eat locally | The Roving Locavore

Posts Tagged ‘eat locally’

to cultivate, v.

Posted in Philosophical, tagged Alabama locavore, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, eat locally, roving locavore, Vermont locavore on June 12, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I was listening to “John Wesley Harding” this morning and thinking that Bob Dylan is someone who cultivates oddness—in a way that seems oddly genuine. (But what is authenticity in a celebrity? One of the subjects of my British lit. dissertation….) Anyway, that got me thinking about what an encompassing, useful word “cultivate” is. We cultivate land, relationships, our intellects, our tastes, even our eccentricities. Or if you’re a four-year-old boy who loves tractors, you’ll cultivate just about any surface.

cultivator

There are no surprises in its etymology: since its entrance into English, by way of medieval Latin, it has had both a literal and a figurative sense. It has always meant: to till the soil, to promote the growth of plants and to educate, train, refine a person or intellect; to promote the growth of a science, an art, a sentiment, a friendship; to devote one’s attention to these things. It is close to nurturing. We like to help things grow. Cultivation is culture in the abstract as well as in the most basic form of crops planted for us to pick and eat.

As an adjective applied to the land, it implies an opposite: land is either cultivated or it’s wild or waste. I like the way Michael Pollan, in my favorite of his books, Second Nature, puts cultivation in the middle of two seemingly opposed concepts in our modern Western paradigm: nature and culture. Pollan argues, with grace and good sense of humor, that between these, which are not really opposed, must be cultivation. In fact, nature as we know it is already cultivated—as a science, an art, a sentiment. Since we’ve already had our hand on almost every inch of nature, our obligation is to cultivate it. Not to turn it all into cornfields, for crying out loud, but not to let it become waste. To cultivate wilderness that we’ve already tampered with—even if just by demarcation—rather than consider it “virgin” and expect it to fend for itself in the midst of the mean world of modern civilization and its pimps.

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Musing on Moving

Posted in Baking, Whimsical, tagged Alabama locavore, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, eat locally, roving locavore, Vermont locavore More stats on June 11, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Last night we attended our last “green drinks” in Auburn. (We move out on Tuesday.) The table was full of draft ales and seafood: it was still in the upper-80s at six o’clock, we were thirsty and craving the light salty crunch of fried squid and sizzled scallops. Jack proved his readiness to eat like a real Italian when he went back for thirds and fourths of calamari dipped in aioli. Matt: “are you going to tell him what he’s eating?” “Not yet.” Actually, he’d probably think it was cool to eat squid, like the penguins. (We’ve been watching lots of Planet Earth, the main themes and action of which are procreation and predation, i.e. sex and violence. Jack watches with intent, nervous fascination, and we nervously watch him watching.)

Over the past few months, I’ve had a bunch of new friendships sprout up, and saying goodbye for this year-long hiatus feels a little unreal. We’ll keep in touch online, of course, but the real medium of friendships for me is meals—not emails. We’ve had relaxed-raucus cookouts, with burgers and brownies and our loudest-talking friends; platters of finger-friendly pita with hummus, tabouli, dolmas and Steele’s blue drinks; pesto-tossed pasta with Gulf shrimp, followed by Bonny Doon ice-wine and the short-bread I’d overcooked just long enough to get some nibs of chewy-crunchy crumble-resistance. At Amsterdam Café, we said hello and goodbye at once to Scott and Charlie (they had water and salmon salads—restrained—and we had martinis and braised local lamb: a night out without Jack is splurge-worthy).

We’re happy that that friendship will overlap in space. Next spring, when they come with the architecture students to the foreign city which will have become home to us by then, we’ll share another meal or two. It’s both impossible and easy to imagine this future, our next year in Rome. Google Earth gives the thrilling illusion of presence, knowledge. Turn away from the screen, though, and we’re still in Alabama. It’s not unlike absorption in a novel, the world of which begins to feel like your world. The real version becomes, for the time of reading, fixed, mute, invisible. But then it’s time to pack more boxes or clean the oven. When I think about this future, though, it feels solid, because where Scott’s mind would fix on images of buildings, my mind anchors on images of food: huge fresh bunches of greens on the imagined counter in our little apartment kitchen-to-be; warm bowls of pasta lunch at Jack’s Italian pre-school; dishes of olives; butcher shops; espresso; crusty, chewy, flour-dusty bread; meals with new flavors, new friends.

