An interesting and hopeful thing has happened in the past year without many people realizing it: "food miles" entered the public lexicon, and not as some hair-brained concept coming from hairy-headed hippies, but as a serious way of thinking about the social and environmental impacts of what we eat.

"Food-miles are a great metaphor for looking at the localness of food, the contrast between local and global food, a way people can get an idea of where their food is coming from," said Rich Pirog, associate director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University.

Pirog should know. He's Mr. Food Miles. Pirog carried out the research that found that foods travel on average "1500 miles from field to fork". In fact, it's even farther if you consider that his study was focussing on the average distance produce travels from the point of production to midwestern markets. For the East Coast, the distance is closer to 2500 miles.

Pirog is careful to point out that food miles are just one indicator of food's environmental impact and other things need to be plugged into the calculation, for example, how the food was produced before it hit the road. Still, food mileage is a concept that people can get their head around. With gas at $3/gallon, we know that getting good mileage is important and that some cars are better than others. Tuning into our food mileage is not just about ruling out the bad options - the infamous 3000 mile Caesar salad - but discovering the many good options out there, including some just down the street from us. Heck, we might even make a new neighbor.

If a metaphor can do that, it's a very powerful one indeed.

Posted by at 8:02 AM | Permalink

Dear Kitchen Gardener,

How do like them love apples?  Aren't they beauties!  Well, not beautiful in the conventional, airbrushed, Gourmet magazine kind of way.  The beauty, for me, is being able to enjoy my own reddish tomatoes in late October in Maine after the first light frost. 

True, they may not make the cut for tonight's starting salad team, but they'll do just fine simmered in a sauce or slow-roasted to bring out their latent sweetness.  They may well be our last sauce tomatoes of the year. 

It's been quite a run for us this year, tomato-wise.  I can't even guess how many cranks I've given on my food mill (my new favorite kitchen gadget) over the past 6 weeks.  All of this brings me in a round-about kind of way to the theme of this month's newsletter: one person' trash is another person's pleasure or, if you prefer, one person's waste is another person's taste.  Yes, I realize those may not be expressions you're accustomed to hearing, but they're ones deserving some consideration. 

Tomatoes like mine would end up in the waste bin if they dared infiltrating the ranks of the picture-perfect, red, round globes that grace the shelves at the local supermaket.  They would be deemed an eye-sore and most likely a health risk in our bacterophobic culture. For me, though, I see them and think "pasta al pomodoro" and "Superbowl Chili".  With nearly 20 bags of them in our chest freezer, we'll be thinking lots of different things right through the winter, all of them tasty.

In this month's round-up of articles and videos, we take a closer look at trash, treasure, waste, and taste.  Barbara Damrosch's latest article encourages us to go gleaning in our own gardens.  You might be surprised at what you'll find.  3000 miles away, in Portland, Oregon, a group of people from a nonprofit effort called The Portland Fruit Tree Project is thinking similar thoughts.  A short video follows them as they go on an urban fruit gleaning mission, something my family and I have been doing this month with our neighbor's apple trees.  Our neighbor sees apples with blemishes, we see apple sauces, crumbles, and pies.  In a world still very much in the grips of hunger and malnutrition, work like this should be taking place in every community where neglected fruit trees and underharvested crops can be found. 

You know this already, but I think that we, the organic kitchen gardeners of the world, have an important role to play in changing people's perceptions about food.  We know better than anyone else that there's really no such thing as trash when it comes to the garden.  What doesn't make the grade for the table is always a welcome addition to the compost pile where it awaits magical transformation into next year's pleasure.   

Warmly,

PS: 2008 has just been named the International Year of the Potato by the United Nations.  If you have a clever idea how KGI might celebrate potatoes next year, don't be shy in sharing it. 

PPS: And don't be shy in general.  I'd love to hear from you on what we're doing right or what we might do differently. You're also invited to comment on our articles and share some of your own knowledge or lack thereof, as the case may be.  That's what the comment form is for at the bottom of each page! 

Posted by at 2:19 PM | Permalink

Here's a neat idea and yet another neat video from "Cooking Up A Story": urban fruit gleaning. And it features the work of a neat volunteer-led initiative in Portland, Oregon called "The Portland Fruit Tree Project." Check it out and start bringing together a gleaning corp in your area...the fresh fruits, jams, jellies and ciders are waiting for you.

