ontheroadtogreenness

Saturday Short Subjects: Solar Storm = Eye Candy in the Extreme

2012-02-11T12:13:00.001-05:00

Early on January 24th, NASA issued this press release: “The coronal mass ejection CME collided with Earth's magnetic field a little after 10 AM ET on January 24, 2012. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center has categorized the resulting storm as ‘strong’ — or S3 (with S5 being the highest) — storm. Solar radiation storms can affect satellite operations and short wave radio propagation, but cannot harm humans on Earth. Auroras may well be visible tonight at higher latitudes such as Michigan and Maine in the U.S., and perhaps even lower.” NASA was able to capture the flare: a short video follows the press release.

As a precaution, Delta and American airlines rerouted planes that normally flew over the North Pole for 24 hours fearing that communications could be disrupted. In Scandinavia, optimistic photographers got ready to record the show, and they were not disappointed. Just search for Northern Lights 2012 on YouTube or Vimeo and you will see what I mean.

Thanks to a tweet from @grist I was alerted to perhaps the best of the best of these videos — “Aurora 2012,” by Christian Mülhauser, posted by Grist List editor Jess Zimmerman on February 7.

The film was shot in Norway on January 24 at the height of the storm.

Aurora 2012 from Christian Mülhauser on Vimeo.

Check out the NASA site for more information on solar storms and some fantastic still images. Be sure to visit the NASA Solar Storm FAQ page for clear, concise answers to many questions, including: “Is the world going to end in 2012?” [The answer to this one is a click away.] Warning: If you are at all interested in astronomy you could spend a lot of time at this site.

Have a great weekend.

Why Saturday Short Subjects? Some readers may recall being dropped at the movie theater for the Saturday matinee — two action-packed feature films with a series of short subjects (cartoons or short movies, sometimes a serial cliffhanger) sandwiched in between. Often the short subjects were the most memorable, and enjoyable, part of the morning. That explains the name. The reason behind these particular posts is that we are all short on time. My Short Subject posts should not take me as long to write or you as long to read (or try).

Meatless Monday: The Wonderful Arctic Char

2012-02-06T10:37:00.000-05:00

Fish? On Meatless Monday? I know some of you at least may consider meat without feet not meat. And many others of you are flexitarians. All I promise on Monday is a post on food or a food issue. This post covers both, so here goes.

In October I wrote about attending a talk by Paul Greenberg, author of Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food. Greenberg proposes that there are better, more sustainable choices to fill the need for each of the fish he follows in his book — salmon, sea bass, cod, and tuna. His choice for salmon is the arctic char. He writes, “The arctic char is from the same taxonomic family as salmon, has pretty good feed conversion ratios, rich flesh, and most interestingly of all, because it frequently finds itself crammed into close quarters when its natural arctic lakes freeze, it has high disease resistance and takes extremely well to high stocking densities—densities that are necessary to make out-of-ocean aquaculture operations profitable. And this is exactly what’s happening with char. Most are grown in re-circulating, above ground tanks in Iceland and Canada.”

A couple of weekends ago I spotted a small package of Arctic Char, “farmed in Iceland” in my store’s frozen food section. The footprint seemed a little large, but I knew Monterey Bay Aquarium had listed Arctic Char as a Best Choice in its newest Seafood Watch© guides, and any fish I choose to eat has to travel from somewhere. I brought some home. I wasn’t quite sure how to cook it, but I knew I’d be able to find out more online. Icelandic USA did not disappoint. Here is a link to an entire page of Arctic Char recipes. And here is a page with species and nutrition information.

While many Super Bowl viewers were chowing down on wings, we were dining on Roasted Provencal Arctic Char served over orzo [instead of polenta]. The ingredients were not difficult to assemble, the recipe called for the fish to be cooked from frozen with skin on making things incredibly easy, and the directions were totally accurate. Seventeen minutes after I put this dish into my oven in a cast iron skillet, we had a delicious feast. The char flaked like salmon. The flesh was slightly milder in taste and peeled away easily from the skin. It took so little effort for such a wonderful meal that I’ll be keeping a package or two of Arctic Char in my freezer from now on.

Roasted Provencal Arctic Char

Now that I've had such great success with Arctic Char, I’m keeping my eye out for Barramundi, Greenberg’s sustainable sea bass alternative and also a Seafood Watch© Best Choice when farmed in the US in fully recirculating systems. It’s being raised not far from here in Turner’s Falls, Massachusetts. Stay tuned…

Have a great week. “See” you next Monday.

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Saturday Short Subjects: If a Tree Falls…

2012-02-04T13:41:00.002-05:00

With the Academy Awards coming up on February 26, the films nominated for best picture and best actor are filling big screens across the country. While the contenders for best documentary are more difficult to find in theaters, what you may not know is that two of them are available at Netflix for viewing online. I have not seen Hell and Back Again, but I have watched If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, and I’m very glad I did.

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front is the unbiased examination of the case against members of one cell of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) for crimes of arson in the Western part of the US in the 1990s. The film focusses in particular on former environmental activist Daniel McGowan, his evolution from nonviolent protestor to arsonist, and how he came to be convicted and jailed as a domestic terrorist. The film alternates between the point of view of the prosecutors and that of the subjects of the government’s round-up, with the tale of McGowan at its heart. Filmmakers Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman interweave archival footage, interviews with both ELF members and the government lead prosecutor and the lead detective, and intimate scenes of Daniel McGowan and his family as they await the outcome of his trial and sentencing.

Whatever your point of view on ELF when you start to watch this film, I suspect you will come to realize that the players in this particular story can not be judged strictly in black and white. You may find yourself struggling to define the word “terrorist.” The closing lines from the case’s lead prosecutor say it all.

You don’t have to take my word for it. You can read what others have written here, here, and here.

Don’t miss this film.

Meatless Monday: Slow Food Arrives in New Haven

2012-01-30T11:15:00.000-05:00

Slow Food International is a global grassroots organization founded to “counter the rise of fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.” Its origins can be traced back to a protest in response to the arrival of McDonald’s near Rome’s Spanish Steps in 1986. Today there are over 100,000 members in 1300 local chapters. One of the newest is right here in the New Haven area — Slow Food Shoreline, founded in the late summer of 2011.

The chapter’s board has been very busy over the past few months, making their presence known up and down the Connecticut shoreline. The board members were the invited guests at New Haven Green Drinks on January 18. Chapter chair Michael Cook presented a summary of the group’s history and goals with his talk: “What is the Opposite of Fast Food?” In New Haven, everyone is connected. Chris Randall, executive director of the New Haven Land Trust, was in attendance, camera in hand. You can see his photos from the evening here.

The next scheduled event is Slow Food Shoreline’s first monthly Food Swap, this coming Saturday, February 4th at Woodland Coffee. What is a food swap? According to information on the group’s website, “A Slow Food Swap is part silent auction/part village marketplace/part fun-loving open house where your homemade, homegrown, and foraged creations become your own personal currency for use in swapping with other participants.” Read more about it here.

What else is on the calendar? On February 11, Slow Food Shoreline will be tabling at the opening of “Big Food: Health, Culture and the Evolution of Eating,” a hands-on exhibition at Yale’s Peabody Museum. And, Slow Food Happy Hour returns at New Haven’s Soul de Cuba on Monday, February 13 from 5- 7 pm.

On December 11, I attended my first event as a chapter member — an Art Tour at the Yale University Art Gallery, led by board member Vanessa Lamers who is also a graduate student at Yale and a Wurtele Gallery Teacher at the museum. Our guide took us on a tour of food-themed pieces in the gallery’s collection — from an Assyrian tablet dating from 900 BC to a modern-day sculpture by the artist Marisol. At each piece, after listening to a short description of the artwork and its historical context, we were asked a couple of questions to guide us in our thinking. Why did the man in the Assyrian tablet have wings? Was he plucking dates or watering them? Why are there oranges on the floor in Manet’s painting of the woman reclining in Spanish costume? What was Marisol trying to tell us in her self-portrait “Dinner Date,” where the meal before her is a TV dinner? [A particularly interesting question for s Slow Food group to consider.] This afternoon of guided reflection was a welcome break in the busyness of the holiday season and a good way to meet chapter members.

