National Public Radio, Morning Edition, April 27, 2007

With her famed Berkeley, Calif., restaurant, Alice Waters helped give rise to a new cuisine based on locally grown, seasonal ingredients. Waters and her biographer discuss what has made the Chez Panisse such an offbeat and memorable place to eat for more than three decades.

Looking back, Waters would say it all began for her with a bowl of cafe au lait. As a student on a sojourn to Paris during the 1960s, Waters had never sipped anything so good. Soon, trips to the French countryside introduced her to the power and pleasure of local foods: mussels just off the boat, freshly pressed virgin olive oil.

Waters came back to Berkeley transformed. She hatched a plan to convert a run-down old house into an elegant bistro.

Opening night was in August 1971.

"I didn't know what to expect when we opened," Waters says. "I hadn't worked in a restaurant and ... I was still hammering the rug in on the stairs as people were coming in the front door."

The opening-night menu featured a rarity for those days — farm-raised fresh duck, instead of the frozen variety.

"So from that very first night, there was a difference in the raw materials served as Chez Panisse," says Thomas McNamee, author of the new biography, Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution.

On that first night, Waters positioned herself where she always wanted to be — in the front, greeting and mingling with the diners. Back in the kitchen would be a succession of creative and colorful chefs.

One of the most outsized talents was Jeremiah Tower. Among Tower's qualifications: He was taught by an Aborigine in Australia to roast barracuda and wild parrots on the beach.

"He was a swashbuckler and he loved to do things in very complicated ways," McNamee says of Tower. "Both he and Alice shared an enthusiasm for the best ingredients. Jeremiah tended to go for the baroque in terms of preparation, and Alice tended to go for greater simplicity. That created conflict, but the conflict, in turn, became a synthesis."

This baroque sensibility led to menus like one in honor of Salvador Dali featuring a cannibal parfait. And one menu where every dish contained a single wine, sauterne.

There was imbibing in the kitchen as well. In the first year alone, $30,000 worth of wine was unaccounted for.

While many chefs have come and gone, one constant at Chez Panisse has been the growers. One of Waters' innovations is cultivating personal relationships with organic farmers.

Waters uses a network of growers, some of whom specialize in one thing — for example, peaches grown from one tree that might be picked in a single week in July.

Thirty-five years on, Alice Waters hopes to impart this intimate approach to food to a new generation. Through her Chez Panisse Foundation, she's created a garden-to-table project called the Edible Schoolyard, which began with a middle school in Berkeley where students grow their own food.

In a world of fast food and childhood obesity, the project aims to lure children into eating right.

"We have to create a circumstance that is really irresistible," Waters says. "And fortunately, nature is irresistible."

Article copyright: National Public Radio, Morning Edition, April 27, 2007

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Dear Kitchen Gardener,

Finally, be sure to celebrate Earth Day this Sunday by getting your hands in some earth of your own!

Asparagus photo credit: Stieglitz

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An article in today's San Francisco Chronicle talks about some things suburbanites can do to reduce their environmental impacts. Their suggestion: start with your lawn.

The authors recommend replacing power tools with hand tools when feasible and composting all yard and food wastes on site. The data in both of these areas is amazing. Lawmowers, it turns out, are the Hummers of the gardening world. According to one estimate, gas-powered mowers in the United States consume 800 million gallons of fuel per year. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says 17 million gallons of gas are wasted annually while refueling mowers -- more than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez.

The data on home composting is also compelling. One study found that a home composter typically diverts 579 pounds of yard waste and 225 pounds of food waste from the waste stream in a year's time.

Here are their 10 tips:
-- Buy local.
-- Grow your food.
-- Shrink your lawn.
-- Replace power tools with hand tools.
-- Keep green waste out of the landfill.
-- Compost at home.
-- Avoid synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.
-- Save your seeds.
-- Spare your trees.
-- Garden for wildlife.

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This recipe is also delicious with peas instead of asparagus. It begs for a glass of wine to cut the creaminess, though asparagus makes wine pairing tough. The San Francisco Chronicle's wine folks suggest a Chardonnay or Pinot Gris.

Ingredients:
3/4 pound thin asparagus, trimmed
1 pound pasta
1 tablespoon olive oil or butter
1 cup onions, in small dice
3/4 cup fennel or celery, in small dice
1 1/2 cups half-and-half
1/4 cup dry white wine
6 ounces smoked salmon, in small dice
Chopped chives to garnish

Procedure:
1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Blanch the asparagus until still slightly fibrous but mostly cooked, about 3 minutes for thin asparagus. Remove with tongs or a spider (large mesh scoop) and place in a colander to cool. Immediately add the pasta to the boiling water and cook according to package directions. Reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water, then drain.
2. Meanwhile, heat the oil or butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and fennel and cook until tender, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes. Add the half-and-half and simmer for 3 minutes, reducing slightly. Add the wine and return to a gentle simmer.
3. Chop the asparagus into 1/2-inch-long pieces. If you like, reserve a few of the tips to use as a garnish.
4. At the last minute, add the salmon and asparagus to the sauce. Heat for barely a minute, because the salmon doesn't taste as good when it overcooks, then season to taste with salt and pepper.
5. Add the pasta to the sauce, stirring in some of the pasta water if necessary. Serve immediately in shallow bowls, garnished with the chives and extra asparagus tips.

