Dear Kitchen Gardener,

I hope you're either enjoying or planning bumper harvests.  We harvested a great crop of participation and awareness raising at this year's Kitchen Garden Day celebration and have put together a short video to share some of what happened that day.

While it'd be nice to bask in the warm glow of those harvests, October is too busy a gardening month to kick back.  In Maine, there's pesto and sauerkraut to be made, squash to be cured, apples to be picked, and tomatoes to be canned or frozen.  October also offers some of the crispest, best-tasting salads of the year just ready to be cut, rinsed, and spun.  Garlic traditionally goes in the ground on or around Columbus Day, but that day seems to be slipping back a week or two in our brave new, globally-warmed world. 

October's also a month for adding new life to tired beds through the addition of compost.  For those of you who don't have a heaping pile of chocolate cake-like compost to dig into, autumn's a great time, the best time in fact, to start a new pile using all those vines and stems that have stopped delivering, fallen leaves, and the lush, nitrogen-rich grass clippings that suburban lawns so effortlessly produce in the fall. 

The fall is also the best time for planning and starting new garden projects.  Last week, I paid a visit to the French School of Maine to help them identify a site for a new "potager".  Monsieur le Directeur and a group of professeurs directed me to a rolling, field available for the school's use just a three minute's walk from the school.  I felt a bit envious glancing over the grassy expanse, doing quick math in my head at all the food that such a large plot could generate.  While the field was gorgeous and had very tall weeds (usually a reliable sign of soil fertility), I urged them to scope out a spot closer to the school.  What holds for home gardens holds for school gardens too: the closer to the kitchen, the better. 

We ultimately chose to site the new garden in a high profile and high traffic spot right in front of the school.  Not only is it the best spot in terms of sunlight and promixity, but it sends a strong message that health and good food are high on the school's agenda.  Once they've got their potager dug and their systems in place, they can consider turning the larger piece of land into a true farm capable of supplying their cafeteria. 

This experience and some others I've been a part of recently have got me thinking about where our schools' priorities are now and perhaps ought to be.  A few years back, Maine boasted being the first state to prepare its children for the "information age" by providing every 7th and 8th grade student and teacher with a laptop computer.  Several years into the program, it's amazing to see how comfortable and skilled Maine's young people have become with this important tool. 

This, of course, got me pondering new "firsts" for Maine and other forward-looking states or regions, in the US or abroad.  Which state or region will be the first to prepare its students for the coming "ecology age" by mandating that every primary or intermediate school in its area have an organic kitchen garden and age-appropriate garden curriculum?  Surely, there is no better way to teach health and healthy eating than to engage young people in the process of heathy food production. 

As with the laptop initative, such an idea would surely encounter resistance, but what revolutionary idea hasn't?

Wishing you a delicious October,

PS: It's still not too late to win your chance at over $1000 in prizes through our Grow-Off Show-Off Contest, but the clock is ticking.  As an added bonus, the first 50 entries automatically win a free subscription to Mother Earth News.  Deadline for entries is November 1st.  Note sure what you can enter, then see here.

Posted by at 6:48 AM | Permalink

Enjoying good food, good company, learning, teaching, and having lots of fun connecting with other people and the earth. That pretty much sums up what goes into a typical Kitchen Garden Day celebration. Although it's too late to organize an event for 2007, it's not too late at all to see what types of celebrations others organized. Thanks to all who were with us or with us in spirit that day!

Posted by at 10:36 AM | Permalink

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, September 20, 2007 in The Washington Post

When T.S. Eliot wrote "April is the cruelest month," he might have added, "October is seriously underrated."

Consider those two months. We expect from both a temperature range midway between hot and cold, with unpredictable doses of either. But gardeners, especially, embrace April with exaggerated hope and cheer, oblivious to the imminent onset of blistering heat, drought and bolted lettuce. By October many edge wearily and even gratefully into the shadow of oncoming winter, forgetting to enjoy the gardening year's best weather.

Poke your head outside the cocoon of artificial lighting and controlled indoor temperature, and you'll better understand the rhythm of the seasons' lag time, a planetary dance in which reality and symbol rarely mesh. What we call summer solstice (around June 21) runs about two months ahead of the year's hottest weather, and the winter solstice (around Dec. 21) two months ahead of its coldest. "As the days begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen," the old saying goes.

The number of daylight hours on the spring equinox (around March 21) is the same as that on the fall equinox (around Sept. 22), but while the sun in March seems feeble, in September it feels strong, thanks to the slowness with which the earth absorbs and releases the sun's heat. In spring the warming of the soil surface can lag a month and a half behind that of the air on a mild day, and six feet below, the lag can be as much as three months. In fall, the ground is comparably slow to chill.

This all adds up to fall gardening nirvana. The earth is still warm, even if you start the day with a thick sweater. Pest insects are bundling themselves up in pupae to hibernate or seeking refuge underground. The shortening days let you get away with feats impossible in spring. Lettuce and spinach, whose impulse to go to seed is triggered by lengthening days, do not bolt cruelly, but bide their time, allowing a gloriously long harvest. Arugula loses its harsh bite. Carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips and Brussels sprouts begin the magical sweetening-up that comes with the cold.

As maples turn scarlet, Tuscan kale glows with the deep green of chlorophyll. By the time such summer crops as tomatoes, cucumbers and melons have frozen or lost their flavor, far more crops have reached the perfect moment. You're then ready to compost all those tired vines and embrace the garden's benign season.

Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Photo credit: Veronica Lynn

Posted by at 12:17 PM | Permalink

Food writer Nancy Harmon Jenkins has established herself as one of the authoritative voices on Mediterranean cuisine. She has lived and traveled extensively within the region and divides her time between homes in Maine and Tuscany. We recently caught up with her to talk with her latest book Cucina del Sole.

KGI: In the intro to your book, you describe the essence of Southern Italian cuisine as the simplicity of “natural ingredients” made using “straightforward, uncomplicated techniques.” What are a few of the ingredients and flavors that define the region for you and what makes them different from their counterparts available elsewhere?

NHJ: The natural ingredients I'm thinking of are the products of Southern Italian fields and gardens, the vegetables and fruits especially, that have such extraordinary depths of flavor, quite unlike those available elsewhere in the world. I put this down primarily to geography--also climate to a certain extent. Mild rainy winters and hot dry summers seem to be ideal for vegetable gardening. But the volcanic geography of much of the south--I think especially of the areas around Etna in Sicily and Vesuvius in Campania, but also, lesser known, the Monte Vulture in Basilicata. In Campania they call the soil arapilla and it means specifically soil that evolves from volcanic ash. In some places it goes down as much as three meters and it is peculiarly rich in minerals. That to me is one source of the flavor of tomatoes from the slopes of Vesuvius or the great array of citrus from around Etna, not to mention the wine grapes from all three regions. Puglia's geography is not volcanic but it represents another advantage--a porous limestone karst that soaks up rainwater and acts as a giant sponge beneath the fields of Puglia, where a large portion of Europe's organic vegetables are raised. Obviously everywhere in the world there are unique combinations of geography and climate that lead to the production of certain vegetables, but I think there are few places where such high quality is so consistent around the year and across the board as it is in the south of Italy.

KGI: What other items are essential to the Southern Italian pantry?

NHJ: The other key ingredient that helps so much is olive oil, and I'm speaking strictly of extra-virgin olive oil which, like most Southern Italian cooks, I use for both cooking and garnishing--drizzling is the food writerly term. I realize it's expensive but it's no more expensive than a nice bottle of wine and it goes SO MUCH farther. Mind you, I don't use fancy estate-bottled oils for sauteing anymore than I use a fine Chateauneuf du Pape for wine sauces. But there are plenty of well-priced extra-virgin olive oils available in markets, many of them, admittedly, not from Italy. I'd look for a good Greek or Spanish or Tunisian oil for a general all-purpose cooking oil and save a lushly flavored oil from the south (Puglia makes some wonderful oils and so does Sicily) for garnishing salads or steamed vegetables or spooning over a grilled steak.

KGI: What other advice or techniques do you share with people looking to cook and eat more like the Italians?

NHJ: Spend more time shopping for and, if possible, growing your ingredients and less time in the kitchen. That's the Italian, indeed the Mediterranean, way. With fine, naturally ripened ingredients, you don't need much in the way of technique--slice a tomato, peel a peach, drop some beans into boiling water, add a little piece of grilled meat or fish, and you're done with the cooking and you have a fine meal in front of you.

KGI: Tell us a bit about the state of gardening in your part of Tuscany.

NHJ: Most of the people in my village are subsistence farmers and they really rely on their vegetable gardens, their orte (from which we get the word horticulture), to see them through the year. What surprises me, however, is that they are able to keep vegetables growing pretty much right the year around. And that suggests to me that there's a lot more we could be doing here in this country to extend the season for fresh crops. I remember that Eliot Coleman said that the amount of light plants get is probably more important than the temperature of the air, and that as long as you can keep the ground from freezing, there are loads of things that could be grown through the winter with minimal energy inputs. Florence, after all, is on the same latitude as Portland, Maine, incredible as that may seem--just look at a globe or an atlas and you'll see that Florence, Italy, and Portland, Maine, get the same amount of light right the year round.

KGI: So, Tuscany and Maine have similar amounts of light. Does that mean that gardeners there are working with the same planting calendar as their Maine counterparts?

NHJ: In Tuscany, the first things that go in the ground, right around Christmas, are garlic and fava beans, what we used to call broad beans. And then there's a spell during which nothing much gets planted and nothing much grows. But the cabbage family vegetables are mostly still standing in the garden. One of the most important greens is what's called in Italian cavolo nero, black cabbage, but is actually a particularly delicious and attractive type of kale. You sometimes see it sold here as lacinato kale or Tuscan kale but I think most of our farmers don't realize that its flavor, like that of many brassicas, is actually improved by a light frost. It's not a crop to harvest in August, as so many people do, but rather in November--just like your Brussels sprouts that are so much sweeter for a touch of frost. And then, by March, they're planting potatoes, always when the March moon is dark. And then, as the sun strengthens and the wheat starts to green, all the usual vegetables start to go in.

KGI: We, of course, want to hear more about tomatoes which for many people are synonymous with Italian cuisine.

NHJ: Like many rural families throughout Italy, my neighbors really rely on tomatoes to brighten up the winter diet. They put up hundreds of jars and bottles of tomato products every late summer when the crop is ready. It's a three-day affair and everyone pitches in. The tomatoes are canned whole, or they're turned into a thick sauce called la pomarola that might be flavored with fresh basil or a bit of garlic but is basically just a reduced puree of tomatoes. It's hard to imagine what life must have been like, what the table must have been like, in these remote communities before tomatoes became a part of everyone's garden. Dried beans, garlic and onions, squashes, pumpkins, and potatoes, can be wholesome but day after day it's kind of a diet of unmitigated stodge without tomatoes.

