Welcome to the blog for Colgate University's interdisciplinary course on food. This is the place to keep up with what students in the course are experiencing in their work at Common Thread Community Farm and through their everyday encounters with food.

Friday, November 30, 2012

The Future of Urban Farming - Going Vertical



Urban farms are important in providing city residents fresh, local, and healthy food. But cities already take up so much space, so building vertical seems makes sense.

Learn more here: The Vertical Farm Project

Thursday, November 29, 2012

harvest dinner at Circa Restaurant

Each time I have taught Food, it has been a tradition to end the semester with a harvest dinner at Circa Restaurant in Cazenovia.  Tonight we had our dinner, which included 4 courses created with ingredients all from within the Central New York region.  The ingredients ranged from beets, turnips, and kale, to beef, chicken, and cheese, and were sourced from towns no further than Ithaca (about 60 miles away).  The food was amazing---just look at these happy faces:

Though it's a little hard to see them, our farmers are at the end of the table: Chris Babis, Amy Brown, and their daughter with the big smile, Georgie.

Thoughts from Class discussion on Civic Agriculture

Overall, there were a few things mentioned during our class discussion today that has got me thinking back to the beginning of the semester:

  1. there was mention of the how the Urban Farmer, Novella Carpenter, came off as a weirdo 
  2. mention of how, if you're not speaking/ presenting to someone who does not take the same stance as you do on a specific topic or issue, you need to restructure your rhetoric so that they will be able to understand your stand point 
  3. how a majority of people today don't have time to take on farming because they are consumed with other things in their lives that are of greater importance 
  4. the lack of care of people to actually farm/ w (students and others educated) care to have a stance and focus on agricultural issues because we are educated on the topic 
These four points led me back to the beginning of the semester when we were first introduced to the class and the topic of agriculture. Not sure if I am the only one, but, at the beginning of this class, I stood where a majority of Americans stand today-- unaware about the foods that they consume.  I think that #2 is a great point and made me think of our discussion at the beginning of the semester, where we discussed the depleting importance of agriculture in society.  While the "organic" movement has kind of  brought agriculture and its production back to focus, I think a cause of societies neglect to focus on agriculture has to do with the way in which it is presented.  There was mention that the urban farmer came off as a "weirdo," and although funny, it is a perception that is most people within societies have when they think of farmers and agriculture.  When agriculture is presented, it is often presented as a, using a new phrase I learned today, "granola hippe" issue.  This, I think targets a specific auidence: those who are educated about food and care to take an interest in it.  Other than the organic phenomenon (I call it a phenomenon because I think its more of a trend for most rather than a issue that is of importance that people are invested in) agricultural issues are still not at the forefront or even in the thoughts of many.  After today's class, I think that the way in which agriculture and agricultural issues are presented should be changed to fill in the lack of knowledge that  people have about the production of their food and the impact that it may have.  I also think that there should be more of an awareness about, not just how horrible conventional forms of agriculture are, but agriculture in general.  That way, people can have the option of choosing which form of agriculture they support.  I don't think there is a set solution to the "agriculture problem" that we have been learning and discussing about all semester, but I do think that moving towards an awareness of options can lead to a change that will be somewhat beneficial for all, whether they have the time or not to take on farming of their own.  

Peru Bans GMOs

Wha!

http://www.occupymonsanto360.org/2012/03/10/peru-passes-monumental-ten-year-ban-on-genetically-engineered-foods/

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

The End of Hostess

Last night, I was watching The Daily Show when a story came on about the Hostess factory finally closing. Apparently, the company filed for bankruptcy and is now shutting down completely. I first heard about the story a few weeks go, and I must admit that I was shocked. While I am not personally a fan of Twinkies or Wonder Bread (in fact, I kind of despise them both), I could not believe that Hostess was actually shutting down after being such a popular brand of snack cakes and desserts for a larger part of the twentieth century. It seems like every time I go to the grocery store or any convenience mart, there is inevitably a large section full of Hostess products. I always thought that someone must be buying them. According to the Daily Show segment, the main impetus for the brand shutting down is a very large employee strike and poor corprate organization. That being said, another reason listed was that Moms aren't buying them like they used to. Of course, the show made a joke about how news anchors are blaming mothers for Hostess closing, but I actually think there is a real point there. In class, we've discussed the current food movement and whether or not it is a social movement. I am on the side that believes it absolutely is, and I think the closing of the Hostess company is the latest evidence to support this fact. People are becoming more educated about health and nutrition and what foods should absolutely be avoided if you want to be a reasonably healthy person. At the same time, corporations are strategically navigating this movement by making more and more natural/organic products with health claims and marketing that convinces mothers that THIS is what you should be buying for your kids, not THOSE. Hostess products, on the other hand, are doomed to the "THOSE" category by virtue of their ingredients and how processed and artificial they are. While many consumers may be fooled into thinking that certain brands of cookies and cereals and crackers are better for you than they really are, no one is ever going to think that a Twinkie is healthy. And as a result, people stopped buying them as often as they used to, inevitably contributing to the closing of the company. I predict that we will continue to see this pattern - of "health food" sales rising and "junk food" sales falling. Fortunately for Americans, I think this can only be a good thing for our overall well-being.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-november-27-2012/the-employees-strike-back---twinkie-s-end

