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Food Inc. to play Lawrence, Kansas, this weekend

July 22nd, 2009 · Books, Food in the news, Growing food

Just got word (thanks, Dan!) that Food, Inc., the much-talked-about film documentary about our food system, is going to be playing at Liberty Hall starting Friday. (I mentioned it two weeks ago.) The times and dates posted on the Liberty Hall site are as follows:

  • foodincFriday & Saturday (July 24-25): 4:30, 7:00, 9:20
  • Sunday (July 26): 2:10, 4:30, 7:00, 9:20,
  • Monday-Thursday (July 27-30): 4:30, 7:00, 9:20

Guess we’ll find out whether the run will last more than week, but Local Burger maven Hilary Brown tells me I have to see it. So I will.

It’s been brought to my attention that there’s an accompanying book—Food Inc.: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer-And What You Can Do About It—in case you want it.

If you go, let me know what you think!

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Roundup: Tours, harvests, ag news and more

July 20th, 2009 · Books, Growing food, Roundup

Lots of news to report, from activities to politics to getting informed. Read on for local and larger news and links.

On a local level

ksufield KSU photo

Having a field day. If this amazingly mild weather holds, I just may change my mind about skipping this Saturday’s (July 25) horticulture field day at Kansas State’s Research and Extension Horticulture Center in Olathe. The field day, which runs 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and has a $5 admission fee, includes lectures and tours highlighting flower, fruit and vegetable varieties that work well in these parts. Wonder if they have suggestions for window-box gardens (see item below)?

KC food garden tour. Forgive this belated posting of a report and slide show of the Kansas City Urban Farms and Gardens Tour, from the Pitch.

Bringing in the sheaves. If you’ve never seen a wheat harvest, Kristi Bahrenburg Janzen gives a flavor of the activity and significance of this important Kansas rite. (The [Newton] Kansan)

svatyjoshuasmFarmer to head Kansas agriculture. Josh Svaty, a 29-year-old farmer, state legislator and law student, will set aside his lawmaking and law-student hats to become the state’s next secretary of agriculture. The news report (AP, via Cattle Network) gives hope that Svaty is willing to take a progressive look at agriculture.

Vote for your farmers’ market! Don’t forget to vote for your favorite farmers market! Mine’s the Lawrence Farmers Market, naturally. What’s yours?

On a grander scale

I haven’t been posting much lately on the broader food issues, but allow me now to recommend a few news items for you.

Grow vertical. I love this idea: window-box food gardening. As you may know, my yard is pretty shady, but I think I may just have a window or two with plenty of sunshine. How about you? Read more at Treehugger. The links are all in the UK, but the ideas would work here too. Now, if I can just figure out what to do about those pesky window screens. Anybody reading here who’s done this? Let me know!

Farm StandShare the harvest. For those of you with bountiful gardens but not a garden business, here’s a great idea of what to do with the excess produce: Create your own neighborhood “farm stand.” I’ll bet the neighbors will love it, too. (Civil Eats)

MRSA and factory farms. Tom Philpott, drawing on a Prevention article, spotlights the link between current factory farming practices and superbug MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). If you aren’t already buying pastured or organic poultry, this report might make you consider it. (Grist)

Organic benefits. I don’t really care about organics for my own health, but I do love what organic methods do for our environment. Treehugger.com has this nice slide show that neatly summarizes those advantages.

Big food, big money. Naomi Starkman interviews author Robyn O’Brien about what she learned while researching The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick - And What We Can Do About It. (Civil Eats; warning: long article)

Recipe for America coverMore on food problems. Also on Civil Eats, Paula Crossfield reviews Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It by Jill Richardson of La Vida Locavore.

Bean counting. If you’ve wondered whether it’s greener to use cook your own dried beans or to use canned, The Washington Post attempts to answer the question. If you don’t want read the long discussion, here’s the short version: Clear answers aren’t available, but beans are a good choice either way.

Farm stand photo courtesy Practical Farmers of Iowa

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Let the free-food season begin!

July 15th, 2009 · Growing food

I’m happy to report that the first installments of free food have arrived on my counter (not counting the cherries I picked). You could say I earned a little cucumber similar to the Lemon Cucumber (at Johnny’s Seeds) and a little tomato, both of which I harvested as agreed when watering neighbors’ gardens while they were away.

sumsquash

But other items are just plain free. There’s this perfect specimen (above) summer squash my nephew Rob gave me. He’s having fine success with his first garden. It’s a Saffron variety (Cornell U. description), he said.

And friend Lynn brought in three English-type cucumbers (RecipeTips description) and the following giant heirloom tomato, all grown on her farm.

tomat

I could have also had my fill of Linda’s sister’s zucchini excess, but it’s among the few bits of free food I’m able to decline—especially when the grower lets zucchini grow to monstrous proportions. I don’t have enough ways to make zucchini interesting, if you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, Hillary has made a fine harvest of chanterelle mushrooms from the yard, although I let her eat most of them since they don’t excite me.