The group contemplates “Dinner Date”

Such study has been proven to increase one’s observational skills. In fact, we in the Slow Food group were being guided in our observation of works of art in much the same way new medical students are taught to observe. All first-year students at the Yale School of Medicine are required to spend time looking at paintings in a visual tutorial which has been a part of the school’s curriculum since 1999. According to a 2009 article in Yale News, Dr. Irwin Braverman had been trying to find a way to increase observational skills of medical students. Linda Friedlaender, a curator at the Yale Center for British Art, was frustrated by the misdiagnosis of her close friend’s illness. A chance meeting brought the two together, and the class was born. The program was proven so successful that by the time the article was written, a decade later, over 20 medical schools were including a similar program in their curriculums.

Have a great week. I hope to see some of you locals at one of the next Slow Food events in and around New Haven. I’ll “see” the rest of you back here next Monday.

Saturday Short Subjects: Zone Change

2012-01-28T09:01:00.002-05:00

On Wednesday, January 25, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a new version of the Plant Hardiness Zone Map, the agency’s first update to the map since 1990. This useful tool for gardeners, farmers, foresters, nurseries, and data lovers, was jointly developed by USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Oregon State University's (OSU) PRISM Climate Group.

The new version of the map includes 13 zones, with the addition for the first time of zones 12 (50-60 degrees F) and 13 (60-70 degrees F). Each zone is a 10-degree Fahrenheit band, further divided into A and B 5-degree Fahrenheit zones. According to the official USDA press release: “Plant hardiness zones do not reflect the coldest it has ever been or ever will be at a specific location, but simply the average lowest winter temperature for the location over a specified time. Low temperature during the winter is a crucial factor in the survival of plants at specific locations.”

It should be no surprise that the map indicates that the US is a warmer place than it was two decades ago. The USDA press release also states, “The new map uses data measured at weather stations during the 30-year period 1976-2005 and is generally one 5-degree Fahrenheit half-zone warmer than the previous map throughout much of the United States.”

Many in the horticultural world feel that this map is long overdue. In 2003, according to an article in Mother Jones, the American Horticultural Society released a draft version of a new map based on data from 1986 to 2002, which showed dramatic movement of the zones northward. The USDA pulled this map from circulation, promising to release a new map in 2005.

The Arbor Day Foundation, a nonprofit organization with over one million members dedicated to planting trees, grew tired of waiting. The group released its own map in 2006, “in response to requests for up-to-date information.” You can view that map here. Be sure to check out the animation showing you the shift in zones from 1990 to 2006. FYI, in the 1990 map, I was in Zone 6.

Back to the new USDA map. It may have been a long time coming, but the map is extraordinarily rich in data and easy to use.

The new map is more detailed geographically and takes into account such features as hills and valleys. It has an interactive feature. You can enter your zip code to find the information for your particular microclimate. Those in the East Bay Area might even find that your town is in a cool zone nestled between two slightly warmer ones. I now live in Hardiness Zone 7a, with average annual extreme minimum temperature of 0 to 5°F.

I’ve told you mine. Do you know your zone? Check it out here. Your new plants will thank you.

Meatless Monday: Market Find of the Week…The Watermelon Radish

2012-01-23T11:27:00.000-05:00

My “market find of the week” may not look like much from the outside, but if you cut one open, its inner beauty will be revealed.

I found this very large radish in the organic section of the Elm City Market, where it was being sold as a Watermelon Radish (Raphanus sativus).

Originally grown in China, it is also known as “Roseheart Radish,” “Chinese Red Meat Radish,” or “Beauty Heart Radish.” The pale pink to green to cream roots of Raphanus sativus are round and grow to a diameter of 4”. Its interior is bright magenta and looks much like the inside of a watermelon in color and texture. While by no means as sweet as the fruit for which it is named, this radish is not as “hot” as the more familiar red summer radishes. It has a milder taste with just the tiniest bit of a kick.

Watermelon radish is a winter vegetable. It requires cold growing conditions and does best when planted in the fall. The Chinese have long believed that this root has medicinal properties. The watermelon radish, while very low in calories, is a nutritional powerhouse, rich in antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals.

This colorful, crispy treat makes a great garnish for a winter salad. And, unlike a tomato, it is now in season. I have read that watermelon radishes make a good addition to a stir-fry, but I suggest you try them raw first. No cooking is necessary to enjoy this gorgeous and tasty “market find.” A watermelon radish can really brighten up a dreary winter day.

Have a great week. “See” you next Monday.

Saturday Short Subjects: Introducing Seafood Watch

2012-01-21T15:00:00.000-05:00

“There are only so many fish in the sea … Millions of animals are wasted each year … Your choices matter.” This sums up the message of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program.

The mission of the program is twofold:

To raise consumer awareness of these issues and
To get savvy consumers to “step up to the plate,” by making choices that are good for them and the oceans.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program has compiled a series of guides recommending which seafood items are “Best Choices” or “Good Alternatives,” and which ones you should “Avoid.” According to information on the Monterey Bay Aquarium website, these recommendations are “science-based, peer reviewed, and use ecosystem-based criteria.”

The guides are continually updated. The newest versions were released just last week.

Regional Pocket Guides are available online for downloading here.

The guides are also available as mobile apps for your Android or your iPhone. The mobile versions include the Project Fish Map, a database of locations where “Best Choices” and “Good Alternatives” can be found. With this app you can help Seafood Watch “put ocean-friendly seafood on the map!”

There are even tools for chefs:

A Buyer’s Guide and
A Culinary Chart of Alternatives

You can read more about Seafood Watch here and more about the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California here.

Please step up. Together we can make a difference.

Meatless Monday: Every Cork Has a Story

2012-01-15T19:50:00.000-05:00

Those of you who visited over the weekend saw my Saturday Short on Corky (at right). And I promised that if you returned today you would learn a great deal about wine corks, where they come from, and why their existence is endangered. This may not be a typical Meatless Monday post, but it does concern a beverage, how it is bottled, and the far-reaching ramifications of the choices the wine industry has been making over the years. For all these reasons I think this brief tale of cork has value to readers concerned about food, health, and the welfare of the planet.

All the corks in our trivet were natural corks made from the bark of the cork oak tree (Quercus suber) which grows in a horizontal band running across Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, and Northern Africa. Cork oak trees can live to be 150-250 years old, and their bark can be harvested every 9-12 years without any damage to the tree. From the 17th century until quite recently natural cork was the material of choice for sealing wine bottles.

In the last few decades, however, synthetic corks and other bottle closures have been capturing part of the market share, partially in response to a phenomenon known as “cork taint.” This has caused a huge controversy among oenophiles. Information posted at the UCDavis site in 2001 estimated that 2-7% of all wine sealed with natural cork falls victim to “cork taint,” caused by TCA, a fungus-produced compound, that grows in cork fiber. While this article advocated continued use of natural corks and called for finding ways to reduce the defective rate of natural corks, others in the industry have chosen to embrace synthetic corks as a means for eliminating this problem. Synthetic corks are also considerably less expensive than natural cork and provide a vehicle for branding a product with a bit of bright pop on the top of the bottle. They do, however, have their own set of cons as this article clearly outlines. New Zealand vintners have taken even more extreme measures, advocating the use of screwcaps as an alternative to any type of cork, a solution with pitfalls of its own.

A 1999 paper written by a scientist with the National Forest Research Station in Oeiras, Portugal estimated that some 60% of the current cork harvest went to the making of corks for bottling wine and spelled out the danger if the demand for natural cork should fall. The conservation group Fauna & Flora International currently makes the claim that the demand for cork HAS decreased, and speaks of the trend among farmers to cut down the cork trees and to replace them with a more profitable source of income such as citrus trees. The choice of “natural” or “synthetic” clearly has an impact on far more than the taste of the wine inside the bottle. Fauna & Flora International is working with organizations and landowners in Spain and Portugal to secure and manage a belt of land that includes cork oak forest, which is home of the Iberian lynx.

By now I hope you have come to appreciate the cork at the end of your wine bottle. If you don’t plan to make trivets, there is another way you can recycle your popped corks to a good use.

