Dear Kitchen Gardener,

There are different ways of knowing whether winter has arrived.  If you're in Maine, the joke goes, you know because the driving actually improves as the potholes fill up with snow.  You can also tell the old fashioned way by looking at the thermometer. Mine read 8 wintry degrees (-14 C) this morning.  Consulting the calendar is another popular, albeit controversial, way.  Astonomically speaking, winter is due this Friday, but, meteorologically, the calendar says that winter already arrived the first week of December.  Hmmm.

As with other perplexing life questions, I like to turn to my compost pile for guidance.  Northern gardeners like to say that winter hasn't really arrived until your compost pile is frozen solid and hasn't really left until your pile has thawed completely.  Up until last week, my hot pile of leaves, grass clippings, and kitchen scraps was still chugging along nicely, melting its way through all the white stuff the sky has been dropping on us since late November.  Coincidentally, up until last week, we were also still harvesting salad greens from our cold frames, arguably the best-tasting greens of the year (but I admit that part of this is due to the "it's-winter-and-I-am-still-eating-from-my-garden!" factor which is one nature's best flavor enhancers.)

The past few days of snow, ice, and bitter cold, however, have changed things remarkably, putting my compost pile's soil bacteria and worms on the defensive. If you look closely at the photo above taken earlier today, you can see a bit of melting taking place, but I think it's safe for me to oil up my compost fork's handle and put it to bed for the winter. 

This winter was interesting in how suddenly it came upon us in my area.  One day, I was outside in a light sweater raking leaves and planting garlic, the next day I was all bundled up with a snow shovel in my hands.  A gardening article in the New York Times a few years back suggested that instead of talking about global warming, we should be using the term "global weirding".  While the trend is definitely toward warming, there'll be a lot of weirdness along the way.  Speaking of the New York Times, I've been following their coverage of local food issues these days and even managed to contribute 2 cents of my own to the debate through a letter to the editor published in last Sunday's edition. 

Another item in the "good news" category: I learned last month that I have been chosen as a "Food and Society Fellow" by the Thomas Jefferson Agricultural Institute.  I'm pretty excited about this and I don't excite easily.  That award and your generous support will help me to keep KGI going and growing, even during the dark, cold days of winter.  

Don't worry, though, about the award going to my head, at least not this winter.  It will need to penetrate a thick wool hat first.   

Happy holidays,

PS: I'm busy making your holiday gift.  It's not so much a new gift, but a better version of an old one, a gift that will allow you to grow as gardener, learn new things, contribute your knowledge to the gardening commons, connect with and help new gardening friends, near and far.  Have you guessed yet?  It might be too late for the holidays, but will be just in time for those of you itching to talk about gardening before the ground and the weather allow you to do any. 

PPS: Stay tuned in January as a "special KGI correspondent" will be reporting from Argentina on a school garden project that we're helping to launch. 

Posted by at 4:32 PM | Permalink

When most of us think of chicken parmesan, we picture something similar to the photo above. It's a simple and delicious dish: breaded chicken breasts, pasta, red sauce, with a sprinkling of zesty parmesan cheese.

But, as the bright young minds at Middlebury College in Vermont have recently learned, it's not as simple as most people think. Below is a screen capture of a Google Earth map that some students and faculty put together to show the complex route that chicken parmesan's ingredients take to go from farmers' fields to Middlebury students' forks. It should be noted that Middlebury is considered a leader in its efforts to move towards local sourcing for its cafeterias.

The point of the exercise (and - we'd say - the local foods movement in general) is not to say "no" to all foods that have traveled, but to become more aware of where our food comes from, who produced it, how it was produced, and the good local alternatives that exist. The more attention we give to these local options, the more of them there will be.

To learn more about Middlebury's food mapping work, please see: http://geography.middlebury.edu/applications/Food_Mapping/

Chicken parmesan photo credit: My Amii

Posted by at 5:21 PM | Permalink

Garlic may well be the easiest crop you've never tried. The steps are simple: 1) buy seed bulbs 2) break into cloves 3) plant in rich, loose soil 2 inches (5 cm) deep and 6 inches (15 cm) apart 4) mulch 5) water and 6) wait. Ok, that's over-simplifying a bit, but not by much. This short video offers more info and will get you thinking about working some space for garlic into next year's garden plan.