KGI: How have things changed in your village in the years you’ve lived there?

NHJ: There was a time when, dining at my neighbor's house, you didn't expect to eat anything they hadn't raised themselves, including the chickens, rabbits, ducks, and pigs--they made their own prosciutto and sausages. Nowadays, that has changed a lot, partly because of television and advertising, partly because Maura, the young wife who's more and more in charge, works in town three days a week and has access to and money to pay for store-bought fare. Sometimes she even serves fish, which would have been absolutely unheard of when her mother-in-law was running the kitchen. And French fries--once when I was over there for Sunday lunch, she was serving the little girls frozen French fries that she had thawed and then fried again (pretty good, too, with that double frying). She served them with what she called salsa all'americana which was your basic ketchup. The little girls loved the whole experience and I, of course, being a purist and a puritan, was appalled. I'm fascinated, though, by this family. It has been a revealing and rewarding experience to have observed them, and enjoyed gardening and cooking and dining with them, over 35 odd years. To me they seem to have gone straight from the 18th century to the 21st century without so much as batting an eye, taking everything in their stride and relishing it all.

Featured recipes from Cucina del Sole:
Pugliese pepper relish
Macaroni from the Island of Ischia
Southern Italian mountain minestrone

Photos of Palermo's farmer's market by Gabrilu

Posted by at 11:35 AM | Permalink

Although this appears at first glance to be quite labor intensive, the labors are spread out over several days and the result is well worth any effort. Do make this when peppers in the market are fresh from local farms and gardens, not shipped in from far away. The flavors will be that much better and more intense.

The balance of sweet and hot peppers is really up to you: If you have mildly spicy peppers, like New Mexico or Anaheim peppers, for instance, make Pepone with those on their own; but if, on the other hand, the only chiles available are fiercely hot—like Scotch bonnets—you might want to cut down on the quantity of chilies and increase the amount of sweet peppers.

Makes 4 pints

Ingredients:
6 pounds green and red sweet peppers
2 medium carrots, peeled
1 quart white wine vinegar
1 large white onion
2 cups extra-virgin olive oil
15 fresh hot red chilies
4 plump garlic cloves
3 celery stalks
2 tablespoons sea salt

Procedure:
Wash and thoroughly dry the peppers and chiles, then cut them in half, discarding the seeds and white internal membranes. Chop the peppers, chiles, celery, carrots, onion, and rather coarsely by hand. Transfer the chopped vegetables to a bowl and add the salt. Set aside for 24 hours, but do not refrigerate. The vegetables will give off quite a lot of liquid. At the end of that time, turn into a colander, rinse the salt off thoroughly under running water, and set to drain. Transfer to a bowl, cover with the vinegar, and set aside for another 24 hours.

Have ready 4 pint (or 8 half-pint) sterile canning jars.

Drain the vegetables in a colander, but do not rinse. Fill the jars with vegetables, then olive oil, which should completely cover the chopped vegetables. Push a table knife into the jar in several places to get rid of any air bubbles. Screw down the lid and proceed with the remaining jars.

Process the jars for 20 minutes in a water bath canner. Remove from heat and let cool. Then remove the jars from the canning kettle. Set aside in a cool, dark place. The Pepone will be ready to use in 2 weeks. Use as a condiment for any meat or fish dish.

Recipe source: Cucina del Sole, by Nancy Harmon Jenkins, reprinted with permission.

Posted by at 11:15 AM | Permalink

Tomatoes from the island of Ischia are born of a dry climate and raised in the salty air of island—the ideal ambience for tomatoes with incomparable flavor. Try this recipe with local, gar ripened tomatoes at the peak of the season, when their flavor impact will be greatest. Dip them in boiling water for 10 to 12 seconds, then lift the skin off with a sharp knife.

This dish is usually served at room temperature or a little warmer, not piping hot from the stove. Maccheroni, or macaroni, is a long, thin pasta that looks like spaghetti but has a hole in it. If you can't find maccheroni, by all means use spaghetti instead.

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup capers, preferably salt-packed, rinsed and coarsely chopped
Pinch of dried oregano
1/4 cup broad crumbs
2 plump garlic cloves, minced
1 pound maccheroni
6 anchovy fillets, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup of coarsely chopped black olives, pitted
3/4 cup diced mozzarella, preferably buffalo-milk
2 pounds ripe tomatoes, peeled and coarsely chopped
1/2 cup torn basil leaves
Pinch of crumbled dried red chili
Sea salt (optional)

Procedure:
Combine 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and the garlic in a skillet over medium-low heat. Gently sweat the garlic until it is very soft, but do not let it brown. Add the anchovies and m them with a fork into the garlicky oil. Stir in the tomatoes, capers, and olives and cook about minutes. Taste and add salt if you wish. Now stir in the chili and oregano and simmer for a 10 minutes. Add a little water from time to time if the sauce starts to stick.

Meanwhile, bring 6 quarts of lightly salted water to a rolling boil. In a separate small skillet, combine the bread crumbs with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Set over medium heat and toast the crumbs, stirring occasionally, until golden brown and crisp. Set aside.

