world, there is no way to farm without it. Drastic cuts would take us down a policy path that is dangerous for our food security. I don't believe we really want to go there.

Just When We Need More Atkins Dieters . . .

2006-09-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

Brace yourself for an increase in the price of bread products and flour. Wide-spread drought has spoiled wheat crops across the world. Reference the following Forbes article: Wheat Prices Climbing Amid Global Drought. In particular, note the following couple of quotes:

"There is this band around the world where wheat is produced that is affected by this drought"
“Texas is going to harvest the fewest number of acres since 1925”

If you want to keep your costs down, start stocking up on flour now. I’m not sure if it was coincidental, but this week when I made it a point to buy another sack of flour, I noticed a few bare shelves.

We tend to be pretty laissez-faire in our house about letting bread spoil on the counter, but I think I will start storing my bread in the refrigerator (even though there isn’t ever any room in there). Also, once bread starts to stale, it still makes for amazing croutons.

Reduce. Fully use. And hope for better luck during the next cycle.

Get More Jaded

2006-08-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

Hey all! (lurkers as well as regular conversers) I have started an additional blog for all the rest of my life that doesn't fit into the foodie box. Please visit me there if you are interested in gardening (I'll be keeping garden records there . . . if I can get my life together, that is), art, or whatever commentary I have on life as we know it. My choice of blog title is Jaded Samsaranian. Sorry it is a bit of a tongue twister. Samsara is the Buddhist vision of our world reality. And for those of you who would ask, no I'm not a practicing Buddhist, but sometimes I wonder if I would be happier if I were. And please leave any and all comments you may have . . . as they say, blogging is an interactive sport!

Genetic Recombination in the Eggplant Jungle

2006-08-11T09:02:00.000-07:00

What you see here, in the bottom right hand corner, is an all white indian eggplant on a plant that is also producing regularly patterned indian eggplants. What sort of mischievous bees have been pollinating my eggplants? Genetic recombination appears to be running rampant in my garden, because I also have some all purple indian eggplants on another plant that also has some regularly patterned indian eggplants on it.

I find this somewhat bizarre, considering that this has not happened before in the three years I have been growing these eggplants.

Should I save these oddball seeds?

Putting the Lid on It

2006-08-09T14:23:00.000-07:00

Sorry readers, but as I have an anonymous spammer, I will be limiting comments for a while to only registered users. I appologize for the inconvenience.

Image was borrowed from here.

Grazing

2006-08-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

Last night, on a whim, I decided to eat as local as possible. Avoid the grocery store. Forage from the yard. Well, yes, it isn't quite that easy . . . I don't have a free-range dairy cow, a walnut tree, nor a field of wheat. But I used what I had in terms of fresh produce.

As I like a little fruit on this particular salad, it took a little thinking before I realized that I actually had some amazing, freshly ripe blackberries waiting to be plucked from the "wasteland" by our driveway. To think I almost overlooked them is a shame. Despite our lack of significant rainfall in about two months, those blackberries were huge, and sweeter than I remember them ever being.

My salad greens are preparing to bolt, but still offered enough leaves for a decent sized salad.

The tomatos are just getting into the swing of things and there were more than enough for my favorite bruschetta. Though, I have to fess up that I cut more basil, while pruning back the flowers, than I could even use.

It was a treat to eat from my own garden, yet also bittersweet, as it was a reminder of how much time and energy goes into our food. How much land and how much time would it require to feast entirely from your own backyard, or is it even possible at all? It seems we have left our self-sufficiency behind us. I've heard that currently there are only 5 acres available for every person on the planet. I'm sure that number is dwindling, even as I write this. So I guess the question is, can a person sustain themselves on 5 acres of land? As a vegan it is supposed to be possible, but since vegans frequently encounter nutritional deficiencies, I have to wonder. . . .

Revised Blueberry Breakfast Bars

2006-08-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

About 3 weeks ago I posted my attempt at making Farmgirl's Blueberry Breakfast Bars and my concomitant review. Of particular note, I mentioned that I felt guilty eating them for breakfast, due to their richness. So I threw together a list of what I would change and left it until the weather cooled long enough to cajole me back into the kitchen.

