Food & Faith

Summertime, and the Livin' is Easy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:37:00 +0000

Updates will be coming soon, we're too busy eating peaches and tomatoes! But, stay tuned.

How Green Is Your Garden?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 13:41:00 +0000

A NYT story highlights a new report that includes proposed guidelines for creating sustainable landscapes, as well as diverse examples of successful restoration projects.

Victory for Gardeners

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:26:00 +0000

This exchange from “Being There,” in which Peters Sellers plays Chance the Gardener, reminds me a lot of what you hear of CNBC these days:

President "Bobby": Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives? [Long pause] Chance the Gardener: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden. President "Bobby": In the garden. Chance the Gardener: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again. President "Bobby": Spring and summer. Chance the Gardener: Yes. President "Bobby": Then fall and winter. Chance the Gardener: Yes. Benjamin Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we're upset by the seasons of our economy. Chance the Gardener: Yes! There will be growth in the spring! Benjamin Rand: Hmm! Chance the Gardener: Hmm! President "Bobby": Hmm. Well, Mr. Gardner, I must admit that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I've heard in a very, very long time. [Benjamin Rand applauds] President "Bobby": I admire your good, solid sense. That's precisely what we lack on Capitol Hill.

On the White House South Lawn, on today, the first day of spring, Michelle Obama and a bunch of fifth-graders broke ground for a vegetable garden. This story on the front page of today’s New York Times gave me hope.

After the debacle that was the 2000 Presidential Election Re-Count, I became completely disenchanted with national politics. In the intervening years, a great many of our worst fears have, indeed, come true. President Al Gore would have started us on a path towards greatly needed environmental and agricultural reform, but it was not to be. I believe that it was at that time that many individuals did the same thing that I did. They started asking themselves “Despite what’s happened at the national level, what actions can I take at a personal level that may begin to make some small difference in continuing on the right path?” The concerns I’d heard Alice Waters, among others, voice about the importance of local food began to resonate. I’ve made small efforts since then to learn about, promote when I can, and get involved in local food issues. It kept me sane through two terms of GWB, and today, well-- I never thought the day would come that the South Lawn would be dug up to plant an organic vegetable garden! Let’s just call it the “Non-Toxic Assets Relief Program.” I think it's reason to hope because it's a sign that other efforts that started at the grassroots will soon come to the national stage after such a long wait. As Chance might say, "The garden will weather all types of hardship, but it will eventually produce!" Even after 8 years...

Let's keep the momentum going, because now that we've got their attention, we can do even more. I want to challenge each of you to grow something edible at your own house. Pot or plot, it doesn’t matter. Experience the joy of growing something (particularly since it doesn’t look as if our investments are going to be doing that anytime soon), and marvel at the wonder and sense of accomplishment you’ll feel. Just don’t sever the roots.

Here’s a great planner to get you started. And here's further inspiration from the past.

New Day, New Food Policy?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:57:00 +0000

This article raises a lot of issues I've been thinking about lately with regard to local food. Will President Obama bring a new emphasis to food policy issues? I'm not too impressed with his appointment of Tom Wilsack as Secretary of Agriculture, but will he take the advice of Michael Pollan and others and advocate moving nutritional programs out of the Agriculture Department? It's not too early to start thinking about the next Farm Bill! As the economy declines, food sovereignty becomes an even more crucial need.

Blast You, Jack Frost!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:17:00 +0000

I love "homegrown tomatoes," and it makes me sad to see my beautiful plants blackened, struck by Jack Frost, after the magnificent job they did during the past growing season. The onset of cold weather also put me in mind of the whereabouts of "Ann," the elderly homeless woman wandering through my neighborhood who picked two luciously ripe tomatoes out of my front yard a couple of months ago. She came back a week later. When I confronted her, she at first denied taking my tomatoes, and asked if she could sit and rest on my front steps. I told her she could and offered her a glass of water. (It was a very hot day, that.) When I came back with the water (and a fresh, local peach), she confessed that she had indeed taken the tomatoes, having given into temptation (who said Eve ate an apple?!) She then launched into a rapturous description of how much she had enjoyed them. One she had bitten into before she got halfway down the street, with the sweet juice running down her chin; the other she took to a friend's house and made into a tomato sandwich! I was so taken by our shared appreciation of tomatoes that we sat and talked for about a half-hour. She said her name was Ann, and she answered my questions about her experience of being homeless, and I answered hers about how I prepared the soil in the garden for the tomatoes. Before she left (and I gave her the tomato she had been eyeing in the first place) I asked that the next time she wanted a tomato from my garden, to ring the doorbell, and just ask. She smiled, gave me a hug, and said "It's a deal!" I left for vacation the next day, and when I got home, I still had loads of to matoes in the garden, but I haven't seen "Ann" since! Now the tomato plants are gone, too, and I'm wondering if Ann is staying warm, and whether I'd see her late evenings at the Bojangle's dumpster, since gleaning in the neighborhood is pretty sparse these days.