Cook the pasta until done to taste, then drain. Or cook until slightly underdone, drain, let it finish cooking in the simmering sauce. Mix the pasta and sauce together and stir in the cubes of mozzarella and some of the basil, along with a couple of tablespoons of crisp bread crumbs. Transfer to a serving dish and garnish the top with the rest of the bread crumbs and basil. Let rest for at least 15 minutes before serving.

Recipe source: Cucina del Sole, by Nancy Harmon Jenkins, reprinted with permission.

Posted by at 11:07 AM | Permalink

This is really a meat stew, based on the omnipresent lamb of southern mountain pastures, along with plenty of potatoes and cabbage. Far from the idealized Mezzogiomo of eternal sunshine, sparkling waters, and Greek ruins against brilliant blue skies, the home of this hearty, one-dish meal is up on the steep, rocky slopes where, in winter, winds howl and snow bears down on obstinate mountain villages clinging to cliffsides.

A village cook would use pure lard for the fat in this dish, but since lard without added preservatives is hard to come by in North America, I use extra-virgin olive oil instead.

Serves 6

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 to 3/4 pound lean boneless lamb, cut into bite-sized chunks
1/4 pound lean pancetta, diced 1 medium onion, halved and sliced
1 green celery stalk, cut into chunks
2 garlic cloves, crushed with the flat blade of a knife
1/4 cup coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon dried oregano (optional)
1 dried red chili (optional)
1 tablespoon tomato extract, concentrate, or paste, diluted in 1 cup hot water
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 large potatoes, peeled and diced
1/2 pound green cabbage, slivered
1/2 pound linguine or other long, thin pasta, broken into 1-inch pieces
Freshly-grated aged pecorino cheese for garnish

Procedure:
In a terra-cotta pignatta or heavy stew pot, combine the olive oil, lamb, and pancetta and set over medium heat. Cook, stirring, until the meats are brown. Lower the heat and add the onion, celery, garlic, parsley, and bay leaves, stirring to mix well. Stir in the oregano and chili. Add the diluted tomato extract to the pot along with another 2 cups water. Add salt and pepper to taste and bring to a simmer. Cover the pot and cook at a very slow simmer until the meats are thoroughly cooked and starting to fall apart, 1 to 11/2 hours.

Once the meats are cooked, add the diced potatoes along with another 2 cups boiling water to the pot and cook until they are just tender, then stir in the cabbage and pasta, adding a little more boiling water if necessary, and continue cooking until the pasta is done. Serve immediately, garnishing each serving with a little grated cheese.

Recipe source: Cucina del Sole, by Nancy Harmon Jenkins, reprinted with permission.

Posted by at 10:52 AM | Permalink

The arrival of autumn means the arrival of garden-fresh leeks. This video shows how to clean and cut them. Here are a few leek recipes to get you thinking about the many good things to come this fall:

Leeks vinaigrette
Braised leeks with lemon
Creamy leek soup

Video source: The Food Network

Posted by at 2:41 PM | Permalink

By Andrew Sneider, published 12 September 2007 in the Seattle-Post Intelligencer

When it comes to eating fruits, vegetables and grain, bigger is not better for you.

A report issued this week examined several recent studies by food scientists, nutritionists, growers and plant breeders. It found clear evidence that as the produce we eat gets larger, its vitamins, minerals and beneficial chemical compounds significantly diminish, as do taste and aroma.

Growing bigger tomatoes and ears of corn leads to a bigger yield for the producer, but the trade-off is the lower nutritional value.

Some say the gutting of the nutritional value of what we eat could affect public health, particularly in poorer countries. "There is no sinister villain behind this," said Chuck Benbrook, chief scientist for the Organic Center, which commissioned the report. "Increasing the amount of food grown per acre, by itself, is a good thing.

"The problem is that until recently, no one ever checked to see what was happening to the nutritional value of these much larger tomatoes, bigger grapefruit and the rest of the crops.

"Now we're in trouble. Not just the U.S. but almost every Western country that is using improved growing methods," Benbrook said.

Because of the work of plant scientists and crop breeders, farmers have doubled or tripled the yield per acre of most major fruits, vegetables and grains over the past 50 years.

Agriculture's "almost single-minded focus on increasing yields created a blind spot" in nutritional content, said Brian Halweil, author of the Organic Center's report, "Still No Free Lunch."

"Almost more alarming, this decline has escaped the notice of scientists, government and consumers," wrote Halweil, a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute and a member of the Organic Center's scientific advisory board.

The report said studies found:

-The more a tomato weighs, the lower its concentration of lycopene, a natural anti-cancer chemical that makes tomatoes red. There is also less vitamin C and beta carotene, a nutrient linked to vitamin A.

-Milk from high-production dairy cows has lower concentrations of fat, protein and other nutrition-enhancing components than the milk from dairy operations of 20 years ago or more.

-Sweet corn, potatoes and whole-wheat bread show double-digit declines in iron, zinc and calcium. The time span of the decline varies depending on the product studied but generally ranges from 20 to 100 years.

Over the years, improvements in seeds and plant stock not only grew larger plants but permitted them to be grown closer together and crop yields soared.

"Of course we're now capable of feeding more people, but what's happened is that unintentionally, the nutritional value of our food supply has been eroded," Benbrook said.

Nutrient decline is also found in some organic crops.

