Organic Fraud

According to a story published Sunday in the Sacramento Bee, many organic growers unknowingly used a fertilizer that contained synthetic ingredients.The fertilizer was being marketed as an organic product although it didn't conform to state guidelines for organic certification.

The growers, including the behemoth Earthbound Farms, weren't penalized because they were led to believe that the product was organic. The state also didn't impose any punative measures on the California Liquid Fertilizer Company, the folks who knowingly spiked their supposedly organic fertilizer with ammonium sulfate. The regulators explained their leniency by maintaining that their main priority was simply to make sure that these inorganic products were no longer being sold as organic.

Before this news came out, organic growers had been excited about the fertilizer because of its ability to enhance their soil's productivity, which was useful for them in achieving economies of scale in order to keep up with the growing demand for organic products, especially now that they've gone mainstream.

The moral of the story: Buy direct. Buy local. Support the small-scale growers at your local farmers' market.

The Beginners Guide to Fair Trade

I picked up this book because I'd been really excited about Fair Trade when I first learned about the movement a few years ago, but I've increasingly been feeling the same way about the Fair Trade label as I do about organics: the labelling system is useful in retail situations when you're buying through middlemen, but there's no substitute for the direct, honest interaction you get when you buy a product directly from the folks who produced it. I realize that's not always possible, especially with foods that are grown on other continents, so I can see how label and certification are useful, despite my ambivalence.

To its credit, this book touched on all of my reasons for not being excited about the labelling system, from its prominent role in many "greenwashing" marketing campaigns to the fact that its specific terms--such as the fact that all Fair Trade products have to be sold through cooperatives--sometimes exclude vendors who also trade fairly. I was encouraged to learn about the "Fair Trade premium" added to the price of all fair trade products, which puts money towards community projects in addition to the guaranteed price being payed to the producers. I was also glad to hear that most Fair Trade programs list the goal of "ongoing improvement" as one of their hallmarks, and that there is a good deal of self-reflection going on within the movement.

Still, I'm not entirely convinced. According to DeCarlo, most people on the planet need to earn $1.50 a day in order to survive, but over a billion people make less than a dollar. It sounds like the Fair Trade movement is largely directed at helping these poorer folks get up to this $1.50 a day level. But that seems like a hollow goal when you think about the much larger discrepancy between what I make, even as a not-particularly-affluent Westerner, and the incomes even of those non-Westerners who have achieved the goal of $1.50 a day.

While we can hardly go backward and dismantle the global food system, I'm still uncomfortable with the idea that trade is the answer, even Fair Trade. It seems to me that trade is the source of the problem, because it has been the impetus for displacing indigenous populations and disrupting traditional ways of life by appropriating land to grow products for export.

Snowed In

We've been snowed in for the past week and a half. When I first saw the upcoming weather report, I went and shopped for enough groceries to last a few days, because you're hardly ever snowed in for longer than that in Seattle. Even though there aren't nearly enough plows for a town this size, the temperature rarely stays below freezing for longer than a day or two, and there's hardly ever so much accumulation that it won't melt quickly.

This time was different. I haven't been able to get my car out of the messy side street where I live for a week and a half. I've made several excursions to the grocery store during that time, on foot or by bus. It's been an interesting exercize in slowing down, and realizing just how lucky I am most of the time. Even having a grocery store a mile away is a luxury.

More than anything, what's struck me this week is the different sense of time that comes with having to spend long periods on basic tasks. In a way I found it satisfying, especially in light of some of the reading I've been doing about food sovereignty and indigenous food systems.

It's a real stretch to compare walking to the supermarket on a snowy day with growing and processing your own staples. But they're at least similar in the sense that both activities involve a different mindset from the one we bring to working in exchange for wages or salaries, and trying to perform basic tasks as efficiently as possible. I'm thinking that kind of rhythm has a lot to do with what it means to eat well.

The No Nonsense Guide to World Food

Over the weekend I read Wayne Roberts' "No Nonsense Guide to World Food." It's a compact, accessible account of global food issues, tying together historical, political and economic background information.

It made a good to companion to Dave Winne's "Closing the Food Gap," which I also read recently. Together the two books give a sober, illuminating picture of the effects of the industrialized food system, nationally and internationally, along with some concrete ideas for creating more sustainable alternatives.

While Winne's book is largely devoted to describing anti-hunger programs in one particular North American town, Roberts' book offers a more general perspective, devoting considerable space to the concept of "food sovereignty," which activists in third world nations have begun demanding as an antidote to the damage that has been done to their cultures and environments as a result of the globalized food system.

I appreciated Roberts' conviction that a well-expressed idea can go a long way towards crystalizing such a diverse and complex movement. Food sovereignty is more than just an issue of control. It's an expression of any society's right to express its culture and its values by choosing a food system that helps it to thrive.

Holiday Pinwheels

These are pretty special. You can use them as an appetizer, but they're also substantial enough to be part of a main course. This recipe makes 27 pinwheels.

3- 9 inch square puff pastry sheets

1 cup lentils

1 medium-sized yam, peeled and cubed

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 medium sized shallots, diced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts

1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary

2 tablespoons crumbled blue cheese (optional)

Defrost the puff pastry according to the package instructions. While it's thawing, cover the lentils with an inch or two of water, bring them to a boil, then lower the heat and cook them on a medium low flame for 30-40 minutes, until they're tender.

Steam the chopped yam for about 10 minutes, until it's very soft. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a small saucepan, then add the garlic, shallots, and salt. Cook them on medium-low heat for about 5 minutes, until the shallots are tender. Add the walnuts and rosemary and cook for a few minutes longer.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. When the lentils are ready, drain them and add them to this mixture, along with the blue cheese and steamed yam. Mix it well to form a fairly smooth paste.

When the puff pastry is thawed, spread a third of this mixture in a thin layer over the surface of one sheet. Roll it as tightly as you can without squeezing the mixture out of the sides. Cut the roll in one-inch sliced, then arrange them on a cookie sheet with the sliced end facing up. Repeat with the remaining puff pastry sheets. Flatten each of the pinwheels a bit with your hand, then bake them for 10-15 minutes, until they just start to brown.

A Frugal Snack Mix

Every Thanksgiving weekend my sister the weaver participates in an open studio event called the Putney Craft Tour. I usually stay at her house for the weekend so I help with the snacks: a pot of chai and a bowl of snack mix. I'm going to share my process for putting together a frugal snack mix, because it's makes a lovely addition to a table of holiday appetizers.