CoolGlobes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:02:00 +0000

CoolGlobes is, indeed, a cool project designed to raise awareness about climate change by having artists from all walks of life design globes. (Remember the Palmetto Tree project here in Columbia a few years ago?) My vote goes for the "Plant It!" globe pictured at left. The description from the website:
Get in touch with the earth by growing fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Instead of buying produce that has been packaged and shipped, enjoy homegrown fruits and vegetables–fresh from the garden to the table. Even those without a backyard can green their neighborhood by working in a community garden.

More than 2,000 colorful seed packets envelop this globe as it rises like a flower from a terracotta style pot filled with live plants. Gardens absorb carbon dioxide, reduce the amount of energy from the sun that is retained by paved surfaces, and slow rainwater flow into storm-water sewer systems. They also help people actively tend the earth and tune in to its changes. The artist demonstrates that planting a garden need not be a huge endeavor. Even a small pot or container garden can make an impact.

Time for Fall Gardening

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:54:00 +0000

Last winter, in attempts to eat more seasonally and locally, I probably ate more greens than I had in a long time, so I'm looking forward this year to "growing my own." Get inspired with this article "Toss a Fall Salad Mix in Your Garden." If you're not up for getting your hands dirty, be thankful that the local farmer's market movement is starting to take off in South Carolina, with the Charleston Farmer's Market recently named fifth in the nation, beating out San Francisco's!

Tomato Sandwich Spirituality

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:18:00 +0000

Dozens of tomatoes later, we're back, after a summer hiatus. The Food & Faith group kicked things off this past Tuesday with another delectable potluck, which was, in part, a veritable demonstration of ways to enjoy the last of the summer tomatoes. Some of us were lucky enough to continue to feast on them with last night's wonderful meal at Trinity, which featured local produce. Stewed tomatoes and okra over rice, two nights in a row, yum! Of course, all this talk of tomatoes is leading somewhere, and, as you can see at this link, it even makes a great sermon topic. I'm looking forward to many more "tomato sandwich" moments in the coming weeks, long after the tomatoes are gone.

Farm Bill: "Half a Loaf" Better Than None

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:57:00 +0000

The Farm Bill is in the final stretch, as the House is poised to vote on a compromise bill that President Bush threatens to veto. Now is the time to contact your House member and urge them to vote "yes" to assure that any veto can be overridden. While certainly not perfect, the bill contains a number of measures to improve nutritional and conservation programs, as well as to support small-scale, sustainable farming. What is most encouraging is the unprecedented interest that ordinary citizens have taken in this important piece of legislation that until recently had been largely ignored. Efforts to reform our industrialized, globalized food system must continue, as David Beckmann of Bread for the World points out:

"Our stand on the 2008 Farm Bill comes from a Biblical imperative that calls for a 'harvest of righteousness' (James 3:18). We will keep on working to reform the farm bill until it truly serves the needs of poor farm and rural families and all people around the world who struggle to feed themselves and their children."

Tomatoes for Pentecost

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:15:00 +0000

Today is Ascension Day on the Christian church calendar, the day the resurrected Jesus "ascended" into heaven, portending the coming of the Holy Spirit during Pentecost, 10 days later. On the early Celtic calendar, May 1 is celebrated as Beltane, the midpoint between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice, when bonfires were lit and petitions were made for a fertile growing season. The days leading up to Ascension Day, or Rogation Days, were times during which parishioners were "to ask" (rogare) God for blessings on the land to assure the fertility of the soil and to bring in a good crop. Two good sermons from this past Sunday, Rogation Sunday, can be found here and here.