You may have noticed Cork ReHarvest collection bins at your local Whole Foods Store or a number of other locations around the country. Cork ReHarvest is a collection and recycling program started in 2008 by the Cork Forest Conservation Alliance. The conservation group has two goals:

To educate the public about the ecological importance of the Mediterranean cork forest and its role as provider of a vital source of income for family farmers who have worked the forests for generations.

and

To collect as many as possible of the 13 billion corks used each year before they reach the landfills, and to up-cycle these used corks, without increasing their carbon footprints. The recycled corks cannot be used for wine closures, but they do get turned into a variety of useful products which vary depending on the part of the country in which they are collected. In Nebraska, RecycledFish, a nonprofit association of anglers, is developing cork bobbers. In Missouri, Yemm and Hart is using the cork in floor tiles. You can read more here.

So, you see, every cork has a once and future story. Please think about that when you pop the cork on your next bottle of wine.

I often blog on food or food-related topics on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Saturday Short Subjects: Meet Corky

2012-01-14T16:30:00.001-05:00

Corky (below) is the partially homemade, thus partially Made in the USA, wine cork trivet we gave to our son and his fiancée this past Christmas.

"Corky" required 40 corks.

After seeing such a trivet for sale online, I had decided to put my family’s collection of used wine corks to good use protecting a table from hot pots. I was not quite ready to start from scratch. I knew I had enough corks but wasn’t sure about sizing the frame properly. I looked for a kit. None of the local craft or hobby stores in the area had such an item, but at the Home Depot online store I found the kit for the trivet you see here. Slow shipping was free at the time.

The kit arrived later than promised from China [Yikes! That was missing from the description.] via a California warehouse. The cost was pretty reasonable, but the wood was mahogany-stained vs. mahogany [as I had expected], and the 40 corks fit a little loosely in the frame and sat a bit lower than we wanted. My husband was the one who came up with the idea of adding more cork to the trivet. Hull’s in downtown New Haven had sheets of cork in several thicknesses, the middle weight perfect for our needs. We trimmed some to fit in the base, adding just enough height for the corks to rise above the frame, thus keeping any hot pot from touching the wood. We also cut thin strips to line the frame, fitting the corks more tightly together.

After designing the pattern inside the frame, we removed the corks a pair at a time and duplicated the pattern outside. We poured some white glue into a dish and carefully applied a fairly generous amount of glue to the back of each cork, one at a time, with an inexpensive watercolor brush. Then we carefully set each one back into the frame in its proper place. Voilà!

We set a tray weighted down with a cast iron pan atop the trivet for a couple of days to let it set and dry well. And then it was ready for packing and shipping back to California where the kids live. I confess the footprint for this gift is pretty big.

The present was a big hit, evoking memories of special occasions and good times shared. We just might do this again when our cork collection is replenished, many months, if not years from now. We will probably build our own box next time.

Someday a wine cork trivet may be a truly collectible item. Start saving your corks, and come back on Monday for my Meatless Monday post to find out why …

Meatless Monday: Avoid Cans When You Can

2012-01-09T10:34:00.001-05:00

Late in November of 2011, The Harvard School of Public Health reported that volunteers who ate a 12-ounce serving of canned vegetarian soup for five days had more than a 1,200 percent increase in BPA in their urine over the volunteers who ate the same amount of fresh vegetarian soup for five days. Here is another excellent case for eating as fresh as you can, whenever you can.

What is BPA and why should you worry? Bisphenol A (BPA) is an industrial chemical which has been used in the manufacture of some plastics and resins since the 1960s. It was particularly common in polycarbonate plastics used to store food and beverages, and in a number of other items including water bottles, baby bottles and cups, and toys. BPA is listed as an endocrine disruptor by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which defines endocrine disruptors as “chemicals that may interfere with the body’s endocrine system and produce adverse developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune effects in both humans and wildlife.” For more information, read the Mayo Clinic’s response to the question, “What is BPA, and What Are the Concerns About BPA?”

The time of potential greatest risk from BPA exposure is during fetal development and in early childhood years when the body and its organs are forming. As a result of extensive lobbying by concerned citizens and activist groups, plastics containing BPA have all but disappeared from store shelves. There is still no federal legislation, but individual states passed laws which had an impact on the industry. In June, 2009, Connecticut became the first state to ban BPA from infant formula, baby food cans and jars, and from all reusable food and beverage containers; in October, 2011, California became the 11th state to take such an action. Connecticut’s ban took effect on October 1, 2011.

That’s good news for the problematic plastics. But with all the attention focused on BPA in polycarbonate, not as much attention was being paid to the BPA in resins. Epoxy resins are used to coat the inside of metal cans, to keep them from rusting, particularly when they contain an acidic product like tomatoes. The recent Harvard canned soups study leaves little doubt that BPA leaches from the lining to the food and that we are ingesting it.

Over 90% of Americans tested by the CDC were found to have residues of BPA in their bodies. On the good chance that you are not in the BPA Free 10%, you might want to consider some preventive measures for you, your family, and any future offspring.

What can you do?

Make your own soup.
Cook your own beans. [This will also save you money. You can freeze the extra for future use.]
When buying canned goods look for the phrase “BPA Free Lining” on the label. You will find this on Eden Organic canned bean products. Eden Organics has been using BPA Free cans since 1999! Muir Glen is transitioning to BPA Free liners.You can read more about BPA Free cans here.
To be safe, look for BPA Free stickers on any plastic products you purchase. Rubbermaid has offered a BPA Free line since 2009.
Purchase prepared food in glass jars. Use glass or porcelain for storing your own food.
Never heat or microwave in plastic.
And here is something you may not know. Stainless steel sports bottles do not contain linings of any kind. You will never find BPA there. Check out Kleen Kanteen.

It all comes down to two rules:

Eat fresh when you can.
Avoid cans when you can.

Have a great week. “See” you next Monday.

Saturday Short Subjects: Restoring the Shine

2012-01-08T02:19:00.000-05:00

As co-owner of a 19th century row house I am co-steward of many things — among them a staircase with 117 rungs supporting a wide handrail which wraps from the third floor to the basement. The house is on a busy corner. Dust accumulates. Time between dusting has tended to stretch out more and more each year.

One of the first resolutions for 2012 was to give the hallway a good cleaning. My co-steward handled the vacuum. The dusting fell to me. I remembered a link at Sustainable Praxis to a Huffington Post slideshow: Olive Oil Uses: 20 Bizarre Household Tips. Slide 3 initially gave me the idea for a chemical-free New Year’s cleaning. For affirmation I turned to my trusty copy of Green Cleaning for Dummies. Sure enough, page 87 suggested dabbing a cleaning cloth with olive oil for dusting furniture. Railings and furniture are both made of wood; close enough.

I tried it. Since lemon oil was an optional add, I left it out.I enjoyed the fruity smell of olive oil as I polished away and polished away (117 rungs, remember?). The wood buffed easily to a shimmery shine with no oily residue. The end result of glistening wood and dirty cloths were proof enough for me that this alternative cleaning method worked.

When I decided to try this experiment, all I had on hand was a selection of nice extra virgin olive oils from which I chose the least expensive. In advance of the next cleaning project I’ll buy a can of a lesser grade; bouquet, color, and country of origin shouldn’t matter to the dust specks. And if I find the fruity smell is missing from the cheaper variety, I can easily add either lemon juice or lemon oil to the mix.

Sorry Old English. You are now officially banished from this hallway during my lifetime.

Why Saturday Short Subjects? Some readers may recall being dropped at the movie theater for the Saturday matinee — two action-packed feature films with a series of short subjects (cartoons or short movies, sometimes a serial cliffhanger) sandwiched in between. Often the short subjects were the most memorable, and enjoyable, part of the morning. That explains the name. The reason behind these particular posts is that we are all short on time. These Short Subject posts should not take me as long to write or take you as long to read or to try.

But, we all know about best laid plans. In many places it is now Sunday. I’ll do better next time. At any rate, let me know how you like my Saturday Shorts.

Meatless Monday: Ring in the New Year with a Hearty Bowl of Lentils!

2011-12-31T18:10:00.000-05:00

At midnight tonight (Danish time), my cousin and her family will jump to the floor from atop their dining chairs, leaping confidently into 2012. [I know this is true. Kate has told me this is so.] I have never heard that they observe the second widely reported Danish custom of breaking dinner plates by throwing them against your friends’ doors; the bigger the mess, the more friends you have.