It really only takes a pound or two of snack mix for 15-20 people if it's one appetizer among others. To start, I usually go to the grocery store or coop and check out what's in the bulk bins. Seeds tend to be a lot cheaper than nuts, and they have a similar mouth feel. There are also some lovely crunchy items like corn nuts or soy nuts that work well in a snack mix.

I decide what I want to use before I start putting it in bags. I buy more of the cheaper stuff, and less of the expensive stuff, but I make sure that everything I use is appealing. It doesn't take much of any one thing, so I only buy small quantities. Two cups of most liquids weigh about a pound, so I shoot for about half a cup of each ingredient, which usually weighs less than a quarter pound.

Once I choose 4 or 5 nutty, salty items, I also look for some dry fruit to add. Again, it only takes about a quarter of a pound. Raisins and dried cranberries tend to be cheapest; they also have the advantage of being small, so you can distribute the sweetness well throughout the mix. Some stores don't sell dried fruit in bulk bins because it's so sticky. If I can't find the dried fruit in bulk I usually buy the smallest possible quantity, like a 3-pack of the tiny snack packs, unless I know what I'm going to do with the leftovers from a larger bag.

I usually bulk up my snack mix with some kind of crunchy, commercial item as well, ideally an inexpensive one. Pretzel goldfish are nice; so are chow mein noodles.

It's inexpensive, and it's special.

Loving and Hating "Top Chef"

I can't help myself. I watch "Top Chef" every week. Some weeks I even look forward to it. I'm fascinated by how seriously the contestants and the judges take themselves: it's so different from my own approach to food.

Last night Tom Collichio, one of the judges, sat down with the contestants at the end of the show and had an earnest talk with them about his disappointment with the dishes they were creating. "You're not going to get to be Top Chef by making deviled eggs," he told one contestant.

The thing that's most bizarre to me about this show is the drive that the contestants have to come out on top, and the mystique that the judges cultivate around the title they're all competing for. Granted, publicity is great, and so is a chunk of money to start a restaurant. But the pressure to consistently create brilliant, original dishes calls to mind everything that irks me about the wonderful world of food.

Granted, it's just a TV reality show, and if I'm annoyed all I have to do is turn off the TV. But I think the show is really just a symptom of a deeper pathology that's all over the culinary domain: the hype around showing off individual talent rather than taking part in something that's so much bigger than any one of us.

Personally, the culinary achievements that impress me most are the ancient ones we most take for granted. I'm awed by creativity and genius that has gone into learning which foods are edible and which are poison, and then breeding the tastiest and most cost effective plants and animals to build a food supply capable of feeding billions of people. I'm continually amazed by the inexaustible palette of flavors from all over the world, the boldness and insight that it took for our ancestors to recognize and isolate the tastiest offerings from the world of possibilities, and then develop cooking techniques that really make them shine.

We don't know the names of the people who made these amazing discoveries. They never won awards on TV shows, and they weren't featured in magazines. But their contributions to our knowledge of food have left more important marks on our lives than any celebrity chef.

Obama's Disappointing Cabinet Choice

Despite all the lobbying on the part of well-intentioned food activists, Obama has chosen an advocate of bio-tech and agribusiness as his Secretary of Agriculture. Tom Vilsack, former governor of Iowa, is also a strong supporter of ethanol based fuels, which create as many problems as they solve.

The Organic Consumers Association website posted a piece a week after the election listing the reasons why Vilsack would be a lousy choice for the position. It looks like change is going to remain a grassroots effort, at least as far as agriculture is concerned.

Drought Resistant Rice

A group of researchers were honored earlier this month with a Department of Agriculture award recognizing their work in developing a flood resistant strain of rice that could go a long way towards alleviating hunger in parts of Asia.

The scientists developed the rice strain using a technique called "precision breeding." The US Food Policy blog pointed out that this development is particularly exciting because the approach used no GMO technology.

I was especially interested to read this, because I'd read a book this past summer co-authored by one of the recipients, Pamela Ronald, which discussed the potential benefits of genetic engineering as a way to develop flood resistant strains of rice and fight hunger. Could it be that she was able to develop a beneficial strain without the use of this controversial technology?

A New Kitchen?

I went and looked at a kitchen space today. It's very early for me to be thinking about where I'm going to be next fall, but I saw this place listed over the weekend and it looked too good to pass up. It's actually a spot I'm familiar with-I've known two different businesses that cooked out of that kitchen over the years. If it works out for me I'll be paying double rent for most of 2009, but I think it would still be worth it. So I'm going to go ahead and prepare the paperwork that the landlord wants to see, and then I'll just wait and see what happens...

Colorado Gleaning

As soon as I started wondering why I'd never heard of gleaning in this country, I started hearing about it.

Thanksgiving week a 600 acre farm near Denver made a public announcement that they were opening their fields for gleaning. 40,000 people showed up, in fact, the folks at the farm had to use dozens of acres for parking alone, and the event backed up traffic in their area.

The accounts I heard made me wonder how many of the people who showed up were actually experiencing food security issues. The Huffington Post quoted a woman who worked for a technology company talking about how much produce she was able to take away. Even the fact that there were 11,000 cars makes me wonder how badly the folks who showed up actually needed the food: the neediest people don't own cars.

I realize I'm making some assumptions here based on incomplete knowledge, and I'm sure some of the people who turned out really needed the food. Still, this was the same week that shoppers at a Long Island Wal Mart trampled an employee to death trying to take advantage of those door buster deals. I guess this really is gleaning, American style: a sensationalized free for all. I do hope we get better at it, and learn how to deliver this surplus food into the hands of the people who need it most.

Help Choose the Next Ag Secretary

The incoming administration doesn't yet include a choice for Secretary of Agriculture, but there's an online petition circulating urging the president elect to choose someone who supports small-scale, environmentally responsible farming. I'm not familiar with any on the names being recommended, but the list of original petitioners reads like a who's who in sustainable food politics, and that's good enough for me. Go ahead and add your name. You never know, it might make a difference.

My Winter Schedule

I love my winter schedule. On Sundays I go to the Ballard Farmers' Market in the late morning and if it's busy enough, I stay. On Mondays I go shopping for the business, then I unload the truck, check in with my people, and leave instructions for the rest of the week. I'm working less than 10 hours a week.

On the other days I stay home. I'm working on a couple of writing projects, and my original plan was to send out a book proposal in the fall and see if anyone nibbled, but I decided to hold off on that when the economy took a turn for the worse. I didn't want to have a publisher reject an idea that they might have embraced during better times. Instead, I'm continuing to work on these projects on my own, so I'll have a more finished product to shop around down the line.