Nutrition Education

As childhood obesity becomes increasingly prevalent among students in the United States, the lack of effective nutrition education in schools remains a huge problem. Although some view nutrition education as something to be taught in the home, many children do not receive this knowledge from their parents, resulting in a multitude of negative effects, such as suffering in school, type II diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart disease. Many have sought to discover what, when, and how the most effective nutrition education is for children. When children do receive education about wellness and nutrition, it is often limited, taught outside the normal classroom routine as a special program outside of normal classroom routine. Schools do not always have the time and resources to devote to nutrition education programs, as it is not seen as something that should inherently be taught in schools. Schools today are under pressure to meet high stakes standards, which make every moment in the classroom valuable. For those students who fail state testing, health-based education is not viewed as a means to help him advance in school and is seen as less important.
Health advocates and nutrition researchers point out that healthy practices and messages should be given at a young age. Nutrition programs and education can be maximized and are most effective when introduced at a young age. Without an integrating nutrition education into the daily curriculum, nutrition education does not seem as important, putting health as a second-rate concern for children in the United States. Schools have the unique opportunity to influence children as they interact and influence students for the first two decades of their life. Because schools do not always have the means or time to devote to nutrition education, I became increasingly interested in a book that I read called French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Le Billion. This book discusses how nutrition education is incorporated into elementary education through their cantina, which is a cafeteria in the United States. By exposing children to healthy foods and making this food the only option, kids eat everything. Who ever thought that an elementary school student would eat a beet salad for lunch? The United States should look to the system of nutrition education in France as a model for how to reduce the high and increasing rates of childhood obesity in this country.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Spilled Milk.




On Monday thousands of European dairy farmers protested low milk prices in Europe in front of the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium by spraying policemen with huge amounts of milk. This article only caught my eye because of the crazy pictures of the protest…

Milk in Europe is currently being sold at a price under production cost due to decreased international demand for milk, causing farmers to be unable to stay in business if the milk situation remains as it currently is. The European dairy farmers protested in hopes that milk prices will be governmentally regulated in the future so that farmers are less dependent on the rapidly changing European market; they hope that they will be able to set a stable price which is up to 25% more than what it is currently. One farmer described his situation, explaining that the “politics are really killing us. It has to change very quickly at the European level…The way it is going we are in big trouble.” The farmers seem to have hope because the European Union agreed to give the dairy industry $360 million in extra aid in 2009 when a similar milk crisis occurred.

While I don’t know much about the dairy industry in Europe, if the power of the dairy industry in the United States is any indicator, I’m sure that the farmers will eventually be appeased and a deal will be worked out. Dairy is a food group that does not seem to be disappearing anytime soon, and I cannot imagine any governmentally endorsed diet that does not include dairy. Hopefully the issue is resolved soon, or else the city of Brussels is really going to start to smell like sour milk!



http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/26/thousands-eu-farmers-douse-officers-in-milk-to-protest-low-prices/

A SWEET! Experience


As much as I loved my Thanksgiving meal experience and all of the incredible food it included, the food highlight of my break took place on Friday while I was out and about enjoying the beautiful 75-degree weather of fall in Southern California. My mom, my two sisters and I decided to check out one of the newest tourist spots in LA, so we ventured to Sweet!, a brand new 28,000 square foot candy store filled with 5 different candy boutiques. Located in the heart of Hollywood, Sweet! is the only candy store of its kind in the area, and it plays into the completely-overdone-touristy nature of much of Hollywood. HOLY COW was this place awesome! It was like a normal candy store on steroids and I have honestly never seen anything quite like it.

To name only a few of the cool things inside of this candy store, it had a shiny red (and real!) Ferrari with gumballs flying out of it, a station for make your own chocolate bars with custom-designed wrappers, a “Willy Wonka Inventing Room” full of chocolate and a real-live Willy Wonka walking around, candy dispensed from urinals, an entire “Hollywood room” with chocolate Oscars and a red carpet, rainbow-colored hard candy made live at the store with customized words written straight through the middle of it, giant murals of both Harry Potter and Marilyn Monroe made completely of Jelly Bellys and so much more…

One of the weirdest things I saw in Sweet! was an entire wall of the store dedicated to bacon-flavored candy. This wall was located inside of the “Yuck!” room in the store (which was full of all different “gross” and odd candy) and had everything from bacon-flavored cookies, mints, and chewing gum to bacon themed board games. As amusing as the bacon wall was, my favorite part of my trip to Sweet! was definitely watching sugar artisans in the back of the store configure colored lumps of melted sugar into a certain patterns which they then pulled out into 20 foot long pieces and cut into small pieces of candy. What they were doing was truly an art.

In light of our class conversation about “American excess” when it comes to food and our over the top eating habits on holidays like Thanksgiving, I couldn’t help but think about my experience at Sweet! as epitomizing the idea of excess in food. Everyone knows the term “like a kid in a candy store,” but this candy store brought this saying to a whole new level. I was so overwhelmed by all of the options in the store that I think my enjoyment of the entire experience was at least slightly hindered. That is not to say that I didn’t enjoy the custom made candy bar (full of caramel, pop rocks and hot Cheetos) that my sister created, or that I didn’t get a kick out of seeing a real live Willy Wonka who looked almost identical to Johnny Depp’s Wonka; it is just to say that the candy store was definitely over the top. Obviously Hollywood Blvd is a huge tourist destination so it makes sense that Sweet! would exist there, but I couldn’t help but think about Sweet! more critically than the average LA tourist would.  

 
Jelly Belly Harry Potter!

Have you ever seen so many Jelly Bellys?


This is one room of MANY...

Care for some bacon-favored candy?


Diets à la mode

Le Laboratoire, an innovation center where art and design meet science, has recently come up with an alluring zero-calorie, guilt-free culinary experience. Deliciously slimming delicacies? ...What's the catch?