Niece Nora who is spending junior year abroad in Spain informed me yesterday of the Spanish custom of trying to eat 12 grapes between midnight and 12:01.

Ryan Seacrest’s list of interesting New Year’s customs includes the donning of colored underwear, throwing a bucket of water out a window, visiting a graveyard, and pouring molten lead into a bowl of water. According to another list, in Germany and Austria, people gather around their televisions to watch "Dinner for One," an 18-minute comedy sketch about an Englishwoman celebrating her 90th birthday which has nothing to do with New Year's Eve or Day.

Many cultures ring in the new year by cooking and consuming a healthy serving of legumes of some kind. In the US South, the traditional dish is Hoppin’ John. When I saw my neighbor Gene earlier today, he was hurrying home to make a big batch. He had purchased some kind of meat on a bone which he was planning to simmer with black-eyed peas, to serve over rice with collard greens on the side. According to Epicurious, this tradition traces back to the legend that during the Civil War, residents of the the town of Vicksburg, Mississippi, ran out of food while under attack. They discovered black-eyed peas and thereafter the legume was considered lucky.

My friend Kevin is of 50% Italian ancestry, as am I. He lived and worked in Italy for many years and I consider him my go-to source on things Italian. He is also an excellent cook and was kind enough to send his recipe for the traditional lentil dish Italians enjoy on New Year’s Day. Lentils are tiny, disk-shaped legumes thought to resemble coins. They swell when cooked, and eating them is purported to ensure prosperity in the coming year.

Lentils are an inexpensive source of protein, are high in fiber, and are packed with nutrients — an excellent food! You can read much more about their health benefits here.

The recipe follows. The traditional version includes some sort of pork, but Kevin has offered some suggestions to make it suitable for Meatless Monday. He also recommends using both red and green lentils to add a festive appearance to the dish. If you use both colors of lentils and add the suggested dollop of cheese, you will have the colors of the Italian flag!

Kevin’s New Year’s Lentil Soup

1 lb. bag lentils, rinsed
2 medium onions chopped
4 stalks celery finely chopped (chop the leaves too, if present)
5 carrots finely chopped
6 cloves garlic minced
6 Tbsps. olive oil
1/2 cup chopped pancetta, prosciutto, or unsmoked ham (omit for a totally vegetarian soup)
2 large cans whole Italian tomatoes chopped, juice reserved
4-6 cups broth (beef, chicken or vegetable)
2 cups wine (I use red or Marsala, preferring the latter. If you don't have Marsala, use sherry).
Salt & pepper to taste (Substitute some crushed dried hot red pepper, if you want the soup to have more of a kick. And if you use canned broth go easy on the salt, unless it is unsalted).
6 Tbsps. freshly grated Parmesan cheese

[Optional: If you have a ham bone, roast until browned & add it with the lentils.

If you keep the rind from your Parmigiano (and you should— it's a great add to soups & spaghetti sauce while they cook & keeps for ages in the freezer), now is the time to pop it in as well.]

Sauté the onion in the oil until light golden brown.
Add the celery, carrots, and garlic. Continue sautéing approx. 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the pancetta, if using, & sauté 2-3 minutes.
Add the chopped tomatoes & their juices. Stir & bring to a gentle simmer. Simmer uncovered 25 minutes, stirring from time to time with a wooden spoon.
Add the lentils & stir to incorporate. Then add 4 cups of broth, the wine or Marsala, salt, pepper of your choice, & the optional hambone and/or rind. Stir, then bring to a steady simmer.
Cover & cook until lentils are tender, usually 40-45 minutes. Some types of lentils can absorb a surprising quantity of liquid, so check from time to time & add broth as necessary.
Remove the rind & bone, if used. Taste & adjust seasonings. Then stir in 6 Tbsps. freshly grated Parmesan.
Serve as is or add some cooked brown rice with freshly grated Parmesan available on the side. In lieu of more grated cheese, you can put a dollop of mascarpone or cream cheese in the center of each bowl on top of the lentils.
Left-over lentil soup tends to thicken, so add some broth or wine when re-heating if you want to thin it out.

This news just in… Kevin just sent me a message that he has just made a batch using three pounds of lentils. That should yield a whole lot of prosperity!

Happy New Year, and here’s to a healthy and prosperous 2012.

On My Radar 12.29.11

2011-12-29T16:24:00.003-05:00

Recent News. Happenings. Discoveries…Here are some of the items on my radar.

NEWS from ALL OVER:

The ethanol subsidies have come to an end. You can read more about the history of ethanol support and the long road to its final demise in many sources. Here is a particularly good summary by John Voelcker for GreenCarReports posted at TPMIdeaLab.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has posted an interactive map which leaves no doubt that this was a year of extreme weather events across the US. The bold copy above the graphic announces: In 2011, there were at least 2,941 monthly weather records broken by extreme events that struck communities in the US. The summary for my state of Connecticut lists the following events: “Record-breaking heat in 5 counties and a total of 13 broken heat records; Record-breaking rainfall in 3 counties and a total of 8 broken rainfall records; Record-breaking snow in 6 counties and a total of 12 broken snowfall records; Multi-million dollar losses from extreme flooding and hurricane damage; 3 billion dollars in damage from October snowstorm; Snowiest January on record.” [I remember that month very well.] Visit the site to check out the graphic and also to read more about the NDRC’s view that extreme weather and climate change are directly related.

In late November, a report by author Elizabeth Grossman in Yale Environment 360 warned that the acidification of the world’s oceans from an excess of CO2 has already begun. Author Carl Zimmer had issued a similar warning in February 2010.

For the last few days, it was widely reported in a number of blogs that McDonald’s had pulled out of Bolivia. Today’s Marketplace Morning Report confirmed this story. Here is part of the exchange between Marketplace’s Adriene Hill and Reuter journalist Monica Machicao in Bolivia: “Hill: …Tell me, why did these McDonald's in Bolivia close? Machicao: There are a number of hypotheses. One of those — people prefer local food rather than McDonald's. It's the fact that it's more cheap; and in fact, it's really more tasty. Hill: So the local food is actually cheaper than McDonald's fast food? Machicao: Absolutely. Local food can even cost a third of McDonald's.” The same report also stated that Wendy’s was returning to Japan with a premium menu after a two year absence.You can read the rest of the transcript here.

Gray whales are arriving early and in record numbers off the coast of Southern California. Check out the photos here.

NEWS from NEW HAVEN:

Frank Criscuolo, a beloved figure from the downtown New Haven restaurant scene, died unexpectedly at home on December 14, at the age of 62. Husband of Claire Criscuolo, Claire and Frank were co-owner and proprietors of the 35-year-old vegetarian restaurant Claire’s Corner Copia and Basta Trattoria (for ominvores) next door. He will be greatly missed. You can read his obituary at the New Haven Independent.

The number of owner/members in the Elm City Market continues to grow. When the store opened its doors on November 2, membership was at 750. There were 1200 members when the store’s site was last updated.

The new Connecticut chapter of Slow Food USA, Slow Food Shoreline, has held a number of events including happy hours and a food-centric art gallery tour. Read more about them at their new website.

With its roll-out in the Hill neighborhood in mid-December, the new brown toters for trash have now been distributed in every neighborhood and single-stream recycling in the large blue toters (formerly used for trash) is the rule of the day. You can read about more about the nuts and bolts of the program at the City site and reports of the program’s successes and challenges at the New Haven Independent.

DISCOVERIES:

During a recent tour of New Haven specialty shops, I was happy to learn that many socks are made in Vermont. Idiom featured colorful non-matching socks from Solmate Socks from Vermont's Sock Lady. At J. Crew I learned that all their socks were sourced from Vermont. After checking out the company website, my guess is that they come from Cabot Hosiery Mills. Chances are if you bought “Made in the USA” socks from L. L. Bean, Orivs, or Bass, they came from Cabot. The mill also makes its own private brands, Cabot & Sons Vermont and Darn Tough Vermont.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

January 1

11:00 am - 1:30 pm

Lighthouse Park, New Haven

New Haven First Day Winter Festival featuring the

Polar Plunge for Parks and Community Gardens

You can dive in and collect pledges, or sponsor a hardy soul if you don’t want to take the plunge yourself. Your choice. Either way it sounds like a good time. Check out www.firstdaynewhaven.org/ for more info.