So far the business has made almost enough to pay me these past few months and I have a little bit saved, certainly enough to tide me over until spring if things get bleak. Business at the storefront has been mostly slow, but the Ballard Market has been busy, and we'll start doing the University District market as well in a couple of weeks. I'd certainly make more money if I worked the store and the markets myself, but I figure my hands-on time is more valuable over the summer than over the winter.

My original vision when I started my my business was to create something that could mostly run itself, so that I could spend my time writing. It was naive of me to expect that to happen quickly, especially when I had no background in business and almost no capital. I've worked very hard the past twenty years. It hasn't been uncommon for me to work 60 hour weeks, and at one point I went for 4 months without a single day off.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm crazy taking so much time off now, when conventional wisdom says I should be earning every possible penny. But I've been working for a long time to make this happen. I'm certainly taking a risk and I may regret it in a few months, but right now my gut feeling says that the most important thing I can do is to invest in myself.

The Price of Eggs

My friends in upstate New York have been selling eggs to friends and neighbors for $2/dozen, and they were amazed to hear that organic eggs at Seattle farmers' markets usually sell for $5-$6/ dozen. Not only is the price nearly three times higher here, but demand exceeds supply, especially this time of year. Folks who are intent on buying eggs get to the markets early and line up to make sure they get some, and egg vendors often run out as soon as the market opens. Bob, from Stonybrook Farm, lives in the same part of upstate New York as my friends, and has been selling his eggs through a local farm for $4.50 a dozen, but he only sells 5 dozen a week at that price.

Why is there such a dramatic discrepancy between what people will pay in Seattle and what they'll pay in upstate New York? The obvious answer is that people here are more affluent and while there's certainly some truth to that, it's starting to feel too easy to me to reduce people's purchasing choices to a simple equation involving prices and available cash.

Our purchasing behavior is far from logical, especially when it comes to food. There have been countless well-intentioned articles lately about how to eat cheaply on a budget, but it's problematic to tell anyone how to eat because our food choices are so individual and so emotional. Leslie, from the Green Fork Blog, was chastised by a reader last week for suggesting that folks could save money by cooking for themselves rather than eating out or using convenience foods. The angry reader pointed out that you're more likely to burn your food if you cook for yourself, which will cause you to waste food, which doesn't save you any money.

Good food naturally costs more, while many people can't even afford the unsustainably low price of industrial food. At the same time, not everyone spends their food dollars wisely, and advertisers working for large food conglomerates are all too savvy at pushing those buttons that encourage us to reach for all the wrong impulse items. Basic food also tends to cost more in neighborhoods where folks are least able to afford it, the so-called urban food deserts.

My family buys farmers' market eggs when we can get them. There are 3 of us, and it takes us two to three weeks to go through a dozen eggs. We eat them for breakfast on weekend mornings, and we hardly ever bake. I'd rather eat fewer expensive eggs than more cheap, industrial eggs. It's not my place to tell anyone how or what to eat, but I do think that we have the knowledge and resources for more people to eat better food, if we individually and collectively made some better choices.

The Happy Homesteaders

After hanging out with my family in Vermont, I spent some time with friends who have a farm in upstate New York, an hour or so west of Albany. They've been there for most of six years, and during that time I've visited in the early summer, when we could just wander outside and pick whatever we wanted for dinner, and in the early spring, when the pickings were slim (though we ate well anyway.) This time there weren't many edible plants growing (except some wild thyme that we used for seasoning) but there was plenty of recently harvested food like squash, onions, garlic and beans.

They were shrewd and fortunate enough to make a sufficient down payment on their land to not have to grow any cash crops. Instead they're focusing on being as self sufficient as possible, growing for their own needs and experimenting as they go along. They've had pigs and goats, but the karma of killing them for food felt burdensome and, besides, the animals ate a lot. They have quite a few ducks and chickens and they sell eggs sometimes, but it's more of a way to spread around a good thing than an earnest money-making endeavor.

It's always refreshing for me to visit there and experience their unique perspective on agriculture. I spend so much time around farmers who are struggling with the economics of small-scale enterprises. Some of them are better farmers, with more experience and resources (not to mention soil that hasn't been depleted by hundreds of years of use), but they don't have the kind of freedom that comes with building something specifically to meet their own needs. It's unconventional, but it's exciting to watch it unfold.

Eating Locally Away from Home

I just got back from a week and a half visiting family and friends in southern Vermont and upstate New York. I love seeing people I care about and I also enjoy exploring local foodways in places that aren't quite familiar to me.

I grew up in Brooklyn, but several of my family members are now based in Vermont so we often do Thanksgiving there. I was able to stay longer this year because my work schedule has been delightfully flexible, so I got to orchestrate most of the holiday dinner. I don't get to do that very often for my family of origin and it's different from catering for strangers, when I'm always trying to figure out the most cost effective way to do things. For this occasion it was more important for everything to be just right.

I bought most of my produce for the dinner at Walker Farm, between my mother's place in Dummerston and my sister's home in Putney. They have lots of organic produce that they've grown themselves (tomatoes in Vermont! In November!), and also plenty of other stuff, most of it local. We've got a spectacular food scene in Seattle, but we don't have anything like this. The agricultural and residential landscapes in Vermont are so well integrated that a place like this can work, while it wouldn't make sense for a farmer near Seattle to rent space in the city for a similar venture.

The other great local food find in Vermont was the Gilfeather Turnip, though I have to admit I didn't actually taste one. They were just too big, and by the time I discovered them I was already trying to figure out ways to use all of the Thanksgiving leftovers. But I kept going over to the basket of them at the Brattleboro Coop and checking out this magnificent vegetable. Some of them weighed as much as 5 pounds. I've been eating baby turnips the size of radishes. The Gilfeather turnip is a native of Vermont, and it's actually a rutabaga, not a turnip. It's also received the distinction of being inducted into the Slow Food Ark of Taste.

An Epiphany

The past few months have been very, very slow at my storefront and I've been blaming it on the lousy economy, but a few days ago I realized that there may have been something else going on as well.

Our front window was broken about two months ago, and when I replaced the glass I didn't bother repainting the lettering that had been there. It had said "Quick, Healthy, Vegetarian," but the word "vegetarian" had been spread across two panes to say, "Veget arian," with the "Veget" part on the pane that was smashed. Now it just says, "Arian Food."