It's just air! It's a breathable water vapor imbued with a variety of flavors. But does this completely ruin the experience of consuming food? It may take away from the multi-sensual experience of gastronomy, but not all parts. In my opinion, a major part of meals are the people you share them with, and I do not think products like "Le Whaf" would hinder this facet of eating. Although their products have an "air" of diet-fad exclusivity, it provides a new experience to bond over with friends and family. There are vapor bars popping up in cities all over, so it could be a (less sloppy, maybe just as awkward) way to meet new people out at night. Moreover, it may actually help people break unhealthy habits and cravings by just "whiffing" tasty treats.

If you're as intrigued as I am, check out their whole line of cool, creative products.



Thanksgiving at Colgate

I spent my first Thanksgiving at Colgate this year. California is just too far to go in such a short time since more than half the day is spent traveling there, and almost all of it is used to come back given the time change.  It'll be great next year when we have a full week, oh wait we're graduating...

Anyway, my boyfriend and I decided that instead of going to the free Thanksgiving dinner hosted by the international student office, we were going to make the whole shebang ourselves.  Neither of us had  ever had a hand in making Thanksgiving dinner before.  But we were optimistic!

Our plan was this: one 3 lb turkey breast, a Martha Stewart recipe for stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes from a box, stir-fried green beans, homemade cranberry sauce, and one apple pie with store-bought crust.  Okay, so it might not sound overly ambitious, but aside from the boxed mashed potatoes, we hadn't made any of these items ever before. And if we failed, we'd starve. Okay, not really. But Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, so to me, failure was not an option.

We seasoned the turkey with parsley, lemon juice, chopped onion, oregano, and some salt and pepper.  We were planning on using chopped carrots, too, but the baby carrots on my fridge were a little bit too far over the hill.  We were also supposed to use celery tops, but I accidentally bought topless celery.  So we replaced those two ingredients with oregano, because you can't go wrong with oregano.  After taking the Butterball turkey out of the package, we debated for a while on whether to take off the net thing holding it together.  We hesitantly left it on.

My mom told me over the phone how to make the cranberry sauce: cranberries, two squeezed oranges, and honey in a saucepan.  But careful of over sweetening! Okay, so we paid close attention to how much honey we used.  But the orange factor evaded us; out cranberry sauce turned out pretty sour. But watching the cranberries explode in the pan was worth the less-than-cranberry taste we got out of them in the end.

Our most ambitious creation was the stuffing.  Martha Stewart called for a white wine reduction, which we had never done before, so it sounded like something really complicated.  But it really is just pouring wine in a pan and waiting a few minutes.  Thanks to Martha, our stuffing was, in my opinion, the tastiest part of the spread.

Our Thanksgiving dinner was a success. Nothing was burned or undercooked.  And even though some things tasted only close to what they were supposed to, this was the best Thanksgiving meal I'd ever had.  Making it, not just eating it, with someone I care about made it special. And even though our apple pie ended up resembling more of an apple pie, I would gladly do it all over again.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Hospital Community Garden

While at home for Thanksgiving in Hershey, Pennsylvania, I learned of plans to create a community garden at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center. The garden will be placed in a courtyard at the hospital and grow seasonal fruits, herbs and vegetables.  Community members can actually "lease" a part of the property to grow their own crops, in an attempt to involve the community in local and healthy food choices.  The crops will be used at the hospital cafeterias, as well as for in-patient meals.  A more unique aspect to the garden is a prescription program.  Doctors at the hospital will be able to write a prescription for patients to pick up certain fruits and vegetables from the garden.  So far pediatricians, eating disorder specialists, and dietitians have expressed interest in the program.  Interviews with hospital employees say that not only will the garden provide a pleasant place for patients and families to spend time, but will also help to advertise healthy eating habits.  Their hope is that by placing an emphasis on these kind of efforts, preventative efforts to eating disorders or obesity issues can be stressed before medication or therapy is necessary.  The garden will also act as an educational resources for school groups and youth clubs.

After hearing of these plans, I learned that there are many hospitals that already utilize gardens on their properties.  After spending time farming at Common Thread, I became more aware of the therapeutic value that gardens can provide.  For people that have a family member in the hospital, the garden can provide an opportunity to spend time together outside and take their minds off of whatever may be the cause of their hospital visit.  The Hershey Medical Center has recently added a variety of pediatric units, and an effort towards providing an opportunity to learn about food will certainly help to promote local, sustainable food in younger generations.  The Hershey Medical Center is planned to start at one acre, but I hope that it will gain popularity and expand so that more hospitals will be encouraged to provide this positive outlet for its patients.

A corresponding news article can be found below.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/11/great_way_to_engage_the_commun.html

Thanksgiving with Friends


I had quite the multicultural Thanksgiving this year. I have always wanted to bring a friend home with me for this wonderfully relaxing and delicious holiday, and this year that dream finally came true… times three. I brought my two roommates, Melissa Foerster and Gabriella Bezerra, as well as a sophomore – Chen Cui – who is from China and who assisted me with my research in Beijing last summer. Melissa is half German, Gabi is Brazilian, and Chen is Chinese. Gabi had never celebrated Thanksgiving before, and for Chen it was just her second time. Apparently her first Thanksgiving was not the best – when she described with a disgusted look on her face the dry, flavorless turkey and spinach (??) stuffing she had last year, I felt a sense of responsibility to show her how delicious Thanksgiving could be if done right. So it was with great pride that I welcomed Chen, Gabi, and Melissa into my home to partake in the full culinary experience that is Thanksgiving – not just the eating but the cooking, the preparations, and the conversation as well. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed their company, how interesting it was to share aspects of our four cultures while we celebrated this distinctly American holiday together.