January 4th

6:30 pm - 9:00 pm

Pint Night

Co-sponsored by Trailblazer and Box 63
in the Broadway District of New Haven

Also in support of the New Haven Land Trust.

More details here.

BLOG NEWS:

On December 8 I briefly left my comfort zone and gave a talk based on some of my blog discoveries. Finding Your Own Way to Greenness: Tips and Tools for Greening Up Your Holidays was part of the Sustainable Quadrangle speakers series at the Yale Divinity School. Notes to what I discussed that day are posted here.

On Thursday, January 5th, aspiring Master Gardeners in New Haven County begin their studies at Edgerton Park. I am one of the new students in this intensive course which is part of the University of Connecticut Cooperative Exension System. I guarantee you will be kept abreast of my progress and discoveries over the next four months. Wish me luck!

Meatless Monday posts will return on January 2, after a one-week break.

Happy New Year. I hope you will visit often in 2012. I like to think that together we can make a difference!

Freebies and Tips in Time for Christmas

2011-12-20T01:36:00.000-05:00

Ho, Ho, Ho. It may be only Tuesday, but I have some good stuff for you.

FOR THE KIDS (and the Young at Heart)

Send a personalized call from Santa to the favorite people in your life.
Visit NORAD (as in North American Aerospace Defense Command) Tracks Santa. On Christmas Eve follow Santa as he makes his way around the world. Visit Countdown Village each day leading up to Christmas for a new activity.
Let it Snow. Go to the Google homepage. Type in “let it snow.” Hit Enter. Watch what happens. This article on the abc news blog lists some other Easter Eggs you may have missed. So take a little break and have some free fun!

FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN THINGS GREEN

Make your own 2011 Green Scrapbook. Google has given you a fun way to take a quick tour through this year’s top environmental searches. Here is the link to mine. And, yes, I learned a few things during this brief experiment.

LAST MINUTE GIFT IDEAS

For the person who has everything, consider a gift to Kiva in his or her name. Kiva makes micro loans ($25) to worthy individuals around the world. Here’s how it works: Choose a borrower. Make a loan. Get repaid. Repeat if you wish. The choice is yours. Since Kiva was founded in 2005, there have been over 652,000 Kiva lenders and $265 million in loans. The repayment rate is almost 99%!
For a truly unique gift, check out personal genome service 23andMe, who is offering a discount of $23 on their kits through December 27. All 23andMe needs is a little spit in a vial, and you are on your way to unlocking the secrets of your DNA. 23andMe provides genetic testing for over 100 traits and diseases, as well as DNA ancestry. If you are even remotely interested, check out their site. The videos are concise, easy to understand, and entertaining to watch.

Happy Holidays.

Meatless Monday: Food in the News

2011-12-19T15:15:00.001-05:00

Remember the online petition I started a while back? It was the petition asking Stop & Shop supermarkets to stop sourcing their frozen green beans from China. Well, it’s still chugging away. I have over 270 signatures now and I have just extended the petition deadline to January 15. I’d really like to reach my target of 500 signatures by then. Can you help?

Change.org|Start an Online Petition »

While doing my holiday shopping, I discovered that with a little extra effort it is possible to buy many gifts manufactured in the USA (or at least North America), especially sox! [More on this after the presents have been unwrapped.] Whole Foods and the Elm City Market both carry organic frozen beans sourced from North America. It would seem that Stop & Shop could, too. Sourcing frozen green beans from a world away makes no sense.

On another note, for those in need of an artificial tree, including those who are allergy-prone or travelers during the holiday season, it would seem impossible to find an artificial Christmas tree NOT made in China. [Please correct me if I’m wrong.]

King Arthur Flour, whose products have been staples in New England pantries for years, is featured in an ad being aired by Google. If you’ve missed it on TV, you can catch it on YouTube. This is the short version; there is a slightly longer one as well

The ad, promoting Google Chrome, tells the wonderfully inspiring story of how this 220-year-old Vermont flour company has used the web to transform itself into a baking company known the world over.

New Haven’s Elm City Market now has over 1,200 member/owners.

Slow Food USA posted this link to an article at Civil Eats promoting ways to reduce food waste during the holidays.

Last Minute Gift Ideas

For the person who has everything, consider a symbolic gift in his or her name to Women for Women, an organization which helps women survivors of war rebuild their lives. By a couple who love to bake, I was gifted with a symbolic baking kit (rolling pin, flour, and tins designed to help women in countries like Bosnia and Afghanistan to learn the skills and get the tools they need to start bakeries) and my husband with a carpentry kit (for women in Kosovo training to become carpenters). There are many gifts in a wide range of prices including: fabric, carpentry sets, okra seeds, gardening tools, dirt…you get the idea.

And there is still time to order through LocalHarvest (the subject of last week’s Meatless Monday post). A number of vendors are offering free shipping on selected products from Page oranges to pecan pie.

Please come back tomorrow for some free stuff for kids and more last minute shopping ideas.

Happy Monday.

Meatless Monday: Supporting Family Farmers with Your Holiday Dollars

2011-12-12T08:53:00.000-05:00

Not a fan of Buy Nothing Christmas? Then you are fast approaching the last possible date for getting your holiday shopping done and your parcels in the mail.

With a busy week ahead, online shopping is probably become more and more enticing. Well, do I have an idea for you! Farmers across the country have had a particularly challenging year — from those in New England hit by a late-season hurricane followed by an October blizzard to Texans plagued by drought. I know a great way to lend them a hand, while bringing joy to your loved ones and cutting out the need to stand in line at the post office.

Skip online food gift retailers like Harry and David, and go right to the source. Check out LocalHarvest, a website where you can locate produce and other agricultural items in your area AND shop online for items not available locally or for items you may want to send as gifts.

LocalHarvest, located in Santa Cruz, CA, was founded in 1998 by activist and software engineer Guillermo Payet. According to information on the organization’s website, “LocalHarvest is now the number one informational resource for the Buy Local movement and the top place on the Internet where people find information on direct marketing family farms. We now have more than 20000 members, and are growing by about 20 new members every day. Through our servers, our website and those of our partners, we serve about three and a half million page views per month to the public interested in buying food from family farms.”

This well organized site is easy to navigate. “Farms” is where you can search for shopping opportunities in your area. “Shop” is where you will find an illustrated catalog broken down into categories such as fruits, honey and bee products, wool, lavender, meats, and many others. If the item is available only for local pickup, it is clearly indicated with a bright yellow banner. While on my tour of the site, I discovered many lines of alpaca wear, Texas pecans (and pecan pie), frozen heritage turkeys, beeswax tea lights, jams, citrus fruits. I finally ordered some Page oranges from the Orange Shop in Citra, Florida with FREE SHIPPING. This fruit was described as “an heirloom USDA hybrid between Honeybell and Clementine released many years ago, widely considered to have the best flavor of any variety. They're small in size, fairly easy to peel, and have a rich, sweet taste…” I hope this gift will bring a smile to a couple who love fresh fruit but don’t have the chance to enjoy it every day.

The site also includes a section on CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) and a tool for locating CSAs near you. [There was quite a list for the New Haven area.] And a calendar of events… and a newsletter… and member blogs and photos. Local Harvest is clearly about supporting small farmers, in every way they can and wherever they are.

Yes, I believe in shopping local first. But in my experience you can’t always get what you want in your own little corner of the world. If you check out this site, you might find you can get exactly what you need.

I offer up this discovery as one more way to help out the little guys. They may not live next door. But they still need your support to stay in business. Their communities need them to stay in business. And we all need the family farmers to ensure the availability of safe, flavorful, and varied sources of food.

Happy shopping.

OTRTG Roadshow 12.08.11

2011-12-08T00:48:00.001-05:00

Today I’ll be speaking to a friendly audience up the hill at the Yale Divinity School. The topic? Finding Your Own Way to Greenness: Tips and Tools for Greening Up Your Holidays. I will have a slideshow in Keynote, and business cards with a QR code to this page. Following is a summary with links to some of the topics I will cover.