We like to joke that maybe that will bring in skinheads who can't spell, but the fact of the matter is that the truncated word just gives the impression that the place isn't cared for. I read one time that when New York City officials decided to get serious about fighting crime on the subways they diligently cleaned off all of the graffiti, and every time a car was spray painted they wouldn't let it back into service until it had been repainted. Cleaning the cars was a way to communicate that they were cared for and subway crime really did go down.

I've decided to go ahead and repaint the front window even though I won't be staying in the storefront longer than another year. As soon as I made that decision we had two of the best days we'd had there in months, even though the window hasn't been repainted yet. That may have been a coincidence, but somehow I don't think so.

Braised Carrots with Cranberries

And here's a third Thanksgiving recipe from my cookbook, Local Bounty.

Braised Carrots with Cranberries

Yield: 4 servings

Here's a sweet and sour holiday dish with a deep, mellow flavor. You can use the extra braising liquid as a sauce for any kind of grain or potatoes.

2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups sliced carrots
1/2 cup cranberries

1. Heat the oil gently in a medium-size saucepan. Add the garlic and cook on low heat for about a minute. Add the orange juice, balsamic vinegar, rosemary, and salt.

2. Bring the mixture to a boil. Add the carrots and cranberries. Cover the pan, lower the heat, and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the carrots are soft.

Gold Beets with Leeks and Chives

Here's another one from my book "Local Bounty." According to Kim O'Donnel of A Mighty Appetite, there are a disproportionate number of beet lovers in the Pacific Northwest. I still encounter quite a few beet haters, but they're a minority, and I'm doing what I can to convert them.

1 pound gold beets

water to cover

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium-size leek, cleaned and chopped

2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon saltblack pepper to taste

1/4 cup chopped chives

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1. Cover the beets with water in a medium-size saucepan and bring them to a boil. Cook on medium heat for 45 minutes to an hour, until you can rub off the skins with your fingers. (To test one, fish it out of the pot with a pair of tongs and run it under cold water for a minute until it’s cool enough to handle.)

2. While the beets are cooking, heat the oil in a small saucepan. Add the leek, garlic, salt and pepper. Cook on medium-low heat for about 5 minutes, until the leek is soft. Turn off the heat and add the chives or parsley and the balsamic vinegar.

3. Cut the beets into bite-size pieces and toss them with the leek and chive mixture. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Delicata Succotash

Succotash is the ultimate American food, based on a traditional Native American recipe that could include almost anything, but almost always had beans and corn. People who grew up eating succotash are often surprised by mine because it doesn't include lima beans or meat. You could say it's untraditional because it's different from the dish we're used to eating with that name, but traditional in the sense that it draws on the dish's long term roots.

You probably won't be able to find locally grown tomatoes most places this time of year, but you should be able to find local squash, leeks and garlic.

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium-size delicata squash, peeled, halved, seeded, and cut into small bite-size pieces
1 leek, cut lengthwise, cleaned, and chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup green beans, cut in bite-size pieces
2 ripe, medium-size tomatoes, cut in bite-size pieces
2 cups cooked or canned white beans
1 cup fresh corn
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil or parsley, or a mixture of the two.

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet. Add the squash, leek, garlic and salt. Cook on medium-low heat, stirring often, for about 10 minutes or until the squash is fork-tender. You can add a few tablespoons of water if the squash starts to stick.

2. Add the green beans and tomatoes. Continue cooking on medium-high heat, stirring often, for another 5 to 10 minutes, until the tomatoes start to break down and the green beans grow soft.

3. Add the remaining ingredients and heat them through.

Thanksgiving, the Ultimate Local Food Holiday

1. I'll be talking about local foods and vegan holiday recipes on KUOW (FM 94.9) on Wednesday between 2 and 3, so the next few days I'll be posting Thanksgiving recipes from my cookbook "Local Bounty," so they can link to them.

Thanksgiving, more than any other holiday, is a celebration of local food. According to the story we've all heard many times, the Pilgrims had trouble raising enough food to feed themselves so the Native Americans helped them out and taught them to grow some indigenous crops, which got them through those early tough times. Many of the foods that we're used to having on our Thanksgiving tables are American foods: pumpkins, potatoes, wild rice, green beans, cranberries, and, of course, turkey. (I know I'm posting vegan recipes, but the turkey does help to illustrate my point.)

Indigenous foods aren't necessarily local foods, especially in this day and age. Carrots, apples and Brussels sprouts originated in other parts of the world but can be grown close to home. Blueberries are indigenous to the Pacific Northwest, but when they're out of season and we want them "fresh," we buy them grown in Chile. But without splitting hairs, I do think that buying locally grown food is very much in the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday, whether or not those foods are indigenous to the locale that we call home.

The Pilgrims achieved food security by learning to use the foods they found in their immediate environment. It wasn't sustainable for them to live on familiar foods shipped from England, and the seeds they brought with them didn't take well to the new soil, at least initially. Today we're faced with a sustainability issue as well, though our short term survival isn't necessarily at stake. But eating local foods does improve our long term food security, at the same time that it expands our culinary horizons, just as it did for the Pilgrims.

Tough Times

Things are looking bad for the restaurant industry, in fact, some of the leading indicators are at their lowest levels on record. But the trend doesn't seem to be affecting everyone equally: I was listening to a couple of chefs talking about Thanksgiving recipes on the radio the other day, and when the announcer asked how their restaurants were doing, both said their sales were actually up a bit compared to the same period a year ago.

My own storefront has been incredibly slow, in fact, this has probably been the slowest period we've had since we opened 4 years ago. I'm not sure it's entirely because of the economy, though. I have just one more year left on my lease, and I've mostly decided that after the next year I'll set up a new kitchen closer to where I live, and just do markets because that's my main business anyway. It's always been my experience that when my energy goes out of something people pick up on that on a subliminal level, so that may be contributing to the slow sales as well. I am committed to keeping the store open for the remaining year, though, if only to provide work for my wonderful employees. It's tough keeping good people when all you can offer them is seasonal work.

The Ballard Farmers' Market, on the other hand, has been doing well enough to carry the rest of the business. It may be because I've finally seen the light and realized that it's worth having two people in the booth most of the day even during the slow season, or maybe because the market is open an hour longer this winter, or maybe it's just that it's a great market that keeps growing in spite of obstacles.

One trend that I have been noticing is that I'm selling more half size quesadillas, and fewer full size ones. A half costs $4, and a whole costs $6, so when I sell two halves I actually make more money for the same amount of ingredients. Many people are also splitting full quesadillas, which means that two people are able to eat lunch at my booth for $3 each. Maybe I'm having a good fall at the market simply because I'm offering some very affordable options.

