Summer’s End

It's been awhile since I've written here. The summer has brought lots of opportunities to be outside, planting my gardens and helping them grow through this interesting summer. Between bunnies and unseasonably cool weather, some plants have struggled (pumpkins and peas) while others finally took off (my cucumbers are legion).

What it is time for, however, is restocking my herbs. Culinary and medicinal. I grow quite a few of the everyday culinary herbs like rosemary, oregano, sage and thyme. I even have a small bay tree. There is catnip and anise hyssop in the garden. Valerian comes up everywhere. I've dried my own herbs before but most of them tend to stay usable out in the garden all year long. And yet, there are other herbs and spices that I use and have I found a great company to order from.

Mountain Rose Herbs is a company down in Cottage Grove, Oregon that sells organic and conventional herbs, spices and herbal products. Their products are first rate and they are a company working hard to be measured as one of the top sustainable companies in their niche. I found them years ago when I first began getting interested in herbal medicine and have loved them ever since.

www.mountainroseherbs.com

One of my favorite tea blends for restful sleep:

2 parts chamomile
1 part peppermint leaves
a pinch of valerian
1 part wood betony
1 part skullcap
1 part catnip
and a pinch of stevia for sweetness if my husband is joining me for a cup.

Summer arrives

Summer decided to arrive while I was visiting family down in California.

How lovely it is to come home from a week away and find ripened strawberries and sugar snap peas. My squash and pumpkins are thriving and the lettuce hasn't bolted yet. The tomatoes are unfurling finally willing to put some energy into growth now that the heat has come. I picked a cup of gooseberries to make jam and can now see that once again my apple trees are putting forth a bumper crop.

While it is still early, I am going out to pick a bouquet of roses and delphinium. Perhaps some herbs to make some fresh pasta sauce for dinner. I'm sure I can find many a chore to keep me outside today – weeding, watering, pruning – anything to smell the heated soil and freshly cut grass. The cedar tree and rosemary. I can continue to pull up all the bronze fennel that reseeded itself throughout the garden. One thing that I also enjoy is watching how the corners of my yard waste pile are now producing all sorts of garden plants that I would be happy to see go wild in the unkept grass beyond my yard. The Valerian and catmint. There are some hollyhocks as well. Seed well, my friends and fill that corner of the property with your bounty.

Summer Solstice is quickly approaching

Up here in the northwest part of the country, summer's arrival means that our days become incredibly long. I woke up the other morning a little after 3 am and could tell that the sky was already beginning to grow light with the coming dawn. This is the time of year when the birds start to chirp by 4am. That might not matter to a lot of people but when you sleep with your windows open like I do – and you just happen to have four swallow houses stationed on the eaves nearby – it can be quite a morning chorus.

So whether it is raining, cold or sunny – summer is coming with its longest day of the year next weekend. Just because we've had one of the coldest June's on record doesn't mean that the next couple of months have to be anything but splendid. I can dream, anyway. In the garden, everything except the lettuce and spinach has struggled to get a foothold in the cold soil. This morning I finally see the first true leaves on my squash and beans. The peas have finally decided that it is time to grow. Some of my tomatoes are still only a few inches tall but they're green and still might pull it out.

I'm looking at my garden with slightly different eyes this year. As the price of produce climbs in the market and probably will continue to do so with the increasing cost of oil – the idea of buying local or growing it myself becomes a viable alternative. I wonder how long it makes sense for some of these companies to ship apples from New Zealand or grapes from Chile. At what point does the cost of transportation make that apple too expensive to buy? For me, I'll wait a few more months until the crops off my own apple trees fill my bins.

We are certainly living in interesting times. I don't think it is often that most Americans feel the crunch from influences outside our own borders. My mother remembers what it was like to live through WW2 – the rationing, the victory gardens, the blackouts. And while my world is crunched by the awareness of high gas prices and rising food costs – I simply grimace and bear it. How many families in this country have been pushed right over the edge with those costs?

Whole Foods is running a campaign right now to feed children in Rwanda. A worthy cause, I am sure. What I wonder about is the amount of children in this country who also are going without food. I heard a report that food banks in our state are not able to keep up with the demand. Not only are more people needing their services, but the amount of food that is being provided has been impacted by higher costs.

So I am looking at my garden with the understanding that what grows edible there is a gift I give myself on many levels. I have a vision of small community gardens popping up around the country as more and more people begin to value what they can grow and eat as a viable alternative to the high costs at the market. Those kinds of shifts take time and momentum – but I have a feeling that it will be close to never when gas prices are back down around 2.00 a gallon.

Is this June?

Every year around this time I write about being completely disgruntled by the weather. I can't help it. I spent 25 years looking forward to June – in California. It was the perfect month. School was ending, the temperature was warming up and the beach was waiting. Well, I'm waiting for the drizzle to disappear, the temperature to warm way up so I can lose this sense that somehow I've been kicked back to March.

My tomato plants are barely a foot high – waiting for that warmth to tell them that it's time to start growing. Some of my cucumber seeds poked their heads out of the soil last week to see if it was time – and promptly stalled as if to say – wait a minute, I thought it was almost summer.

Sigh.

Even as I wandered the farmer's market this morning, I realized that there is a part of me that is ready for the bounty that summer brings. It is the warmth of the sun that creates that abundance and I am sorely missing it. Okay, I've said that in about as many ways as I can. I'll try to stop.

