Cups from Corn

I was talking to my friend Heidi from Green Go Food the other day, and she muttered something about how you think you're doing the right thing using compostable cups, and then you find out that people in third world countries don't have enough to eat because we're using our corn to produce products other than food.

I share her anguish. It often seems like every good choice can lead to another bad choice. On the other hand, we're all relatively new to the green thing, which has only gained widespread traction during the past forty years, and hit us with real urgency very recently.

I don't know whether we're going to destroy the planet or learn to live on it sensibly, but I do know that we're not going to find ideal solutions without exploring quite a few alternatives.

The choices weigh especially heavily on us businesspeople, who make decisions about feeding hundreds or even thousands of people each week, rather than just our own families. I think it's most important to just do the best we can and keep improving over time, rather than feeling stifled by the enormity and complexity of it all.

Grandma's Cuisinart

I inherited my grandmother's Cuisinart when she died fourteen years ago. It was immaculate and she'd saved the box, of course.

We had a strong cooking connection. For years before she died she used to ask me what I wanted of hers when she was gone, and I never knew what to say. Then one evening soon after I learned she was terminally ill I woke up in the middle of the night with the answer: I wanted her pots and pans. I called and told her, but by that point she was past caring.

I used her Cuisinart at home for a while, and then a few years ago I brought it to work because the one we were using there was broken. In my commercial kitchen it's gotten banged up--the bowl is cracked, and I melted part of the chord--but I've thought of her every time I used it.

Today I bought a new Cuisinart, because I found a great price on one with a larger bowl, and this one was getting to the point where you had to finesse it. I brought it home, where I'll still be using it, but I did want to take a moment to honor this fine piece of equipment and, of course, my grandmother.

Rice Shortages-Fact or Fiction?

Lately there's been some scary news about rice shortages. Costco and Sam's Club have been limiting the amount that customers can buy in response to unexpectedly rapid sales spurred largely by reports of rice shortages in other countries.

1. In Asia, rice prices have climbed dramatically, in part because production has not kept pace with population growth. India and the Philipines are limiting their rice exports in order to satisfy demand at home.

But there is plenty of rice in the United States, despite the panic. Our fear and urgency is a fascinating mirror showing us how rumors and perceptions can exacerbate an already tricky situation. Like the epidemic of bank withdrawals that precipitated the Great Depression, the perception that the rice supply is insufficient is creating an insufficiency in the rice supply.

Fire at the Putney General Store

On Saturday night a fire destroyed the general store in Putney, Vermont. The top floor burned completely, and the lower floors were destroyed by water damage. The building was more than two hundred and fifty years old, and it had been a store for nearly a hundred and fifty years.

I was staying up the road at my sister's house, in fact, I must have been one of the last people in there. The fire department got the call at eight minutes to ten. I'd stopped in a little before nine and they hurried me out because they were closing. I'd gone in ostensibly to buy a chocolate bar, but really I was just looking for an excuse to browse.

I'm fascinated by food stores of all kinds. I love to see the different permutations, the product mixes and the ways items are organized in different regions, different countries, and even different neighborhoods.

The Putney General Store had a wonderful mix of mainstream food products, along with organic and locally produced foods, not to mention the toothpaste, video rentals, and fishing tackle. It was one of two groceries in town, the other being the food coop, which has its own charm, although you sometimes have to endure a very long wait for a very simple transaction.

Every time I passed the store on Sunday there were people milling around, looking stunned. My sister said she saw a police car out front. Having grown up in New York City, she assumed they were there to deter looters. (Nobody loots stores in Putney, Vermont.) Then she looked over and saw the police officer sitting motionless taking it all in, as stunned as anyone else.

Opening Day at the Brattleboro Farmers' Market

I was in Vermont visiting family over the weekend, and I was lucky to be able to swing by for part of opening day at the Brattleboro Farmers' Market.

Spring comes much later in Vermont than it does in Seattle, so there were more crafts and less produce than I'm used to seeing. There were some plant starts, and a forager selling fiddlehead ferns and ramps, or wild leeks.

The visit got me thinking about the role of crafts at farmers' markets. I'd recently seen an article offering tips for evaluating farmers' markets on their green credentials. One of the criteria offered was an emphasis on "growers only" or "food only" markets. According to them, a truly reputable market should include as few craftspeople as possible.

I have mixed feelings about this. Sure, farmers' markets are about food, but they're also about community and about buying local products. Food is a logical place to start when building local economies because fresh, seasonal products really taste better than stuff shipped from far away, but there are plenty of other products that can also be locally produced and marketed, and farmers' markets are logical places to sell them.

Craftspeople help to flesh out markets during times of year when agricultural products are in short supply. Many of the crafters I know who sell at farmers' markets feel that they don't get enough respect, and their needs are given very low priority by market managers.

I like to think of my experience as a market vendor as part of a very old tradition bringing people together to exchange goods and services. Ancient and medieval markets included not only food vendors, but also merchants, money changers, and even fortune tellers. We need to fix our broken food economy, but we need to fix so many parts of our economy that are broken, and the craftspeople deserve a place at the table as well.

The Brattleboro Farmers' Market is deeply scrupulous about their standards for food vendors. All produce has to be grown by the vendors, and prepared food items have to include as much local produce as possible. I wouldn't consider them any less green because they also honor their local craftspeople.

Sophie Coe's "America's First Cuisines"

I try to read everything I can find about food history and food politics. I was excited to discover this book, which gives plenty of information about pre-Columbia Native American cuisine.

I was especially interested in the sections about the Incas, who lived in the Peruvian highlands and had a deeply equitable system of food distribution. They monitored their food supplies using a sophisticated system of knots tied in string, a method which was supposedly able to account for every grain of corn.

They considered it a punishable offense to peel a potato and leave the skin uneaten. They believed that this kind of waste caused pain to the potato.

I like that.

Opening Day at the Columbia City Market

Yesterday was opening day at the Columbia City Farmers' Market. The weather looked ominous at times, but there was no real rain. Miles and Karina played alt-country, an opening day tradition. The mayor was there, ringing the opening bell and talking about the city's commitment to its farmers' markets. All is all, it was a fun day, and an auspicious beginning.