Here, again, are my changes:
1. substitute unbleached organic white whole wheat flour for all purpose flour
2. substitute turbinado sugar for white and brown sugar
3. use half a stick of butter in the topping, rather than one full stick
4. sprinkle top with oats

Upon tasting them I was impressed with the changes. I could distinguish a healthy/grainy flavor. I believe this was not just the whole wheat flour talking, but also the raw cane sugar, because it offered a gritty texture which contributes to the illusion of "granola" food. The oat flavor was much more predominant. This was not just due to the inclusion of oats on top, but I think a synergy of the oats with the whole wheat flour. The richness was subdued. The only major difference in this version, which could be construed as being negative, was that the topping was drier (and easily knocked off). I actually appreciated the new dry texture over the original, greasier one.

My inhibitions set free by the illusion of a healthy breakfast, I have to admit to eating two bars for breakfast, instead of just one.

So for those of you who would like a documentation of the recipe with it's changes (effectively one-stop shopping), here it is:

Blueberry Breakfast Bars (revised from Farmgirl's original recipe)

Easily cut into 12 large bars

BOTTOM LAYER
2 cups old-fashioned oats
3/4 cup organic unbleached white whole wheat flour
3/4 cup turbinado sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter, melted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

TOP LAYER
1 cup organic unbleached white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup turbinado sugar
4 Tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter

MIDDLE LAYER
3-1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
1 teaspoon pure almond extract
3/4 cup turbinado sugar
3 Tablespoons organic unbleached white whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

For the Bottom Layer:
Grease a 9" x 13" pan and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. In a medium to large bowl, combine oats through salt. Gradually stir in melted butter and then vanilla, until well combined. Press evenly into the bottom of your pan.

For the Top Layer:
In a medium bowl, combine ingredients with a pastry blender, until the butter is well incorporated in small, evenly distributed pieces.

For the Middle Layer:
In the same bowl that you used for the bottom layer, combine the blueberries with the almond extract. Mix the sugar and flour in a small bowl. Spread the blueberries evenly over the top of the bottom layer, and then sprinkle with the sugar and flour.

Finishing:
On top of the middle layer, evenly sprinkle the top layer. Bake for 15 minutes at 425 degrees F. Then lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees F and bake for at least 20-25 minutes or more, until the top begins to brown. Let cool. Cut evenly into bars. Bars will freeze well in plastic bags.

Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

2006-08-02T14:04:00.000-07:00

I'm grateful to have the opportunity to share these beautiful, cheery sunflowers with everyone. The last few years have been bad sunflower years for me. Too many slugs & snails in the garden. I've learned to grow sunflowers in pots (with regular applications of Sluggo). But that restricts the number of sunflowers that I can grow, since I don't care to fuss over too many plants. It is a pity, because I love to see the songbirds pluck the sunflower seeds from them come autumn.

Indian Eggplant Revisited

2006-07-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

Here is my prize Indian eggplant that I photographed as it was rapidly growing, a few weeks ago. I harvested it a little late, because it was just too %*$&ing hot to cook. So it matured on the vine beyond when I would ideally have cut it. The nice thing about that is that now I have a few seeds for the next generation. According to this website, "Overmature fruits are spongy and seedy and may be bitter." They recommend such over ripe eggplants be discarded. Bah! Eggplant lovers, such as myself, are not detered by such foolish advice.

I turned it into my favorite food for this time of year -- an Indian sweet & sour eggplant dish. The recipe comes with a recommendation for serving with sourdough bread, which is fine and good, but I decided to turn it into a pizza with sourdough crust. I don't have any photos to share, because we ate after it got dark (and cool).

Now I'm a huge sourdough bread lover, but I've always been intimidated by the idea of keeping sourdough starter on hand. I have heard that the stuff is rather aromatic. Plus I'm afraid I would forget about it and find it overtaken by a floating wafer-like colony of suede-textured, green mold. If you have ever accidentally grown that particular type of mold you would know the horror of which I speak. I had a run-in with that stuff when I worked in a lab and had carelessly left a vial soaking in the sink over winter break. I don't care to form a second impression.

But there is hope for microflora-phobics! You can make pseudo sourdough and it is frightfully easy. Just substitute yogurt for some of the water in your bread dough. I wasn't sure how much, so I went with half water/half yogurt. I believe it is a good idea to let the yeast grow before you mix the yogurt in, so that the friendly yogurt bacteria don't out-compete the yeast. Also make sure the yogurt is at room temperature or warmer, so you don't shock the yeast when you add it.

In the past I served this sweet & sour eggplant dish with sourdough crostini, but I think I prefer the softness of the pizza crust.

Sea Salt or White Gold?

