Vegetable Pie II

I made another pie with vegetables. When my friend asked me to bake a pie for (what turned out to be) her fabulous summer dinner party, I was stoked. I searched for a recipe at gourmet.com with only one criterion: rhubarb. I've always wanted to use it, but never have. I found recipe that makes what they call a cake, but you bake it in a pie pan, so it still counted in my mind. Plus, the whipped cream called for whiskey, which was an awesome addition. I also altered the recipe to include real vanilla bean instead of just the extract. What a treat!

So, true to form, I'm asked to make dessert and I bring a vegetable dish!

Deconstructing Chicken

I realized recently that I've never cooked a whole chicken all by myself. I'm guessing that this is because I was vegetarian when I might have learned this from my mom, then I went to college where my food was cooked for me (and subsequently made me gain 20 pounds), then I cooked for myself but armed only with vegetarian cookbooks. So I never really figured out how to cook anything other than a boneless breast.

All of this probably explains why I used to think that chicken is kind of like tofu: flavorless and able to take on the flavors of its surroundings. Well, when you leave the bones in, it's a different story.

Tonight, at the direction of my little sister, I roasted an entire 3.22 lb chicken. Only used a bit of butter, salt, and rosemary. And guess what? It's delicious. Flavorful, juicy, and delicious.

I also made a vegetable pot pie with biscuits.

Now I'm tired.

Weekend Adventure Numbers

I could tell the stories, but it would take too long. Plus, what happened in the tent stays in the tent. So here you go:

• Travelers: 4
  
• Total Miles Traveled: ~40
• Roadkill we passed, ran over, or otherwise encountered: at least 20 including 3 robins, 3 rats, 10 squirrels, 2 raccoons, and several unrecognizable animals including one that might have been a frog
• Hours after our intended arrival time we actually arrived at our campsite: 3
• Wineries visited: 3
• Goat farms visited: 1
• Greenhouses used to wait out rain and hail storm: 1
• Round trip detour mileage due to navigational difficulty: ~3
• People our tent was intended to sleep: 2
• People our tent actually slept: 4
• Caterpillars found on my body in the night: 1.5
• Attempts at making fire: 4, including one successful attempt
  
• Attempts to use the neighbor's fire: 1 (successful)
• Number of pet birds brought by neighbors: 3
  
• Bottles of wine consumed during breakfast: half
• Caterpillar droppings on hair, clothing, and food: well, if we had known that's what that was from the start, the number might have been smaller, but since that was a late discovery, more than we can count
• Emails sent: 0
• Phone calls to "dad": 4

Countless good conversations, laughs, and good times. Can't wait to go again -- but I will be purchasing a new (to me) bike before then or significantly modifying mine. And panniers might also be a good idea. Carrying a wet tent in a backpack is not actually advisable.

I don't get it

How the hell are Ice Cream trucks profitable?

Low margins. Rising costs (fuel and food). General mistrust from consumers regarding cleanliness and safety.

Conclusion: they really are selling drugs.

Plus, it's the only possible explanation of the 10pm ice cream truck drive bys in my neighborhood.

Coffee Cycle

french press my coffee
delicious morning beverage
i like it a lot

Like many days, today started with a fresh pot of French press coffee. Sadly, I cannot commute with my coffee because as I learned one day with a paper cup from the bagel store, I cannot drink and drive. Not even coffee. I spilled it all over myself including my new bad-ass fingerless gloves.

I saw a bike in a catalog today that comes with a travel mug holder. I'm sorry, but that's lame. What suburb are you riding in and why the hell do you need coffee while you ride if you're just going around the block? There are way too many potholes and assholes in NYC for that to be practical. Drink it when you get there and get over it.

Speaking of potholes, there are a lot of them, and my grubby little monster of a mountain bike takes them like a champ. However, I learned today that my bike is not only heavy, but exceptionally heavy. It weighs 35 pounds! So apparently, I've been taking the hills like a champ too. So even though my boss makes fun of me for being a slave to fashion, I'm getting myself a single speed road/track bike. I won't necessarily go fixed gear, but I definitely want something lighter and more maneuverable.

Ba-a-rack-O-ba-a-ma-a!

Standing in line

My dad once told me that instead of looking for the shortest line, he looks for the one with the most interesting people in it (so California, so not New York). I think I'm finally in a ((develop)mental) place in my life where I would agree that this is the best method. However, at the co-op, there's not an option. There's only one line. One terribly long line. But today I got lucky.

I ended up standing in line in front of two very rambunctious and precocious children. And since I didn't have to put them to bed or give them medicine, it was just fun.

