KGI Newsletter: June 2006


KGI Newsletter: June 2006	Contents: Food Preservation: -Euell Gibbons' Dill Crock Cooking: -A pan is a pan is a pan Food system news and commentary: Garden wisdom: -Slideshow: Urban Agriculture in Vancouver -The New Puritans -Arctic "Noah's Ark" vault to protect world's seeds From KGI's bloggers: -"The Omnivore's Dilemma" book review (OR, USA) -Pass the Salt (GA, USA) -Potato Cage (TN, USA) -Beans are twining (TN, USA) -A Garden's Purpose (ID, USA) -The Great Mower Myth (ID, USA) -Why Garden?(ID, USA) -Local Dinner (TN, USA) KGI News: -KGI in the media: Going Global for Local Food -KGI sign contest & campaign -Place yourself on the map -Tuscany 2007 Update Kitchen Gardener Wisdom: -Vita Sackville-West on gardeners Calling All Shutterbugs We've set up a KGI photosharing group at Flickr. If you have digital pictures of yourself, your garden, your dinner or that pesky rodent in your garden who's eating your dinner instead of you, we'd like to see them. Flickr's a free service and offers another way of connecting with each other. Mapping the World of Kitchen Gardens! Our map project continues to grow in size and scope. We've added some new categories to it such "gardening groups", "school gardens", "kitchen garden eateries", "kitchen garden B&Bs", and "community gardens". Please give it a visit and consider adding yourself or a garden-related project or establishment in your area. Italy 2007 Update Thanks to all who have contacted us about our educational trip to Italy next year. We have noted your interest and will get back to you in the course of July with more info about trip costs and dates. Click here if you would like to be added to the mailing list for this event. We're throwing a Global Garden Party! Please celebrate International Kitchen Garden Day with us by organizing an activity in your area. What you do need not be big or complicated. It could be as simple as inviting a few neighbors into your yard for a warm tomato or a cold beer. KGI Book Nook Here are some books worth a look: The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Ed Smith "An abundance of photographs visually bolster the techniques described, while frequent subheads, sidebars and information-packed photo captions make the layout user-friendly. His book is thorough and infused with practical wisdom and a dry Vermont humor that should endear him to readers." -Publishers Weekly Real Food: What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck "Planck is a riveting voice for consumers who want fresh food grown in their own region.”-Cleveland Plain Dealer The Garden-Fresh Vegetable Cookbook by Andrea Chesman "Chesman deftly extracts the pleasures and possibilities that can be gained from eating in the place we live." - Deborah Madison Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan "An essential purchase". -Library Journal Swiss Chard The vegetable’s scientific name is beta vulgaris subspecies cicla with the word cicla referring to Sicily where swiss chard first grew. Its popular name stems from the fact that a Swiss botanist determined the plant’s scientific name. Today, swiss chard is most popular in the Mediterranean. Swiss chard can also be found in northern Europe and South America. Swiss chard is extremely versatile, has a mild sweet yet slightly bitter flavor (similar to beets), and has large green leaves with ribs running throughout. The leaves can be smooth or curly and are attached to fleshy, crunchy white, red or yellow celery-like stalks. Swiss chard is an excellent source of vitamins A and C, and also contains potassium and fiber.
Dear Kitchen Gardener, Meet Maxim and Sebastian, the unofficial poster boys for our new "We Grow Food" sign campaign and, more importantly, my two kitchen gardening sons. I love the graininess of this picture because it harks back to days when color photo processing was still touch and go and when kids grew up with gardens in their lives. While this picture may offer an aesthetic wink to the past, it is all about the future and the type of food we'd like our children and our children's children to be eating. My sons, ages 8 and 6, have been fortunate in that they have always lived in close proximity to the production of food. When my family and I lived in Brussels, Belgium, our boys spent their weekends at their Belgian grandparents' house in the country chasing after chickens and eating impromptu snacks from the garden. Now that we're in the US, Maxim and Sebastian spend their time in our yard chasing after each other (Chickens, you see, aren't allowed in my neighborhood. Large barking dogs, yes. Noisy lawnmowers, of course. Tire-screeching teenage drivers, you betcha. But, please, no chickens...we're a civilized, upwardly mobile community!) and looking for something good to eat. These days, for Maxim, it's strawberries and, for Sebastian, sweet peas. When they're not grazing, they are my first line of defense against potato beetles. I realize that my sons are not your typical American kids, unfortunately. These days, in my town, the average boy knows more about debugging a computer than he does debugging a garden. Here's where you and our sign campaign come in. Recently, members of KGI's advisory board had the clever idea that if kitchen gardens are not as popular with kids as SpongeBob sweetened cereal, maybe it's because we're not advertising them as much and as creatively as we should. One person