And by the way, maybe these images are so palpable to me because the Rome Sustainable Food Project’s Facebook page makes it incredibly easy to imagine sinking my teeth into something exquisitely delicious!

oh, wow!

yum!

mmmm….

Crumbly Crunchy Shortbread
(The perfect, last-minute dessert that still impresses and requires no runs to the market.)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

1 ½ sticks butter (bakers usually recommend unsalted, but sometimes I use salted and/or cultured; in any case, use your absolute best butter)
2 c. all-purpose flour
½ c. sugar (organic, unrefined makes a warm and toasty cookie)
½ tsp. salt

Cut butter into little nubs. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, and work with a pastry fork until the butter is petite-pea-sized. (Use a food processor in a pinch.) Dump mixture into a 9 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan (for thick cookies) and with a metal spatula press evenly onto bottom. Bake shortbread in middle of oven until just beginning to brown, 20+ minutes.

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Standing in the field, munching

Posted in Dairy, tagged Alabama locavore, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, eat locally, Grateful Dead Highgate, roving locavore, Strafford Organic Creamery, Vermont ice cream, Vermont locavore on June 10, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I came to a junction in the back roads of my mind the other day when I read an article in the New York Times about organic dairy cows in Highgate, Vermont munching alfalfa and flaxseed rather than corn, to make their burps less methane-laden. The farm supplies milk to Stonyfield Farms, maker of Oikos—organic Greek-style yogurt—of which I’ve just become a big fan. The one with honey on the bottom is the best; when Jack doesn’t finish his dessert honey yogurt, Peter and I jump in to scoop up the last bites.

The last time I was in Highgate, I was the one standing in a field, but I was munching a messy falafel pocket at one of the Grateful Dead’s last shows. I don’t remember a whole lot about it beyond Dylan’s shiny silver jacket (he was the opening act), crowd anxiety, the falafel, and the way we punned on the name of the town as if we were the only ironic dorks who had thought of it.

One of the dairy products I’m most looking forward to slurping up, when I get to Vermont next week, is the ice cream from Strafford Organic Creamery. The dairy-farm is owned by the Ransoms, one of whom—William—I went to kindergarten and first grade with, in Strafford. Here’s an incitement to a craving:

We make our ice cream in small batches, one day each week. We wouldn’t dream of blending our cows’ cream with anything but the highest-quality organic ingredients. We separate fresh eggs by hand, handpick the mint and black raspberries, and grind the coffee just before we brew it into the milk.

Mmm….

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Red, Hot, and Rustic

Posted in Baking, Fruit, tagged Alabama locavore, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, eat locally, organic strawberries, roving locavore, strawberry galette, strawberry recipes, strawberry tart on June 7, 2009| 1 Comment »

My big old aluminum flea market colander is bursting with berries in the fridge, and I’ve already had strawberries with lunch yesterday, for dessert last night, breakfast this morning, and lunch today. What will we do with all of these berries?

Any other time, it wouldn’t be a challenge, but our rental house is in a strange state. We’re leaving for New England in a week, and for Rome in about two months, so we’ve been packing. Some of the boxes already in storage contain all of my baking dishes and appliances. But I had to do something with these berries! I hadn’t packed a few things, including a bit of flour and sugar, and an odd-sized round Pyrex, so the task became obvious: galette!
galette

Strawberry Galette

The sweet pastry recipe I like best is Nancy Silverton’s, from her wonderful Pastry from La Brea Bakery. Since I’ve already packed the cookbooks, I dredged it out of my memory, and cut it in half. Roughly, it goes like this:

Combine in a food processor or in a bowl with a pastry cutter:
1 ¼ cup flour
2 tbs. sugar
¼ tsp. salt
7 tbs. butter
Mix together in a small bowl:
1 large egg yolk
½ tsp. vanilla
2-3 tsp. milk
Then mix the wets into the dries until just combined, working the dough lightly with the pastry cutter. Turn it out onto the counter and fold it and push it to flatten the butter bits, then shape it into a disc, roll it out to the right size, and chill it.