Posted by at 2:09 PM | Permalink

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

Christmas shopping may require all the dollars, stamina and good humor you can muster, but it's nothing compared to food shopping. For that you need an advanced degree in educated consumerism. Just last week the mail brought me more lessons in food responsibility than I could possibly digest before lunchtime.

First to arrive was the Utne Reader with a report compiled by the Environmental Working Group that ranked fruits and vegetables by the amount of pesticide residue found on them by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.

The "dirty dozen" we'd best avoid are, in order of risk: peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, lettuce, imported grapes, pears, spinach and potatoes. The safest six are onions, avocados, frozen corn, pineapples, mangoes and frozen peas.

The group's FoodNews Web site gives detailed data (96.6 percent of peach samples were tainted; one bell pepper sample had 11 pesticides on it).

The solution is simple: Buy organic. But here's the tougher question: Why do they allow residue at all? That would require a larger study.

Next came a poster from the Chefs Collaborative, urging us to buy from farms that sustain the environment -- those that give livestock free range; gather mushrooms only from stable populations; preserve native riparian (streamside) plants; guard soil, air and water against pollution; and "value and protect large predators like bears and mountain lions." Most of this is unknowable unless the farm is right down the road.

And now here's Ode magazine with the top 20 organic, sustainable products for 2008. Two of them I already have: a Sun Frost low-energy fridge, which I love, and Prince Charles's Duchy Originals Oaten Biscuits. But how do the 20 stack up against the Chefs Collaborative's admirably complex chart?

I happen to think Prince Charles, long a champion of organic farming, is one of the world's most underestimated public figures, and his biscuits are top drawer. But I can only assume he protects his riparian flora. Do the guys who grow Honest Tea value bears? Who knows?

The only lesson I ever seem to learn from all of this information boils down to a few words: Grow your own, cook your own and check out the farmer down the road. There are a few levels of complexity I could add to that, but you already have so much to read.

Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Photo credit: D'Arcy Norman

Posted by at 1:16 PM | Permalink

Editor's note: This article and photo were contributed by Liz Kirchner of Manchester, UK. They feature an inspiring man, Shorker Tashek, who grows apple trees by the thousands in a modest garden tucked behind his take-out restaurant, giving the seedlings out to his customers and anyone else he can. Through his trees and his life, Shorker reminds us all that one person can make a difference.

Standing hunched in a sleety drizzle, Shorker Tashek surveys his orchard.

The back garden of Kyae’s Pizza and Curry Take-away in Bury, UK is crammed with yearling apple trees, hundreds of them, maybe thousands. They're gushing from fruit boxes mounded with compost. They're sprouting from milk crates stacked in racks. They're stuffed in plastic pots. They're clustered shivering around our ankles in nooks of soil with no pots at all. A forest of cherries trees, head-high, in rows of rusting tomato puree cans huddle against a shed full of restaurant supplies - fat bundles of onions, stew pots, bright yellow tomato puree cans, sacks of chiliis. A white cat is sitting on a stack of burlap bags. Beyond the brick wall, a bus roars past spewing gravel and exhaust down Tottington Road, but in the rain, the garden smells sweet, cold, and soggy, like compost and cinnamon.

We hunker in the rain looking at the little trees. "I can tell you just the time I started planting," he says. "When my son was born. He is seven. I knew that if we don’t do this, the next generation will not respect us. They will say, 'How can we trust you? You have ruined the planet.'"

Your child's disapproval is strong motivation, surely, so. Tashek, 34, set about matter-of-factly greening the planet. In his native Bangladesh, he worked with volunteer organizations planting mangoes, bananas, and jackfruit to reduce hunger and bolster flood protection. In the UK for five years, he continues.