In any case, I think that it's important in this day and age for a business--like a stock portfolio--to be as diversified as possible. That way if some aspects aren't going well, others have the potential to pick up some of the slack.

Brussels Sprouts!

I was never force fed Brussels sprouts as a child so I didn't have any first hand negative associations with them. But some of our widespread cultural prejudice must have rubbed off on me because I found myself one day last winter challenging myself to learn to like them.

I was successful without too much effort. They're wonderful tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted for 20-30 minutes. I've also been simply cutting them up and tossing them in without whatever other vegetables I'm cooking.

I'd seen them at markets and in the grocery store sold on stems as "Brussels sprout trees," but I only recently learned that the tree part is actually the center of the plant, with big leaves growing around the sprouts. I tasted a leaf, and it tasted a lot like collard greens.

Closing the Food Gap

Last week I read Mark Winne's "Closing the Food Gap," which is about strategies for making good food more widely available, especially for lower income folks. Winne has some impressive experience working in inner city urban neighborhoods addressing food security issues, and he can be credited with starting the wonderful Farmers' Market Nutrition Program, which provides food stamps specifically for farmers' market purchases.

I picked up the book last week partly because I had been thinking about the issue, after posting a piece on the Eat Well Guide's Green Fork Blog talking about the ways that spending money at the farmers' market can be a better investment than investing in the stock market. I received a somewhat scathing comment from someone who had read my piece as just another instance of that upper income cluelessness that makes the Slow Food movement inaccessible to so many people who really care about good food.

It was sobering to read this, because I've always gone to great lengths to keep my own prices low. I joined Slow Food last year--the only organization I ever joined-- but I let my membership lapse because I wanted more policy and less food porn. I've lived on a near subsistence income for most of my adult life, though I've been lucky to have a family safety net as well as a food business that could feed me sometimes. I think about the cost of food all the time because my livelihood depends on shrewd purchasing.

Winne's book covers everything from food banks, to community gardens, to the lack of good supermarkets in inner city neighborhoods, to farmers' markets and CSA programs that address the needs of low income shoppers. He calls for both policy changes and grassroots efforts. My only quarrel with his position was that there was too much of an emphasis on fresh produce and virtually no mention of legumes and whole grains, which are the most cost effective way to prepare healthy food on a budget, as long as you supplement them with some fresh vegetables. Even at Whole Foods, with recent price increases you can get a pound of bulk brown rice, lentils, barley, or almost any kind of bean for under $2 a pound. And that pound turns into more than two pounds when you cook it.

Of course you're still left with the question of how to get to Whole Foods when you don't have a car, and where to find enough time to cook beans and grains from scratch when you're working two jobs. Winne repeatedly brings up the fact that folks who live in urban "food deserts," or communities without decent grocery stores, end up spending more money on worse food because they only have access to convenience stores. I found myself thinking, "If someone is paying more already, why not pay more for something of better quality?"

But it doesn't work that way. I read a book a while back called "Cottage Economy," written by a nineteenth century English reformer named William Cobbett. He complained about the poor spending their money in pubs when they could brew their own beer much more cheaply: all they had to do was invest in 80 quart copper brewing kettles, the cost of which could be easily recouped from all the money not spent at the pub.

The situation is so complex, and it's way too easy to come up with theoretical solutions that are completely impractical. But it's better to have a list of good questions than a couple of inadequate answers.

Wheat!

Nash's Farm has been selling bags of wheat berries at the markets the past couple of weeks. They're going for $1.50 a pound, which seems insanely cheap to me for a food that so many people use, but so few people grow locally.

I recently read "Plenty," an account of a year of local eating by a Vancouver couple, which devoted quite a bit of space to their quest for local wheat. For most of the year the only wheat they found had been stored for months in someone's barn, and they had to pick through it and separate the wheat berries from the rat turds before they could use it.

So I was excited to see these on Nash's table. I asked why so few farmers grow wheat in this area and they said you need a drier climate, which they have because they're based in Sequim. They're doing some field trials along with Washington State University to determine which varieties will grow best in this area. I also got the impression that it's not really worth growing wheat unless you do it on a fairly large scale.

I've been cooking the wheat berries like rice and eating them with beans and vegetables. The folks at Nash will be sending some over to a friend's restaurant to be ground into flour. I hope some of that makes its way to the markets, as well.

A Violin and a Hoola Hoop

I was very impressed by this young performer who I saw at the Ballard Market yesterday. She was standing on a large rubber ball, playing a violin, and swinging a hoola hoop all at the same time. There's some juggling equipment on the ground in the background, but I wasn't able to stick around long enough to see how that fit into the act.

By the way, I didn't notice any farmers missing, and most of the folks I asked hadn't experienced any serious flooding, although Eric from Prana Farms said he lost some squash that was already picked when water made its way into the storage pit.

Eat Local for Thanksgiving

The Consumers Union is partnering with the Eat Well Guide in a program to encourage folks to incorporate local foods into their Thanksgiving dinners. CU is collecting and posting recipes, and EWG has a directory of farmers' markets and other places where you can find local foods.

Puget Sound Fresh is promoting the same general idea, asking folks to take a pledge promising that they will have at least one local food item on their holiday tables. One local food really doesn't sound like much, but I think this kind of approach has a lot in common with the 100 Mile Diet program, where people pledge to eat all local food for a period of time. They're really just ways to get us thinking about where our food comes from, and anything that moves people in that direction seems like a good idea to me.

Waiting for Word on Flooding

The flooding the past couple of days has been all over the news,but I haven't heard anything yet about what concerns me most: the plight of local farmers. The agricultural land closest to Seattle is largely on flood plains near Carnation and Fall City, by the Tolt and Snoqualmie rivers. Farmers whose fields flood lose whatever crops are in the ground because regulatory agencies rightly forbid selling food that could have been contaminated with manure from neighboring farms, or even heavy metals from nearby industry. This is an especially big problem for organic farms, which run the risk of losing their organic certification if their land is contaminated by toxins in the water.

Flooding has especially been an issue the past couple of years as more markets stay open all winter and more farmers extend their growing season into the fall and winter flood season. We'll have to wait for the weekend to see how folks fared, but I'm betting there will be fewer farmers at the markets, and plenty of stories.

A Visit to Nash's Farm

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting Nash's Organic Farm, in Sequim. They grow 50-60% of the produce my company uses. I went with Dylan, Heidi and Cypress from Green Go, and as we were leaving Heidi said, "Every time I visit a farm, I feel like it's the best farm I've ever seen."