There is bounty right now – my red leaf romaine is ready to be picked – so tender and yummy. I've had spinach fresh from the garden and brought home some asparagus and sugar snap peas today. Most of my fruit is coming from California at the moment but next week the cherries should be ready. I can already tell that my strawberries will be late this year – they haven't even begun to set up fruit yet. And the carrots and peas are coming along, the beets and beans as well. My summer squash, like the cukes, is slowly making an appearance and I'm almost ready to set my pumpkins out.

Gardening is never an exacting practice. If it isn't the weather, it's the soil. If it isn't the soil – it's the pests or bunnies. There are always challenges to be rolled with. I read a report that says that we are going to have cooler than usual temps through mid July. So I think I'll plant some more spinach and lettuce and take advantage of what is there to be used.

 

Spring is Here

We had a very unseasonably warm weekend here in the northwest. I spent as much of my time outside as I could. I miss the sun this time of year and can't wait for these kinds of days when I get to soak up the heat.

My garden is finally planted. Tomatoes are transplanted, along with the peppers and basil. I got my beans and cucumbers in the ground and harvested my first batch of spinach and lettuce. It was so cold up through April that my peas are still less than a foot tall. The cherry trees look like they will be putting out a bumper crop of fruit this June and my strawberry plants are loaded with blooms right now. My yard is vibrant with new color – bright greens of all shades, the reds of new leaves and the explosion of color from the rhododendrons scattered through the yard. With the sun shining, the spring season comes alive for my senses. Spring is moving swiftly into summer and I look forward to the tapestry of color and shape that I will have then.

But it was the work of the last three weekends which I feel the most satisfaction from. Long hours taking care of gardening woes that have been untended for years. And now I have my kitchen garden back with fruits and vegetables to harvest all summer long. I will have pumpkins for October and winter squash for December. I will have chard and collard greens overwintering in the garden. I hope that my harvest of tomatoes will keep me in the kitchen for a long late summer day of canning.

I don't know if my children will ever follow in my footsteps when it comes to gardening and harvesting. Perhaps someday it will be a novelty that they will tell their kids about – how their grandmother made homemade jam and grew her own apples. Maybe that will be odd in the future of the world. And yet, I can't imagine living a life untouched by the miracle of watching something come into fruition before my eyes – a carrot, an apple, a blueberry – and then harvesting it and eating it with the knowledge of understanding all that went into that small bite of flavor.

“As financial markets have tumbled, food prices have soared,” Mr. Zoellick said. “Since 2005 the prices of staples have jumped 80 percent.”
The United States has been criticized for pressing for the use of biofuels, especially corn-based ethanol, as a way to reduce oil consumption and to keep corn prices high for farmers. But the same prices that please farmers are causing shortages in basic grains used for food in the developing world." - New York Times 4/16/2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/world/europe/16food.html?ref=world

What a perfect example of a wicked dilemma.

"Wheat prices have risen by 130 percent since March of last year, and soy prices have risen 87 percent, the United Nations said, with food now representing 60 percent to 80 percent of consumer spending in developing countries. In general, the World Bank has said that food prices have climbed about 83 percent worldwide over the past three years."

How do we answer the call for feeding the hungry while also developing alternative fuels? Why has it become an either/or situation? What are the other alternatives? Why has the quest for alternate fuel in this country led us back to corn?

I can't help wonder how the complexity of such situations gets funneled down into a black or white scenario where neither side is able to give way on the importance of their issue. There are profound forces at work - drought that continues to plague parts of our world; a government here in the US that loves to subsidize corporate agriculture while our own economy reverberates with the lack of security in our financial markets. We don't even need to mention the billions of dollars that are pouring into a pipe dream of democracy in Iraq.

It all feels inter-related to me. There are ways that all of these critical issues are linked and unless we can slowly start peeling back the layers of how decisions are made - how and where we spend our money - this chaos will only continue.

Emergence

Isn't new life thrilling?
I fretted whether those seeds that I planted a few weeks ago were going to survive our late March snowstorm. The spinach, carrots, lettuce and peas that I had planted into my newly tilled and fertilized soil.
Really, the worry was not necessary for they are bursting forward out of the dirt, small and hardy, waiting for another bout of heat like last Saturday. But arrived they have.
In honor of their emergence I have started my tomatoes, basil and peppers - indoors of course and on the floor of my living room. Already they are beginning to sprout.

Emergence. I like that word. It is an exciting moment and one that I celebrate in many ways.

Dear Full Circle Farms

Every other week, I buy a medium box of produce from your organization and for the most part I have been very pleased with the quality of your product. I didn't expect that much variety - it being winter and all - and was very surprised one day when I found tomatoes and cucumbers from Mexico in the box. This was disturbing since your website says that you only bring in produce from small farms as far away as California. Well, I thought, maybe Full Circle got a bit confused by the whole border thing and Mexico seems to be just an extension of California and visa versa - so it's all good, right?

Instead of canceling my subscription right then and there, I decided to be a more discerning purchaser. Full Circle does give me the opportunity to change out five items for five other items that I had a nice list to choose from. For a whole month I diligently remembered to go through the box contents and take out those items that I KNEW were not coming from local farms. Tomatoes, kiwis, cucumbers, peppers, grapefruit, citrus (hemmed on this one) and a few other items were replaced with more carrots, kale, apples, spinach - anything that stayed in the northwest.

But then I got busy and forgot to check this last week prior to my delivery. Not only did I get green peppers and a cucumber - I got an organic mango from Peru! Peru? South America? I don't think this qualifies as a local farm from California, my friends.