Annica and her long-haired, towheaded little brother were shopping with dad this morning. After exclaiming, "Look at all the beautiful vegetables!" (while peering into the freezer case), Annica informed me that "Daddy married mommy, and then we had butterflies."

Seems like the right way to do it.

Energy Policy

I find that many pundits separate energy policy and food policy, but end up categorizing them as two major concerns of our era. Are they really so different? They're even similar linguistically. When was the last time you talked about being hungry in terms of having an "empty tank" or needing more "fuel"? Are these not terms more often associated with cars?

It seems to me that we should think of these things as two parts of one whole. We need food to give our bodies energy and fuel. We need energy to produce this food--energy produced from fossil fuel, wind power, solar power, natural gas, nuclear power, and, of course, other food.

Petroleum products not only help to generate much of the food that we eat, but they actually make their way into our food. And if you think of it again, you realize that food (corn, sugar, seaweed, etc.) are being made into fuel. At that point, it all seems to come much closer together doesn't it?

Food is just the edible form of energy... not that you didn't already know that.

Speaking of things you already know: Read Michael Pollan's new book In Defense of Food. It tells you a bunch of stuff you already know, but actually might convince you to take action (like quitting high fructose corn syrup and other processed foods).

Compost Craze

I keep hearing little peeps from friends and family who are saying things like "Hmm, I really don't see that grapefruit peel in the trash the same way anymore. I keep thinking that it would make excellent worm food. How many worms did you say you have? Do they multiply? Does it stink? How do you harvest it?"

Oh I encourage you! The worm bin makes you feel super wholesome... and if you want to feel a little less wholesome, think about it this way: worms are hermaphrodites and therefore have both sex organs -- they can do anyone! And from the looks of the baby worms we have, I think they do!

I'll find and post some more practical tips soon. I'm just happy that it's catching on without any direct attempts to convert people.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Three principles guide my reasoning on corporate social responsibility.

1. You can't change people's motives (mostly)
2. Systems are complex and can't (usually) be solved with one-size-fits-all simple solution
3. Sustainability isn't just a catch phrase

Different motives (or values), like I discussed in a recent post on food, can drive toward the same goals if carefully examined. For example, many people are driven by goals like a healthy place to live for themselves and for their progeny. Companies, driven by returning shareholders value (which is conventionally defined in terms of currency), are motivated by cost reduction and increased revenue. These goals can all be met with similar means. For example, a more sustainable environmental program would require it, on a fundamental level, to be more efficient. A more efficient system would by virtue of being less resource dependent, be less expensive in terms of currency as well.

Systems are complex. We learned from Michael Pollan that just switching to organic isn't going to do either of the things it purports to do: increase your health and decrease your environmental footprint. This is because many foods labeled organic are still produced on factory farms, processed with fossil-fuel-intensive machines, mixed with preservatives, packaged in unnecessary packaging, and shipped long distances. Eating local foods grown using non-industrial methods often can be much less environmentally destructive. However, as we learned from Sarah Murray, it's not just local either. A system that works with its resources rather than against them is more likely to be efficient and take into account the multi-faceted reality of life. Finding ways for multiple parts of a complex system to work in a symbiotic way is a beautiful thing. It's harder and it takes more time (think: evolutionary) but we're complex creatures and have created ways to adapt our modern simplistic ways back into the complex systems we came from. (I'm thinking nomad, to agrarian, to urban ... and back)

The definition of sustainability isn't CFL light bulbs and compost piles (well not necessarily). Sustainability means returning resources to the system in a way that is usable to future generations so that the system continues to thrive. Sustainability isn't as selfless as it sometimes is made out to be. Why do people have children (on a fundamental, evolutionary level)? They have children because they need to sustain themselves and once they get to a certain age, they might need some help with that. The American system isn't as family-oriented as others, but things like pensions, nursing homes, Medicaid, and Social Security are institutionalized versions of the younger generation paying and caring for the older generation--it's another product of specialization. In addition, those children, grandchildren, and other successors pass on the memory and legacy of their predecessors. It's a beautiful system and not at all selfless, though when changing a diaper or giving up a convenience to diminish waste, it can feel that way.

So if we can convince (or remind) corporations that their goals aren't necessarily in conflict with "social responsibility," maybe the world would be a better place. Our propensity towards specialization keeps us from seeing a bigger picture sometimes -- keeps us from seeing ourselves in the larger scheme and therefore disconnects us from the larger "system." As other measures of sustainability (like carbon footprints, community involvement, and employee satisfaction) gain value, maybe the way corporations view sustainability and return will change.