I was thinking about that comment today, realizing how many of the farms in this area are unique and exciting in very different ways. Kia, one of the managers at Nash, was generous enough to spend most of the afternoon showing us around. I don't think she'd planned to spend quite that much time, but it was obvious that we were extremely interested, and there was so much to see.

Nash Huber started the farm more than thirty years ago squatting pieces of land in the area and growing crops organically on them. Eight years ago he was able to lease a big chunk of the Delta Farm through the PCC Farmland Trust, and that land now has pigs, chickens, turkeys, kale, cabbage and Brussels sprouts, among other things.

The fact that Kia spent so much time showing us around really brought home for me the fact that so many local organic farms are more than just places to grow food. They're places where ideas incubate, and laboratories for experimenting with techniques and seed varieties. Their work is important because they provide us with good food, and also because they're keeping alive a way of life that's in danger of becoming extinct, taking a very old endeavor and making it new again.

American Gleaning

After mentioning last week that I'd never come across agricultural gleaning in the good ol' U S of A, I learned today of a gleaning program practically in my own back yard. An Americorp volunteer working in Sequim started the "Good for the Gettin'" gleaning project this summer, organizing volunteers to pick through the fields for useful food after the crops are harvested. Volunteers are allowed to bring home some of the food they gather, and the rest goes to local food banks. It's a modern manifestation of an ancient idea, which is every bit as relevant now as it was during biblical times.

Willie Greens CSA

This is my Willie Greens CSA box, which I've been getting every week for the past month or so. I get a complimentary box because they use my store as the Ballard drop off point. I look forward to it every week. This week there were leeks, apples, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, brussels sprouts, and their exquisite salad mix.

They start their CSA is the fall because they're really busy with the markets over the summers. The first couple of years I found it challenging to use everything in the box each week, but lately I've been doing a pretty good job of it.

Rolling Fire Pizza

This is the mighty, portable pizza oven used by Rolling Fire Pizza, the cornerstone of the food court adjacent to the U District market. (In the courtyard by the community center-you have to look for it.)

They make the best pizza I've had in Seattle. It's wood-fired but has a thicker crust than most other wood-fired pizzas, so it's closer to the stuff I grew up on in the pizza Mecca of Brooklyn. Did I mentioned that almost all of the ingredients are organic?

Plenty

This week I enjoyed "Plenty", Alisa Smith and JB Mackinnon's account of eating locally for a year. I think the only reason I didn't read it when it first came out was because Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" came out at around the same time, and I try not to read books with similar themes too closely together.

It did take me a while to warm up to this one, maybe because it's the third book I've read over the past few years about a year of eating locally. (The other one was Gary Paul Nabhan's "Coming Home to Eat.") Even though I keep picking up these books, part of me has a problem with the idea of setting out on a self-imposed odyssey, and then writing about its hardships.

It's not that I have anything against eating locally-I'm all about eating locally. It just doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing thing. We're fortunate to be able to get olive oil, salt, chocolate and coffee from other places. The real problem with our food system is that we're shipping items like potatoes and lettuce, which grow nearly everywhere. Still, the heroic all-or-nothing thing makes a better story. Never mind that every one of these books--and every strictly local diet I've ever heard of--includes a list of caveats.

As someone who spends a lot of time around local foods, I found some of the couple's revelations early in the book kind of tedious, like when they discover the wonders of their local farmers' market. But eventually I realized that this was a very different book from the other two I had read. In "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," Kingsolver deliberately moves her family across the country to a place where they can grow their own food. She already knows how to garden, can vegetables, and even make cheese. Gary Paul Nabhan is a ethno-botanist, so he has connections that help him find local foods. But these guys just decided it would be cool to try this out, plunged in, and learned as they went along.

I most enjoyed what the book taught me about the Pacific Northwest, which is my bioregion as well. It painted a rich picture of this landscape's bounty, and also gave me a strong sense of how much has been lost.

The Gleaners and I

Earlier this week I watched The Gleaners and I, a French documentary by Agnes Varda about the agricultural tradition of gleaning, or picking over a field after the harvest and salvaging the useful food that remains. The film poignantly made the connection between this age-old practice and dumpster diving, the modern act of picking through the trash of supermarkets and restaurants for useful food that is thrown away.

As I watched I kept thinking about the fact that I never hear anything about American gleaning, though it must occur. I do have friends who dumpster dive, but I've never heard of people going through fields after a harvest, like the folks portrayed in the film.

Many French growers have specific parameters for allowing and restricting gleaning, and there are laws on the books for regulating the practice as well. The modern legislation is built on medieval tradition, which is built on ancient, biblical custom. From what I understand about European agriculture since medieval times, large tracts were controlled by the nobility and military elite. The typical farming family entered into a feudal arrangement with the landowner. Even after feudalism ended, vestiges of it kept most small-scale farmers from prospering.

Unlike Europe, where there has historically been a shortage of land--at least for the average farmer--America came into its own as a place of abundance. When the west was being settled the government offered parcels of 160 acres to folks who were able to improve them. Holdings of that size were inconceivable for a typical European farm. Perhaps this sheer abundance made this country a place where we don't often hear about rural gleaning.

Many of the people who Varda spoke to weren't gleaning because they were destitute, but rather out of a genuine respect for food, and the belief that it is too precious too be wasted. I wish we had more of that kind of respect in this country.

Alter Eco Chocolate

1. I found myself at Whole Foods the other day jonesing for a chocolate bar so I went and checked out their chocolate section, which I've mostly found disappointing the past year or so, since they stopped carrying some of the higher end varieties and focused instead on the fair trade and organic stuff. I have nothing against fair trade, organic chocolate--really I don't--but the varieties I like the most just don't fall in these categories. Besides, I find it hard to believe that you can make a truly fabulous artisan product with exploited labor and cut rate beans. Maybe I'm deluding myself, but I like to think that I can taste the difference, and I don't need a marketing label to tell me what to choose.

I noticed this line of chocolates made by Alter Eco, and I was intrigued because I'd bought some of their green tea a few weeks ago and thought it was really tasty. I got the one with almonds because it was the darkest variety on the shelf, and I was quite pleased with it. I was also impressed that this company has been able to market both good tea and good chocolate. It made me want to try their other products. I checked out their website and learned that they're French, which may help to explain their high standards.