There is something rather seductive about a big box of fruits and vegies that rivals what I can buy down at my local Whole Foods Market. I can imagine that over the years there have been complaints about getting carrots or parsnips or kale over and over again. I mean, really, how many potatoes can I go through in a month? I need to make soup again. But this dilemma was exactly why I wanted to use a CSA that promised only organic items from local farms and a few small farms down in California. I wanted to support the small farms and also challenge myself to eat more seasonally. And if that means making potato soup more than once over the winter - that's okay.

So I feel disappointment that somehow the very standards by which this farm puts out into the community are subverted from within. The choices you make probably have a lot to do with staying afloat financially or making more money to support your sustainable practices. What I find disturbing is that you purport to support all the current sustainability/organic/ go small farm movements - but what I see is that it is just marketing rhetoric for you.

And, by the way, the quality of that mango? It tasted like paste. So did the tomatoes from Mexico. I know what kind of plants are used in order to make a little red tomato okay to travel the distance to my doorstep - and flavor is the first thing that disappears.

Making Cheese?

I actually did it. Made mozzarella in my kitchen.
When I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by B. Kingsolver, I was intrigued by the act of making cheese in her kitchen. I went to the website www.cheesemaking.com which is the home of the New England Cheesemaking Company and ordered a mozzarella kit. It was simple enough - citrus acid and rennet tablets along with a dairy thermometer. All I needed was a gallon of whole milk (not ultra-pasteurized) and some non-chlorinated water. A half hour later i had cheese!
My husband asked me why I would want to make my own cheese. I mean, it's in the store right? Wasn't it a lot of trouble for a little over a half pound of funny looking mozzarella balls? I smiled and said - well, the market's full of jam too, but you like the homemade stuff better, true? It's kind of the same thing. I know exactly what went into those slices of mozzarella that I served tonight with fresh basil and tomatoes (with some balsamic vinegar and olive oil sprinkled on top). I ate some of the cheese while it was still warm. It is like a loaf of bread right out of the oven. There is something simple and delicious about the act of creating something from scratch that makes the act of eating conscious and special.
And yes, it was kind of strange watching the curds separate from the whey with just the addition of an enzyme that once was only found in cows stomachs (now it is man made). It is odd cutting through the curds and then kneading them like dough. Then it stretches like taffy and gets shining and you know you are done.
The kit came with enough rennet and citrus acid to makes pounds of mozzarella and I look forward to doing this again. I'll play with different kinds of milk and won't it be divine when I can serve it with my own tomatoes and basil from the summer garden?

Inflammation

I went to another class at PCC this past week and the subject was ‘Cooling Inflammation with Food.’ I was particularly interested in this subject after hearing about it in a biopsychosocial course. It appears – due to current scientific research – that a great deal of disease is actually the body’s response to chronic and systemic inflammation. What is fascinating to me is the link that they are making between certain kinds of foods with inflammation in the body. It doesn’t surprise me that the increase in heart disease, diabetes, allergies and other known diseases are linked to inflammation of arteries and organs. Wouldn’t it naturally follow that a diet high in foods that cause inflammation would possibly be part of the problem?

Pro-Inflammation Foods: Corn fed meats; saturated fats (shortening and meat fats); fried or grilled foods cooked at high temperatures; partially hydrogenated fats; cooking oils that are exclusively corn, safflower, sunflower or soy based; soft drinks; excess sugar (High fructose corn syrup); white flour; and known allergenic foods.

Well right there we have the typical American diet, right? Highly processed foods contain a lot of the above ingredients. Anything that helps a product stay on the shelf indefinitely probably has some of these things.

Anti-Inflammatory Foods: Fish (omega 3 fatty acids-DHA and EPA); flaxseed, hempseed and walnuts; onions; garlic; homemade broths (both beef and chicken); dark green vegetables, healthy fats (olive oil, virgin coconut oil, avocado oil – cook with refined oils, toss with unrefined oils); herbs (turmeric, oregano, green tea and ginger); Vitamins E and C; Vitamin D; supplements such at Probiotics.

What I took away from the class was a better understanding of what current research is beginning to debunk about older research. It surprised me to learn that coconut oil is actually quite healthy compared to other oils. The link between cholesterol and heart disease is giving way to the link between inflamed arteries and how cholesterol reacts to that situation in the blood.

And so, while the recipes were not really all that fabulous – the information was awesome for me. I have to add that while the focus of the class was on a dietary response to inflammation, it was also said more than once that stress is a huge factor in our bodies inflammation levels. I know more about that link now than I ever did but I certainly appreciated having my dietary choices validated as being good for me right now.

It makes me wonder, really, how anyone can doubt why Americans are suffering from that national eating disorder. How can anyone not wonder about the correlation of our current state of health and the amount of processed foods that permeate our diet? How can any scientist scratch their head and wonder why Italians – or the French – who eat such lower levels of processed foods yet seem to eat quite rich - don’t suffer from the same levels of heart disease or obesity that we do here in the states. We have received such different messages about how and what we should eat. It is confusing. It is also disquieting that the newer research is not receiving the press that other health messages receive.

When the weather is mild...

...I get out and clean some garden beds.
It was great. Really.
Playing in the mud and realizing later that my gloves had holes in the fingers. ah well. The work felt good. I planted strawberries last summer and underneath all the leaves from fall I found all the little offshoots that they have been happily putting out this winter. I have twice as many plants as I did six months ago. That should make for some fun eating come late June. My herbs all needed trimming back of dead wood. Oregano and bronze fennel are coming up everywhere and I found a lone catnip plant that somehow grew underneath my sprawling rosemary bush. I love catnip in the summer - it gets three or four feet high with lovely white flowers that the honey bees love. It also makes a great addition to calming the nerves tea. I'll hve to make sure my cat doesn't find it for the next few months.
There's a lot of work ahead but the beauty of visiting the garden here in February is that nothing quite stops over winter. There is evidence of the abundance that is just around the corner.