2006-07-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

In ancient times this wouldn't just look like a pile of tiny diamonds, but this would also be closer in value to a pile of diamonds (in West Africa it was nearly equivalent to gold). Salt in those days was harder to come by and appreciated for its value in maintaining vitality and preserving foods. In fact the word 'salary' comes from the latin word 'salarium', which means a payment made in salt. Roman soldiers were typically paid in salt. You can read more about the history of salt here.

Sodium and chloride are essential for life. Without salt our bodies become weak and susceptible to heat stroke and infections. Deficiency typically is not a problem in developed nations, where processed foods are over-fortified with salt. Even if you quit eating processed foods, so long as you eat meat or other animal products you will probably get sufficient sodium. People at risk of sodium deficiency are those who rely on a plant-based diet, while simultaneously keeping to a low-sodium intake, because plants do not contain sufficient sources of sodium. Plant-based foods are great sources of potassium, however, which is another important electrolyte. The typical citizen of developed nations is more at risk for potassium deficiency, because excess sodium intake, as well as excess sugar intake, can interfere with potassium equilibrium. The human body requires about 3 times as much potassium as sodium.

Any imbalance in your stores of sodium, potassium, or chloride -- the three major electrolytes -- becomes apparent during spells of hot weather. Deficiency symptoms are more likely to surface under these extreme conditions. The most easily recognized symptom is propensity for dehydration despite adequate fluid intake. Without adequate electrolyte intake, your body cannot properly absorb water, so it will pass straight through you without rehydrating you. After hours of not hyrdrating properly in hot conditions, your body will enter a state of heat exhaustion, characterized by a headache, nausea, and possibly vomitting. If you suspect you are suffering from an inability to hydrate properly, your quickest remedy is to drink water mixed with Emergen C, drink a sports drink, or make a quick homemade oral rehydration solution (as recommended by the World Health Organization):

In a pint glass add:
2 ½ teaspoons sugar
1/3 teaspoon salt (sea salt is best)
1 ¾ cup water
squeeze of lime or lemon

Stir well to dissolve.

If you suspect you are more deficient in potassium, Emergen C will be your better option because it has twice as much potassium as sodium, although it only contains about 6% of your daily recommened intake of potassium. Otherwise look for potassium salt. Morton makes a potassium chloride salt and I'm sure there are other brands out there as well.

Lily

2006-07-20T15:18:00.000-07:00

Shine On You Crazy Salt Crystals

2006-07-20T13:47:00.000-07:00

It's hard for me to get very excited about baking bread in the summer. While I enjoy eating bread all year round, I don't enjoy being anywhere near a hot oven (or stove for that matter) in a warm house. So I was mystified at my eagerness to try this bread recipe.

I was hoping to make something similar to the rosemary sea salt bread that a baking company out of Seattle, called the Essential Baking Company, has made for years. I'm particularly fond of the coarse sea salt they sprinkle on top. I found a recipe that doesn't yield the same results, but does make for a very light and tasty bread. I was impressed that it was quick to throw together and also did not need to sit in a hot oven for too long.

Rosemary Sea Salt Bread

1 Tablespoon dry yeast
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 cup warm water (105-115° F)
2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon sea salt, fine textured
2-3 Tablespoons rosemary, chopped
2-3 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
coarse sea salt

To a medium sized bowl, add yeast, sugar and warm water. Let sit 5 minutes, and become bubbly. Add 1 cup of flour and mix well. Add remaining flour, salt, rosemary, 1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, and enough additional flour to make a smooth dough that isn’t too sticky to handle. Knead for about 10 minutes, or until additional flour becomes difficult to incorporate. Form dough into a ball.

In a large bowl, add a small pool of oil. Dip top of dough in oil and then set upside right in the bottom of the bowl. Coat the dough evenly with the oil. Place a damp towel over the bowl and set in a warm place for an hour, or until dough doubles in size.

Once doubled, punch down and let sit another 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile lightly grease a baking pan or heat your baking stone. Divide dough in half, forming a rounded loaf out of each half. Pat more oil on the top and then sprinkle with coarse sea salt to taste. Bake in a 450° F oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until lightly browned.

Something Old & Something New

2006-07-15T10:01:00.000-07:00

Cupcakes are currently experiencing a renaissance. The last time cupcakes were this trendy was in the 1950s. I have an old tupperware container that was my grandmother's that I always thought had an inconvenient shape, until I realized that 9 cupcakes tuck in there perfectly. Is that a mandate that three should be eaten immediately? In any case, my generation seems to be relishing everything retro.