Speaking of chocolate: the Mars company announced today that they're working with the governments of 14 African nations to develop a plan for sustainable cocoa farming on the continent. That's great news as far as the ongoing quest to take sustainable food mainstream. At the risk of sounding like a chocolate snob, though, it does validate my feeling that there's more to great chocolate than a fair trade label (although I'll bet that we'll start to see some higher quality chocolate from the Mars company.) I wonder if they'll be processing their sustainably raised cocoa with sugar from genetically modified sugar beets.

The U District Food Court

I stopped by the U District Market this past Saturday to check out the food court, where I've had a booth since May, though I haven't been there personally because I've been working at Magnolia instead.

The food court is run by the University Heights Center, the community center that rents space to the market. The market itself won't allow prepared food vendors who sell hot, ready to eat food except duriing the winter months, when they let us in because they have extra space and, besides, we're a draw.

But during the summer and fall we set up in a courtyard right near the building, which isn't visible from the market itself because there are two large vendor trucks blocking the view. We've had a hard time getting shoppers up there to eat, most probably because they can't see us. I've been taking a long term approach, figuring that it's just a matter of time before a critical mass of people figure out that we're there, but it's been frustrating. Not a complete loss, but a venue with a lot of potential that isn't living up to its potential, at least not yet.

Two Very Different Books About Meat

This week I had the pleasure of reading two very different books about meat. The first was Howard Lyman's Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth From the Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat. I'd heard about this book for years, in fact, Howard Lyman was kind enough to write the blurb on the back of my first cookbook. So when I saw a copy in a used bookstore, I grabbed it and ripped through it in a day and a half.

I found myself really liking and admiring the guy. It takes guts to walk away from a life as a Montana cattle rancher and become a vegan activist. And the book offered just what it promised: straight talk and plenty of useful information.

Several days later I happened to see a copy of Betty Fussell's new book, Raising Steaks, about America's love affair with beef. I adored her book about corn, which brings together politics and mythology with a heartfelt appreciation for the food. With Lyman's book fresh in my mind, I grabbed this one.

Fussell does a wonderful job of bring together cowboy lore with a discussion of food safety and the economics of raising beef. She also makes a point to draw a connection between husbandry practices and flavor every step of the way.

The hardest things to reconcile, reading the 2 books so closely together, were their different takes on the impact of grazing cattle on public land. Lyman details the terrible toll that subsidized grazing takes on topsoil, streams and native plants. Fussell focuses mainly on smaller scale ranchers, many of whom are deeply concerned with sustainability, taking good care of the grass so their cows can continue to graze on it in the future.

I think we need both of these voices if we're going to develop a more enlightened relationship with the animals we raise for food. Being vegetarian or vegan is one way of addressing the issue, but there are plenty of wise, intelligent people who are never going to stop eating meat, and plenty of vegetarians who still eat poorly, and even unsustainably. For those folks who are going to continue to eat meat, it makes sense to pay attention to the quality of the product, because really good meat just doesn't come from industrial feedlots.

Whole Foods' Woes

It's been a rough couple of months for Whole Foods. Their sales are slumping, their stock has lost 80% of its value, and the FTC has reopened its case trying to block their acquisition of the Wild Oats chain, even though the merger process is already well underway.

I know it's fashionable to bash Whole Foods for their focus on "industrial organic" products, their high prices and their boutiquey atmosphere, but I really like shopping there. I happen to like their stores more than some of the local coops, where I often can't find items I want. I even appreciate the upscale feel on some level: for better or for worse I think that kind of ambiance has gone a long way towards bringing natural foods mainstream.

I suspect that their recent woes will ultimately make them a better company, perhaps helping them adapt to an economic climate where there's more of a demand for everyday products than luxury items. They do seem to be pretty savvy overall.

What I Learned from "The Flavor Bible"

Everyone's been raving about "The Flavor Bible," the new book by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenberg. I love books about combining flavors-I've learned so much more from these types of books than from conventional cookbooks-so I had to get a copy.

I have to say, though, that I found the lists a bit daunting, and I'm not usually intimidated by that sort of thing. There was just too much information, too many options, and not enough groupings to indicate combinations of three and four ingredients that work together. Still, I'll keep it on my shelf and I'm sure I'll find it useful from time to time.

But I had a great time reading through the introductory material. The authors articulated an idea that I'd intuited but never actually expressed: the reason you can't really count on recipes when you're cooking is that ingredients vary so widely. All apples don't taste the same; neither do all tomatoes. Since I read this I've been paying closer attention to it when I cook, and I do feel that it's changed my approach. I'm more curious, and I taste more as I go along.

The Down Side of Corn Cups

As a foodservice business owner, I recently received a notice from the City of Seattle informing me that, as of July 1 2010, I would have to switch to compostable or recyclable plastic food service products. Around the same time I noticed that the wholesale foodservice grocery had begun carrying compostable cups.

I'm glad to see a spreading awareness about sustainable materials, but I haven't started using compostable food service products yet in my own business. There are just too many things that don't add up to me. I was at Cafe Fiore the other day, and was told that they had no way of recycling their recyclable cups, because the city composting service wouldn't take them. And yet the flyer I received in the mail said that businesses would soon only be allowed to use products that were approved by the composting company.

An article in yesterday's Oregonian detailed additional difficulties: compostable products are often mistaken for plastic, and even a small amount of them can ruin a batch of plastic recyclables. And they don't compost in backyard composting bins: they need a commercial composting operation (although there are difficulties there as well, as I learned at Fiore.)

My own ambivalence also comes from the fact that we're using food crops for disposable packaging when people all over the world are experiencing food security concerns. And why are we using corn? Is it because corn is so heavily subsidized in this country? Perhaps there are technological reasons that I don't understand, but the whole situation makes me feel suspicious.

On top of all this, I've always been turned off by green marketing, and there seems to be an awful lot of it with respect to compostable cups, even from companies who really don't make much of an effort to use sustainable ingredients. Of course, I also know food businesses that use compostable cups and are absolutely sincere about their sustainable practices. But most of the time it just seems gimmicky to me.

I will certainly switch to compostable food service materials at some point, probably before I'm legally required to do so. And I'm sure many of these wrinkles will be ironed out over time. I certainly look forward to seeing what innovations the future will bring, despite my ambivalence.

Magnolia Retrospective

Saturday was the last day of the season at the Magnolia Farmers' Market. It was kind of slow, as it's been for most of the past month and a half. Many of the customers who did show up were sad that it was ending. I told them honestly that personally, I was thrilled. When spring comes around I'm going to be very excited to start again, but right now I'm more than ready to slow down.