Pollan's Eater's Manifesto

I just finished reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. In my opinion, it was an Omnivore's Dilemma lite which turned out to be a bit disappointing. Many of the subjects of this little volume are covered in his other book - down to some of the same examples - with less detail and finesse. It feels hurried, frankly, which seems ironic, given the subject of the book.

On the downside, the book feels like a rant and a rehash of a conversation that he has already had with his audience. And it lacks the sense of inquiry that I loved in OD. He is disgusted with the fallout from our industrial agricultural society - whether that be with the scientists who support it; the journalists who make headline news out of every fad and the companies that take advantage of the American public by feeding them more and more processed foods. Confusion and chaos reign at the consumer level as we numbly shop for food that is prominently labeled with health benefits as opposed to reaching for an apple.

The other thing that bothers me about his arguments are that he has to resort to the reductionist method of looking at food - in order to take issue with the 'reductionist' school of scientists out there who study "nutritionism" in its components not the totality. This is basically the act of analyzing an isolated nutrient like saturated fat or an antioxidant like Vitamin C. Pollan vilifies this type of research in the first part of his book and then proceeds to utilize the same tactics to support his own position. Doesn't he therefore make his own arguments faulty? According to him, the answer is no. Because his position is the right position. Hmmm.

What I liked about this book actually had more to do with Systems theory. If we look at each nutrient in relationship to the whole plant or animal, it does seem the the sum is greater than the parts. There is a synergy of nutritional value found in a carrot as opposed to taking a beta carotene supplement. If we take this up a level and look at the carrot as food and what my relationship is to it, again, something else emerges: a relationship of my body to the bounty of this earth. I mean, really, isn't this what has been true since humans first grab a tool or gnawed on a root? I am a biological creature that is geared to eat the plants and animals of this planet. And the things I don't metabolize well I either cook or eat what eats it (like the cow that eats the grass that my stomach won't digest.)

Pollan does continually point out what a complex system food and diet is. And I appreciate his dedication to bringing to my attention all the holes in the current nutrition research that is going on. I believe that it is good to question the research and ask the questions that he is asking - but to me, the issue with diet is not just about the industrial food complex - it is also how we, as American Society, have allowed the food industry to serve us such junk while we run around like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off.

Pollan gets to this towards the very end of his book but I think I would have liked to have seen more on this cultural movement towards moving through life at sixty miles per hour. There isn't time to cook anymore - why not? There isn't time to sit down and eat - why not? We have moved indoors as a nation and into a much more sedentary lifestyle then any previous generation of homo sapiens. We drive everywhere instead of walking. We shop at Costco in our Suburbans. We don't know what a 'normal' portion is anymore let alone when we are really full.

Let's add to that cultural picture with a dose of the psychological. How many people use food as a way to handle emotional issues? Do we use food as a way to give ourselves a sense of abundance? Is food a way to fill ourselves up or a way to disconnect? And what are we 'filling?' And what about the neurobiological component: the dopamine effect that is being explored in certain research. I don't think we can ignore how many eating disorders inflict millions of Americans. It is a phenomenon that bears some attention in this conversation - and Pollan remains mute on that subject.

I bring all of this up because I think that Pollan began to hit on something huge when he labelled America as suffering from a "national eating disorder." And while he comes back to this on and off in his writing, he tends to stay with delivering information to us about the evil empire as opposed to really addressing the more prevelant anthropolocial themes of WHY we have allowed ourselves to be lulled into this lifestyle and the costs to our physical health are just a part of it. Yes, we wanted to believe that margarine was the best alternative - yes, we like to get 'more for the buck' - but I don't think I have ever believed the MacDonalds was a worthy substitute for a home cooked meal. I ate it because it was convenient and I was making convenience a priority in my life.

When my mom had her first heart attack we all switched to a more heart healthy diet. Pollan tears the low-fat diet apart as hogwash, but I don't think I agree with him. We watched our fat intake and noticed that when we ate at home - meals prepared simply and from scratch - a low fat diet emerged all on its own. It was in the eating out where I know I discovered truly rich, high fat and high sodium food existed. It's easy to make MacDonalds into the Darth Vadar (might as well keep with the evil empire theme) of industrial food - but what about all the teriyaki, pho, thai, chinese, fat burgers, indian restaurants that populate every strip mall? We're back to the notion of convenience, aren't we?

I've probably gone on long enough and I'm left with some interesting questions. I can look at what I eat - but I think it is just as important to look at HOW I eat. Pollan's books have been a great diving board into this subject and it is only fitting to move forward from where he has left off.

Blog spot's spell checker is not working - so if you notice more spelling errors than usual :)

PCC Cooking classes

I went to my first PCC cooking class today.

PCC - for anyone who doesn't live in the Seattle area - stands for Puget Consumer Co-op. I've been a member of PCC for years and was really excited when they finally opened up a store in Redmond. I left them for awhile, enamored by the glamour of Whole Foods, but I'm back to my old flame now and am really happy with the way this market is run. Anyway, I digress, but anyone who is interested in organic and sustainable choices should check out their website for articles and resources.

Okay, so back to the class. It was Taste of Thailand and it was good. Not only was it tasty thai - it was easy thai. That might be because Pranee Halvorsen, the chef instructor, just has a great way of utilizing fairly straight forward ingredients and creating some fabulous dishes. It wasn't a hands on class - meaning that I sat in the back (got there just a bit late) - but I still learned alot about traditional thai cooking methods. Pranee is wonderful about bringing her heritage into the classroom.