Recipe source: San Francisco Chronicle
Picture credit: Denkschema

Posted by at 5:53 PM | Permalink

You've heard of NIMBY which stands for "Not In My Back Yard" and refers to people who don't want something undesirable (e.g. a waste incinerator, a dump, a fire-breathing dragon, etc.) living in their local community but aren't opposed to it living in someone else's. The rise in climate change awareness is leading to a new YIMBY movement where people are saying "yes" to using their backyards for a healthier planet. Some are planting kitchen gardens and, as this New York Times article points out, others are hanging clotheslines. While some might say "there goes the neighborhood", better that than "there goes the planet."

Photo courtesy of Austin Tolin

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Kitchen gardeners are gardeners who love to cook and we're not just talking broccoli! We eat healthy foods and deserve our just desserts. Here's a recipe for the chocolate lovers among us.

Ingredients:
2 sticks (16 tablespoons) butter, more for pan and parchment paper
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
4 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup dark brown sugar, such as muscovado
1 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or 3/4 cup whole walnuts, optional.

Procedure:
1. Butter a 13-by-9-inch baking pan and line with buttered parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In top of a double boiler set over barely simmering water, or on low power in a microwave, melt butter and chocolate together. Cool slightly. In a large bowl or mixer, whisk eggs. Whisk in salt, sugars and vanilla.
2. Whisk in chocolate mixture. Fold in flour just until combined. If using chopped walnuts, stir them in. Pour batter into prepared pan. If using whole walnuts, arrange on top of batter. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until shiny and beginning to crack on top. Cool in pan on rack.

Yield: 15 large or 24 small brownies.

Recipe adapted from “Chocolate: From Simple Cookies to Extravagant Showstoppers,” by Nick Malgieri (Morrow Cookbooks, 1998) and reprinted in the New York Times

Photo courtesy of p3nnylan3

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By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, April 12, 2007 in The Washington Post

Foreign travel is said to broaden one's horizons, but Australia turns it around backward. Let's start with the sun. There it still rises in the east and sets in the west, but it traverses the northern sky instead of the southern, moving from right to left. At night the moon's crescent turns the opposite way, and Orion is upside down. If you leave home in spring, as I did on a recent lecture trip, you arrive in fall, two calendar days later.

Driving on the left is befuddling enough, but just talking can give you a case of jet lag. "It's harvest time," you remind yourself. "And we're doing it in metric." Acres must be translated into hectares, feet into meters, planting depth into centimeters. What little rain there is falls in millimeters. Instead of fencing out deer, it's kangaroos and wallabies. And none of the snakes are friendly.

Many common vegetables have different names, too. Corn is called maize. Peppers are capsicums. Swiss chard is silverbeet, to distinguish it from the closely related beets that grow underground. These are called beetroot. Many such names are the same used in England, but not all, as I found out after showing a slide of an heirloom eggplant and calling it an aubergine. "No, no," they all cried. "That's only in New Zealand. Here, it's eggplant."

When it came to getting down and digging in the dirt, it was once again clear that all gardeners speak the same language. Whatever the climate, the soil type and the amount of rainfall, the basic principle is the same. Building a great soil with plenty of organic matter for good tilth, a full component of minerals, and conditions that encourage biological soil life in the form of bacteria, fungi and other small organisms -- this is what makes plants grow well, no matter what side of the equator you inhabit.

Gardening with Aussies was a bit of a time warp -- in the best possible way. They have never abandoned the tradition of the home veggie garden. Even in the middle of Canberra, the nation's capital, households displayed their tomatoes and zucchinis proudly and prominently in beds close to the house for easy kitchen use. A home flock of chickens (that's "chooks" in Australian), kept for fresh eggs, is a common sight. People love gardening, and huge sections of their bookstores are devoted to it. Modern Australian cuisine, no longer a simple matter of steak on the barbie or bush tucker, is eclectic and highly dependent on fresh produce, much of it home grown. For that, I say "Good onya." Translation: "Right on."

Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch, reprinted with permission.

Photo courtesy of Margie and James

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Planting an asparagus bed may well be the smartest thing you do this year, right up there regular teeth flossing and wearing sunscreen. Think about it: how many things can you plant in your vegetable garden that will allow for harvests over 20 years or more? To be smart, however, you must be smart in how you start your bed. This photo tutorial will help you reap bountiful harvests for many years to come.