"I wish I could say that there is no loss in organically grown crops, but that's just not the case," Benbrook said.

"Organic farmers face the same laws of nature and economic pressures as conventional growers, and pushing yields upward often increases profits."

Vital chemical missing

Donald Davis, a senior researcher at the University of Texas, did some of the most illuminating research into the disappearing nutrients.

He compared Agriculture Department figures on nutrient content for 43 common fruits and vegetables.

Davis says historical data spanning 50 to 70 years show apparent declines of 5 percent to 40 percent or more in minerals, vitamins and proteins in groups of foods, especially vegetables.

Higher-yield crops also decrease the concentrations of cancer-fighting chemicals and anti-toxins -- known as phytonutrients or phytochemicals. Food scientists have identified the benefits of only a few of these.

"We are beginning to understand how valuable these phytochemicals actually are," Davis said. "We can only guess what the loss of these from high-yield farming will mean to the health of the consumer."

Surprise in the wheat fields

Washington State University professor Stephen Jones and researcher Kevin Murphy, who are involved in the school's century-old wheat-breeding program for Northwest farmers, decided to see how the grain's nutritional value has changed in 100 years.

"Kevin's research showed that today's modern wheat has less nutritional value," Jones said. "It is a concern, and the differences are easy to understand.

"You would have to eat twice as many slices of modern bread as you would of the older variety to get the same nutritional value. How did this happen? The breeders and growers and all the rest of us never looked at whether the nutritional content stayed the same as the yield increased."

Instead, researchers focused on "how good a cookie the wheat made, how nice a loaf of bread it produced or how the pizza dough acts," Jones explained.

"That's all related to protein," he said. "It's not related to iron and zinc and selenium and other essential vitamins and minerals."

Jones and Murphy are concerned because 25 percent of the wheat in the world comes from the United States.

"None of that has ever been bred for nutritional value," he said. "In this country we get our nutrients by spreading on the peanut butter or a cheeseburger, and we call it good.

"In many countries that import our wheat, the mainstay of the diet may be bread alone. The lack of nutrients becomes a far more serious issue."

Solutions by accident

In July, at the annual meeting of the American Society for Horticultural Science, international horticulturalist and plant breeders gathered for the first time to discuss the problem.

They realized there is a way to reverse the decline in some, if not all crops, food researcher Davis said. It's already happening, albeit by accident.

Consumers want their carrots bright orange, he says, so breeders found a way to intensify the color to sell more carrots. With the new brighter color came an unexpected increase in vitamin A.

Marketing experts said pineapple should be sweeter. So growers bred for added sweetness, and with it came a higher level of vitamin C.

Meddling to make watermelons a brighter red was accompanied by an increase in lycopene, which may have cancer-fighting properties and help control macular degeneration, which can cause blindness.

"All these just happened as a side effect to making crops more marketable," Davis said. "If the consumers demand that nutritional content be added to their favorite food, it will happen."

Jones says his wheat growers are already discussing breeding wheat that has the vitamins, minerals and protein of the past.

"There would be a good market for their wheat with a greater nutritional value in the Seattle and Portland area. Small millers and bakers would work together to produce a more nutritional bread that consumers could get excited about."

Davis acknowledges that the findings are troublesome but says consumers should not be discouraged.

"Vegetables are still our very best sources of many nutrients and phytochemicals. Just eat more!"

Article © Seattle Post-Intelligencer, reprinted for educational purposes in accordance with section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.

Posted by at 12:43 PM | Permalink

We have to produce food differently. The ADM / Monsanto / Cargill model of industrial agribusiness is heading toward its Waterloo. As oil and gas deplete, we will be left with sterile soils and farming organized at an unworkable scale. Many lives will depend on our ability to fix this. Farming will soon return much closer to the center of American economic life. It will necessarily have to be done more locally, at a smaller-and-finer scale, and will require more human labor. The value-added activities associated with farming -- e.g. making products like cheese, wine, oils -- will also have to be done much more locally. This situation presents excellent business and vocational opportunities for America's young people (if they can unplug their Ipods long enough to pay attention.) It also presents huge problems in land-use reform. Not to mention the fact that the knowledge and skill for doing these things has to be painstakingly retrieved from the dumpster of history. Get busy.
-James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency and The Geography of Nowhere.

Posted by at 4:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Do you think you'll die if you see another zucchini? Well then here's a recipe to die for. The photographer made hers in a Bundt pan, but the recipe below suggest a 13 x 9 baking pan. Either way, you're going to love this cake. Before you know it, you'll be out in the garden pulling back leaves looking for one or two zucchini for another batch.

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 cups grated unpeeled zucchini (about 2 1/2 medium)
1 6-ounce package (about 1 cup) semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter and flour 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt into medium bowl. Beat sugar, butter and oil in large bowl until well blended. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla extract. Mix in dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk in 3 additions each. Mix in grated zucchini. Pour batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle chocolate chips and nuts over.

Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Cool cake completely in pan.

Serves 12.

Recipe source: Bon Appétit, November 1995
Photo credit: Tania Ho

Posted by at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, September 6, 2007 in The Washington Post

Some of the best garden discoveries are made by accident. Last fall a friend gave my husband and me some family heirloom garlic. Against the standard advice, he hadn't removed the flower stems, known as scapes, when they appeared, and when he harvested he pulled up the whole plants -- bulbs, stems and flower heads. Inside the flower heads were tiny bulbils (above-ground bulbs) the size of rice grains. We broke apart the regular garlic bulbs at the base of the plants and poked the individual cloves into the ground the way you normally would plant fall garlic. On a whim, we also planted those tiny bulbils, one by one, just to see what would happen.