Did you know that tumeric is a rhizome from the ginger family? It is also an important fresh ingredient for the Tom Yum soup she made. There was also pan seared halibut with three sauces; green curry fried rice and bananas in coconut milk that has to be comfort food in any culture that it is served in. Being a PCC class - the class was organic and low on the processed food meter.

The best part of the class is that I got a copy of the recipes - covered with notes by the end of the class on everything from how to store galangal to the finer points of making chili powder - and a coupon for shopping in the store. I bought the ingredients for the soup and made it tonight. It turned out perfectly spectacular. The complex flavors of sweet, sour, spicy and salty all rolled into a soup filled with mushrooms, shallots, chicken, lime, lemongrass and assorted other little goodies. I hid the leftovers in the back of the fridge. (They are MINE!)

ahem. sorry. My family liked the soup too.

Pranee will be doing another class in the fall that will have a whole new set of recipes. This was certainly a fun way to learn about an ethnic food that I love.

Really, I do want comments!

I didn't realize that I had comments turned off here on my blog. The problem has been corrected - so now you can write all those things that you wanted me to know :)

How much did you say that ham steak is?

Yesterday morning found me and my husband wandering the University District's farmer's market. I had come on a mission: to buy some organic, local and pasture raised meat. Having spent some time researching a couple of farms in our area that used these more sustainable practices, I found Seabreeze Farms and Skagit Valley Farms. Both of these farms bring in their meat to be sold at - you guessed it - the U-district market. Skagit also sells in bulk - but that was getting a little ahead of myself.

What I didn't realize was that while this meat is clearly a better health choice - it is also twice as expensive as regular organic fair that I can find at Whole Foods or PCC. And when you consider how much more their meat and poultry cost then conventional - it was a bit of a shock. A new york steak at 18.99 per pound. Leg of lamb priced at 14.99 lb.. A ham steak - 10.00 lb. Fresh eggs - 7.00 a dozen.

We still wanted to try these products and simply bought smaller portions then we normally would. But it was a lesson in shopping that I haven't had to think about in a long time. How to ask about the cost before I ask for the amount of meat that I want. How to reconfigure my thoughts on what the meal will look like - not only the recipe but also what else I will need to serve in order to flesh out the meal. I don't mind these rusty skills coming back into play - because that's what they are: a way of thinking about food that I had to use back when money was tight and I had young children to feed.

Still, we payed out a lot of money for approximately four standard american meals. What do I mean by that? I'm talking about the way in which I learned growing up that the meat was the central component of the meal. Everything else revolved around the meat. The bigger cut of meat - or the more pieces of chicken - was a clear sign of abundance and not to be taken for granted. Eating until one was stuffed was a compliment to the chef. Pretty straightforward food beliefs, right?

I'm looking at the ham I bought and wondering if I can use half of it for split pea soup and the other half for a wonderful tortellini recipe that I love. And that leg of lamb could be the center peice for a dinner with friends - or again, I could cut it in half. One half as a small roast and the other used to make Indian spiced kebobs. The pork loin roast will make great chili verdi served hot with tortillas and spanish rice - and also happens to make great left overs. I just get to be a bit more creative. I'll also be thinking about what I can use the leftovers for.

Our trip to the farmer's market was eye opening and we walked away more thoughtful about how to make this shift to eating - what we both have come to see - as a better quality of meat and poultry. It's easier now that we don't have five mouths to feed and yet there are old food rules that we need to really examine. I don't think I can purchase meat like that every week - but I'm not sure where my old way of meal planning is going to hit the limit of change. My limits. I haven't quite figured that out. All I know is that it is shy of owning cattle and chickens and pigs.

Organic produce is better for you

So here it is - a study by Carlo Leifert, a professor working with the Nafferton Ecological Farming Group in the UK, has concluded after a four year study set in the European Union that organically grown vegetables have 40% more antioxidants than conventionally grown food crops. "The results of this largest project to date is welcome news, as scientists believe that increased amounts of antioxidants cut the risk of heart disease and cancer. Professor Leifert said the differences were so marked that the organically grown produce would increase the nutrient intake of people who don't eat the recommended five portions a day of fruit and vegetables." (Tom Johns, President of Territorial Seed Company)

I've read in other books about why plants raised organically have more antioxidants - of course they would. These plants have to have a better immune system in order to fight off disease and infestations. By being more hardy, the level of antioxidants goes way up as opposed to plants raised with chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Studies on antioxidants have been going strong for the past few years. It's one of the new buzz words in nutrition and for good reason.

Speaking of buzzwords...
I'm beginning to wonder about our American culture and how we, as a product of groupthink, grab hold of certain words. One minute something is good for you - the next it is bad. Look at what's happened to carbohydrates for instance or different kinds of fats. So while all the news about antioxidants is great, I can't help wondering if there will be some kind of odd backlash - like adding synthetic antioxidants into a protein bar.If a word means 'good for you' and it appears on the label of a highly processed food source then we look no deeper. Omega 3 fatty acids is a good example of this. Do I buy the eggs that are from pastured chickens or the ones that have Omega 3 in big bold letters across the top. I've often done the later without looking any farther. I believe the reason salmon has become ultra popular is because of it's Omega 3. Now the fish case is full of previously frozen salmon all year round in every market I go into. That is a lot of fish and we wonder why our salmon populations are decreasing? It ain't because of the sea lions at the Ballard locks (but's let's kill them anyway).