When I tried to look up a few cupcake recipes in my "Better Homes & Gardens" cookbook from the mid 1990's, I was surprised that it only lists three main flavors -- vanilla, yellow, and chocolate. We are so beyond that now -- gourmet cupcake recipes abound on the internet.

Cupcakes originated in the 19th century, when cakes were often times baked in tea cups for speedier baking, because larger cakes took an eternity to cook on a hearth. But even more intriguing, cup cake recipes were the first recipes written with proportions in cups instead of weights. Click here for more cupcake history or here if you are truly cupcake obsessed.

This is a recipe recently posted at Save Your Fork . . . There's Pie, for Lime Ginger Cupcakes with Coconut. I just came upon these silicone cupcake molds. I have to admit they were too cute to leave on the store shelf or even let sit in my cupboard for 24 hours. I decided to do a little experiment, as they recommend that you spray oil to coat the insides "for best results." I like to push limits, you see. I also wondered how well they would work without a muffin tin holding them up. They passed the no-muffin-tin test with flying colors. They did fine only supported by a cookie sheet. When I popped the cupcakes out of their ungreased molds they stuck about as much as you would expect with paper liners.

My only concern left was whether it would effect my health, but apparently silicone rubber is the only non-stick bake-ware material that is also inert. Apparently this has to do with the compactness of the polymer on the molecular level which renders it resistant to interactions with other molecules.

When Life Gives You Thai Basil . . .

2006-07-14T08:26:00.000-07:00

. . . make Thai pizza!

Holy basil! My siam queen basil really took off this year, even while my italian basil sulked. Before I knew it flowers were threatening to bud. Time for a hair cut and dinner of a thai persuasion.

While Thai green curry is one of my favorite dishes of all time, it does take some preparation and a few exotic ingredients (galangala, for instance). My other favorite use for Thai basil is Thai pizza. Due to nature's abundance, I skewed my recipe a bit and was delighted with the result. The peanut sauce I used is the same one on the California Pizza Kitchen's Thai Chicken Pizza. I wouldn't exactly call it health food, but in my opinion it is the best recipe for peanut sauce that I have yet encountered.

Spicy Peanut Sauce
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup hoisin sauce
1 Tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons fresh ginger, minced
2 Tablespoons raosted sesame oil
2 teaspooons soy sauce
1 teaspoon Vietnamese chili sauce
1 Tablespoon oyster sauce
2 Tablespoons water

Add all your ingredients into a sauce pan and heat until smooth.

Thai Pizza
pizza dough for one pizza, shaped into crust form (or pre-prepared crust)
1/4 cup spicy peanut sauce
1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
2 scallions, slivered diagonally
1 carrot, shredded
2-4 Tablespoons roasted peanuts, minced
1/4 cup (at least) thai basil, loosely packed

Spread sauce evenly on pizza dough, avoiding the crust around the edge. Then spread the cheese, scallions, carrots and peanuts evenly over the sauce. Bake at 450º F for about 15 to 20 minutes. Meanwhile chiffonade your basil. Once the pizza crust is golden and the cheese melted, remove your pizza from the oven and sprinkle the top with your basil leaves.

There is nothing quite like fresh home-grown Thai basil. I have never eatten so much fresh Thai basil in one sitting before, and I was impressed that it imparted a very noticable cinnamon taste to the pizza. The Thai basil you can buy in the grocery store is not the same.

Aubergine Dreams

2006-07-13T15:26:00.000-07:00

This was one of my indian eggplant plants about 3-4 weeks ago. Here is one now:

I really cannot believe how quickly things grow.

Something Borrowed & Something Blue

2006-07-12T15:28:00.000-07:00

As much of a scone addicted fool as I am, I do occasionally grow weary of my vast library of scone recipes. When I saw this recipe for Blueberry Breakfast Bars at Farmgirl Fare, I knew it would become my new favorite way to hoard blueberries. The recipe makes a large panful (9" x 13"), and over half of that I have frozen in classic foodie obsessive-compulsive manner.

These are quite good, although rich enough to make me feel a twinge of guilt eating them for breakfast. Consequently I would recommend the following changes for anyone else having a hard time justifying them for breakfast:

substitute organic white whole wheat flour for the all purpose flour
substitute turbinado sugar for both the white and brown sugar
maybe throw a few more oats into the mix, possibly in the topping
you might be able to get away with using a little less butter

Tangent -- while I was buying my blueberries I overheard the produce manager mention to his colleague that the berries in the store are cheaper for him to purchase than his own labor would be to pick from his own garden. That launched me into a long muse about under-valued agricultural workers and global salary rates. Will the same hold true in the future? But above and beyond all that, the berries in his backyard are most assuredly more flavorful and healthful, so really there is no comparison.