As a gardener, I find this time of year to be one of the most exhilarating, as well as the most angst-ridden, times to be in the garden. Exhilarating because I've finished preparing the soil as best I can, and planting; in essence, I've done my part. The rest is largely up to what I think of as "God's gardening"--adequate rainfall, temperate weather, bees and all the other natural wonders of creation that are essential to giving us good things to eat. It's an anxiety-provoking time for humans, because in today's world, when so much emphasis is placed on controlling outcomes, gardening constantly reminds us that once the tiny plant is put into the soil, there is absolutely nothing a human can do to make that tomato plant produce fruit on a schedule that suits us. It's all in God's time. "I am the vine, you are the branches." Jesus could just have well have been talking about a tomato plant! Pentecost is May 11. All of you Greek scholars know that the word means “fiftieth day,” and all of you tomato growers know that fifty days is how long it takes an “Early Girl” to reach maturity. So, if you planted your tomatoes on Good Friday, you could possibly have tomatoes by Pentecost, although they may not be a proper liturgical red by then. On a beautiful day like today, I look at those vines and branches in my garden and realize that whatever is stirring inside of that plant that turns those tiny yellow blooms into ripe, red tomatoes must be something akin to the Holy Spirit. It's a great mystery, it's totally out of human control, and it yields most excellent results if we all live with patience and hope and anticipation!

Food v. Fuel

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:17:00 +0000

Notable quotes here, here, and the last word to Mr. Colbert!

Load Up the Pantry?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:38:00 +0000

"I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food...." It's the most popular story in today's Wall Street Journal. Even the Columbia State took note that food rationing has arrived at the nearest Sam's Club. What strange, familiar emotion is that in my gut that makes me want to run out and drag home a 25-pound bag of rice, and hide it at the back of the closet?

Walter Brueggmann knows:

"We who are now the richest nation are today's main coveters. We never feel that we have enough; we have to have more and more, and this insatiable desire destroys us. Whether we are liberal or conservative Christians, we must confess that the central problem of our lives is that we are torn apart by the conflict between our attraction to the good news of God's abundance and the power of our belief in scarcity—a belief that makes us greedy, mean, and unneighborly. We spend our lives trying to sort out that ambiguity. . . .We can live according to an ethic whereby we are not driven, controlled, anxious, frantic, or greedy, precisely because we are sufficiently at home and at peace to care about others as we have been cared for."
Whew! I feel better already! Read all of "The Liturgy of Abundance, the Myth of Scarcity," here. And if you still feel scared, come on over and we'll cook up a big pot of rice to share, and talk about it.

Let Food be Your Medicine

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:12:00 +0000

Hippocrates said it long ago, but young doctors like Michelle Hauser are not only prescribing healthy food for their patients, but helping them learn how to prepare it. A recent NPR story tells of the collaboration of Harvard Medical School with the Culinary Institute to sponsor the "Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives" conference. The accompanying guide to “Eating Healthy on a Budget” is available for download here and has lots of tasty recipes to create memorable meals for four at under $20.

How to Think About Food Riots

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:52:00 +0000

A number of you have e-mailed me stories about the growing incidence of food riots across the globe, which interestingly enough hasn't made the "local news" so far, although the New York Times has been running a series of articles about it. If you've been tracking these stories, you'll be interested in this post by Raj Patel on his blog "Stuffed and Starved," as well as the comments offered. Clearly, more policies are needed to encourage local farming, rather than the continuing globalization and corporatization of food production and trade. Patel's post points out the futility of grassroots action in countries where financial institutions such as the World Bank do little to encourage democracy in exchange for loans.

Why Bother?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:30:00 +0000

Michael Pollan does it again:

Tell me: How did it come to pass that virtue — a quality that for most of history has generally been deemed, well, a virtue — became a mark of liberal softheadedness? How peculiar, that doing the right thing by the environment —buying the hybrid, eating like a locavore — should now set you up for the Ed Begley Jr. treatment.... So do you still want to talk about planting gardens? I do.Whatever we can do as individuals to change the way we live at this suddenly very late date does seem utterly inadequate to the challenge. It’s hard to argue with Michael Specter, in a recent New Yorker piece on carbon footprints, when he says: “Personal choices, no matter how virtuous [N.B.!], cannot do enough. It will also take laws and money.” So it will. Yet it is no less accurate or hardheaded to say that laws and money cannot do enough, either; that it will also take profound changes in the way we live. Why? Because the climate-change crisis is at its very bottom a crisis of lifestyle — of character, even. The Big Problem is nothing more or less than the sum total of countless little everyday choices, most of them made by us (consumer spending represents 70 percent of our economy), and most of the rest of them made in the name of our needs and desires and preferences.