Latching on to a life ring of health means that we often just pay attention to what we want to hear and let the rest fall away as less than important. I'm wary of that tendency and even when I hear something that supports my viewpoint I would like to be very clear on why.

What I did find out about Professor Leifert's study also goes way beyond antioxidants. Read on if you are interested....
Here are some of the links that I found about this study:
Medical News Today
Science Network

Garden dreams

At the moment my garden beds are under a layer of snow that is quickly turning to slush. The debris of last years plantings are hidden and the weeds that grow all year long have vanished from sight. February is coming on quickly and this is the month to clean out the garden to make way for new plantings in March.

I've got my work cut out for me. Two years of applying bandages instead of really getting in there and doing the surgery has taken its toll. I've got quite a bit of transplanting to do because a good portion of the garden now is shaded by a selection of lovely plants. Old world damask roses grow tall. Valerian has reseeded itself liberally throughout the garden. My three golden bloom butterfly bushes have become ten foot monsters. And don't even talk to me about Cecil Bruner climbing roses!

If I look on the bright side, everything loves to grow in this garden. The soil is rich, there is water - why would a weed or rose want to do anything but flourish? There are five apple trees, two cherry trees, a pear tree and an asian pear tree that put out bumper crops each year.

But I want space -with sunlight - for my vegetables to grow. My pumpkins and squash, peas and pole beans. Lettuce, spinach, carrots and beets. Luscious tomatoes. All of these vegetables are sitting on my shelf as small hard shelled power plants dreaming of putting forth those first green shoots.

I can see what I want the garden to look like and I wonder if I have the energy to accomplish all that I see that needs doing. I wonder what I can do without ending up on a heating pad and pain killers. Gardening is not a family hobby so delegating isn't an option. And yet, the vision remains as it always does. And like other years, I've just started in, slowly working my way through the gardens until I realized that what needed doing is done. Well, gardening work is never 'done' - the cycle continues into summer and then harvest and then putting the garden to bed for the winter. Oh boy. But I know what those sugar snap peas taste like right off the vine and what I do now will make this garden flourish all the more a few months down the road.

I'd better pace myself.

Omnivore's Dilemma

I really had no idea when I started reading this book that the middle section was going to parallel so many of the things I've been writing about. The author actually goes and visits Petaluma Poultry in search of 'Rosie'. He visits Earthbound Farms to track the spring mix of pre-washed baby greens. He talks to the marketing consultants of Whole Foods. He asks the questions so much more eloquently than I about whether or not 'organic' principles can hold up to big business supermarket principles.

Anyway - I've been quite tickled to sit here reading his book this afternoon - vicariously enjoying his ability as a journalist to go search out the faces and land behind the food.

I have continued the search in my own corner of the world - looking for a true NW free range chicken. I thought I found it in Draper Valley's Ranger chicken - but the answers become vague when asked how much time the chickens spend dining au naturale. Also of interest: Booth Creek Management, parent company to Rosie/Rocky Chickens just bought the Ranger chicken operation. I'm not sure what that means - other than it's information and reveals another big corporation behind what I thought was a smaller NW business. Ranger chicken, apparently is known for it's high quality product - even if the 'free range' designation does NOT mean that the chickens spend time out in the pasture. Oh, the need to juggle and balance the facts...

There is a new movement afoot - "pastured poultry." These are chickens that are kept primarily outdoors, moved from pasture to pasture like a rotating crop. Certain farms in our area do specialize in these supposedly tastier birds - Skagit Valley Ranch and Seabreeze Farms. Both of these farms show up at the local Farmer's Markets in the U-district and Ballard pretty much all year round. You can also order bulk - 1/2 a pasture raised cow; whole chickens, pigs. I'm not quite ready to buy in bulk but I will be going into Seattle next Saturday to check out these products. I want to see for myself if I can taste the difference. I want to see if I feel different eating a chicken that ran around in the grass versus a chicken that spent seven weeks in a feedlot before being slaughtered. (7 weeks?? That's why Rosie chickens are smaller, by the way).

At the moment, my cat and I are listening to the coyotes in the backyard. Their call is so sharp and high, the yipping continuous now for about ten minutes. My cat's tail is still slightly poofed but I've learned to love these creatures and their plaintive cries. (At least that's what it sounds like.) The moment of connection with these night hunters prowling my land feels almost sacred. It touches something within. Recognition of the predator and a cycle of life that is absent from my own life as a creature of the land. It is certainly absent in my plastic wrapped meat purchases.

Thoughts for another day -

I am what I eat

I am what I eat eats.

I've thought about the connection in vague terms - that what meat and poultry I eat was also fed a particular diet that might effect me. That's why I buy organic, right? To avoid all the antibiotics and hormones that potentially show up in the meat. What I hadn't done was think about a cow like I would a carrot growing in my garden. I make a point of creating a loamy soil rich in nutrients before I plant seeds because it certainly has a bearing on flavor. Try growing vegetables in bad soil. It isn't very satisfying. But back to the beef. I want to share some insights from Michael Pollen that I found fascinating:

"We've come to think of 'corn-fed' as some kind of old-fashioned virtue, which it may well be when you're referring to Midwestern children, but feeding large quantities of corn to cows for the greater part of their lives is a practice neither particularly old nor virtuous. Its chief advantage is that cows fed corn, a compact source of caloric energy, get fat quickly; their flesh also marbles well, giving it a taste and texture American consumers have come to like. Yet this corn-fed meat is demonstrably less healthy for us, since it contains more saturated fat and less omega-3 fatty acids than the meat of animals fed grass. A growing body of research suggests that many of the health problems associated with eating beef are really problems with corn-fed beef. In the same way cows are ill adapted to eating corn (the author shows how cows are actually made ill by eating corn - and backs this up with research), humans in turn my be poorly adapted to eating cows that eat corn."
"The health of these animals (feedlot cattle) is inextricably linked to our own by that web of relationships. The unnaturally rich diet of corn that undermines a steer's health fattens his flesh in a way that undermines the health of the humans who will eat it. The antibiotics these animals consume with their corn at this very moment are selecting, in their gut and wherever else in the environment they end up, for new strains of resistant bacteria that will someday infect us and withstand the drugs we depend on to treat that infection. We inhabit the same microbial ecosystem as the animals we eat, and whatever happens in it also happen in us."