New Style

This New Year's Eve celebration began with 2 hours of mani-pedis with a friend and continued into the night with a prix fixe dinner, wine, champagne, and good company. Just exactly the speed I wanted. Plus, I got to wear pants I bought in high school. While that doesn't say anything about my fashion sense, it does say something about my waistline! I still want to incorporate increased exercise into the resolution package, however.

Convenience

I can't believe I didn't include that in the set of values in the last post. It is the value that is highly sought after (especially in the US) and also often runs contrary to the other values. How can we have convenient food that is not packed full of unnatural preservatives in packages that destroy the environment? That will probably be the most difficult to overcome.

In many ways, convenient food could be less wasteful. For example, peeled carrots weigh less than their unprocessed counterparts and therefore take less fuel to transport. Does that make up for the machines that cut them? Do they have to then be kept in more packaging and/or liquid to stay fresh? Not sure. But maybe things like this can strike a balance.

Motives

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think so. There has been a recent dramatic shift in the way people think about food in this country. While, that's probably the case, there are definitely several different motives for these shifts and they all seem to relate to the amount of information available. Here are some that come to mind:

1. Environmental Impact of the process and delivery
2. Health/Nutritional value of the food
3. Food safety (E-Coli, mad cow, lead, pesticides, etc.)
4. Community support (in the form of local farms, co-ops, markets, etc.)
5. Variety of food (exotic, variety for nutrition)
6. Monetary cost (to consumer)
7. Support of economies in need (not always local)
8. National security (having an adequate supply of food lest the entire world embargo us)

Sometimes these values can be mutually exclusive (e.g. 4 and 7) but they don't always have to be. I just finished reading Movable Feasts by Sarah Murray. It is an interesting tale of several food items and how they are moved from their place of origin to our dinner plates.

It's clearly a book written by a talented travel writer. But she also takes the position that long-distance travel is a good thing for us and for the world -- mainly focusing on the variety and supporting economies in need arguments. However she attempts an environmental argument as well. Part of it is completely valid in my mind and we should all consider it as we have more information about where our food comes from and we're making decisions about which of that is aligned with our values. That argument is that it is sometimes more energy efficient to import food from elsewhere than it is to grow it closer to home (with heated greenhouses, for example).

Her other argument for the environmental benefit of shipping food long distance is that driving to the farmer's market uses more energy than shipping the food in a container ship (per capita). However, she leaves out that driving to the grocery store where you buy the container-ship-provided goods uses the same amount of energy (presumably) as the grocery store. So it falls short of convincing.

Where Michael Pollan's book Omnivore's Dilemma helped me to see that it's not just organic (which has its problems) that's good, but also local, Murray's book helped me see that it's not just local either.

Making decisions about the food we eat is extremely complex if we're trying to account for the different values laid out at the beginning of this post. However, the industry is learning that we want more transparency about sources and things are getting better. If you're concerned about the food you eat, maybe you will consider asking your grocer and/or favorite brands more about the sources of the food.

Food Bill

The article I suggested in an earlier post is actually a really nice summary, in case you haven't read it yet. It tells you all of this issues on the docket and gives you the skinny on each side's argument. There's also an interesting set of interviews linked from that page if you have half an hour to listen. These links below are to the same article with a mini-summary from me.

• Crop Subsidies
  
• Should we continue to use tax-payer money to subsidize commodity crops? If so, should we make some changes to the structure? What about tariffs?
  
• Qualifying for Payments
• Should big agri-business benefit from subsidies or should there be a cap that only supports smaller farmers. And if so, what should the cap be?
  
• Conservation Programs
• Paying farmers not to farm the land, paying them to clean up the land, paying them to use more environmentally beneficial practices
  
• Food Stamps
• Providing subsidies to food consumers (as opposed to food growers/producers)
  
• International Food Aid
• How should we structure giving food (or other goods/money) to foreign nations in need of aid? Is giving out food the right answer? Is our subsidy system shutting out third-world farmers?
  

Disclaimer: I am not an expert. I have read a few books and articles and seen one very interesting documentary. However, as a consumer in this food system, I think it's my right to speak out about it. Feel free to comment and/or correct me where I'm wrong.

Basically, the problem as I see it, is that we subsidize based on the needs of a previous generation and because we have different problems than they do, the process needs to evolve if we want to ease the problems we're seeing today.

What are our problems?