While it chills, let the berries steep in sugar for awhile. Jack and I cut berries (he used a little cheese knife) and tossed them in a bowl with ¼ cup of sugar and ¼ cup of flour, a few gratings of nutmeg, and a splash of almond extract.

Normally, a galette would be made on a sheet, but we had only this casserole, and it worked out well since the berries were so juicy. Now I have to go get some cream!

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“U-Pick”

Posted in Fruit, tagged Alabama locavore, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, eat locally, organic strawberries, roving locavore, strawberry picking Alabama, u-pick Alabama on June 6, 2009| Leave a Comment »

ready to pick

A month or so ago, I made a big deal about buying only organic strawberries. Today, though, my friend Sharyn and I took Mimi and Jack strawberry picking at a little farm in Lafayette (pronounced, defiantly, La-FIE-et), where the only sign is a big slab of particle board with “U-Pick” and a big strawberry painted on it. In other words, there are no visible declarations of their farming practices, but you can tell right away that this is not a “Green Chem-Lawn” type of operation. It smelled like grass and mud and strawberries. One of the owners told Sharyn, “we try not to put too much stuff on them”—meaning chemicals. Compared to the berry farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where we went last year because it was on the way home from Jack’s school, and which appeared to be a perfect paradise of spotless leaves and giant berries, but where you could smell the chemicals, this farm today was a paradise of “imperfection.” They use black plastic to control weeds, and insects to control insects. Bugs and slugs and buzzing things were busy throughout the rows. When a tiny local farm produces sweet juicy berries with the help of ladybugs, I don’t quibble about minimal chemical counts.
berries
Jack would wander far down the rows, and then run back triumphantly when he found a ripe berry. He also found some “ticklers”—tall grasses with tufts on top—and put them to use:
tickling
Then Jack and Mimi found a little Jeep and decided to drive “to California… or maybe just a short trip to Kroger’s.”

see ya!

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What Else Is On Tap?

Posted in Beer, tagged Alabama beer, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, eat locally, Fine Wine and Beer by Gus, Georgia beer, Georgia breweries, Lazy Magnolia, local beer, locavore beer, Mississippi beer, Mississippi breweries, roving locavore, Terrapin Brewery on June 5, 2009| 1 Comment »

Aside from the closets of home-brewing friends, where can we get good local ale around here? (Home-brewing friends? Shhh! It’s illegal(!) to brew beer in Alabama.)

Visit Fine Wine and Beer by Gus, next to the UPS store, for semi-local Southern Pecan Nut Brown Ale on tap, which you can buy in a freshly poured half-gallon jug. This is the nuttiest of brown ales because it is actually made with roasted pecans. Brewed by Lazy Magnolia Brewery, in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi, this ale is best just off the tap—not too chilly, not too fizzy—with salty snacks and pickles.

Here’s how the Lazy Magnolians describe Southern Pecan:

Southern Pecan Nut Brown Ale is the first beer in the world, to our knowledge, made with whole roasted pecans. The pecans are used just like grain and provide a nutty characteristic and a delightful depth to the flavor profile. This beer is very lightly hopped to allow the malty, caramel, and nutty flavors shine through. The color is dark mahogany. Southern Pecan won a Bronze Medal in the 2006 World Beer Cup in the Specialty Beer category.

Another semi-local brewery I like is Terrapin, in Athens, Georgia. I like all the ales I’ve tried, and would love to taste the one they call “Oak Aged Big Hoppy Monster.” About their coziness with their city they say, “both Athens and Terrapin have a great love of music, are committed to the environment, and practice living life to the fullest.” OK, I’ll buy it, because the beer is good.

(By the way, Gus also sells local wine, but despite my love of wine, I haven’t…well, dared to try it.)

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What’s On Tap?