-excepts taken from Michael Pollen's Omnivore's dilemma, Chapter 4

I'm not sharing this in an effort to stop anyone from eating beef. I have just found it fascinating to see what really goes into the industry of keeping my markets stocked with such lovely cuts of beef. It is an industry in the true sense of the word - industrial factory farming of a product that consumers want. It wasn't that long ago that a steer would not be slaughtered until he was around three years of age. Today that age has slipped down to fourteen months and much of this is due to the diet and genetic selection for cattle that fatten quicker. Pollen is quite matter of fact about the way in which disease and ill health is part of the feedlot process. Unlike chickens, cows are not meant to eat grain - their digestive system isn't geared to it and they get all sorts of problems because of it. Luckily, they can only subsist so long - about fourteen months.

Alright, so what's the point of making my stomach queasy? The main reason I shared those quotes was the way in which this author keeps coming back to our relationship with the food we eat. The food chain, the natural order that evolution and diversity has given us - a unique homeostatic state that recognizes how we truly are in relationship with the food that comes into our homes. It opens up a set of complex questions regarding some of the major illnesses affecting humanity - diabetes, obesity, cancer not to mention outbreaks of e. coli and resistant strains of staph. I wonder what happens to my immune system not only by what I purposefully ingest - but what about the environment? All those fertilizers and hormones that wash down stream into our water supply. What about the algae blooms in our lakes and in the Gulf of Mexico that they've traced back to the agricultural industry?

I'm a point of connection somewhere in this picture. If I truly believe that I have a relationship with the natural world - if I believe that I am a biological creature that needs to harness the natural world for my own subsistence - then these realities are rather horrifying to support. None of these practices are what I would label sustainable for the planet. The lack of balance is appalling to me and I wonder how choices can be made that so clearly will leave my children's world damaged.

I don't think I'll be ordering steak in a restaurant any time soon.

CSA's...from Mexico?

One of the first ways I decided to try and live more sustainably was to join a CSA last December. CSA stand for Community Supported Agriculture, if you've somehow not heard of this term. Local Harvest has a listing of all the CSA's in Washington state with links to the farm's websites. I chose Full Circle Farm because they were close (down in Duvall) and did a drop off about two miles from my house. They are fully organic and have a great program that not only allows me to pick the box size but allows me to do my pick up every other week.

The weekend before my box comes in, I get an email that allows me to go in to the member section of the website and change out any box contents that I don't want. Oh, there is also a way to have up to five permanent exemptions from the box which in my household meant yams and sweet potatoes of any variety. (I love them, but my husband has bad, bad memories of them).

The first box came right before the holidays and it was beautiful. There were items that I had not cooked before (kale) and a lovely mixture of root vegetables, onions, spinach, apples and pears. I remember thinking what a wonderful treat this was and felt somewhat smug when I went down to Whole Foods and didn't need to buy any produce.

Prior to my second box arriving, I was busy and scanned the list of box contents with an eye more towards what I - or my family - would not eat at all. It was a quick peek and then off I went for a weekend without access to a computer. When the box arrived I opened it, wondering what was coming this time (naturally I had forgotten) and felt a small moment of shock. Mangoes? Avocados? Tomatoes? I looked at the label on the tomatoes - grown in Mexico? The green onions were from California and the mango was from somewhere even farther south. THIS was supporting my local CSA???

I felt somewhat betrayed, frankly and went back onto Full Circle's website to see where they claim their produce is grown. Well, they do mention small organic farms in California. I didn't see any mention of Mexico or Central America. Sitting back, I wondered about those little organic tomatoes grown in Mexico - and then I went and tasted them.

There are two issues that I am well aware of - having grown many of my own vegetables over the years -that haunt the business of agriculture: taste and transportation. Those tomatoes were tasteless. They could have been made of cardboard. And yet, they were red and firm; looking like a breath of summer pleasure. A tomato can be grown organic but if the variety that is grown is produced because it has a longer shelf life - guess what suffers? These are the hybridized, genetically modified plants that line the supermarket shelves. Okay, they haven't been sprayed with pesticides or chemical fertilizers but there is a reason why we in the northwest don't grow tomatoes in the winter: we can't. The other issue is the fossil fuel used to transport all these little organic goodies up the coast - 1500+ miles - to Full Circle Farm and then to my drop off point. This hardly feels like I'm supporting a small farm in Snoqualimie Valley - I'm supporting those big refrigerated trucks on I-5. Me, the woman who drives a hybrid and burns biodiesal.

Once again, I get to make a choice. I can choose just how far I want to take my desire to live more sustainably. Do I want to eat avocados and tomatoes in the winter? Actually, I want to hedge that question and say yes to the tomatoes - but in sauces and grown in pacific northwest hot houses. Maybe this coming summer will find me canning tomato sauce in the kitchen. (Anyone want to help? ) And so, this week, when my box contents got to be chosen, I specifically traded out any item that I knew was not grown in the northwest. No kiwis for me. And if I'm not sure about an item, I am going to query the CSA and find out exactly where the item came from. I am also going to finish out my 10 box plan with Full Circle just in time for the Farmer's Markets to begin picking up in April and May.