• obesity
• diseases associated with obesity (heart disease and diabetes to name a couple),
• environmental degradation
  
• economic imbalance
  

Much of this has to do with the fact that we subsidize commodity crops which aren't actually food until processed (generally using chemicals). Because we subsidize these commodities, we're encouraged and therefore inclined toward eating and feeding our livestock things that we and they haven't evolved to eat. For us that means things like high fructose corn syrup and any number of preservatives, flavorings, dyes, and sweeteners. For cattle and other livestock that means eating corn (the commodity kind, not the sweet delicious goodness that you buy on the cob).

These manufactured food items for us mean that our diet is much less varied. Our bodies are designed, for better or for worse, to get a large array of nutrition which typically comes from many sources. When all of our food contains corn products or is unnaturally raised on corn, this diminishes the variety even when we think we are eating a variety. Plus it supports an economy based on only 5 main crops: corn, soybeans, rice, wheat and cotton. I also tend to think that our ready-made meals (which are largely corn- and soy-based) break down some of our community bonds that come with gathering, preparing and eating of food, but this article is long enough and I don't need to get into that here.

For livestock (keep in mind that I know most about cattle), this corn-based diet is destructive because their digestive systems are designed to process grass. Remember in 1st grade when you learned that cows have 5 stomachs and you thought that was amazing? Well it is pretty amazing. They are able to turn grass into protein in that system--no small feat! It is also beneficial for them to actually graze in a pasture and get some exercise and get some relief from their own waste. However, instead of letting cows do what cows would likely do on their own, we trap them in confined areas where they are encouraged to eat (literally) tons of food that they normally wouldn't touch--all while standing in a slurry of their own manure. This diet and the unsanitary living conditions combine for a negative effect on the health of the cattle. So, instead of having healthy, happy, grazing cattle, these factory farm systems choose to continue this practice and just feed the cattle antibiotics to treat infection. I think we all know where too much antibiotic leads us. Nowhere good.

It's also interesting to know that the government's meat quality ratings are at least somewhat based on having a good "marble" to the beef. Marbling means that there is visible fat in the meat. So our government is promoting fattier meat. It comes as no surprise to me that the same thing that is making our cattle sick and fat is the same thing that makes us sick and fat.

Another underlying issue to the whole debate is the notion of the small family farmer. At the beginning of the Depression, nearly 50% of people were involved in small-scale farming, now only 2% of our population is working on family farms. There's an argument that since we have had so many advances in technology and efficiency, why support the old system? The people who argue against family farms also call it a romantic notion.

Romantic doesn't have to mean wrong if you ask me. I think it would be pretty awesome if when I visit my uncle's farm in Iowa that I would be offered freshly picked food from the farm. However, aside from a small garden which you could have in a suburb, all there is is chemical-heavy #2 corn, which is not edible by humans. It's more complicated and complex to have a food system that is based on small family farms. We wouldn't have 5,000 identical ears of corn or apples or heads of lettuce in our grocery store, but we might actually be able to get all of our nutritional needs met through our food and not have to worry about supplements and pills and antibiotics etc. in order to be healthy.

What a world would that be?

Mixer

Apparently, wine and sambvca and tequila and chicken fingers and shrimp and mini burgers don't mix. Today was greeted with a nauseating headache and a will to die. I made it to work curled up in a ball next to the door of the train and I received applause when I walked into the office. Yes, it was the day after the company holiday party. Free drinks are dangerous. So are cameras.

Farm Bill

Yes, I know it sounds weird and country of me, but PLEASE read about the Farm Bill. It's apparently gaining momentum in the senate and we have a DUTY to be knowledgeable about it. I would summarize it for you, but I'm afraid I'm remiss in my reading of it as well.

Food is something that we can take for granted especially in this country, but it is not to be taken lightly. It is a basic element of our daily lives and therefore critical to our health and well-being. We often blindly eat whatever comes in the box or tray or bag not thinking of where it comes from or what has happened to it on our way to our plates. It's so easy to do that. I do it. But we shouldn't. Not only because of what it could do to us personally in the short or even long term, but what it can do to our shared environment, the people who grow it, the economy, and many, many other systems and players.

So please, read something about the farm bill and see what the senate has in store for us. And then maybe contact your senator and tell her what you think.

Pitta Kapha

My roommate has spent a considerable amount of time in Nepal and a considerable amount of time dreaming he is in India (he's traveled there too, but not as intensely as the Nepal time). That brings with it certain knowledge and interest. One, of course is Bollywood, which I will not get into now. The other is the Ayurveda.

There are three body types or Doshas in the Ayurveda: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. Everyone is a combination of all three, but most people will have a pretty clear front runner. Many will also be in the middle of two, though that's not discussed in the websites I've visited tonight. It's in the book.