Posted in Water, tagged Alabama locavore, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, Auburn Alabama water, drinking water chlorination, eat locally, locavore, roving locavore, tap vs. bottled water, tap water vs. bottled water, water pollution on June 5, 2009| Leave a Comment »

water

Sorry, but this post is just about the kitchen tap. When we eat locally, let’s not neglect to drink locally as well. There are many good reasons to open the tap rather than the clicking “contamination seal” of a plastic water bottle. For one thing, the promise of that seal is an illusion. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council:

Even when bottled waters are covered by the FDA’s rules, they are subject to less rigorous testing and purity standards than those which apply to city tap water. For example, bottled water is required to be tested less frequently than city tap water for bacteria and chemical contaminants. In addition, bottled water rules allow for some contamination by E. coli or fecal coliform (which indicate possible contamination with fecal matter), contrary to tap water rules, which prohibit any confirmed contamination with these bacteria. Similarly, there are no requirements for bottled water to be disinfected or tested for parasites such as cryptosporidium or giardia, unlike the rules for big city tap water systems that use surface water sources. This leaves open the possibility that some bottled water may present a health threat to people with weakened immune systems, such as the frail elderly, some infants, transplant or cancer patients, or people with HIV/AIDS.

Oh, and carbonated waters are exempted from even these regulations. Yuck! But the cap is also powerless against other sources of contamination. I’m sure you’ve heard of Bisphenol A (BPA), which leaches from polycarbonate plastic bottles into the liquid inside—whether it’s water, iced tea, or breastmilk. There’s been a lot of news about this recently, and Nalgene and Avent, the baby bottle maker, grabbed the spotlight when they announced their phase-outs of BPA-containing plastics. (For the problems caused by BPA, check out my cousin-in-law, Michelle Grey Campion’s blog, “The Epi-Cure” at http://www.theepi-cure.com.)

We also know that plastic bottles are pollutants, because only a small percentage of the 2 million plastic bottles Americans throw away every five minutes are recycled. For a shocking visual representation of this number, take a look at Chris Jordan’s photographs, at: http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php

I’d been using my portable bottles for years, like a good little environmentalist, but I didn’t know a thing about the water coming from my tap until I spent an interesting half hour surfing the web to find out about my watershed, the Lower Tallapoosa. (It’s a pleasure just learning the names, but I highly recommend clicking around on the EPA website.) It turns out that the muddy little strand of Chewacla Creek I run along ends up in my water glass—after it flows into Ogletree Lake and is joined in the treatment plant by water from Saugahatchee Lake, Halawakee Creek, and Lake Harding, and is chlorinated.

Does drinking a bit of chlorine and the byproducts of its oxidizing process sound unappetizing? (Actually, I think the drops that end up in my mouth when I swim help ward off the coughs and sniffles of the preschoolers and undergrads I’m constantly in the midst of.) Chlorine has been used to kill the microbes in public drinking water since 1970, and since then, there has been a lot of debate about its safety, but nothing better has come along. A report by Auburn University’s Agronomy and Soils Department on chlorination persuades with a touch of scary irony:

Although there seems to be a growing public fear of drinking water with a small residual level of chlorine in it, this small residual elemental chlorine level at the tap is the single best indicator that the water is free of microbial contamination. If all the chlorine has been used up in oxidation processes before the end of the pipeline—your faucet—you do not know whether your water is safe to drink or not.

And you can always pop a Brita filter on your faucet.

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The Grape Tradeoff

Posted in Fruit, tagged Alabama locavore, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, California grapes, domestic grapes, eat locally, grapes pesticide, imported grapes, local food, locavore, organic grapes, roving locavore, Vermont locavore on June 1, 2009| 1 Comment »

grapes
No, they’re not local. But I was recently seduced by the glistening display of fresh, perfectly ripe, organic, (and highly expensive) grapes in the Kroger near our neighborhood. I got two heavy bunches—one in each color—because organic grapes are a rare find, and because children love popping the bouncy-ball-sized fruit in their mouths, and holding them, chipmunk like, for an anticipatory second before bursting the juicy bubbles.