Here is the food that set the backdrop for this wonderful cultural experience:

“Happy Hour”A word my grandpa always used for the appetizers served before dinner
  • Shrimp & cocktail sauce – shrimp from Wegmans, cocktail made by my dad from organic Wegmans ketchup and horseradish
  • Cheeses – walnut and cranberry covered cheddar, smoked cheddar
  • Odds & ends: olives, nuts crackers, and don’t forget the wine!!

Dinner
  • Turkey – we wanted to go local this year but it was $10 per pound!! As we were getting a 15lb turkey, it wasn’t quite reasonable, so we opted for a non-local turkey, though it was still organic
  • Stuffing – my mom’s special twist to the stuffing: apples, raisins, apricots, bacon... mmmm
  • Sweet potato casserole – more like dessert than dinner with all the brown sugar and butter, but tasty!
  • Cranberry sauce – good old-fashioned cranberries cooked in sugar water
  • Cole slaw – bought from Wegmans
  • Cranberry-orange bread – a traditional favorite for holidays in our house
  • Odds & ends: gravy, mashed potato, green beans

Dessert
  •  Pies (apple, pumpkin, & maple pecan) – made by friend
  •   Haagen-Dazs ice cream
  •   Coffee & Kahlua

After hours…
  • Baijiu – a Chinese liqueur given to me by Chen’s mom in China as a present to bring back to my dad…. very strong

Local Resources and Development in Ethiopia


 My father recently sent this to me via email detailing his recent trip to a city in northern Ethiopia which suffers from many issues including food shortages, drought and lack of social and human capital. His technique for improving on their situation focuses on the use of local resources which decreases foreign dependency and promotes sustainable growth on a local and individual level. The families he focuses on are often those with the greatest obstacles hindering their well-being (such as chronic disease or extreme poverty and lack of education.) What follows is an extract from the message he sent me detailing his agenda for his week of training in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia.

I am off for the week to Bahir Dar, a medium sized city up north, (headwaters to the Blue Nile actually) to look at the remnants of the Urban Gardens Project. Have seen lots of great people struggling to maintain gardens that were poorly established in the first place.  Difficult to see the waste and dashed hope - though it is still early days. There was Way too much focus on technology (in this case, large scale drip irrigation) at the school gardens without corresponding focus on soil quality, depth and resilience. When the water stopped (too expensive, broken lines hard to fix, etc), so too did the production of chard, kale and cabbage because the soil beds were literally only 4" deep, rock hard and the roots also only 4" deep... so when the water stopped...so did the growth. So far, all the gardens are completely dysfunctional. But my report and recommendations will say that this, although a 'failure', the lessons aren't lost. The gravest error would be to repeat the same mistake by redoubling efforts at drip irrigation.  What I will suggest, and which is getting considerable traction, is the use of tires, sacks, and other small, yet high yielding methods that ALL children can easily manage, AND take home to their simple urban homes to practice. One great failing of technology such as drip is that it builds a greater dependency and a lack of resilience. We need to help kids and adults see all the resources which are around them, (often 'waste' products like charcoal bits, wood ash and compostables after marketday) and teach them ways that they can teach themselves and others how to turn that 'waste' into asset...you got it - bio-intensive gardens using compost and local waste to really kick some food security butt!

A Vegetarian Thanksgiving

The year 2012 marked the first year that I decided to go full vegetarian on Thanksgiving - no turkey, no butter, no gravy. Last Thanksgiving, I had just begun my vegetarian experiment but I was still flexible when it came to meat that was not raised in a factory farm with no antibiotics or artificial growth hormones. For instance, I was still willing to eat meat if I bought it from the man who killed it in his own backyard. Since my mother always buys our turkeys from a farmer in our town who raises them himself, I was fine with eating that last year. And as I was not yet abstaining from dairy or eggs, all the mashed potatoes and stuffing and the like was not an issue either.

This year, however, I was not so flexible. Having abstained from all animal products with the exception of honey for the past 6 months, I wasn't about to give all that up for some holiday. Unfortunately, this stubbornness was not so easy for my mother to accept as the head chef and hostess of my family's annual Thanksgiving feast. Generally, she doesn't give me too hard a time about the whole vegan thing. She actually likes that she tends to eat more vegetarian meals when I'm around and has said that she always feels better after eating vegetarian than when eating meals of meat and butter and cream. For Thanksgiving, however, she begged me to let up a bit. "Butter is the flavor of Thanksgiving," she told me. "That and sage." While my family tends to be supportive of some dairy substitutes like Earth Balance and rice milk, my mother insisted that our Thanksgiving meal needed to be made with all real butter, since that's just how she's always done it. I figured I could do without the turkey and sausage stuffing as long as there were other side dishes I could eat, but after her butter comment I realized I had to forge my own path this year.

So, I got cooking. I made my own mashed potatoes with olive oil, almond milk, salt and pepper. I made a green bean dish with olive oil, fresh thyme, toasted almonds (and lots of them!), salt and pepper. I made my favorite corn bread recipe for everyone, and I also made a chocolate banana coconut pudding cake. In the end, I convinced my mother to make her non-sausage stuffing (she always makes two kinds) with veggie broth instead of chicken broth and to sauté the onions and celery in olive oil instead of butter. I also convinced her to replace the butter in her famous tangerine & thyme carrots with olive oil as well. So when all was said and done, I had quite a feast.