Posted by at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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

This time of year I'm like the women in Jean-François Millet's painting "The Gleaners," bent over the mown fields in their kerchiefs and long skirts, gathering scraps of leftover grain. It's completely irrational. My garden is still bursting with fresh crops for fall: spinach, kale, leeks and a dozen or so others. Winter squash is just starting to cure in the shed, and I haven't even dug the root crops yet. But somehow the oncoming winter brings out the frugal peasant in me, and I'm gripped with the urge to salvage what is left of summer's bounty.

The last of the unpicked snap beans have seeds swelling in their pods. Better not waste them. I spend an hour shelling them and another gathering the last of the old corn ears, stripping them of their kernels and adding them to the beans for succotash. There's some over-the-hill fennel, too woody for salads but a perfectly good candidate for long, slow braising.

A row of broccoli plants and another of zucchini are ready to be yanked out and composted. But shouldn't I leave them a week longer to see if they'll pump out a few more stir-fries' worth of food? I stroll through the garden, assessing what is left. I want one more dish of fried squash blossoms, one more platter of tomato salad before frost threatens. "Look, it's fall," I tell myself. "Get over it."

Then I spot the bolted lettuce. Some of the leafy towers are nearly three feet tall. Where I've harvested heads, the stems have regrown with multiple spires, like Notre Dame. Ready to rip them out, I remember something I read about once on a favorite Web site called L'Atelier Vert ( http://www.frenchgardening.com). Although the leaves of bolted lettuce are so bitter only the starving would eat them, the stems are said to be quite tasty. Curious, I cut some, strip them of their leaves and bring them indoors. Not even bothering to peel them, I cut them all into half-inch pieces on the diagonal. I would expect them to be tough, but they are succulent and easy to slice.

I saute them on low heat for 20 minutes or so in French walnut oil. They begin to exude the milky sap that gives lettuce its botanical name ( Latuca), then they slowly caramelize until they are crisp. I heap them onto a plate with coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper. They are delectable, more sweet than bitter, but with a little bite. If I leave the roots in the ground, maybe they will sprout a few more meals like this one before the season finally comes to an end.

Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Image: "Les Glaneuses" by Jean-François Millet, 1857.

Posted by at 1:39 PM | Permalink

We're delighted to feature a video this month entitled "Cooking With Love: Alice’s Kitchen" produced by the good folks at "Cooking Up a Story". It features Linda Dalal Sawaya who talks about how her love of gardening, cooking, and her own Lebanese heritage got passed down over the generations from mother to daughter. Linda shares a biteful of this oral history in this short video and a heaping portion in a book she wrote called "Alice's Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Recipes".

Related recipes:
Summer Squash Stuffed with Rice
My Father’s Tomato Salad
Easy Garden Fresh Tabouleh
Lebanese Okra and Tomato Stew

Posted by at 9:39 AM | Permalink

Tabbouleh is a Lebanese dish, considered by many as the "national salad". Its main ingredients are bulgur, finely chopped parsley, mint, tomato, scallion (spring onion), and other herbs with lemon juice and various seasonings, generally including black pepper and sometimes cinnamon and allspice. In Syria and in Lebanon, where the dish originated, it is often eaten by scooping it up in Romaine lettuce leaves. In the Middle East, it is truly a salad with the green ingredients dominating. The dish's global popularity has led to new interpretations and regional modifications such as the use of couscous (which originates from Northern Africa) in place of bulgur.

Ingredients
2 bunches of fresh parsley (1 1/2 cup chopped, with stems discarded)
2 tablespoons of fresh mint, chopped
I small onion, finely chopped
6 medium tomatoes, finely diced
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup bulgur
juice of three lemons
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Procedure:
Rinse bulgur in water and add to a large mixing bowl. Combine all chopped ingredients, salt, pepper, lemon juice, olive oil, and stir. Cover with a clean dish towel and let sit for 1-2 hours or until bulghur is tender.

Photo credit: Ulterior Epicure

Posted by at 8:59 AM | Permalink

A whole range of simple Lebanese vegetarian dishes, referred to as bi zeit in Arabic, are cooked in and primarily flavored by olive oil. This vegetarian dish combines the flavors of okra and tomato with garlic and cilantro. If you have fresh tomatoes from your garden, by all means, use them in place of the canned.