Our Country, the Planet

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:49:00 +0000

Happy Earth Day!

"Viewed from the distance of the moon, the astonishing thing about the earth, catching the breath, is that it is alive. The photographs show the dry, pounded surface of the moon in the foreground, dead as an old bone. Aloft, floating free beneath the moist, gleaming membrane of bright blue sky is the rising earth, the only exuberant thing in this part of the cosmos. If you could look long enough, you would see the swirling of the great drifts of white cloud, covering and uncovering the half-hidden masses of land. If you had been looking a very long, geologic time, you would have seen the continents themselves in motion, drifting apart on their crustal plates, held aloft by the fire beneath. It has the organized, self-contained look of a live creature, full of information, marvelously skilled in handling the sun." –Lewis Thomas

“Is this the way you repay the LORD, O foolish and unwise people? Is he not your father, your Creator, who made you and formed you?” Deuteronomy 32:6

Mud: It's What's for Dinner in Haiti

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:11:00 +0000

“Griot" is a traditional Haitian dish consisting of well-seasoned chunks of pork usually served with fried plantains, a lettuce and tomato salad, and pickles. Today's special in Haiti, though, appallingly enough, is mudpies. “It’s salty and it has butter and you don’t know you’re eating dirt,” said Olwich Louis Jeune, 24, who has taken to eating them more often in recent months. “It makes your stomach quiet down.” At last, the Haitian food crisis makes the front page of the NYT . Indeed, as it roils developing nations, the spike in commodity prices — the biggest since the Nixon administration — has pitted the globe’s poorer south against the relatively wealthy north, adding to demands for reform of rich nations’ farm and environmental policies. But experts say there are few quick fixes to a crisis tied to so many factors, from strong demand for food from emerging economies like China’s to rising oil prices to the diversion of food resources to make biofuels.
Another clue to the crisis lies in this excerpt from a past report on Haiti from the U.S. Institute for Peace:
In 2002, only four percent of the population controlled 66 percent of the country's assets. Meanwhile, a series of ruinous agricultural trade policies destroyed Haiti's previously successful small farmers, a sector that had produced exports of rice, pork, and chicken. Haiti became a net importer of agricultural products with growing food insecurity and malnutrition for the majority of its people.
You can lend a hand here, here or here .

Students One Step Closer to Healthier Meals

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:46:00 +0000

This week the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee approved the “South Carolina Farm to School Program Act.”H. 4833 by Representatives Dan Cooper (R-Anderson), Laurie Slade Funderburk (D-Kershaw) and others will foster relationships between SC farms and schools in order to provide schools with fresh and minimally processed foods in their school meals. The bill will also help develop healthy eating habits, improve farmers’ incomes and direct access to markets, and to provide students with hands on learning opportunities. Track the progress of this legislation at the website of the Coastal Conservation League . Let your state senator know of your interest. Senators Lourie and Knotts are local legislators who serve on the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.

Browsing in the Bookstore Aisle

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 01:46:00 +0000

I was surprised to find that there are currently 104 titles in the "sustainable cooking" aisle of Powell's Books online. Find one that strikes your fancy and ask The Happy Bookseller to order it for you if they don't have it in stock, or check it out from the local library.

Monsanto's Harvest of Fear

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:21:00 +0000

Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination. Read the entire article here in Vanity Fair magazine's May "Green" issue.

Good News About Rising Food Prices

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 20:38:00 +0000

Food gurus Michael Pollan and Alice Waters are optimistic that rising food prices may have a beneficial effect on Americans' dietary habits by discouraging purchases of processed foods and soft drinks that rely on corn as a leading ingredient. The article in today's New York Times points out that fresh fruit and vegetable prices are remaining relatively stable. Who needs a Coke and corn chips, when you can indulge in a nice, cold smoothie made with fresh, locally grown strawberries?