While my veganism has perplexed my Italian relatives these past few months, my younger cousins have been more accepting of it. Everyone asked to try my "special" potatoes and they all loved them. The corn bread was also a huge hit and my chocolate cake went in about 3 minutes after putting it out on the dessert table. Not only was I able to celebrate my holiday without compromising my dietary habits, but I think I was able to convince a few family members that veganism isn't as radical as they had thought. They learned that I could have my chocolate cake and eat it too - and oh how I did!

Pre-cannibalism?

Rice with Human Genes

Would you eat GMO rice spliced with human genes?

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Hybrid Produce?

Really random/weird photo effects contest I stumbled upon: Top 10 Hybrid Produce.

Convenient watermelon? I'll never believe it...but just imagine if one day you'd actually be able to snack on this during class...



Eating Aliens?

http://grist.org/food/the-ultimate-guilt-free-diet-hunting-invasive-species/

Check out the article above. It is about Jackson Landers new book, a chronicle of his experience hunting and eating invasive species. I'd like to hear from the full time vegetarians in our class about their thoughts on his theory.

Invasive species are a huge, but largely unrecognized, problem. Landers believes that hunting allows you to escape the mainstream meat production system and that hunting alien species could be a viable solution to invasive take-over.

I'm keen on his idea. Although I don't think I will be munching on Emerald Ash Borer any time soon, I like the idea of managing invasives through responsible hunting. I think the public's growing interest in sustainable food options and reconnecting with their food would help create a market. It doesn't seem too far fetched to imagine Jackson Landers at a progressive farmers market...

I'm pretty squeemish when it comes to dissections and killing animals in the name of science. It's part of why I never considered being premed. But, when I was in Australia, I caught and dissected over 50 Cane Toads and felt very little remorse. Cane Toads are the classic example of invasive species. They were brought over as a means of controlling beetles in sugar cane fields but now are one of the most destructive alien species in Australia. They disrupt food chains and are toxic to a number of native species. It seems like my qualms about killing animals was mediated by the benefits of removing the toad from the ecosystem. In a way, it's sort of a utilitarian justification.

I'm not sure if Landers would agree with me, but I think that's why I like his idea. The utilitarian approach really appeals to me and as Landers points out, this could be a viable alternative to vegetarianism for people who really do enjoy eating meat.




Genetically Modified Featherless Chickens?

I came across this article about featherless chickens that have been genetically altered by an Israeli geneticist.  It is a short article and relates to our discussion with Professor Galusky.

"Scientists also hope the new breed will grow faster because it won’t need to use energy to grow feathers and that would also cause the chicken itself to grow larger."

http://www.interestingscoop.com/featherless-chickens/

Friday, November 23, 2012

Cranberry Sauce, Cape Cod style

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday: all that matters is food and family (and football if any of you watched the Pats dominate last night).  Christmas is great, but a little over-rated in my opinion and, to be honest, I've never really recovered from finding out that Santa doesn't exist.  But Thanksgiving will never let me down: even if the turkey were burnt to a crisp, I wouldn't even mind as long as there was one thing on the table... CRANBERRY SAUCE.

Now, I could use this time as a mini-history lesson on Thanksgiving and its origins... The story of the Pilgrims landing on Cape Cod in 1620 was pretty much drilled into us every year around this time in elementary school.  I don't remember many of the details and I'm pretty sure Thanksgiving has roots much deeper than that, but it still feels pretty cool to celebrate this holiday so close to the Pilgrims' first landing.  The traditional Thanksgiving fare makes a lot more sense with the flock of turkeys constantly hanging out in our backyard and the nearby dunes, full of wild cranberry bogs just waiting to be picked.

I've never tried sauce from a tin can, but homemade cranberry sauce is delicious and actually very easy to make.  My siblings and I agree that cranberry sauce goes with basically everything (especially turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes); I also love it on vanilla ice cream, various pies and cake, or just plain with a spoon.  For anyone curious, here is my mother's cranberry sauce recipe (modified from the Joy of Cooking):

      Place in a saucepan and stir until the sugar is dissolved:
  • 4 cinnamon sticks
  • 2 ½ C orange juice
  • 1 ½ C sugar
  • 2 stalks rhubarb (optional)
      Boil the syrup for about 5 minutes. Pick over, wash and add:
  • 9 C cranberries
      Simmer the berries in the syrup very gently without stirring (uncovered) until the berries are translucent, about 5 minutes. Skim off any foam. Add:
  • 1 jar of orange marmalade
      Pour the berries into 1 large container; chill until firm.


 Enjoy!

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Prop 37

What does it mean for California and the rest of that country that Prop 37 did not pass?   If approved, California would have been the first state to require such labeling for foods sold in the state, and would have prohibited products containing genetically modified ingredients to be labeled or marketed as "natural."  Much of Europe already requires this labeling and has a general anti-GMO sentiment.  The argument against the proposition was that not enough evidence showed any health effects for consuming transgenics, and that putting that information on labels would unnecessarily the uninformed.  Big agriculture and industries like Kellogg raised over $45 million while grass-root Purist and organic groups only had $6.7 million.  Supporters of the "Right to Know" bill believe that it is up to the consumer to decide whether they want to ingest transgenics since their effects are not yet conclusive.  Companies like Monsanto argue that it would stigmatize certain foods.  One point of contention was whether or not the consumer would have to pay more for making new labels.  Although Prop 37 did not pass, some still see it as a victory.