Ingredients
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 pounds fresh or thawed frozen okra, patted dry
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
5 large garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup coarsely chopped cilantro leaves
One 28-ounce can peeled Italian tomatoes, chopped, juices reserved
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Procedure
1. In a large skillet, heat the vegetable oil until shimmering. Add the okra and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until bright green and crisp-tender, about 4 minutes. Transfer the okra to a plate with a slotted spoon; discard the oil.
2. Add the olive oil to the skillet and heat until shimmering. Add the onion and cook over moderate heat until softened and golden, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and cilantro and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and their juices and bring to a simmer, then cook until slightly thickened, about 3 minutes.
3. Return the okra to the skillet and season with salt and pepper. Cover and simmer over low heat until the okra is tender and the sauce is thickened, about 20 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Serves 6

Recipe source: Food and Wine magazine
Photo credit: Arobotar

Posted by at 8:32 AM | Permalink

Today is World Food Day. Be thankful for the healthy, delicious foods you have. Work to increase access to those same foods for others. Everyone has the Right to Food.

Related Articles:
-Food Sovereignty (or How to Eat Like a King)

Posted by at 12:00 AM | Permalink

What do you get when you cross "Super Size Me" with the "The Omnivore's Dilemma"?

King Corn, or at least that's the type of hybrid success that the documentary's makers are hoping for as the film hits the big screen this week.

King Corn is about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation.

In the film, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat—and how we farm.

The small-budget, independent film has received much favorable press including a write-up in today's New York Times dining section which is not a bad way to start.

The big question that many movie-goers will be asking themselves is whether it's ok to eat popcorn and drink corn-sweetened soda while watching the film.

Related articles:
-Disecting Dinner
-Michael Pollan's 9-Step Program for America

Posted by at 8:58 AM | Permalink

By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, October 4, 2007 in The Washington Post

We live in a world of phobias, but here's a new one: fear of mulch. And there's some basis for it.

As reported in this paper July 11 ("Bitter Harvest in Sperryville"), a Virginia farm couple, Rachel Bynum and Eric Plaksin, lost a good deal of their year's harvest by mulching with hay they'd bought from a local farmer. After seeing distorted growth on a number of crops, they learned that the farmer had used an herbicide containing picloram.

Unlike herbicides such as 2,4-D that biodegrade quickly, picloram and the closely related clopyralid can persist in the soil for several years. Called growth regulator herbicides, these also persist in the manure of horses that eat the hay and in the vegetables you grow if you mulch or fertilize with hay or manure that contain them.

Writing in the current issue of Growing for Market, Bynum and Plaksin advise readers to "question any source of hay, manure or compost." I'd add that if you can't be sure it's pure, grow your own. The safest, most wholesome source of food and the materials with which it's grown is the closed loop of your own garden.

Mulch is a gardener's version of organic litter on the forest floor, a splendid ally that prevents erosion, keeps the soil moist and friable, calls earthworms to action, buffers both heat and cold, suppresses weeds and adds fertility to the soil as it breaks down. A mulch applied this fall will help protect your soil over the winter. Since the persistent herbicides occasionally found in mulch are harmful even in amounts too low to show up in testing, it's wise to ask the grower whether herbicides were used when you buy mulch hay.

Grass clippings that are yours for the taking can also contain herbicide residues. Mulch made from chipped-up wood can contain arsenic if pressure-treated wood has made its way into the mix. Best to provide your own.

You might not have room for a hayfield if your back 40 is a 40-foot veggie patch, but you can create mulch from autumn leaves by running your lawn mower over them. Your yard's grass clippings, pine needles and evergreen boughs are all good homegrown mulches -- even piles of weeds can be used if they're cut before they go to seed.

You could plant a winter cover crop such as winter rye or hairy vetch in your vegetable garden to protect the soil just as a winter mulch would, and there's time for it to make good growth if you sow it now. In spring, the plants can be turned under to add nutrients and organic matter to the soil, or cut and added to the compost bin. Or cut and stockpiled to use as a handy source of -- mulch!

Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Creative Commons photo credit: Nathan Y