SOME OF MY INSPIRATIONS

BUY NOTHING CHRISTMAS/OCCUPY CHRISTMAS

Buy Nothing Christmas was started by Mennonites on the Canadian West Coast in 2001.

Occupy has morphed this idea into a campaign to support local businesses and alternatives to corporate retailers. Check out the movement's Facebook page for more. One suggestion is to support local, independent businesses.

Etsy is another way. Etsy is an “online marketplace” to buy and sell things handmade, supplies, and vintage items. Etsy's mission is “to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers.” Its vision is “to build a new economy and present a better choice.” Its tagline is “Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade.” Buyers and sellers come from 150 countries, and Etsy sellers number in the hundreds of thousands.

Here are some of my suggestions:

LOCAL MERCHANTS

Atticus Bookstore and Cafe
CitySeed Farmers Markets
Devil’s Gear Bicycle Shop
Elm City Market Co-Op
Foundry Music
Group W Bench
Hull's
Katahdin Furniture
Knit New Haven
Trailblazer
Willoughby’s Coffee and Tea

SHOPPING TOOLS

Good Guide

Yelp

A NIGHT ON THE TOWN

Farm to Table Restaurants

116 Crown
Caseus
Claire’s
Kitchen Zinc

Entertainment

Criterion Cinema
Long Wharf Theatre
New Haven Symphony Orchestra
Shubert Theater
Yale Rep

Check out Info New Haven for current promotions for shopping downtown.

SHOPPING FOR GOOD

10,000 Villages
CAW
Peabody Museum
Yale British Art Center
Yale University Art Gallery
Albers Kits

REPURPOSING/VINTAGE SHOPPING

English Building Markets
Fashionista
Helping Hands Community Thrift Store & Furniture Bank
IKEA Hacking
Wiki-How

GIFTING FOOD

FOR THE PERSON WHO HAS EVERYTHING

Heifer International
KIVA: http://www.kiva.org/
Oxfam America
Check out my last year’s post on 10 Worthy Causes.

FOR SOME OF MY OWN PERSONAL GIFT IDEAS

Check out some of my other 10 Things Thursdays on a variety of topics from stocking stuffers, mementos for those who live far away, gifts for kids.

CULINARY ADVENTURES

Check out this great tool: Google with recipe view

And tales of my culinary adventures with:

FOR MORE ON WASTE

American Wasteland: How Americans Throw Away Nearly Half Their Food

CREATIVE WRAPPING IDEAS

Check out these and these

And for shipping something heavy, or to a rural area, learn more about If it fits, it ships!

In conclusion, as a new Seafood Watch Advocate, I handed out the Northeast version of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch pocket guide as stocking stuffers. Here is the link to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Advocate Program.

Thanks to everyone who joined me on the road!

Meatless Monday: Taking on Monsanto

2011-12-05T00:21:00.001-05:00

Big, greedy, strong-arming, corporate bully. That’s pretty much the image I had of Monsanto after watching King Corn and Food, Inc., both of which paint Monsanto as a chemical company with the goal of cornering the market for seeds of corn, soybeans, and other commodity crops and willing to to shut down anyone who gets in the way — small farmers who do not want to buy Monsanto’s genetically modified (GMO) Roundup-ready seeds, organic farmers, and those who make a living harvesting or selling seeds. My opinion changed for the worse after hearing patent attorney Dan Ravicher’s October 26 talk at the Yale Law School: "Suing Monsanto: Intellectual Property, Genetic Contamination, and Farmers' Rights.”

I am not a lawyer. I have to confess that although I had heard of this suit, I was unaware of its particulars. Dan Ravicher is leading a preemptive suit by organic seed growers, farmers, and farmer organizations to prevent Monsanto from suing farmers or seed producers should their crops become contaminated by Monsanto’s patented seeds. The suit, filed in March of 2011, is titled organic Seed Growers & Trade Association (OSGATA), et al. v. Monsanto. The CT chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association (CTNOFA) is one of the plaintiffs.

The 80+ parties in the suit are requesting that Monsanto sign a simple covenant not to sue. Although Monsanto has stated that they would not sue farmers who were “inadvertently” contaminated or farmers whose crops contain “trace amounts” of GMO, they have refused to sign such a covenant that would bring an effective end to the lawsuit. Monsanto filed a motion to dismiss, and in August the plaintiffs, with the support of 12 agricultural organizations, filed a brief in opposition to the motion.

Ravicher walked us through the reasoning behind the suit and the four grounds for the suit. All of this material is well summarized in a post by Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, another of the plaintiffs. Ravicher emphasized and the post re-iterated that if any of the four grounds is proven, it should be sufficient to cause the court to issue a judgement against Monsanto.

Such a judgment would be a welcome bit of good news for small farmers. Food Democracy Now writes that “Monsanto controls more than 93% of soybeans and 80% of corn grown in the U.S.”

Ravicher did offer up some hope that the tide is beginning to turn against Monsanto. GMO seed is expensive, and after several years of planting it, life in the soil begins to die off, leading to lower crop yields. He spoke of a surge of interest among farmers to wean themselves from the Monsanto seeds.

It seems appropriate to be writing this post on the day of the planned Occupy Wall Street Farmers March. According to the Food Democracy Now blog, family farmers from around the country will march to Zuccotti Park on December 4th, in a “celebration of community power to regain control over the most basic element to human well-being: food.” One of the scheduled speakers is organic farmer Jim Gerritsen of Maine, president of the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, the lead plaintiff in the suit against Monsanto. If all goes as planned, the day will end with a circle of solidarity and seed swap in the park.

A New York Times blog profiled Jim Gerritsen in a post titled: “A Maine Farmer Speaks to Wall Street,” which you can read here.

Eddie C covered the day's events with words and abundant images on the Daily Kos. The National Young Farmers' Coalition was a visible presence in a number of the photos. Speakers spoke. Farmers and friends marched. Drummers drummed. Great signs and banners were everywhere. And, at the march's end in Zuccotti Park, seeds were exchanged. Eddie C wrote, “Free seeds were handed out, heirloom seeds and seeds that were cross pollinated by farmers, anything but the patented property of some major corporation.”

Take that, Monsanto.

Have a great week, and stop by again soon.

Meatless Monday: 11.28.11

2011-11-28T10:08:00.001-05:00

Meatless Monday? I confess, not for me and mine today. We cooked a small turkey on Thanksgiving Day this year. Two guests helped us eat about half of it. We were out of town for two of the next three days. The remains of the feast are in the fridge.

A large part of the mission behind ontheroadtogreenness is to share tips for wasting less while still living well.

I certainly don’t want to waste this turkey, so today I’m turning the carcass and all the meat still clinging to its bones into turkey soup, just as my parents taught me. All non-vegetarians or vegans, read on for the recipe.

OTRTG Turkey Soup

Place the turkey carcass into a large pot. You may need to break it into pieces. [Try to save the y-shaped bone, or furculum, in the breast so you can wish on it once it is brittle and dry.]
Add cold water to cover.
Add several peeled carrots, several stalks of celery with leaves, and a large onion stuck with two cloves.
Heat to boiling over medium flame.
After a minute or so, skim off and discard the scum which has risen to the surface.
Add 1 tablespoon of dried rosemary, a teaspoon of dried thyme, 8 black peppercorns, a bay leaf, and a few sprigs of fresh parsley.
Lower heat and simmer until the vegetables are tender and the turkey meat begins to fall off the bones.
Lift the carcass onto a plate.
Place a colander over a clean pot. Pour the remaining contents of the soup pot through the colander into the new pot.
The next couple of steps are a bit messy. Pick as much meat off the bones as you can. Add back to the strained stock.
Next, sort through everything remaining in the colander. Chop the carrots and celery, as well as the onion if you wish, and add to the stock along with any bits of meat you find. Be sure to remove the small bones and bay leaf; try to remove the cloves and peppercorns.
Add salt to taste.
Add some frozen peas and cook just until tender.
In a third pot, prepare a box of small pasta (such as tubetti or elbows) according to the directions for al dente.
Serve the turkey soup over the pasta in individual large bowls, and top with a generous amount of freshly grated parmesan cheese.
A crisp baguette is a good side for this dish.