What we expected to find, come spring, was green garlic, a tasty scallion-like treat you get by planting any small garlic cloves you think aren't big enough to make full-sized heads. But the green shoots the bulbils sent up were so spindly they weren't worth eating, so we let them grow through the summer.

About three weeks before our regular garlic was mature, the bulbil-grown plants signaled maturity by flopping over their tops. We dug them up and, to our delight, found small, single (undivided) garlic bulbs that were round, like marble-size onions. I peeled them, sauteed them in olive oil, and strewed them on top of steamed spinach. Delicious! They had a distinct garlic taste, but milder, and they were -- no other word for it -- cute. We named them garlic pearls. Chef friends were envious.

What I've learned since then is that a type of hardneck garlic called Porcelain is more likely than others to form lots of small bulbils. Bulbils are sometimes planted as seed garlic for a variety of reasons -- for economy's sake, because they're more plentiful than garlic cloves, and to avoid soil-borne diseases, because they form on top of the plants. But my own goal is different. I want more of those pearls. I'd like to mix them with buttered fall peas or sprinkle them on top of pasta. I want so many garlic pearls that I can make a dish of them alone, with parsley, to serve alongside a steak. Fortunately, we planted lots of Porcelain garlic last fall, left the tops on this summer and saved the bulbils they produced. They're drying along with our garlic heads, and this fall we'll plant both crops.

Next year, if we work it right, we could have a spring crop of green garlic from the small cloves, a midsummer crop of pearls, then a fall crop of garlic heads for winter storage. Here's to year-round garlic heaven!

Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Photo credit: Martin LaBar

Posted by at 3:51 PM | Permalink

Story excerpted from a report by by Joseph Shapiro for National Public Radio

When Hitler's armies and Axis powers occupied Greece during World War II, they pretty much stripped Greece of its food, which was sent to German soldiers on battle fronts across Europe.

By the end of the war, at least a quarter of a million Greek men, women and children had died from starvation.

Just three years after the war, American scientists arrived on the Greek island of Crete to help rebuild. The wartime survivors still scraped by on the tiniest portions of food, so the scientists were amazed by what they saw.

Scientists found the people of Crete in excellent health even after the war, explained Dr. Anthony Kafatos of the University of Crete's School of Medicine. He said that after the war, there was no malnutrition.

"The families here in Crete, they produced everything they wanted at home," Kafatos said. "And they had no supermarkets, no electricity, no refrigerator. So they had only seasonal foods."

But now, that kind of homegrown eating is vanishing.

In a large supermarket in Heraklion — Crete's biggest city — you get a sense of what has changed. Maria Strataki goes through the checkout line with a basket filled with fruit. She got some locally grown food — the watermelon and honeydew grown in Crete. But she also bought apples flown in from Chile and grapes from Italy.

Strataki said she shops here because it's easy. Everything is in one store and there's parking. And on a hot day, with the temperature over 100 degrees, this store is air-conditioned.

"They have supermarket and fast-food chains, now, all over," Kafatos said. "They have the television, sitting for many hours in front of the television; no physical activity, a lot of food — bad quality food."

As a result, people in Crete can no longer claim to be healthier than people in the United States. Most people in Crete no longer follow the healthy eating and exercise patterns of their grandparents.

In a study Kafatos did last year, he found half the women in Crete obese and almost 40 percent of the men. According to another study, 40 percent of kids are obese, as well. And smoking is a problem: About half of adults smoke.

There are some people trying to preserve Crete's healthy way of eating, like restaurant owners, food-makers and nutritionists who live in Crete. And, an American professional chef named Nikki Rose.

But Rose knows what people eat and how what they eat is changing. That even in Crete, it's hard to find people adhering to the Mediterranean diet.

"It's a lifestyle that's fast disappearing," Rose said. "You can't package 'Mediterranean' in a box and take seven steps to health and happiness by buying olive oil and drinking wine."

Article excerpted from a report by National Public Radio. To read or hear the full report, go here.
Photo credit: Monkeycat

Posted by at 9:48 AM | Permalink

A garden can be a personal powerhouse for foods rich in antioxidants.

BY JESSIE MILLIGAN, McClatchy Newspapers

The seesaw of health news never quits. One day a study said tomatoes fight cancer. Then the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said studies on cancer and the antioxidant lycopene in tomatoes are inconclusive.

What's the best response? Eat your veggies, just like Mom said.

Antioxidants – long the darlings of the nutrition and beauty worlds – still are not entirely understood. It's well known they have the potential to protect cells from harmful molecules called free radicals, but their specific ability to target certain diseases still is being studied with mixed success.

"Antioxidants are promoted as being helpful to a number of health-related issues, but the jury is still out," said Bernie Frye, professor of biology and nutrition at University of Texas at Arlington.

The main thing the "jury" agrees on is this: Antioxidants are capable of performing amazing and beneficial acts of chemistry at the molecular level.

Some of the most antioxidant-rich foods can be grown in a garden, and it isn't too late to plant for a fall harvest. Those who do not garden still can get a good antioxidant surge from veggies and fruit at the supermarket.

