clearing the cobwebs

I'm feeling ambitious and completely food obsessed at the moment, so I've decided to attempt to revive this poor, neglected blog.

Recipes and food photos will (hopefully) be coming soon, but in the meantime, I wanted to share some thoughts on food and poverty. This is a key issue in my new job (which involves organizing a new CSA in a mixed-income neighborhood), but as someone who has been concerned about both poverty and the effects of industrial agriculture/processed food/conventional meat production for a long time, it's a problem I think about a lot. Is it fair to advocate that everyone, regardless of income, should be spending more for organic/local food? Everyone suffers the public health and environmental consequences equally, so low-income families stand to benefit from eating better food, too.

And the thing is, if you have time to cook at home and plan your meals carefully (I do recognize that cooking at home regularly is difficult if not impossible for some) it is entirely possible to eat quality food on a tight budget - see Rebecca Blood's amazing experiment as proof.

Also, more and more communities are starting up programs like the one I am working on - we will be accepting food stamps as payment for CSA shares and will be fundraising as much money as possible to support subsidized shares for families that are truly in need.

What brought this all to my mind today, though, was a post on Mark Bittman's blog, Bitten, discussing a recent London Times article in which the British chef Delia Smith argued that chefs should stick to food and stay out of politics. Smith recently published a cookbook aimed at lower income cooks with recipes full of things like frozen mashed potatoes and canned mincemeat. Bittman comments that he fails to see why using the worst possible ingredients is necessary (are fresh potatoes so much more expensive than frozen ones? If anything, they are probably cheaper because they are unprocessed) and wonders why other cheap, whole foods like dried beans didn't figure into her recipes more frequently.

My favorite part of the entry, however, is a comment left by a reader that beautifully skewers Smith's apolitical stance. This could apply to a variety of disciplines beyond cooking and is highly worth a read.

friday food obsessions

New favorite recipe in progress: Four C's soup.

Step 1) Cut the kernels off two VERY fresh ears of corn. Boil the cobs in a large pot with an inch or two of water in the bottom for 90 minutes to make a sweet lovely broth. (Use more water if you want a thin, drinkable soup, less if you want it thick.)

Step 2) Peel and seed 1 medium cucumber. Chop and add cucumber reserved corn kernels.

Step 3) When broth is done, remove from heat and add cucumber, corn kernels, and 1/2 can coconut milk. Puree until smooth with a stick blender or in a food processer/old school blender.

Experimental Step 4) Season with salt and pepper. Add chopped scallions and maybe some cilantro or basil. (I haven't done any of these things to the soup yet, but I'm planning to try it.)

Step 5) Chill overnight for the best flavor. Serve cold. Will make 2 very generous servings or 3 smaller ones.


And no recipe for this yet, but tomorrow I'm going to try to make mini whole wheat calzones with caramelized onions, zucchini, and a very tangy raw milk cheese from my favorite dairy.

P.S. Someday I might figure out what to do with this blog.

oil & water

"In Praise of Tap Water," a recent editorial in the NY Times, just reminded me that I've been meaning to write a post about tap v. bottled water for some time now. In a nutshell: you should stop buying bottled water. Or at least avoid it as much as humanly possible. Why?

- It takes 1.5 million barrels of oil to make all those plastic bottles (and that's for the U.S. alone).

- When the fossil fuels burned during shipping are taken into consideration, consuming a one-liter bottle of water means consuming one liter of oil. (stats at Treehugger)

- Only 23% of those bottles are recycled, meaning that billions of these things are turning up in landfills and slowly degrading into toxic plastic dust that contaminates our soil and waterways.

- IT'S A WASTE OF YOUR MONEY!!!! Tap water is safe, clean, and does not cost $1.50 per glass. If you don't like the way yours tastes, a simple filter will fix that.

Instead, why not get into the habit of filling up a bottle from your tap at home before you leave for the day? You can follow No Impact Man's example and reuse a glass bottle or pick up a Nalgene if you want to be trendy.

If you need a visual to help convince you to ditch the bottled water habit, check this out. The photo was created by a blogger at Acterra and quite literally shows you how much oil it took to ship each bottle of water from its source to the author in San Francisco. Uh, yuck. (Originally found here.)

Summer Fling

I am so madly in love.... with my CSA. Seriously. I check the pretty new website all the time just to say hello. All I can think about at work is the stash of vegetables in my crisper drawer. I pine for my thursday pick-up all week long and fantasize about the late summer shares of FRESH corn, ripe plums, and tomatoes. Oh, god, the tomatoes. It's early yet, but I think I may have found the One.

I am so, so happy that I joined. There is nothing greater to me than being handed several pounds of organic vegetables grown less than 100 miles away. "HERE," says Farmer Ted. "You hardly ever buy radishes, turnips, or swiss chard from the Food Coop, but by god, you're going to learn to love all of them. And here's some live purple basil and dill that you can plant in old coffee cups and enjoy for years. It's all yours, girl." Fantastic.