Site selection and preparation:
Choose a site with good drainage and full sun. The tall ferns of asparagus may shade other plants, so plan accordingly. Prepare the bed as early as possible and enrich it with additions of manure, compost, bone or blood meal, leaf mold, wood ashes, or a combination of several of these. In heavy soils, double digging is recommended. To double-dig, remove the top foot of soil from the planting area. Then, with a spading fork or spade, break up the subsoil by pushing the tool into the next 10 to 12 inches of soil and rocking it back and forth. Do this every 6 inches or so. Double digging is ideal for the trench method of planting asparagus since a 12-inch-deep trench is usually dug anyway. The extra work of breaking up the subsoil will be well worth the effort, especially in heavy soil. The trench is dug 12 to 18 inches wide, with 2 to 3 feet between trenches. The same method may be used in wide-bed plantings, with plants staggered in three rows. Mix the topsoil that has been removed with organic matter, and spread about 2 inches of the mixture in the bottom of the trench or bed.





Which crowns to plant and buy:
Choose rust resistant varieties like "Mary Washington" and the "Jersey" varieties, Crowns should be of a grayish-brown color, plump and healthy-looking. Remove any rotted roots before planting.





Planting:
Set the plants 15 to 18 inches apart, mounding the soil slightly under each plant so that the crown is slightly above the roots. Spread the roots out over the mound of soil and cover the crown with 2 to 3 inches of soil. Firm well. As the plants grow, continue to pull soil over the crowns (about 2 inches every two weeks) until the trench is filled. Water if rainfall is inadequate.





Patience is a virtue:
Within weeks, you will see your first asparagus shoots breaking through the soil. They will tempt you with their freshness and greenness, whsipering "go ahead...you ordered the crowns, you dug the trench, you hauled the compost, you deserve to eat me right now". Resist the temptation completely in year one and as much as your will power allows in year two. Asparagus is a fern that needs to grow out and capture all the sun it possibly can its first two years to store up energy and build its root system for future production. The more time you give your plants to establish themselves in the first 2-3 years, the longer and heavier they will bear.

Posted by at 5:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

This garden in Ashland, Oregon will have you thinking about your backyard in a whole new way. Note the number of different varieties grown and the balance achieved between plant, animal, insect, and human populations. Truly inspirational!

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Spring means asparagus and there's nothing easier or better tasting than asparagus served with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. This video adds a couple of twists to that basic recipe.

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Huge rise in home-grown vegetables amid increasing distaste for factory food

by John Vidal, published Monday April 9, 2007 in the Guardian

During the second world war the government famously urged every able man and woman in Britain to "dig for victory" - to grub up their flower beds and tear up their lawns to grow vegetables to avoid widespread hunger. Today, a new British land army of gardeners appears to be doing the same to avoid eating industrially-produced foods.

New figures from the Horticultural trades association show a 31% increase in the sales of vegetable seed to householders, and a corresponding 32% decline in the sale of flower seeds. We are also buying nearly twice as many seedlings and young edible plants like tomatoes and marrows, and are growing far more herbs than ever before.

Confirmation that the worm is turning away from flower growing to vegetables comes from the Royal Horticultural Society and seed companies, which say that vegetable seeds sales are now outstripping flower seeds for the first time since the second world war.

Suttons, which sells nearly a third of all household vegetable seeds in the UK, said this week that there had been a massive increase in vegetable growing in Britain. "We are seeing a big move away from flower seeds to vegetables. There has been a dramatic rise in things like sales of onions and potatoes. Spuds in particular are nearly 60% up on last year, which was 20%-30% up on the year before," a spokesman said. This year the company expects a 30% increase in its sales of UK vegetable seeds.

The proof that we are going back to our roots is seen in Britain's 330,000 allotments. Thirty years ago thousands of acres fell into disuse and were taken back by local authorities for development. Today, almost all allotments are full and it is nearly as hard to get one as to get a place in a good school.

"I've got people climbing all over me for allotments. Our waiting list is closed and there's no chance of even getting on to it. It's becoming a real bun fight," said Bruno Dore, site secretary of the Shepherds Hill allotments group in north London. The city is now believed to produce nearly 16,000 tonnes of vegetables a year. "There's definitely a big increase in the demand for allotments," said Geoff Stokes, secretary of the National Association of Allotment and Leisure gardeners. "Sites which were vacant for years are now full."

The reasons given for the shift to vegetable growing in the most urbanised country in Europe range from a political desire to not be beholden to large supermarkets, to a new awareness about healthy food and the environment, and deep dissatisfaction with industrially grown food.

"It's the fact that chefs are beginning to take up the idea of healthy foods and concern over chemicals," said Mr Stokes. "Fifty years ago people turned to vegetable gardening to save money. Now it's for fresh food and lifestyles."