What's an antioxidant?

Cells in our body sustain regular damage. Cells take a little beating even when we metabolize food. They are banged up a bit when our immune system fights viruses and bacteria. They take even more hits when exposed to toxins and pollutants.

The result is free radicals, unstable molecules that scrounge around our bodies stealing electrons from healthy cells in their attempt to become stable. Cells, proteins and DNA take on more damage as free radicals do their work.

Antioxidants come to the rescue.

"Antioxidants run interference. They are body guards," Frye said.

Antioxidants donate their electrons to slow or prevent the free-radical attack on healthy cells.

Left unchecked, free-radical damage may cause mutations in cells that may lead to cancer.

But are antioxidants miracle drugs? No. We already know that antioxidants are not always on guard.

"Nothing is going to work 100 percent. Otherwise, we would never age," Frye said.

The best sources for antioxidants are fresh foods. They don't have to be raw; the amount of antioxidants often increases when foods are cooked.

It isn't a good idea to rely on antioxidant supplements or artificially charged antioxidant drinks, Frye said.

"The consensus opinion is that taking any chemical supplement in concentrated form is not as advantageous as getting the antioxidant in food," he said.

Food, he said, serves up antioxidants in a perfect concentration and in combination with other chemicals.

"It seems like nature has decided what's best for us," Frye said.

How much should we eat?

Five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables every day are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United States Department of Agriculture. Colorful fruits and vegetables – from bright red to leafy green – have the most antioxidants.

The best way to get a fresh, organic supply of antioxidant-rich foods is to keep a vegetable garden.

Here are some of the best vegetables – and even a nut and an herb – loaded with antioxidants, as well as the conventional wisdom on how each keeps us healthy:

RED PEPPER

Antioxidant: Vitamin C

How it helps: Supports immune system

Garden know-how: Avoid sun scald by giving them afternoon shade.

Food fact: Get the most out of sweet red peppers by eating them raw. One cup of raw red pepper provides 283 milligrams of vitamin C, more than double the 124 milligrams of vitamin C in one cup of fresh orange juice, according to the USDA.

SUNFLOWER SEEDS

Antioxidant: Vitamin E

How it helps: Supports immune system, repairs DNA

Garden know-how: Harvest sunflowers when the back of the flower is brown. If birds are eating the seeds, cut the flower when the back is just beginning to turn brown, then hang it upside down out of direct sunlight to finish drying.

Food fact: One ounce of roasted sunflower seeds has more vitamin E than the same amount of almonds, peanut butter or spinach. One ounce supplies almost two-thirds of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin E.

SWEET POTATO

Antioxidant: Beta-carotene

How it helps: May protect eyesight, aid in preventing breathing problems and support immune system

Garden know-how: Don't put too much fertilizer on sweet potatoes or you'll get well-developed vines but poorly developed potatoes.

Food fact: Retain the most beta-carotene by baking rather than boiling sweet potatoes. The only way to get more beta-carotene is to eat canned pumpkin. Carrots are another good source.

COLLARDS

Antioxidants: Lutein and zeaxanthin

How it helps: May contribute to healthy vision

Garden know-how: Thin collards to 18 inches apart for leafier plants. Side-dress with fertilizer for the deepest green leaves.

Food fact: Fall is best for planting. Collard greens taste sweeter if harvested after a light frost. Other good sources of these antioxidants are cooked spinach, turnip greens, Brussels sprouts, pumpkin and winter squash.

TOMATO

Antioxidant: Lycopene

How it helps: May protect against prostate cancer

Garden know-how: Plant tomato transplants with part of the main stem buried. This encourages rooting.

Food fact: Cook tomatoes to increase their lycopene content. One cup of ready-made marinara sauce has nine times the lycopene as one cup of raw tomato.

OREGANO

Antioxidant: Apigenin

How it helps: Anti-inflammatory, may protect against breast and prostate cancers

Garden know-how: Oregano is evergreen in North Central Texas gardens.

Food fact: One tablespoon of fresh oregano has the same amount of antioxidants as one raw apple.

BROCCOLI

Antioxidant: Flavanols

How it helps: May protect against pancreatic and other cancers

Garden know-how: Fall planting is the most likely to be successful. Broccoli needs to mature in cool weather.

Food fact: Broccoli is considered a nutritional powerhouse, containing not just flavonols but also other antioxidants, plus calcium and vitamins.

GARLIC

Antioxidant: Diallyl sulfide

How it helps: May detoxify cells, protect the heart, support the immune system

Garden know-how: This frost-hardy plant is best planted in the fall so it has time to develop full-size bulbs. Harvest in June.

Food fact: Peeling garlic begins a series of chemical reactions in the clove. To get the best shot of this antioxidant, the National Cancer Institute recommends waiting 15 minutes between peeling and cooking garlic.

CABBAGE

Antioxidant: Dithiolthiones

How it helps: May lower LDL "bad" cholesterol and protect the immune system

Garden know-how: Keep soil uniformly moist near harvest time to prevent heads from splitting.

Food fact: Raw or cooked, cabbage also is high in beta-carotene, potassium and iron.

Data sources: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Texas Cooperative Extension, Texas A&M Horticulture Department, American Cancer Society, National Cancer Institute, International Food Information Council

Article © McClatchy Newspapers, reprinted for educational purposes in accordance with section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.