Last night I feasted on local cherries and my new favorite, an impossibly simple radish salad. Tonight: a fritata of swiss chard, plum tomatoes (not from the CSA just yet), shallots (ditto), and parmesan cheese. Tomorrow: a stir fry of bok choy, tempeh, and garlic scapes tossed with sesame oil and soy sauce.

Want to come for dinner?


P.S.: Vinegar as fabric softener seems to have worked, miraculously enough. At least on my clothing. The towels came out pretty scratchy.

Fabric Softener/5th Grade Science Project

About my baking soda as fabric softener scheming: didn't work so well. Anyone who tells you it does is a LIAR. Stiff shirts, irritating sheets. No good. Tonight we're going to try vinegar instead, praying all the while that I won't be smelling like salad dressing for the next week.

I'm lacking the brain power and attention span for a proper post, but a few items of inspiration from this week:

Greenpa's theories about Pushing on Icebergs
Cleaning with vinegar
Making vinegar with fruit scraps

Green Washing (the good kind)

No, this post isn't about greenwashing, but about greening your laundry. I will get around to discussing the most earth-friendly clothing options soon, but an issue very much on my mind right now is washing the clothes you already have. (Laundry day cometh.)

I've received many lectures from eco-conscious friends about the evils of clothes dryers. And it's true-- the average American releases 700 lbs of carbon a year drying their clothes. But I always found drip-dried clothing and towels so stiff and unpleasant to use that I couldn't give it up.

However, it seems that one of the miracles of baking soda is that it acts as a fabric softener (and brightens your clothing) if you add it to your wash. I'm going to try it out tomorrow and, after my clothes have dried on the rack I just picked up (used on craigslist for $5) I will report back on how it worked.

And if it needs to be said: It really is ok to wash your clothes in cold water. I've been doing this for years because I'm paranoid about shrinkage and I swear, they still get clean. Unless you're washing something like scrubs that need to be washed in hot water for sanitary reasons, why use the extra energy?

Greening your NY Transportation

You may be thinking, "Hey, I walk and take the subway almost everywhere I go in the city-- why do I need to think about transportation-related emissions?" That may be true, but how many plane trips have you taken in the past year? CarbonCounter.org estimates that the average American flies 1,055 miles per year, releasing almost one-half ton of carbon dioxide into the air.

Some airlines are already looking into jet fuels blended with ethanol to reduce their emissions, but in the meantime there are other ways to reduce the carbon footprint created by your personal travel.

First, you can vacation closer to home. Do you need to fly to Florida when hundreds of miles of beautiful New Jersey and Long Island shorelines are just a train ride away? Or, if your travel is business related, consider whether a video- or tele-conference call might suffice.

Of course, some trips must be taken. Everyone has family and friends scattered across the globe and experiences a sometimes insatiable feeling of wanderlust. One way to help compensate for the emissions released during these trips is by purchasing carbon offsets at websites like Carbon Counter. Carbon offsets provide funding for green energy, R&D, and design, and therefore help to neutralize the impact of your carbon emissions. (The practices of some carbon offset providers are sometimes unclear or even shady, so it's best to research a company before purchasing offsets. The Climate Trust's Carbon Counter offsets received a positive review in this Consumer's Guide, so I've been using that site.)

Carbon offsets are also a good idea for NYC drivers. Believe it or not, over 1.7 million New Yorkers own cars.* This fact is rather mind-boggling, given the hassles of alternate side parking rules, the horrible traffic, and the high costs of owning a car in this city. If you are an NYC-dweller and a regular driver out of necessity or preference, there are still a number of ways to reduce the pollution emitted by your vehicle.

1) Make your car as fuel-efficient as possible: Keep your tires fully inflated to reduce resistance and thus save on gasoline. Make your car as light as possible by removing items like roof racks when they are not in use, and avoid storing things in your trunk.

2) When it's time to buy a new car, go hybrid: But in the meantime, advocate for the availability of E85 (a blend of 85% ethanol, 15% gasoline that can be used in most cars on the road today) in New York City. Shell is a major supplier of E85 and has many stations in NYC-- send them an email at ShellCustomerCare@shell.com or call 888-GO-SHELL. You can also sign up with the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition to receive updates on E85 availability here. For a list of E85 suppliers across the country, click here.

3) Consider renting instead of owning: Think about the time you spend driving your car to your destination and back again vs. the time you spend driving your car in circles looking for parking spots. What does that ratio look like? Perhaps renting a car only when you really need it is better for you-- especially now that many car rental companies are stocking hybrid cars.

4) Driving because you hate the subway? Try riding a bike: People of all ages commute on bicycles in New York and more bike lanes and greenways are springing up all the time. Check out Transportation Alternatives and Time's Up! for all things bike-related in New York City.