conjured up the slogan used by Paul Newman for his line of food products: "shameless exploitation in pursuit of the common good." So, here's how the KGI sign campaign works. Anyone sufficiently shameless can participate. All you need to do is create a sign that advertises kitchen gardens, gardening, food self-reliance, etc. in your own special way. You decide on the slogan or jingle. You choose the artwork. If you want to include the web address igrowfood.com or wegrowfood.com as a way of connecting it to the campaign, that would be great, but it's not required. To spice it up a bit, we'll make it into a contest. The makers of the best signs (as judged by the KGI advisory board) will win valuable prizes including: a copy of the famous "Ball Blue Book of Preserving" a Cobrahead Precision Weeder and Cultivator a $40 gift certificate to Johnny's Selected Seeds and 15 minutes of international fame through the KGI website This package may not be as much as Kelloggs pays Spongebob for his advertising services, but you've got to start somewhere. Signs will be judged on the following criteria: Message (5 points): How well does it communicate the message of regular people growing food? Does the sign include the web address igrowfood.com or wegrowfood.com on it as a way of connecting new people with KGI? Creative expression (5 points): How creative is the sign in terms of shape, colors, artwork, etc? Visibility (5 points): Where is the sign located? How big is it? Who and how many people can see it? Has the sign received any local press? Overall effect (5 points): How well do the elements come together to form a harmonious and effective whole? To enter, please send us two photos: one of your sign and one of you standing proudly with your sign. If your sign is in a foreign language, please include an English language translation. Deadline for entries is the end of the day Friday, July 21st. Photos can be sent digitally via e-mail or by regular mail (to Kitchen Gardeners International, 7 Flintlock Drive, Scarborough, ME 04074). Please include your name and where you live. Thanks for having some fun with us via this new project. Remember: where will the next crop of kitchen gardeners come from if we don't plant them ourselves? Happy summer, Reader comments KGI Donation Request: 1 piece of paper, 5 drops of printer ink, and 10 minutes of your time We have updated our flyer. Could we ask you to print it out on your computer and post it in your community where you think gardeners and local food lovers might see it? We've had good luck posting it on public bulletin boards in town halls, natural food stores, and libraries. Thanks! Download the flyer here (Word document, virus-free!) "Health is membership...our sense of wholeness is not just the sense of completeness in ourselves but also is the sense of belonging to others and to our place; it is an unconscious awareness of community, of having in common. " -Wendell Berry, Another Turn of the Crank Together, we can help build a better food system. Please join at the membership level that fits your budget. Support us through a secure, online contribution here. Support us through our print & mail donation form, click here. Thank you. CULINARY QUIZ courtesy of foodreference.com 1) This large vegetable is best eaten when about 18 inches long, although they can grow to twice that size. They are related to the black eyed pea, and are popular in China. Name this vegetable. 2) These fungi are common on plant leaves and in the intestinal tracts of warm blooded animals. They are also found in the soil and in saltwater. Some are also used in food and vegetable production. Name this fungi. 3) The seeds and leaves of these evergreen trees and shrubs contain poisonous alkaloids that stop the heart of an animal so quickly that no symptoms are seen; the animal just drops dead. The flesh of the berries are the least poisonous parts. These trees were sacred to the Druids, and wood from the trees was formerly used to make long bows. Name this tree. 4) Who was Murat Bernard 'Chic' Young, and what is his connection to the Hawaiian Islands, a British politician, gambling, newspapers and a classic American food? 5) Bone and stuff a pig's leg with minced pork, herbs, truffles, and bacon. Cure it and smoke it; then soak it in water for 10 hours, simmer it in water and vinegar for several hours, and serve with lentils. Name this dish and the country of origin. 6) The oil from what edible nut is used in insecticides, brake linings, rubber and plastic manufacturing? 7) A classic British food has one of its earliest mentions in Charles Dickens' 'Tale of Two Cities (1859),' Can you name this food? a) Christmas pudding b) 'chips' c) trifle d) Yorkshire pudding c) Worcestershire sauce 8) What plant root contains a compound that is 50 times sweeter than sugar? 9) 99% of the U.S. blueberry crop comes from one state, and 90% from just one county. Can you name the state, and the county? 10) During the Alaskan Klondike gold rush (1897-1898) what vegetable was so valued for its vitamin C content that miners freely traded gold for it? Click here for the answers to Culinary Quiz
Kitchen Gardeners International is a 501c3 nonprofit founded in Maine, USA with friends from around the world. Our mission is to celebrate home-grown, home-made foods in their many global forms and to promote their role in building a healthier, tastier, more sustainable and secure food system.