Magnolia is, and probably always will be, a small market. It's the kind of venue that attracts a limited following of committed customers, so it's important to stick it out over time and get established. I've been there for 2 years, and this season was a little better than last season. But both years things slowed down dramatically after Labor Day, so I do hope they plan a shorter season next year.

Manna Mills

Whenever I'm in Edmunds I always find some excuse to stop by Manna Mills. Many years ago, when I first moved to the Seattle area, I was thrilled to discover this store, which had more of the feel of an east coast food coop than any store in the area, even the ones that are actually coops.

It's evolved over the years, keeping the same feeling but also developing different emphases. They now specialize in gluten free products, and all of their produce is certified organic. Their products include many obscure gems: you get the feeling they're more willing than most places to take risks on items that are consistent with their mission. (I once found horseradish flavored soy cheese there! I'm no fan of soy cheese, but even I couldn't resist that one.)

But the best thing about Manna Mills is in a jar by the counter: honey flavored candies called Pecan Pearls.

Columbia City Retrospective

Yesterday was the last day of the season at Columbia City Market. It's a relatively long event, running for half of the year, from the beginning of May until the end of October.

We had a good end of the season there, despite the grim economic news this past month. It came down to the weather on Wednesdays in October, which happened to be much better this year than last year, enough to easily compensate for the stock market fear factor. It was comforting for me to realize that many variables influence farmers' market sales, and the overall economy is just one of them.

Columbia City is a kid's market. It's across the street from an elementary school and next door to a park. I sell tons of kids' cheese-only quesadillas there, and also tons of lemonade. Yesterday they were decorating pumpkins in the kids' tent.

Columbia City is also a wonderfully diverse market. It's the only event where my sales take a hit during the month-long holiday of Ramadan.

Trading Tomatoes for Salsa

As we approach the last of this year's tomatoes, one farmer has been giving me bags of tasty, gnarly looking seconds to make into salsa. Each week I bring her several containers of the finished product--about half the batch--and she gives me more tomatoes. It feels good: a way to close the loop, cut down on waste, and produce a hefty supply of very yummy salsa.

45,000 Pounds of Wasted Food

A semi truck carrying 45,000 pounds of candy, ice cream and deli meats tipped over on Highway 18 yesterday when the driver took a turn too quickly. The truck split open and spilled its load, which needed to be hauled away in wheelbarrows before the truck could be turned upright. Most of the food will be thrown away-yet another argument against the industrial food system, where 45,000 of food can go to waste because of a single driver's error.

Living Beyond our Means

1. I was listening to the radio this morning when I heard the thought provoking question: is it possible that we all share some of the blame for the current financial turmoil, given the fact that we've gotten used to living on credit, rather than within our budgets? I got to thinking about food, as usual. In some sense the industrial food system has us all living beyond our means in the sense that prevailing production practices use up natural capital quicker than we can replace it, depleting the health of the soil and relying on nonrenewable resources like petrochemicals to create artificially high yields.

While the solution to a credit card economy is for folks to spend less, the solution to the industrial food system is for us to spend more on higher quality products, before we run into the food security equivalent of the current financial crisis: an unsustainable system no longer able to sustain itself.

There's no easy way to convince people to spend more on food while they're adjusting to spending less on everything else. But I think the message is gradually getting out there, as farmers' markets continue to thrive and people find themselves cooking more and eating out less. It helps that so much of this food is just so tasty.

Lake City Retrospective

Yesterday was the last market day of the year at Lake City, which moved this spring to Albert Davis Park from a depressing parking lot a block north of there.

For the most part, the move made the market much more successful than it had been in previous years, in fact, for the first few months my sales on the worst days were in the ballpark of what they had been on best days in previous years.

The market did drop off dramatically after Labor Day, though, while it had stayed pretty consistent at the old location up until the end. Aside from the wierd economy, I think that change can be attributed to the new location's proximity to the park. Back when it was held in the depressing parking lot, folks would mostly just shop and leave, and that didn't change much when school started, and the days got shorter, and it started to rain. But once the market became more of a community event where people would spend a few hours, bad weather and fall routines made much more of a difference.

Roasted Cauliflower with Tsatsiki

This one's for Myrna, who wanted more cauliflower recipes.

Roasted Cauliflower:

3 tablespoons olive oil

juice of half a lemon

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon dried spearmint

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 pound cauliflower florettes

Tsatsiki:

1 cup yogurt

1/2 cup grated cucumber

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

1/2 teaspoon dried spearmint

2 teaspoons olive oil

1/4 teaspoon salt

For the roasted cauliflower, preheat the oven to 375 degrees and oil a baking pan. Mix the oil, lemon, cumin, mint and salt, then toss the cauliflower florettes in the sauce. Arrange them on the baking pan and roast them for 30-40 minutes, until they're tender.

To make the tsatsiki, mix together all the ingredients.

Serve the cauliflower with the tsatsiki on the side as a dipping sauce.

Oprah on Proposition 2

Oprah's show yesterday dealt with California's Proposition 2, a ballot initiative aimed at giving egg-laying hens ample space to spread their wings.

Although it was easy to tell that she felt passionately about the issue, I found the show level headed and balanced. As expected, animal rights activists faulted her for giving equal time to industrial farmers and for failing to point out that it's not simply a choice between industrial and free range meat: one can also stop eating meat altogether.

I thought it was brave of her to do the show, especially after the lawsuit over her 1996 Mad Cow Disease show. Perhaps she set a deliberately restrained tone because of that earlier experience. The farmers she interviewed who did confine their animals didn't come from massive, industrial farms, but rather from medium-size, family run operations. They also tended to not be particularly smooth speakers, and both of these considerations made me feel more sympathetic to them, although I'm certainly on Oprah's side of the debate.

I do think that this kind of even handed piece can go a long way to changing people's minds and hearts, perhaps even more so than some of the more disturbing, charged material.

Very Sweet Carrots

The folks at Stoney Plains Farm were particularly excited this weekend about some very sweet carrots that they had available. I asked what made them so sweet, thinking that it had to do with the time of year, or a particular phase in the plant's life cycle. It turned out it did have to do with the time of year, but not in the way that I thought: it's a variety of carrot that matures during this time of year that just happens to be very, very sweet.

We tend to think of carrots--and most other fruits and vegetables--as fairly uniform, unless there are very obvious differences in shape, size, or color. But there are actually countless varieties of all kinds of produce, adapted to different microclimates, types of soil, and times of year--like varieties of carrots that are especially sweet in the fall.