And even though these grapes rode in from California on the wave of petroleum necessary for such a trip, I bought them because I think that tradeoffs between local and organic are sometimes called for. For us eaters in human civilization, food will always be linked to an appetite which might best be described by Freud’s phrase for infantile sexuality: “polymorphously perverse.” (Or you could describe our relation to food with Michael Pollan’s more down-to-earth phrase: “the omnivore’s dilemma.”) Because of the contradictory character of this appetite, we buy foods with different objects in mind (nutrition, variety, flavor, politics, environmentalism, nostalgia, ideology, aroma, convenience, craving), and different reasons will have a different sway at different times. We can be conscientious consumers and still look the other way on occasion. (For example, when Jack’s class took a “field” trip across the street to Checkers for milkshakes, I just looked the other way and cringed. Better that than single him out among his friends and deprive him of a special thrill. Though I admit I felt a perverse thrill when he told me “we walked to Checkers and had milkshakes but then my tummy hurt.”) So, my reasoning about the grapes went like this: We don’t have much organic fruit around here right now. It’s almost high peach season, but I have my reasons for not eating local peaches. We do have a lot of other local food options, and have eaten some wonderful mainly local meals lately: grass fed beef with local organic green beans; local shrimp with local basil and summer squash; braised local lamb with carrots and brussels sprouts.

But what’s wrong with conventionally raised grapes from California? Forty-nine pesticides, seventeen of which the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) describes as “Bad Actors,” and the residues of all of which settle in our bodies. The bunches of grapes banked invitingly in the supermarket often are not even domestic, however. Except during California’s grape season, they are probably from Chile, where it’s still legal to spray them with the ozone-depleting, farm-worker-poisoning, developmental and neurological toxin, methyl bromide. Here’s what the PAN says about this stuff:

* Methyl bromide is a toxic pesticide that is injected into soil before planting strawberries, grapes, almonds and other crops. It is also used to kill pests in stored commodities, in agricultural shipments and in buildings.
* Because of its ability to cause poisonings, neurological damage and reproductive harm, EPA classifies methyl bromide as a Toxicity Category I compound, the most deadly category of substances.
* Methyl bromide is also a powerful ozone depleter and was banned in industrialized countries (including the U.S.) in 2005 under the international Montreal Protocol treaty. (www.panna.org)

Another source, http://www.scorecard.org, “the pollution information site” says that methyl bromide is a “recognized” developmental toxicant and is a “suspected” cardiovascular and blood toxicant, gastrointestinal and liver toxicant, kidney toxicant, neurotoxicant, reproductive toxicant, respiratory toxicant, and skin or sense organ toxicant. That covers all the bases, I think.

Only because it was depleting the ozone layer, though, was it seen as a serious enough threat to phase out its use over twelve years. However, the Bush administration left us another pleasant legacy: so-called “critical-use exemptions”:

Whereas the Montreal Protocol has severely restricted the use of bromomethane internationally, the United States has successfully lobbied for critical-use exemptions of the chemical. In 2004, [the final year before the complete phase-out], over 7 million pounds of bromomethane were applied to California fields, according to pesticide use statistics compiled by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. The most recent set of ‘critical use’ exemptions in the US include use of Bromomethane for tomato, strawberry, and ornamental shrub growers, and fumigation of ham/pork products. (Wikipedia)

Luckily for us, large-scale California growers began growing table grapes organically in 1989, and their production has only grown since them. I can watch Jack do his chipmunk cheeks in good conscience.

chipmunk cheeks

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(Don’t) Eat a Peach

Posted in Fruit, tagged Alabama locavore, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, conventionally grown peaches, eat locally, local food, local peaches, locavore, organic peaches, pesticides peaches, roving locavore, Southern peaches, Vermont locavore on June 1, 2009| 3 Comments »

Sometimes eating locally does not benefit the health of our bodies or of the planet. Take one of the southeast’s most famous crops, for example: peaches. The official state fruit of Georgia, and state tree of Alabama, peaches are strongly associated with Dixie and with the triumphant guitar riffs of a great band formed in 1969 in Macon, Georgia. The sweet juice of a Georgia peach dripping down the chin becomes a vivid childhood memory of summer, even for a Vermonter. However, with all due respect to the Allman Brothers, my advice is: don’t eat a peach. Along with those happy images in their aura, peaches are also strongly associated with chemicals such as organophosphorous, a neurotoxin, and dichloropropene, a reproductive and developmental toxin—to name just two of the forty-nine chemicals typically sprayed on peaches to ward off everything from nematodes and fungi to large mammals. Needless to say, peaches regularly top the “Dirty Dozen” list of foods most contaminated with pesticide residues.