You can take a quiz here. I've looked at a few online and this one seems to be the most flexible and therefore most telling. It's kind of fun just for the novelty, but it's also really interesting to see the ancient wisdom and how that works. I thought about trying to change my diet and lifestyle to be more congruent with what I "should" be eating according to my body type, but haven't been able to change quite that much yet. Maybe that will be my next habit (or habit breaking).

Red Wiggler Delight

In mid-October, my roommate, Grant, and I started a worm bin. A worm bin? In your apartment? Oh, yes, my friends.

Before we even decided to live together, the condition for being my roommate (other than being willing to accept all of my insanities and quirks) was that we would have an indoor vermi-compost system in our apartment. Grant obliged. I've been wanting to do it for years but didn't have the drive to do it and/or didn't want to offend a roommate by introducing worms into our already-established environment. Well no more!

Vermi-composting, besides being a great way to avoid stinky garbage (since all of the stink-causing stuff goes into the worm bin), is also a great way to help reduce greenhouse gases. Rotting food accounts for somewhere around 16% of our residential greenhouse gas emissions [Inventory of New York City Greenhouse Gas Emissions April 2007]. This is because a) we throw away way too much edible food and b) because food is put in the garbage, and therefore a landfill, where it is then anaerobically decomposed. This anaerobic decomposition produces Methane, which, as you know is pretty deadly stuff and toxic us and to our environment. The worms, on the other hand, along with some helpful bacteria and other microbes break down the food waste aerobically, which doesn't produce the toxic gases.

And not only that, but when it's time to harvest my precious worm castings, my plants (and probably the tree outside too) will be extremely happy. I turned my waste into liquid gold for my little plant friends. My garbage will turn into next season's rosemary, sage, basil and whatever else we want to grow!

If you still think living with worms is gross and you have a backyard, it works there too (and you don't have to deal with worms or rotting food inside). Or, if you're still thinking it's not for you, you could at least buy the stuff. (What, buy worm poop?) Well, yes. There is a lovely company called TerraCycle that composts food by getting paid to take it out of the waste stream (brilliant business model, eh? not only do they not pay for their raw materials, but they get paid to take them). They take this garbage and feed it to their worms and then package the castings into all re-used containers. Not recycled, re-used. It's pretty cool. You can get it in regular stores, it's less expensive than the toxic alternatives, and their advertising indicates that plants grow better with TerraCycle than with their more toxic counter parts. Try it! (Plus they have a ton of awesome community building projects that are built into the business.)

Productivity

Because I'm obsessed with the title of this post, I've decided my next book (to read) should be something pedagogical. So I'm reading The Omnivore's Dilemma to learn more about food in the U.S. (or as the author refers to it: America). I've been interested for a long time in where it comes from, what is better for me, what is better for the environment, organic or local -- does it matter?, and other related things so this should be a good start.

However, it's not quite as motivating for reading as good fiction, so I've decided that I get to read something fun next.

Delicious Meat Free Meat

Amid a long day of studying for what quite possibly is the world's most boring exam (Series 6), I made plans to meet up with an old friend from the Boston days. He is vegan, which I can't help but to give him a hard time about, and likes to do vegan things. So we went to Moo Shoes, which is a vegan shoe store so that he could buy some crunchy shoes for his new job. Then we went to Red Bamboo, a store specializing in turning things that are decidedly not meat (soy) into things that taste like meat. It was surprisingly delicious. It really tastes and has the consistency of chicken. Crazy Asians! (My only complaint is that they didn't have a single spicy dish in a 4-page menu)

I have a few questions from my experience:

1. Wasn't McDonald's the master of the meatless patty? What was so bad about that?
   
2. Are plastic/rubber shoes any more sustainable than leather ones?
1. Cow herding generally means colossally bad land management practices (water, rainforest, to name a few)
2. The methane that bovine produce is pretty toxic to the environment
3. Some find it inhumane to kill animals
4. If they're being killed for food, isn't it better to at least use all parts? Do we do that?
5. (Yes I understand that if you don't kill for food, then you don't have that problem, but damn cows taste good)
6. The rubber industry is riddled with problems ranging from child labor to deforestation to toxic dumping and other environmental degradation
   
7. Plastic is made out of oil. Need I say more?

Those are the things I can think of to at least start. Anyone have evidence one way or the other? It's definitely partially up to your personal preference on the meat eating issue. I used to be a vegetarian -- for 5 years. And then I went to college, decided I needed to try new things, and gained 20 pounds. Maybe that vegetarian thing was a good idea after all.