For me, this is the best part of the Thanksgiving feast, except of course, for the pie.

Enjoy your soup, and please come back next week for the return of Meatless, Meatless Monday.

Meatless Monday: As American As Pumpkin Pie

2011-11-21T14:56:00.001-05:00

Once you learn the history of pumpkin pie in America, you may come to wonder, as I do, just why we don’t use “pumpkin” rather than “apple” in the phrase “as American as apple pie.” Pumpkins are indigenous to the New World and were clearly part of the first Thanksgiving feast declared by Gov. William Bradford and held in Plymouth Colony in 1621. Apples, on the other hand, came from the Old World; the Pilgrims planted apple trees soon after they arrived, but only the crabapple was native to North America.

The Pilgrims were probably not familiar with the pumpkin when they landed on the shores of what is now Massachusetts in the 1600s. But they soon learned of the many ways the Native Americans put the pumpkin to good use, including roasting of long strips of pumpkin on the open fire for eating, and drying strips of pumpkin for weaving into mats. Early on the colonists recognized the value of this fruit. Edward Johnson of Boston wrote in 1630,“Let no man make a jest at Pumpkins, for with this fruit the Lord was pleased to feed his people to their good content, till Corne and Cattell were increased."

They would soon invent uses of their own, such as stewed pumpkin. Pumpkin pie most likely evolved from the colonial custom of slicing off the pumpkin top, removing the seeds, filling the insides with milk, spices, and honey, and then baking the pumpkin in hot ashes. There was neither pie crust nor bread at these early celebrations; the first wheat harvest and flour were years away.

Thanksgiving became an American tradition. George Washington formally declared the day a national holiday in 1789. By the early 1800s, pumpkin pie (or at least a cousin to what we know as pumpkin pie) played a starring role in the day’s menu. Pumpkin pie had by now become a custard of pureed pumpkin, “rich milk,” eggs, and spices, baked in one crust until the filling had set.

American poet John Greenleaf Whittier was so fond of pumpkin pie that he composed a long poem extolling its virtues. Here is an excerpt from The Pumpkin (1850):

… Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,

From North and from South comes the pilgrim and guest …

What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?

What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie? …

… Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better

E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!

Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,

Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine!

And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,

Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,

That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,

And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,

And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky

Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie!

In his encyclopedic tome American Cookery, published in 1972, James Beard prefaced his classic recipe for pumpkin pie with these words: “In the eighteenth century this, like all one-crust pies, was called a pudding. Yankees preferred the recipe made with pumpkin, while Southerners preferred sweet potatoes. Spices were not included until clipper ships made them a more common commodity, and molasses or sorghum was used as part or all of the sweetening.” Beard's modern recipe offers a variation, the use of evaporated milk as an alternative to light cream. This substitution was not yet an option in the 1926 when the Springvale National Bank in Maine published its complimentary pamphlet What to Cook and How to Cook It, which contained three recipes for pumpkin pie, all using fresh milk.

Recipe tinkering did not end with the use of evaporated milk. The most recent tweaking of the recipe came about with the need to provide a vegan option. The most common solution involves the substitution of silken tofu for the cream and the eggs.

For more pumpkin facts, please pay a visit to my blog post on the pumpkin from late October last year.

And for the back-story on how Thanksgiving came to be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November, check out this link.

One great thing about pumpkin pie is that it has just one crust, so it’s a little harder to eat too much. So enjoy a slice of a time-honored tradition. Just go easy on the whipped cream! Have fun, and have a great holiday!

Meatless Monday: The Challenges of an Indigenous Feast

2011-11-14T00:25:00.001-05:00

With Thanksgiving less than two weeks away, I’m sure many of you have started to plan your holiday menu. But have you ever stopped to consider how restricted your menu would be if you decided to use only the ingredients available to the Pilgrims and the Native Americans on that very first Thanksgiving Day?

Professor Devon A. Mihesuah, an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, oversees the American Indian Health and Diet Project (AIHDP) at the University of Kansas, a project “devoted to recovering the health of indigenous peoples.” As part of her work, she has compliled a detailed list of foods indigenous (native) to the Western Hemisphere (AKA the New World).

Upon perusing this list, you will soon learn that while turkey with cranberries could indeed be a menu possibility, there could be no butter for basting, no sugar to sweeten the berries, no flour for bread (for stuffing) or pie crust, and no apples for pie filling. You may also note the absence of the cow, the pig, and the chicken, as well as the presence of a number of things such as milkweed and mink that most of us no longer regard as food. Many of the foods on this list, including potatoes, squash and tomatoes, traveled from south to north over the course of many years. This list covers a broad geographic area; not all the items were available in what is now Massachusetts on that day in 1620. Click on any of the orange-colored items to learn more about them.

Through links at the side of the same page,you can find foods indigenous to smaller geographic areas and and the Choctaw tribe [there is however, no link for the eastern seaboard].

Dr. Martin Reinhardt, Anishinaabe Ojibway and Assistant Professor of Native American Studies, has been laying the groundwork for an ambitious challenge, the Decolonizing Diet Project (DDP). Beginning in March of 2012, along with a cohort of students and colleagues, Reinhardt will eat only pre-contact, indigenous Anishinaabe Ojibway foods for one year. To honor Reinhardt’s work, Professor Devon Mihesuah of the AIHDP recently posed a mini-challenge — A Week of Eating Indigenous Food, which ran from October 31 through November 6 — and blogged about her experiences. Dr. Reinhardt accepted the challenge and described his experience on the DDP site.

If going indigenous proves too big a challenge [it is for me] and you decide to stick with a more modern menu, a good source for inspiration is the recipes posted by Slow Food USA. Or check out Slow Food’s US Ark of Taste, a catalog of over 200 delicious foods in danger of extinction. By promoting and eating these products, such as heritage turkeys, you can help to ensure they remain in production and on our plates.

If you have never cooked but want to give it a try for the holiday, my advice is to start with something small. Cranberry sauce is pretty simple. You can follow the recipe printed on a bag of cranberries (which you can find in the fresh produce section), or check out this site for some more ideas.

Have fun, and have a great week!

Fishy Friday: Good News for the Menhaden (and all the other fish in the sea)*

2011-11-10T23:56:00.001-05:00

There was a very important victory in Boston on Wednesday, one that was lost among all the other headlines — turmoil in Italy, the storm off the western Alaskan Coast, GOP debate blunders… At its November 9th meeting, the menhaden board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) voted to cut the annual menhaden harvest by 37 percent. Those of you who read my first Fishy Friday post two weeks ago will recall that the tiny menhaden, called the “most important fish in the sea,” has been overfished to just 10% of its historic levels. A critical food source for wildlife, birds, dolphins, whales, and fish including striped bass and bluefish, the menhaden plays a vital role in the ecosystem of the Eastern Seaboard.

The Pew Environmental Group’s well-organized campaign, the Plan to Save the Menhaden, played a major role in this victory. The ASMFC received nearly 92,000 comments on menhaden harvest limits, the vast majority in favor of such instituting such measures. The new harvest limit, which is subject to a vote by the full commission in one year, would take effect in 2013.

“Today’s vote is a welcome step for a fish that hasn’t caught a break since Dwight Eisenhower was president,” said Peter Baker, director of Northeast Fisheries at the Pew Environment Group. “Scientists have warned that having too few menhaden in the water could result in disastrous impacts on the fish and wildlife that eat them.”

Billions of Atlantic menhaden are currently being hauled in and ground up each year — destined to become fertilizer, pet food, dietary supplements [menhaden are rich in Omega-3], and feed for farm-raised animals and fish. Omega Protein, responsible for taking in 3/4 of the entire East Coast catch — more than 410 million pounds, will clearly not welcome this news.

The Plan to Save the Menhaden was a real eye-opener for me. For a while I had been focused upon “best” and “worst” seafood choices and hadn’t been thinking so much about the other fish in the sea and all the ways they were being used (and abused). But now I’m all fired up.

I’ve just signed on to become a Seafood Watch Advocate through a program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium so chances are pretty good that you’ll be hearing lots more about fish from me.