"I find it the best way to relax, the nearest thing to personal and political freedom," said Joanne Nutley, 25, a Manchester allotment holder.

The seed sellers also detect a profound shift taking place, with people wanting to grow old varieties of vegetables that the industrial food system has left behind and legislation has made hard to grow.

A myriad of specialist seed clubs has been set up because it is technically illegal to sell seeds that are not on the government-approved national seed list, designed to provide large scale farmers.

Yesterday Prince Charles added his weight to the heritage vegetable seed movement, urging people to grow older varieties to maintain biodiversity. Speaking on the 60th anniversary of Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time, he said it was "crucially important" to preserve genetic diversity.

"What could be crazier than to reduce ourselves to fewer and fewer varieties? [Or] to have the kind of EU legislation that makes it impossible to sell the seeds of all those varieties? Hundreds of varieties [of vegetables] that our forefathers took a lot of trouble to develop are being lost. The old varieties are not hugely productive, but they have disease resistance."

Garden Organic, Britain's leading organic research organisation, now has 10,000 members in its heritage seed "library". Members exchange and distribute over 800 old vegetable varieties.

"There is a big increase in interest in growing older varieties. Our courses are well over-subscribed," said Andy Strachan, an adviser with Garden Organic.

Seed sellers also say that vegetable growing is no longer for middle-aged men. "Now there a lot of young people getting interested," said Ben Gabel, a director of the rapidly expanding Real Seed catalogue, a specialist club based in Pembrokeshire, south Wales. "There are very definitely two classes now and a big age gap between them. There's the traditional allotment holder, but definitely a younger group, people around the age of 30 who are more adventurous in what they grow."

"Allotments are teeming with with upwardly mobile types and ecologically motivated people trying to break free from the grip of the supermarkets", said Frances Jones, a young Manchester allotment holder. The grow-it-yourself food movement is increasingly controlled by women, says the Horticultural Trades Association. They now account for 77% of the total spend on herbs, 59% on young edible plants and 47% on edible seeds. Moreover, around 80% of the total expenditure on grow-your-own vegetables gardening is from households without children.

But the grassroots grow your own movement goes far further than vegetables, with as many as 200,000 households keeping chickens, and 35,000 beekeepers.

"There are more bee keepers in London now than in years," said John Chapple, head of the London bee keepers association. "All the associations are growing, and where it used to be that it was all men of a certain age, it is now young professional women. There's been a big swing."

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The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, described as "crazy" European Union legislation which prevents the sale of seeds from old vegetable varieties, in an interview released Wednesday.

"What could be crazier than, I think, having the kind of EU legislation which made it impossible to sell the seeds of many of these wonderful old varieties that people have developed over thousands of years?" he said.

"Hundreds of varieties have been lost -- wonderful things which our forefathers took enormous trouble to develop and which, in many cases, are resistant to all sorts of prevalent diseases."

Under EU seeds marketing directives, seeds must meet minimum quality standards and old varieties fall foul of strict testing criteria.

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Ingredients:
1 quart milk
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1/2 cup flour
salt and pepper to taste
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
4 springs fresh thyme

Recipe and video credit: Chef John of foodwishes.com

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Some vegetables just never go out of style. To grow some smart-looking asparagus of your own, check out our asparagus planting tutorial.

Photo credit: Commonorgarden

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In a child's buffet of food commercials, more than 40 percent of the dishes are candy, snacks and fast food. Nowhere to be found: fresh fruit, vegetables, poultry or seafood.

For years, health officials have warned that kids were being inundated with commercials about not-so-healthy foods. Now, researchers have put numbers to those warnings in the largest-ever study of commercials aimed at children.

The study, the largest ever of TV ads for children, found America's kids are bombarded with commercials for unhealthy foods full of sugar, salt and fat. Children ages 2 to 7 see an average of 30 hours of such ads a year. Kids 8 to 12 see 50 hours annually, while teenagers see 40 hours every year.

"The vast majority of the foods that kids see advertised on television today are for products that nutritionists would tell us they need to be eating less of, not more of, if we're going to get a handle on childhood obesity," said Vicky Rideout of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which conducts health research.

Overall, the foundation's researchers monitored 13 television networks. The viewing took place primarily between late May and early September 2005. They saw 2,613 ads featuring food and drinks that targeted children and teens.

"Since (preteens) are at an age where they're just becoming independent consumers, understanding what type of advertising they are exposed to is especially important," Rideout said.

Of food ads aimed at children, 34 percent were for candy and snacks, 29 percent for cereal, 10 percent for beverages, 10 percent for fast food, 4 percent for dairy products, 4 percent for prepared food and the rest for breads and pastries and dine-in restaurants.

Article source: Associated Press

Public service announcement video donated to KGI by Eliot Morrison

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