According to Michael Pollen, this proposition has "raised the bar on the food industry," forcing them to pay attention to issues like the treatment of animals and sustainable farming.  Some see Prop 37 as an important step in the making of the food movement.  It highlighted some of the issues of the scattered food movement and gave them a statewide audience.  Some see this as just a way to get started bringing  some aspects of the unfocused food movement before California as well as the rest of the nation.

My family is not a particularly political one.  We vote at all opportunities but don't really go beyond that in terms of getting involved.  My dad in particular is aware of my opinions related to food.  He has taken in personally that I choose not to indulge in his beef or pork dishes anymore, but deep down I know that he is supportive of me making conscious decisions regarding what I put in my body.  He also believes in the value of making healthy, informed decisions about what he eats.  He was an amateur body builder in his younger years and watched his food intake religiously.  Even today, he is a Trader Joe's and Sprouts shopper, almost always choosing the "natural" route over any other.  So I was surprised when he told me that he voted against Prop 37.  In this time of economic uncertainty, he felt wary of passing the re-labeling cost to the consumer, which I understand.  As a retiree and sort-of-foodie, he still valued the cost over the benefit of having more information about your food.  To me, it felt like we represented what might be contributing to the food movement's slow-going.  Obviously, this is an oversimplification, but my father is a member of an older generation, one that did not grow up with the food pyramid memorized.  And even though we both care about knowing what's in our food, maybe that difference in childhood is what contributed to his vote.  And I wonder if that's an indication that the food movement will take several more years to come into itself, when my generation, the ones that were taught the difference between corn syrup and fructose, will be the ones with the strongest voices.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Salad Time


For me, there's nothing like a good salad.  Fresh tasting vegetables, crispy lettuce, and grilled chicken to top it all off. This weekend I thought I would pay attention to the salad I was consuming and see if there were any noticeable differences between the quality of ingredients and its cost with regards to where I purchased it.  The first night I took part in my observation, I took a trip out of town to the local McDonald's and ordered one of their southwest salads with grilled chicken and a chicken bacon ranch salad with grilled chicken.  I love to eat and I was pretty hungry so I figured two salads were better than one.  I ate the chicken bacon ranch salad first.  The first thing I noticed was the bacon looked like the imitation bacon bits you can buy in a plastic container at Price Chopper ("Bacon" in a bottle? Yes, it exists).  The grilled chicken was flimsy and rubbery (warm and fresh out of the microwave) and reminded me of our discussion with Professor Galusky on in vitro meat (it still makes me queasy to think about).  The lettuce itself looked like it had been just tossed in the container and put in the refrigerator for the day; needless to say it did not look fresh.  I've never seen carrots sliced so thinly or bend the way the ones in my salad did.  On top of that, the tomatoes in the salad were soft and a couple hours from being not too enjoyable to eat.  I kept telling myself to stop eating the salad because the bacon bits were becoming unbearable to keep forcing down.  I ended up struggling through to the end and came to the conclusion that this salad was not worth the five bucks I paid for it.  I will not be supporting the chicken bacon ranch salads at McDonald’s any longer.  To try and rid the taste of the combination I had just eaten, I opened up the southwest salad and spread the southwest dressing over top of it.  It looked a lot better than the bacon ranch salad I had just eaten.  The grilled chicken looked a little better even though it was still pretty flimsy.  The lettuce looked the same but the overall look of the salad was much more appetizing with the wider array of ingredients that were used.  The chili lime tortilla strips and shredded cheddar cheese seemed to make this salad taste pretty good.  The southwest salad was enjoyable to eat and I would definitely order it again.

The next night I took a trip to Oliveri’s in town and decided to order their Greek salad.  Compared to the McDonald’s salads I had eaten the night before, this salad looked absolutely delicious.  It contained hearty looking lettuce, ripe tomatoes that popped when I bit into them (unlike the soft tomatoes from McDonald’s that squished when I tried to stab them with my fork), mounds of feta cheese, crunchy onions, black olives, chicken that actually looked real, and my favorite pepperoncini peppers to top it all off.  I went with the large size and my salad lived up to its name.  For a little less than the price of two McDonald’s salads, I had a mouthwatering salad in front of me that tasted delicious.  My Oliveri’s salad seemed to epitomize the terms “white meat chicken” and “farm fresh produce,” words that are printed on the front of McDonald’s bags nowadays.  I didn’t find anything “farm fresh” about the McDonald’s salads I ate and it didn’t come close to filling me up as much as the Oliveri’s salad did.  I assumed I could spend less money at McDonald’s to achieve the feeling of having a full stomach.  This may be true with their hamburgers and fries but they fall short in the salad department.  I may have waited a couple minutes longer for my salad at Oliveri’s, but if the quality is leaps and bounds above that of McDonald’s, I don’t have a problem.  I guess I’ll just have to suck it up and watch the latest sporting event that’s on the television while I wait for my food.  Good work Oliveri’s.

Friday, November 16, 2012

5 Minute Bread

Thought you would enjoy this, Professor Henke, bread connoisseur! I got this recipe from Gail Brill, who started the Adirondack Green Circle (http://adkgreencircle.org/) that promotes sustainable living practices, such as homemade recipes from local food. She also recommended buying yeast in bulk from whole foods to save money!


Looking to Continue Farming?


For those of you interested in farming, I just met a family looking to hire workers! Kristin and Mark Kimball run a community farm in Essex, New York. Essex Farm, a 500 acre draft horse-powered CSA, produces a full diet for over 200 people in the surrounding community (http://www.kristinkimball.com/essex-farm).

