Alice Waters on "60 Minutes"

Last night "60 Minutes" profiled Alice Waters, founder of the venerable Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley and pioneer of the fresh, local foods movement. It was an interesting piece, offering insight into why she's been so influential and also why many folks take issue with her.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for the work that Waters has done and the influence she's had. I'm not sure my own work would have been possible if she hadn't blazed her particular trail. But I bristled at the statement that she shudders at the thought of frozen food, as well as her much criticized contention that even poor people would be able to afford good food if they passed on that second pair of Nikes or that expensive cell phone.

I certainly want more people to eat more fresh, local, organic food, but I doubt it's going to happen any time soon on the scale that Waters envisions. In the meantime, we can go a long way towards improving the situation if we moved away from the all-or-nothing thinking that's most likely to capture media attention, and the snobbery that makes someone shudder at the idea of frozen food. There's plenty of middle ground, and change is most likely to come about on a piecemeal basis. Small changes can go a long way, and frozen vegetables are still a lot better than those that come in cans.

Another Demo

I did a cooking demo the other night at East West Bookshop, in the Roosevelt district. It presented some interesting challenges, not least because there was no cooking equipment. Also, they billed the event as "A Vegan Guide to Seattle's Farmers' Markets", so I needed to come up with something appropriate to that title.

I decided to do Rice Paper Spring Rolls, because I could cook the noodles in advance and the rest of the process involves no cooking. The recipe calls for salad greens mixed in with the noodles, so I went looking for some local salad greens at the University District on Saturday, but there were none to be had. It's been a really rough year for local produce. I did manage to find a hearty mix on Sunday at the Ballard Market, grown by Colinwood Farms. It had a number of varieties of seasonal greens I could recognize as well as quite a few that I couldn't, and that gave me a great entry point. I talked about the different leaves, passed some around, and encouraged folks to taste them

The event was scheduled for an hour and a half and that seemed daunting to me. Most cooking demos last about 40 minutes. The folks at the bookstore said it was okay to end early, but it ended up running almost the entire time. I realized that I can talk about farmers' markets and local foods all day, as long as the audience seems halfway engaged.

The "Eat Local Minority"

The marketing research firm Mintel released the results of a survey today which found that 17% of American adults, or one in six, buy locally produced goods and services whenever possible. Krista Faron, an analyst with the company, said, "We found that although the 'buy local' mantra has gotten strong media coverage and government support, most Americans haven't yet incorporated it into their lifestyles."

This is a great example of how you can read data in different ways depending, perhaps, on your agenda. I think it's great news that 17% of American adults buy local products whenever possible. That's a difficult standard to achieve. I buy a lot of my food at farmers' markets. Over the summer I'm at the markets five days a week. But I wouldn't say I buy local products whenever possible. There are certainly times when it would be possible for me to find a locally sourced alternative, but I don't buy it because it's inconvenient or expensive. Convenience and price aren't always the determining factors for me, but they do sometimes figure into my purchasing decisions, at least often enough that if a researcher asked me if I buy local products whenever possible, I'd probably say no.

So I think it's exciting that 17% of American adults answered the question in the affirmative, assuming, of course, that they're telling the truth.

3-Packs

All winter I've been insisting that my business hasn't been hurt at all by the lousy economy, but that's not entirely true. My sales at the markets are comparable--if not better--than they were a year ago, but different items are selling well.

In addition to the hot, read to eat food that we prepare, we also sell take-home packs of tamales, three to a pack. We sell them for $8 (a single tamale, hot and ready, costs $3.50.) Over the years we've sold anywhere from 3 or 4 packs to 15 or 20 packs at any given market. Last winter at the U District we were selling an average of 30 packs a week. That's more packs than I'd ever sold at any market.

This year we're selling a lot fewer. Though each tamale in the pack is cheaper than the ones we sell ready to eat, the packs still feel expensive to many customers. They are, in fact, the most pricey item we sell.

They do freeze well, so when we have some leftover, we freeze them so we'll have them for emergencies. Occasionally we run a special and clean out the freezer, selling the packs for $5 each. We've been selling 45 packs in a day when we do this, and it makes me wonder whether I should just lower the price overall. I do make some money selling them at that price, but not nearly as much as at full price.

I've struggled with this, and decided to keep the price where it is, and run specials every month or so. I don't want folks to get too used to the lower price, because then it won't seem worth it to them when we raise the price again. And over the summer we sometimes struggle to produce enough to meet demand, so I don't want to be selling them at a reduced price when I don't have enough to sell at full price. This makes me feel a bit like a cut throat capitalist, but my mother always tells me I need to move more in that direction, so maybe it's a start.

Mindless Eating

I just finished Brian Wansink's book, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. I'd been hearing about his work for years. He's the food researcher who does experiments comparing how much people eat with different serving sizes, different background stimuli, and different kind of feedback telling them how much they've eaten.

According to Wansink, nobody--not even food researchers--are immune to these cues that affect how much we eat, though nearly everyone thinks they are. Reading this has definitely gotten me to pay more attention, trying to put less on my plate and resisting the urge to help myself to seconds.

But I have to say, reading a book about snacking definitely got me thinking quite a bit about...well...snacking.

Trader Joe's Chocolate Sampler

1. I was at Trader Joe a few months ago and I noticed that by the cash registers they were selling stacks of chocolate bars from different parts of the world, as a sampler to taste and compare. They were selling the package for $10-I'd seen similar products for as much as $40. But I try not to buy things on impulse. When I see something I want I usually walk away from it, and if I find myself continuing to think about it, I go back and get it.

I went back for the chocolate bars a few days later but they were gone, and when I asked about them I was told that the distributor was out as well, and they'd be back some time during the coming year. I spotted them again a few weeks ago and this time I'd learned my lesson, so I bought them right away.

So far we've tried the varietals from Equador, Dominican Republic, and Ghana. I think this kind of product is intended for a group of people, say at a dinner party, where you can open all the bars and taste a little of each one after another. We've been opening one every day or two and finishing it so we don't end up with eight open chocolate bars. The ones we've tried have all been lovely--and a little different--but it's too much of a lag for us to really compare.

Still, we've been having a lot of fun with the package, so the next time I shopped at TJ I tried to pick up another one. Sure enough, they were gone. I guess I'll be enjoying this product every few months, when my timing is right.

Queen Anne Market Rebirth

Last weekend at the Ballard Farmers Market I got a note from the management saying that this summer they would not be holding the Queen Anne Farmers' Market, which they've run for the past two summers. The note mentioned difficulties choosing a site, since the schoolyard where the market had been held was not currently available, and it also said that sales at the market had been down considerably this past year.

I've never known a market administration to cancel a market before. They tend to take the wise position that building a clientele takes time and tinkering. I'd also heard through the grapevine that there had been some tension between the market organization and the Queen Anne Neighbors for Responsible Growth, the group that had originally decided to bring a farmers' market to the neighborhood. I had a feeling there was more to the story, and that just because this particular market organization wouldn't be running the event, that didn't mean the market was going to be cancelled.

Sure enough, I got a call during the week from someone at the neighborhood organization, and there probably will be a farmers' market on Queen Anne this summer, though the location was still uncertain at the time I got the call. I'm looking forward to seeing how this unfolds: it seems like a unique opportunity to create an event tailored to the needs of a lovely neighborhood where folks really care about their food.