Legions of living things are attracted to the sweet, juicy, bright orange peachiness of the peach, as we humans are, but it is possible to grow them without heavy applications of synthetic nastiness. Unfortunately for me here in Auburn, however, typing “organic peaches Alabama” or “Georgia” into Google yields no sources. Should I make an exception, in order to support local agriculture? Well, not this time. Because the news gets worse.

The Pesticide Action Network, which promotes pesticide reduction and elimination, as well as consumer awareness, and is based in California, came up with a list of what they call “Bad Actor Pesticides.” Here’s how they define the baddest of the bad guys:

* Known or probable carcinogens, as designated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), U.S. EPA, U.S. National Toxicology Program, and the state of California’s Proposition 65 list.
* Reproductive or developmental toxicants, as designated by the state of California’s Proposition 65 list.
* Neurotoxic cholinesterase inhibitors, as designated by California Department of Pesticide Regulation, the Materials Safety Data Sheet for the particular chemical, or PAN staff evaluation of chemical structure (for organophosphorus compounds).
* Known groundwater contaminants, as designated by the state of California (for actively registered pesticides) or from historic groundwater monitoring records (for banned pesticides).
* Pesticides with high acute toxicity, as designated by the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. EPA, or the U.S. National Toxicology Program.

Seventeen out of the forty-nine pesticides typically used on peaches are PAN Bad Actors. (This information is from pesticideinfo.org.)

What’s a mommy with a fruit-loving four-year-old to do? When shopping for food, I think in terms of trade-offs among the qualifications important to me: if we’re having a dinner made with local shrimp, organic green beans and basil, I won’t feel too bad about giving Jack those organic California grapes for dessert. (For the tradeoffs involved in grape-buying, read my next post.)

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The Market Is There

Posted in Eggs, Philosophical, Trends, Vegetables, tagged Alabama locavore, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, Auburn Alabama farmers' market, conventionally grown peaches, eat locally, local food, local peaches, locavore, organic peaches, pesticides peaches, roving locavore, Southern peaches, Vermont locavore on May 22, 2009| 1 Comment »

We went to the first farmers’ market of the year at “Ag Heritage Park” today in the drizzle. I and everyone else there seemed to be wondering the same thing: why aren’t there more farmers around here? The line for the most varied vegetable selection was almost thirty minutes long. The berry farm stand ran out of strawberries at ten past the opening hour. Peaches were gone by the time Jack and I made it out of the veggie line. Hundreds of people arrived in the first hour and stood around in the rain, beaming at each other as they hefted canvas bags full of local lettuce, peaches, cucumbers, honey, cheese, and eggs—if they were lucky enough to get some before it all sold out. There’s so much pent up demand for fresh local food, and too few CSAs and small farmers to meet it with their supply. This may be because the market is young in relation to the agricultural history of the state, in which commodity crops like cotton and lumber dominated.

The exciting thing, though, is that small farms are popping up or remaking themselves to meet this demand. And if you ask around enough you find out about other producers who have been in the area, quietly serving up their grass fed beef or organic greens for decades. (For example, the Ritches of Goose Pond Farm, one of whose scrumptious chickens we enjoyed with friends the other night.)
fm haul
Jack and I took home a small haul: red leaf and butter lettuces, an armful of baby summer squashes, veggie goat cheese from Bulger Creek Farm in Notasulga, and some honey.

Eggs were available, but we already had a dozen of the local “Frank’s Famous Eggs” in the fridge. (Their yolks are molten orange! And if you happen to eat a supermarket egg when you’re used to the density and flavor of these, you’ll say: what’s this tasteless rubber?)
frank's The lettuces made a crisp bed for some eight-minute eggs.

salad

I roasted the summer squash in a skillet with olive oil, salt and pepper, and a sprig of backyard rosemary. Jack insisted he didn’t like “fwash” but he ate every sweet and salty morsel.

squash