Yes, a full diet includes meat! This might just be because I have not been exposed to the world of CSA’s and farmer’s markets for very long, but meat typically does not come to mind when I think of local and organic food. They have organic feed for their free-range cows, pigs, and chickens. They slaughter the livestock themselves, instead of packing the (mostly live) animals into a truck and sending them far off to a factory where machines inhumanely take care of business. They also have horses till their land, rather than large industrial tractors (...no, they are not Amish).

So why should you work for the Kimball’s? They are a fun, passionate, and ambitious dynamic duo. I mean, who rides a unicycle while juggling fire to emphasize the importance of sustainable living the first time you meet them? He sure as hell caught my attention. Kristin, on the other hand, seems to keep Mark grounded. She actually met the Pennsylvania farmer while interviewing him for a piece she was writing on farming. It was love at first sight, and they ended up running away to the North Country to start their own farm. If you’re interested in learning more about their story (I know I plan to), check out Kristin’s book The Dirty Life. It details their arduous journey to create Essex Farm. But their story doesn’t end here. They have little ones running around their farm now. They also recently installed solar panels, cutting their greenhouse gas emissions. Up next, they are embarking on a big project to establish a school on their farm. I believe they hope to teach a small class of college-level students that integrates the technicalities of farming with an overarching sustainability lesson plan. (Sound familiar?)

You may be asking yourself, why do you know so much about the Kimball’s, Jenna? Well I recently heard the Kimball’s speak at the 2012 Adirondack Youth Climate Summit. I was instantly intrigued by their story, and couldn’t help myself from learning more! Check out their website, http://www.kristinkimball.com/, if you are also interested!



Thursday, November 15, 2012

visit to maple ave farms, home of sun fed beef

Today we took a trip to Maple Avenue Farms, producers of Sun Fed Beef.  Kevin Jablonski gave us a great tour of the farm and taught us a lot about the production of pasture-raised beef in our region.  Here are a few pictures from our walk in the one of the pastures---it was an absolutely beautiful late fall afternoon.





Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Toxic Water? No Thanks.


I’ve never consciously thought about how lucky I’ve been throughout my life to have drinkable tap water. But yesterday an article in the New York Times made me think twice about how lucky we all are. The article is titled “The Problem is Clear: The Water is Filthy.” The article describes the life people in Seville, CA, a small, impoverished agricultural community whose tap water is contaminated and deemed toxic to drink. Seville’s groundwater is contaminated due to over 50 years of animal waste, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers being deposited into the land through farming.

The author chronicles the daily lives of citizens of Seville who have to fill up five-gallon jugs at a corner store every day in order to be able to cook, bathe and brush their teeth. The local school has to budget up to $500 dollars a month for bottled water in order to provide water for its students.

One of the points of this article is to show how migrant agricultural workers often bear the “social costs” of food production. Learning about social and environmental damages to small agricultural towns like Seville reminds me that our ability to buy cheap produce in the supermarket does not come without ramifications. We need to remember and realize that there is an entire population of people whose lives are explicitly dedicated to meeting the food needs of people like us. While I have driven by some of these communities in California and seen them in real life, I find myself constantly forgetting of the fact that cheap food usually means a compromise for either food companies or their workers. More often than not the burden usually falls on the workers.

As we’ve talked about in class, there will always be some form of negative ramifications of farming. While farming will never be perfect, we need to make a stronger effort to try to reduce the negative environmental outcomes of large-scale farming practices. Of course there are pros and cons to using pesticides and chemicals on certain crops, but examples like Seville make me more sympathetic to forms of farming that do not contaminate the environment. In cases like this, the lives of many are put in jeopardy in order to increase corporate profits. I find this problematic. Should clean water be a right that everyone is entitled to? I think the answer is undoubtedly yes.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Brown bag ethics

Last week, Colgate’s SGA sent out what I thought was going to be my holy grail: The Free Food Calendar. According to the SGA, this new initiative will be released monthly and lists events with times and location to keep people informed about free meal opportunities because, as the SGA puts it, "Just because your wallet is feeling thin doesn’t mean you have to be!"

But the Free Food Calendar was surprisingly sparse, considering how many catered events happen at this school. I’m not as hardcore as some of my friends, who bring Tupperware to brown bag lunches, but I have a pretty good routine for eating cheaply at Colgate.

The biggest gap in the Free Food Calendar is a listing of departmental Brown Bags. Everyone knows this is the easiest and most reliable way to get your fill during the free period. I highly recommend the Middle Eastern Studies Brown Bags, which serve delicious hummus, pita and falafel. However, if you don’t have a background in these studies, the conversations can be a little confusing. The brown bag I attended with the former US Ambassador to Egypt and Israel was interesting to the PoliSci majors in the room, but I barely understood a thing. It made me feel a little guilty for being so uninformed, but the falafel was amazing!  I'm much better prepared to understand the talks for the Geology department, naturally.

But my favorite brown bag opportunity is every Tuesday in the Women’s Studies Lounge. Being a woman, I can always count on the topic of conversation being both interesting and pertinent to me. These brown bags are usually more casual than a strictly intellectual talk, often featuring students or faculty members who share personal experiences. My favorite was the Coming Out Stories brown bag cohosted by LGBTQ Studies, where I got to hear some of my friends and even my old boss tell their stories of coming out in the Colgate community. It was powerful stuff, and the food was delicious! Women’s Studies brown bags let you make your own sandwiches with deli meats, cheese, tomatoes and lettuce. They also have Curtain Call brownies, which alone make the trip worth it.