Hummus 3 Ways

2006-07-12T14:35:00.000-07:00

Hummus is so easy to make that there really is no excuse for not making your own. I have to remind myself of this from time to time. When you make it yourself you avoid added ingredients, such as preservatives, while maximizing the freshness and healthiness of the ingredients. Further, you can flavor it to your own preferences. This recipe is proportioned around using one can of beans, so you needn't worry about the added step of measuring out the beans. If you cook your own beans, use 1 1/2 cups.

Hummus

1 can garbanzo beans (chick peas)
4 Tablespoons tahini
3 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/3 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon cumin
pinch cayenne pepper

plus one of the following options:
1 roasted bell pepper, chopped
1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes, sliced
3/4 cup kalamata olives, slices

Mince the garlic finely first. Even though you will be processing the hummus, it is important to let the minced garlic stand for 10 minutes before incorporating it into the recipe, in order to maximize its health-giving properties. Drain the liquid from the beans into a bowl and set aside. Add all of the ingredients (except the bean liquid) into a food processor and process until smooth. If the texture is too thick, add the liquid from your beans until you achieve a desirable texture.

Wild Service

2006-07-09T11:04:00.000-07:00

This is one of those instances where my cheap digital camera proves inadequate.

In any case, occasionally I get it in my mind that it's a good thing to be educated about edible wild plants. In case I find myself in the backwoods without a supply of food, it would be nice to have a good idea of what my options are.

Here we have a Serviceberry. I had pretty high hopes for this little berry. If you read about them from various sources on the internet, you would be lead to believe they not only look like blueberries, but also taste like them. Native Americans referred to them as "sweet" berries. Nutritionally, they are high in vitamin C, iron, and copper. That is all fine and good, but when I tasted this little fruit, while there very well may have been underlying notes of blueberry, I couldn't get past the bitter taste of leather. It tasted like it had sat too long in someone's saddle bag. Now I know some people don't mind that flavor and even prefer the "leathery" flavors in certain wines, but it really isn't my idea of a "sweet" blueberry imitator. And then there was the single seed inside that was about the size of a fennel seed, which is quite large for such an innocuous-looking berry.

Mango Still Life with Blender (x4)

2006-07-08T17:24:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry, am I playing with my food? If you are interested in the recipe or the nutritional benefits of mango lassis, please visit Fit Fare.

5 Star Salmon

2006-07-07T10:09:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know, but I did say "mostly" vegetarian and fish is really the best source of certain omega 6 fats, so I really don't feel guilty posting this.

From what I can gather, this recipe originated at a restaurant called The Ark Restaurant & Bakery, on the Long Beach peninsula of the Washington coast (close to the Oregon border). If you want relatively easy 5 star home-cooking, this recipe is for you! The best part about fine dining at home is that you can actually get away with licking your plate afterward. Trust me, you will feel the urge to do so with this sauce.

Scotch Salmon

2, 7 oz salmon fillets (buy wild)
4 Tablespoons butter, clarified
salt & pepper to taste
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
1 teaspoon shallot, minced
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
2 Tablespoon raspberry vinegar
1/2 cup scotch
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup heavy cream
6 Tablespoons Drambuie
Crème fraîche

Dust each salmon fillet lightly with flour. In a pan large enough for both fillets, heat the butter. Add your salmon and brown slightly on one side. Add salt and pepper to taste and turn fillet over. Add garlic, shallot, mustard and brown sugar. Cook for a few seconds. Add raspberry vinegar. The second side of your salmon should be slightly brown at this point. With the fillets still in the pan, deglaze them with the scotch. Add orange juice. Move the pan in a circular motion to blend ingredients. Remove salmon and let your sauce reduce until it begins to thicken. Place salmon back in the pan and finish with cream and Drambuie. Top your fillets with the sauce from the pan, and with crème fraîche.

Note: I whipped my crème fraîche for this, without adding anything like sugar or vanilla to it.

Beware that you buy your salmon from a trusted source. As I usually don't buy fish, I don't have an ongoing relationship with the fishy guy behind the counter. I asked specifically for wild salmon and he told me that that is what he gave me, but the label he printed out with the price on it did not support his claim. I won't be buying fish from him again.