A giant hoarding above the gardens in brilliant blues and greens encourages passers-by to "Save the Planet. Save Yourself". People come everyday to take trees, he says.

His is the no-frills, no-nonsense "Grow trees. Give trees." approach. Tashek buys fruit-bearing trees, but plants apple seeds simply to produce plantable trees. Then he gives them away. One-by-one they go in little bundles along with the naan and cucumber salad to customers, neighbors, and friends at the take-away.

By the thousands they go to organizations like the Red Rose Forest, neighborhood Green Streets efforts. Elementary school classes replant barren fields with them. Garden centres hand them out at the till. "I grew 2,000 this year. Five thousand all together are in the gardens",
says Tashek.

There’s no knowing how many actually get into the ground, but the huge scale suggests quite a few. When it’s suggested that 5,000 trees is a lot of trees, he says, For one person it is a lot. For a country, it is nothing.

In from the cold, we drink hot chai on teal plastic couches under the take-away menu for pizza and poppadums, and newspaper clippings about Tash’s trees and his recent nomination for the prestigious Unilever Dragonfly Environmental Award.

"What he’s doing is to be commended", says Bury Councillor Dorothy Gunther. "Some of the trees are very small, but, you know, tall oaks from little acorns grow. Everything’s got to start somewhere. "

Saying good-bye and walking to town on that wintery afternoon, the lights are coming on in the houses, and I realize, there are apple trees in the gardens all along Tottington Road.

Story and photo copyright of Liz Kirchner of Manchester, UK.

Posted by at 3:35 PM | Permalink

To say that local foods are being attacked would be too strong a word, but there's definitely a challenge under way. Two recent articles about them in the New York Times suggest that we're heading into a new phase of the local foods revolution, a phase where there'll be more questions about the ramifications of more people eating locally-based diets.

The two Times articles say essentially the same thing in different ways: just because a food is more local doesn't make it more sustainable. The first appeared in the business section and cites new, yet incomplete research being conducted in California that is expected to show that some industrially grown produce may have a smaller carbon footprint than its local counterpart. The second appeared in the opinion pages and was, frankly, more annoying in its smug tone and its choice of examples (bananas and potato chips).

Annoying or not, these articles are hopeful in that they show that local foods are continuing to move toward the center of the media's plate. To read KGI's response, see the letter to the editor linked and pasted below. As you'll see, we have our own view of what's next for the local foods movement (hint: it's about to get "localer").

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/business/16backpage.html

To the Editor:

The writer is founding director of Kitchen Gardeners International, a nonprofit network of home gardeners.

Posted by at 10:56 AM | Permalink

Kitchen Gardeners International (KGI) is pleased to announce that KGI founder, Roger Doiron, has been awarded a Food & Society Policy Fellowship for 2008-2009.

The program provides a two-year annual stipend to professionals in food and agriculture from across North America, enabling them to use mass media channels to inform public viewpoints in alignment with the goals of creating sustainable food systems that promote good health, vibrant communities and environmental stewardship.

Fellows come from many disciplines: chefs, farmers, nutritionists, activists, public health professionals, fishers, policy experts and academics. 13 recipients of this prestigious fellowship were selected from a highly competitive North American group of applicants.

The fellowship program is coordinated by the Thomas Jefferson Agricultural Institute based in Missouri and is funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Fair Food Foundation and Woodcock Foundation.

Posted by at 10:06 AM | Permalink

This recent video by Chef John is officially entitled "pumpkin brulee" but it could have easily been called "how to turn something healthy and pure into something deliciously decadent in 3 easy steps."

Step 1) Add white sugar
Step 2) Add eggs yolks
Step 3) Add heavy cream

It doesn't get much richer than that, but occasional richness in our cuisine helps us to appreciate the simpler, healthy dishes that should make up the bulk of our diets.

Some other "pumpkin puree" ideas you may want to consider:
-Basic, no-frills puree
-Pumpkin nutmeg dinner rolls
-Black bean pumpkin soup

Posted by at 10:32 PM | Permalink