Apart from brown bags, I also attend the weekly LGBTQ Family Dinner at Frank and the French department’s Table of Babel, plus any religious or cultural events, like Muslim Student Association’s yearly Eid dinner, which I enjoy because they always provide some sort of cultural performance (this year a band played Sufi music!)…and there was delicious falafel.

So SGA’s new initiative is a bit lacking, in my opinion. The calendar has gaping holes – but I’m not complaining. I’m not even sure this calendar was a good idea. The SGA gives this disclaimer, which I think is an important point:
“We hope that you enjoy this resource, and only ask that if you choose to attend an event that provides food, you stay for the entirety of the event as well.”
But by making a calendar specifically based on free food, isn’t the SGA kind of contradicting themselves? These events are defined first as offering free food, and only secondarily by the actual purpose of the event, which isn’t always evident from the brief titles. Here’s where personal judgment comes in: How far will you go just to get free food? How much of your interest in an event is based on its content, and how much on its lunch spread? I’m currently trying to find a balance: attending events that I’m honestly interested in, and seeing the provided meal as an added bonus. It’s just hard to keep focus when everyone puts so much emphasis on the free food aspect.

Organic: CSA vs. Subsistence Italy

After concluding our last volunteer day on the farm, I could not help but compare the experience with my time volunteering on a subsistence farm in Italy (Link to my Italy farm blog).  There were some definite differences and also some striking similarities:

First off, I worked in Sora, Italy during late May and June.  This is more the planting season, although we did harvest the end of the spring's green beans and lettuce.  Most of the work included putting seeds in the ground, tying tomatoes, removing grape leaves, and putting baby lettuce heads in the ground.  For that reason, doing my tasks perfectly was important.  Screw up the seeds, screw up the harvest.  Giuseppe, an older man who spoke maybe 5 words of English, would show us over and over again how to the job if we were not doing it right.  We worked during a time of harvesting only at Common Thread, and there were few if any occasions when we were re-told how to do a job.  The most crucial times were deciding whether a vegetable was good enough to give to a customer, and even that would be more officially decided later when putting the veggies on display for sale.  The work did not have to be done so precisely.  Cultural and seasonal differences aside, I would have expected that a subsistence farm would be more laid back than one in it for profit.  The farm in Italy in particular also runs a B&B, so the farm also feeds the guests.  So their additional income source would have made me think the farm might be more laid back.

Secondly, although there were plenty of female volunteers on the farm in Italy, the men (and there were never more than two) were always given the most labor-intensive jobs.  Sometimes volunteers would also have to work in the kitchen or clean the guest rooms, but those jobs were never given to the men.  So there was definitely a strong division of labor along gender lines in this context, which did not exist at Common Thread.  There, jobs were distributed to everyone regardless of gender.

Despite the subtle differences, there was one overriding similarity.  At Common Thread, there was always a din of chatter while doing the work.  The language barrier prevented a lot of that in Italy, but Giuseppe would often pause in his work and let us have a break.  We would lay down in the tall grasses skirting the fields and listen to the buzzing of flies and soak in the sun on our faces.  Or, if Giuseppe thought we were taking the work too seriously, he would tell us to "piano, piano," which means to relax.  There was never a rush to finish the work, whatever did not happen today would happen tomorrow.  Farming relies on plants and their natural processes.  To an extent, a farmer must have faith in something that is complicated and not guaranteed.  I feel as though in these two places, that faith affects the working environment, making it low-stress (for the volunteers at least).  As Giuseppe would always say, "As long as the shine is shining and you are smiling, I am happy."

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Lessons of Outdoor Cooking


Why does food taste better when it’s prepared outdoors? From stuffing myself in the U-Pick blueberry fields as a child, to helping my dad grill burgers in the backyard, I always look back on my outdoor meal experiences with fondness. Maybe it’s the experience of eating food in an environment more similar to its natural source. Or maybe it’s just the simple pleasure of being outdoors.

Over the past three weeks I did some field research as outdoor food preperation. I signed up for a Backcountry Cooking class through Colgate’s Outdoor Education program. For a few hours each week the class gathered outdoors, to prepare a two-course meal. We forwent high-tech camping grills, for a portable burner—and operated with a zero food-waste policy.

I was amazed by the meals we were able to prepare with such simple tools. My favorite meal we concocted a rice-based stir-fry, complete with grilled peppers, snap peas, corn, and carrots. For dessert we made open-faced apple pie.

I was in charge of cooking the rice. To be honest, I initially extremely confused by the prospect of cooking rice without a rice-maker. I know that sounds naïve, for rice has long been a staple food for many Asian and Caribbean cultures. But I had been raised in a world with rice makers, and didn’t know anything different. The process was simple: I poured the raw rice into a pot of boiling water, and stirred until it seemed ready. It was very similar to making pasta.

For me, my experience in the outdoor cooking class highlighted the material excess involved in everyday cooking. Our pans were worn and bent, and the ingredients were generic Price Chopper brand; nonetheless, the meal came out delicious.

As for the outdoor element, it seems to me that there is a definitive difference in the atmosphere between indoor and outdoor cooking. In a kitchen, chefs have a complex array of tools and materials at their disposal. Outdoors, the process is simplified, and the focus turns entirely to the food itself. In the outdoors, one is brought outside of their normalized cooking environment, and is forced to re-evaluate the process of making a meal.
Open-Faced Apple Pie

Cooking the Stir-fry