I’ve also been reading Paul Greenberg’s Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food. I am inspired by Greenberg’s favorable assessment of the farming of barramundi. There’s a large operation in Turner’s Falls, Massachusetts [ironically, the site of the dam which ended the salmon run in the Connecticut River]. I see a future post on barramundi (AKA Asian Sea Bass) as well as a possible campaign to get this sustainable fish into the Elm City Market Co-Op. I guess I should taste some first. Stay tuned…

* and birds and animals, and people, too

Meatless Monday: Farewell Summer. Hello Winter.

2011-11-06T23:11:00.002-05:00

Indian Summer ended abruptly in the Northeast just over a week ago when Alfred dumped record amounts of snow in places less just a short drive from here. We were lucky along the Connecticut shoreline. As the weathermen explained it, the temperature of the water on the Sound was still too warm (in the upper 50s) to allow snow to accumulate along the shore. Right at the water’s edge, all it did was rain. In downtown New Haven we had to shovel a few inches of slush. The significant amounts of heavy wet snow falling on branches still covered with leaves caused numerous downed trees, limbs, and power lines over much of the inland portions of the state. At one point, nearly one million Connecticut residents were without power; as of Sunday night, some 114,000 CL&P customers are still in the dark.

The saddest thing for me was losing my backyard miracle. My two container-grown grape tomato plants, bought at a nursery school fundraiser, had been turning out a bumper crop of tiny, tasty fruits ever since mid-July. I had finally found the perfect thing to grow in my very small, mostly shady yard.

I had been hoping for a few more warm, sunny days so all the fruit on the vine-like branches would ripen. But when the slushy snow began to fall, I rushed out to pick everything over the size of a marble. The branches were sprawling and tangled. There were tomatoes everywhere. I should have worn gloves. Here is my yield. See how many? Monetarily speaking, these two plants paid for themselves many times over, not to mention the pleasure they brought me for so many weeks.

I am not a big fan of fried green tomatoes, so I’m giving my dad’s trick of putting green tomatoes in a shoebox with an apple a try. I know it works for larger, nearly mature fruit. The apple gives off ethylene gas as it ripens; the gas also ripens the tomatoes. One of the things that ethylene does is to stop production of chlorophyll, allowing the colors associated with ripe fruit to become unmasked. Ethylene gas is sometimes used to ripen fruit as it travels to market. You can read more here.

I hope I can salvage some of my last tastes of Summer. It’s the first day of early darkness, and right now it feels like a long time until my favorite season rolls around again.

Back to Alfred for a second: If any of you were among the unfortunate ones whose trees sustained damage in the recent storm, this link is a fantastic resource for helping you determine if your trees can be saved.

One more thing relating to my previous post: We got our shopping cart. We used it. And, in case you are wondering, the salvia is still in bloom because we brought it in during the storm and those really cold days. Not ready to say “good-bye.”

Have a great week. And remember that Tuesday is Election Day.

The Wait is Over. The Doors Have Opened.

2011-11-03T21:03:00.000-04:00

November 2, 2011 was a day to celebrate in downtown New Haven, CT. Many of the owner/members of the long-awaited Elm City Market took the opportunity to be the first ones in the checkout lines during the course of a full day of pre-opening shopping. At 4:30 pm, the entire community poured into the store for the ribbon cutting and opening night festivities — tastings from local vendors to the tunes of local performers.

The Elm City Market is a hybrid co-op situated on the ground floor of New Haven (and the region’s) greenest apartment building — 360 State Street, a LEED Platinum certified building powered by electricity generated by a fuel cell, developed by Fairfield CT firm Becker + Becker. As of opening day, the market had 750 owner/members. Elm City Market is a food oasis in a densely populated section of the city which had lacked a grocery store for decades. The market’s opening has created over 100 new jobs for local residents!

Getting a market in this location was no easy task. Being selected as developer for the site was a highly competitive process. One requirement for development of the site was inclusion of a high-end, full-service grocery store; failure to provide such a store within the first three years of the building’s opening would result in a hefty $250,000 fine. When the likely candidates said the footprint was too small, developer Becker + Becker turned to the successful City Market in Burlington, VT for a model. And now, less than 3 years since the December 19, 2008 groundbreaking, here I stand inside a beautiful new grocery store.

There were many people to thank at the ribbon-cutting, from Webster Bank which had committed $4 million in funding, to retiring 7th Ward alderwoman Bitsie Clark who has been involved with 360 State Street since the selection of the site developer. Even the USDA’s Rural Business Services had a hand in the project, since the market is stimulating business for local farmers.

Now, back to the market. As a hybrid, the market features local, natural, organic, along with conventional produce, meat, and groceries. Conventional groceries make up about 15% of the market’s SKUs, but are promised by store manager Mark Regni to be “the cleanest…the best of conventional.” The market carries a number of local items, clearly marked LO, many of which were suggested by co-op members, and the managers promise to stock even more. It is particularly strong on local bread and baked goods. There is a 30 foot hot bar, a salad bar, and a seating area for dining in. The prices seem pretty much in line for high-end products, and the sale prices, particularly in the produce area, very fair. On my tour through the aisles I learned that the frozen green beans come from the USA!

The market also carries an excellent selection of vitamins and supplements, a wide range of natural toiletries and beauty products, and a good assortment of greeting cards and green living items, perfect for last-minute gifts. Many area residents had been making frequent trips to Orange and Milford to shop for such wares in the two stores which had turned down the developer’s offer to open in New Haven.

Those days are over for me. I’m about to invest in a new set of wheels. I have my shopping cart picked out. I just have to make a trip in the car to pick it up…

Oh happy day!

Check it out. You, too, could become an owner/member. No work requirement, just a one-time membership fee. Installment plan available. Details here.

Meatless Monday: Celebrating Food Day with the Best Chef in the World

2011-10-31T00:44:00.002-04:00

To be totally truthful, René Redzepi and I did not exactly celebrate Food Day together. But we were in the same place at the same time for an hour and a half on October 24th. He was at the front of the lecture hall on Yale’s Old Campus, and I was way at the back. But I could see him, and hear him. He had slides, and I even got to taste some of his food! The time flew by. Chef Redzepi is a real raconteur.

He is the owner of Noma, a restaurant he opened in Copenhagen in November, 2003, named the World's Best Restaurant in both 2010 and 2011. Chef Redzepi was in the States last week as part of a Danish cultural delegation. It was the first time food was represented in such a group, and it is difficult to imagine a better ambassador.

In a land where, by Chef Redzepi’s account, pigs outnumber people four to one he has built a Nordic cuisine on hyper-local foods supplied by farmers, foraged, hunted, or harvested from the sea by hand. Much of what is foraged is pickled for later use. He brought trays of pickled elderflowers, rose petals, and the crunchy seeds of Danish ramps for us to taste. [I loved the elderflowers and the seeds, the rose petals not so much.]

Chef Redzepi regaled us with tales of his love of chicken, of transforming a very old carrot into a delicacy, and of discovering spicy flavors amidst rotting seaweed.

He also spoke of the Nordic Food Lab and the annual MAD (the Danish word for food) Foodcamp (Symposium), and described one of the Lab’s current projects — naming the 150 kinds of horseradish he and the other “Gastronauts” have discovered while “exploring Mother Earth for edible food.”

Chef Redzepi truly must work magic from these found ingredients, for yearly there are over 600,000 requests for 5,875 tables in this 40 seat restaurant. I discovered a wonderful blog where a long-awaited meal at Noma is described in minute detail accompanied by exquisite photographs. Pickled elderflowers [one of the items I sampled] can be seen nestled in between the carrot leather and seabuckthorn served as an appetizer. You can read what others have to say here.

When asked about what other ingredients he used during the harsh winter in which he braised, in his words, “the shitty carrot,” Chef Redzepi described resorting to “trash cooking” and how he came to include such items as reindeer tongue on his menu.

Much as I admire the innovation in these winter meals, I’m thinking an early summer seating. Maybe there would be seafood and some fresh vegetables from a farm along with the less familiar items. Did I mention the price? A recent reviewer spoke of the price of the meal as being expensive but worth it — 800 € for two for 12 courses with wine. That comes out to just over $1,127 US dollars. And then, there's the airfare. But my cousin lives in Denmark… I can dream, can’t I?

Happy Halloween. Unplug your vampire devices. Have a good week, and come again soon.