Victory Garden Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:18:00 +0000

Pattie Baker, publisher of FoodShed Planet announces the FoodShed Planet Victory Garden Drive, with a goal of inspiring the creation of two million new organic gardens worldwide in 2008. Backyard gardens, windowsill gardens, community gardens, school gardens. They all count.“The day after 9/11/01, I walked aimlessly around my local Publix wondering if our food supply would be hit by terrorists,” Baker explained. “I thought for sure it wouldn't be long before our government asked us to plant Victory Gardens in order to increase food security, just as two million Americans and people throughout Europe planted Victory Gardens (called other things in various countries) during WWI and WWII. But it never happened. And so I walked out in my yard, and I planted a seed. That seed today has grown to a respectable year-round kitchen garden that frankly has changed my life by giving me a tiny bit of control in a world filled with turmoil. My garden allows me to vote with my fork, and eat as close to home as physically possible. The FoodShed Planet Victory Garden Drive is an easy way to start gardening. Simply go to http://www.victorygardendrive.blogspot.com/ and add your name after you plant your first seed. It’s as simple as that. It costs nothing. You don’t need to provide photos or updates. Just toss your gardening hat in the ring and join hands and hoes with other concerned citizens around the world who are taking this positive step as well.

This Little Piggy Went to Market

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 23:18:00 +0000

After Tuesday night's discussion about meat and farm animals, this story in today's NYT caught my eye:

JBS S.A., the world’s biggest beef producer, agreed on Tuesday to pay $1.27 billion in cash and stock for assets in the United States and Australia, including the beef unit of the pork producer Smithfield Foods. The transactions would make JBS, based in São Paulo, Brazil, the largest American beef processor...

Smithfield. A Proustian moment--the taste of delectable, salty ham. As a small child, one of the delights of the trip with my grandmother to visit her sister in Hampton Roads was a stopover in the village of Smithfield, Virginia, to buy an "authentic" Smithfield ham (defined in Virginia law in 1926). Today, Southern cooking maven Paula Deen is to Smithfield hams what Jimmy Dean is to sausage! The Smithfield Corporation counts on people retaining pleasant associations like these about their company, but as the Yogi said "Nostalgia ain't what it used to be."

In reality, as the news story suggests, Smithfield Foods is the largest vertically integrated pork producer in the United States, and has branched out into other livestock operations, including beef. When you get big, you end up with big profits and big problems to go with them: concerns over pollution, animal welfare, and union-busting, to name just a few.

The corporation is still headquartered in tiny Smithfield, but its former chairman and CEO, Joseph W. Luter III, is at home in his Park Avenue apartment and in Aspen, Colorado. Mr. Luter (who comes across sounding a little like Lionel Barrymore's "Mr. Potter" from “It’s a Wonderful Life,”) is an avid proponent of the “get big, or get out” philosophy of farming:

''The bottom line is the small farmers have been disappearing for 100 years,'' Mr. Luter said. ''If you want to protect the small farmer, you are going to do it on the back of the American consumer.''
Well, Mr. Luter, we consumers have one name for that—it’s called “piggy-back” and lots of children and their parents seem to enjoy it quite a bit—just as they enjoy eating pork and beef raised by small farmers in their local communities. We just hope the small farmer will not vanish anytime soon, because lots of us have lost our taste for factory-farmed meat and the problems that accompany it. For more details on the Smithfield sale of its beef unit, read Tom Philpott's post on the Grist website.

Eat Local, Eat Well

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:39:00 +0000

I am grateful to have a neighbor who leaves things like magazines and flowers inside my front door! This morning, there were two back issues of Food & Wine. One featured an article "How to Eat Like a Locavore," the other "What Does Eating Well Really Mean?.” (And for you “Doubting Thomases” from last week, check out Nina Planck’s take on lard in this article.) Lots of familiar names here, and some of the same themes we’ve been discussing these past few weeks. By the way, “locavore” was “2007 Word of the Year."

Sweet Tooth

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:49:00 +0000

Imagine a sweetener that’s all-natural, almost 300 times sweeter than sugar, has no calories and does not cause a spike in blood sugar. Next, imagine why hardly anyone has heard of it. Could it possibly have anything to do with money? Stevia sounds worth giving a try, and here are some recipes to get started. Thanks to EMc for the tip!