Where to start?

In the supermarket, naturally.
After spending a Saturday morning shopping at Whole Foods and really reading labels, I came home with fewer groceries then usual. I also came home with a list of products to research. Just standing in the egg section alone was discouraging. I only found one brand of truly free range, organic eggs. At least that was what the crate said. The dairy shelves are full of choices - Horizon milk, Organic Valley, Stoneyfield Farm yogurt and even some fresh milk that was neither organic or hormone free. Some milk is pasteurized and others ultra-pasteurized. Straus Dairy products come from California. Horizon products come from shadowy mega feedlots that have stirred up quite a bit of controversy. Stoneyfield....whoa...New Hampshire? So, Organic Valley remains my top choice. And if I buy it in the gallon jugs - it isn't ultra pasteurized.

I didn't know what ultra-pasteurized (UP) was until I read about it in Ricki Carroll's Home Cheese Making.
To quote: "UP milk is heated to 191 degrees for at least one second, which destroys all organisms in the milk. It also gives milk a slightly cooked taste, like that of evaporated milk. The purpose of UP treatment is to give the product greater shelf life. UP milk will last at least 28 days (which certainly helps when you are transporting it across the country). UP milk is less then ideal...the protein structure is damaged and the enzymes destroyed. You may as well drink water."

Well. Wikipedia says something along the same lines without the comments on taste. UP is also labelled as UHT (Ultra-high temperature processing). The infamous on-line encyclopedia does mention that this seems to be used primarily to extend shelf life.

What's funny - or sad, depending on your view of things - is that I'd almost be afraid to drink raw milk. Think about all those pathogens - salmonella poisoning here I come. I have to shake my head at that strange fear - how did it get placed there? Where did I learn to be afraid of milk from the source?

Perhaps it is a multi-hued answer that crosses from marketing, disease outbreaks and ends up in the reality of a huge pink udder squirting milk into a suctioned pipe. I have liked my milk appearing magically in the supermarkets of my world. And even so - I have also tasted milk a day fresh from the farm and found it to be something unlike anything I could ever buy in the markets today. Hell, I don't even drink milk any more - why? It's fairly tasteless compared to a big glass of water. I just look at it as extra calories and a source of nebulous calcium that I can get in other ways. I've discovered tasty dairy products, but yummy milk alludes me.

The good news is that according to the Cornucopia Institute (a watchdog organization for organic agriculture) most of my favorite dairy companies are rated quite high. They've ranked the dairies across the country and my three top favorites: Organic Valley, Straus and Stoneyfield all do quite well. See the Dairy Ranking for yourself.

Perhaps I'll continue the search for a local source of organic milk that is truly fresh - not transported along the interstate to my market's dairy case. For now, I'll keep wandering the market and see what else I find.

Northwest Suburban mom seeks sustainability

This may not be a news flash - especially to anyone who read Michael Pollen's Omnivore Dilemma - but I am beginning a journey into a more intentional relationship with mother earth. This is not the very front end of this particular trip for me. I've been awestruck by gaia's majesty since I was a little kid. My family - for more generations then I can count, has worked and lived by the land. Even my parents, white collar professionals, bought a small tractor and grew vegetables, poultry and apple trees. I have always known the difference between a store bought tomato and one that I pulled directly off the vine to pop in my mouth.

I think the last time I was in a fast food restaurant was four years ago and only because I was traveling and literally nothing else was open. I also was sick within an hour. Like a vegetarian who hasn't had meat in years and suddenly finds themselves eating it - the results aren't pretty because the body rebels against that which it simply no longer has tolerance for. As a family, we've been buying organic for over the past ten years and one of my primary hobbies has been raising what vegetables I could for the table. We recycle, drive a hybrid vehicle and burn biodiesal in our boat.

It wasn't until the last couple of years that I started to wonder about sustainability and deep ecology. Doing all of the things above are a great beginning. Unfortunately, as with so many realities in this world, each choice has more choices associated with it. Simply choosing to eat organic is no longer a rally cry for green living. Not with corporate America quickly coming into the market with their own version of what organic looks like. The loops holes are many, the proverbial bottom line being money and suddenly what seemed so simple once again becomes complicated and confusing.

And so here I sit with questions that effect me on the most fundamental level: what am I putting into my body? What is my carbon footprint? Do I really want to buy tasteless organic tomatoes from Mexico in January?

Who do I want to be in this world?

I stand in my local Whole Foods market and have always seen the massive abundance of choices put before me as a buyer of organic products. As I ask questions, that abundance is becoming tarnished by a disquieting concern for where all of this comes from. How far did it travel and just what kind of farm were those dairy cows raised on?

This blog is about my exploration into what I want my relationship with the world (gaia) to be. Gaia comes from the greek words Ge (γη) = Earth, and *aia = grandmother. She is also a greek goddess. The Gaia hypothesis in ecology basically states that the living and non living parts of the earth are a complex, integral system that is deeply connected as a whole. For me, Gaia represents a living world with which I interact and can effect. Even one small human being can cause ripples that can change the world. I honor the grandmother earth and plan to explore more fully how I can support her splendor.

I expect you'll find posts about gardening and cooking as well as my own forays into the politics of agriculture. I hope that if you have insight to share on anything that I am writing you will share it and point me in directions of new learning.

Welcome