Photo credit: one2c900d

Posted by at 6:13 PM | Permalink

The sudden and mysterious disappearance of honeybees in the United States over the past year may be due to a virus, according to a new research paper by an international team of scientists.

The pathogen, called Israeli acute paralysis virus, was detected in almost all bee hives tested during a survey of hives afflicted by what has become known as colony collapse disorder. The pathogen is rarely found in healthy hives.

The discovery will likely help put to rest rampant speculation about the source of the strange collapse in U.S. bee populations.

Any threat to bee numbers could affect the global food supply. An estimated $2-billion worth of crops in Canada depend on honeybees for pollination, and about $15-billion in the United States, where the collapse has already led to difficulties in pollinating crops.

The researchers also found the virus on live bees imported into the United States from Australia, and in royal jelly samples from China. Royal jelly is the food bees produce for queens, but it is also sold as a health food for humans.

The discovery of the virus has raised speculation that the United States inadvertently allowed it into the country through the import of Australian bees. This was allowed in 2004, at the urging of the agricultural industry, to boost the number of hives available for pollinating high-value crops such as almonds. The import of the bees coincided with the first reports of unusual problems in bee colonies.

News source: The Globe and Mail
Photo credit: Frogmuseum2

Posted by at 6:05 AM | Permalink

Are you harvesting tomatoes hand over fist and looking for some fresh ideas on how to prepare them? Well, the global blogosphere is here to help. Below are a few recipes recently posted to some food blogs that you will probably want to get to know better. Enjoy.

From Simply Recipes:

White Beans and Cherry Tomato Salad

Gazpacho

From Chocolate & Zucchini:

Panzanella

From Kayn's Kitchen:

Tomato and Cucumber Salad with Mint, Feta, Lemon, and Thyme

Slow roasted tomatoes

From David Lebovitz:

Marinated Tomato Salad

From Just Hungry:

Tabbouleh with Heirloom Tomatoes and Shiso

From Champagne Taste:

Roasted tomato sauce

From A Veggie Venture:

Baked Eggs with Tomato and Spinach

Photo by D. Knisely

Posted by at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

by Ian Sample, printed in the Guardian, August 31 2007

Climate change and an increasing population could trigger a global food crisis in the next half century as countries struggle for fertile land to grow crops and rear animals, scientists warned yesterday.

To keep up with the growth in human population, more food will have to be produced worldwide over the next 50 years than has been during the past 10,000 years combined, the experts said.

But in many countries a combination of poor farming practices and deforestation will be exacerbated by climate change to steadily degrade soil fertility, leaving vast areas unsuitable for crops or grazing.

Competition over sparse resources may lead to conflicts and environmental destruction, the scientists fear.

The warnings came as researchers from around the world convened at a UN-backed forum in Iceland on sustainable development to address the organisation's millennium development goals to halve hunger and extreme poverty by 2015.

The researchers will use the meeting to call on countries to impose strict farming guidelines to ensure that soils are not degraded so badly they cannot recover.

"Policy changes that result in improved conservation of soil and vegetation and restoration of degraded land are fundamental to humanity's future livelihood," said Zafar Adeel, director of the international network on water, environment and health at the UN University in Toronto and co-organiser of the meeting.

"This is an urgent task as the quality of land for food production, as well as water storage, is fundamental to future peace. Securing food and reducing poverty ... can have a strong impact on efforts to curb the flow of people, environmental refugees, inside countries as well as across national borders," he added.

The UN millennium ecosystem assessment ranked land degradation among the world's greatest environmental challenges, claiming it risked destabilising societies, endangering food security and increasing poverty.

Some 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously degraded. Among the worst affected regions are Central America, where 75% of land is infertile, Africa, where a fifth of soil is degraded, and Asia, where 11% is unsuitable for farming.

The majority of soil erosion is caused by water, either through flooding or poor irrigation, with the rest lost to winds. Farming practices such as ploughing also damage soil, as does repeated planting in fields, which depletes the soil of nutrients.

"You can sum it up as need, greed and ignorance," said Andrew Campbell, an Australian environmental consultant. "Some pressures on soil resources come from simple human needs, where people don't have any option but to grow crops or farm animals. But in other instances world markets demand produce, so farmers try to meet those markets. And sometimes, there will be land that's cleared that should not have been, or grazed when it shouldn't have been. All these place great pressures on soil resources."

He warned that increased competition over depleted resources would lead to conflict - "and the losers will inevitably be the environment and poor people".

According to the UN's food and agriculture programme, 854 million people do not have sufficient food for an active and healthy life.

The global population has risen substantially in recent decades. Between 1980 and 2000 it rose from 4.4bn to 6.1bn and food production increased 50%. By 2050 the population is expected to reach 9bn.

The threat of a food crisis is exacerbated by fears over energy security, with many countries opting to plant biofuel crops in place of traditional food crops. India, for example, has pledged to meet 10% of its vehicle fuel needs with biofuels.

Andres Arnalds, of the Icelandic soil conservation service, said the pressures on food production would have knock-on effects all over the world because of the international links in food supply.

Mr Campbell said: "If we can improve agricultural practices across the board we can dramatically increase our food production from existing lands, without having to clear more or put more pressure on soils. Simple things like good crop rotation, sowing at the right time of year, basic weed control, are what is needed. They're very well known but not always used."

Article copyright of Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News
Photo by Rick Abbott

Posted by at 8:15 AM | Permalink