How about you? Are you the lucky recipient of someone else’s bounty? What do you do to repay the favor, besides sharing meals with the kind friends and relatives (which I’d do anyway)?

Meanwhile, if you have more than a little excess, remember to check with your local food bank or homeless shelter to see whether they accept fresh food. You can find food banks at Feeding America. And for Lawrence readers, the city website lists several possible recipients.

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What is most important to new cooks?

July 13th, 2009 · General

teacher_pointing_at_blackboard

I’ve signed on to teach two cooking classes this fall at the Community Mercantile, and I need your help. The first class, on September 22, will be Cooking 101. Here’s the current class description, which is subject to revision:

Cooking 101. So you want to cook your own meals but you don’t know boil from broil? This crash course on home cooking will teach you how to read recipes, measure and use simple cooking techniques plus choose supplies and equipment. You’ll try slicing and dicing and learn such basics as cooking rice and eggs, sautéing vegetables and more. You’ll have the tools to create a week’s worth of menus that you can prepare. With volunteers from the class, we’ll make and sample an Omelet, from-scratch Herbed Biscuits, a Fruit Salad and Brownies like you’ve never had from a box.

How does that sound to you? The class will last two hours, and I’ll have plenty of handouts covering things like measuring conversions (such as 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons), temperatures at which meat is safely done, supply list and so forth.

Please help!

What I’d love to hear from you are any of the following:

  • The most important thing or things you needed to know when you were learning to cook.
  • The concepts or principles that were most interesting and beneficial to your child/friend/spouse when you were teaching him or her how to cook.
  • The thing you learned years into your cooking experience that you wish you had known years earlier.

I’ve given cooking classes before, but never in front of a group that could well include people I know personally, so I’m a little nervous! I’m also worried no one will sign up, so if you know any possible candidates, I hope you’ll let them know about it. At the moment, the class isn’t posted to the Merc’s web site, but I trust it will be before too long.

Second class

The second class, by the way, is tentatively as follows:

How to Cook Grass-Fed Beef, Pastured Pork & Pastured Poultry. Cooking beef, pork and chicken raised the old-fashioned way may be a little different from what you are used to. Learn how to get the most flavor and best texture from these nutritionally superior meats that most people think taste better too. We’ll make and sample a Better All-American Hamburger, a savory Chicken & Garlic Stew, Spicy Pork & Cellophane Noodles and Marinated Chuck Steak with Herb Sauce.

It’s scheduled for Tuesday, October 20.

Speak up!

OK, now. Let me have it! What would you have wanted to learn if you’d taken Cooking 101?

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Roundup: Food Inc. hits area, soy update and more

July 10th, 2009 · Farmers markets, Food in the news, Roundup

foodincFood Inc. comes to KC. You’ve probably heard about the movie Food Inc. by now. You probably haven’t seen it, though, if you live in these parts. Farm country wasn’t at the top of the list of screening locations. The movie’s in the area now, though. You can see it at the Tivoli in Kansas City or the Leawood in, well, Leawood, starting tonight. And Chipotle is sponsoring a free screening at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 15, at the Tivoli. As a former commuter, I generally avoid driving to KC these days, but if you go see it, let me know what you think! If you’d like to know what people who are from around here think but who have not seen the movie think, check out the reports by Bob Butler at the KC Star and by KCUR reporter Frank Morris on NPR.

Central Soy soy good. A report by the Cornucopia Institute gives Lawrence’s Central Soyfoods (annoying Flash site alert) a 4-bean (excellent) rating, unlike well-known brands that have moved to the use of imported and, often, conventional soybeans as well as the use of hexane to extract oil from the beans. The report calls out Silk, a pioneer in organic soy products, for almost abandoning organic altogether and profiting on its organically raised reputation. The full report, “Behind the Bean: The Heroes and Charlatans of the Natural and Organic Soy Foods Industry,” is available online (11+ mb PDF) as is an executive summary (4.5 mb PDF). You can also read a story about it at the Alternative Health Journal.

Japanese on the plains. See how the recent visit by organic growers from Japan played in Peabody, Kansas. (Peabody Gazette-Bulletin)

Lawrence KS Farmers Market logoVote for the Lawrence Farmers Market! Now there’s two ways. One, through Care2 and LocalHarvest.org, could be worth $5,000 to the market, a huge boost. You can vote in that one here. That’s in addition to the vote at American Farmland Trust, which I’ve previously mentioned. I think it’s just good for bragging rights. Of course, we like to brag on it anyway.

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This Fourth of July event is worth celebrating

July 6th, 2009 · local food

4park

Light a fire cracker for Constance Wolfe and the Lawrence Originals for a bang-up July 4 gathering in Watson Park here in Lawrence on Saturday. (LJ World story)

lowhiteLawrence hasn’t quite been able to achieve a lasting community Fourth of July tradition, but I hope this event becomes one. It’s got a lot going for it: A downtown location that lets lots of people attend without everyone being stuck in cars forever waiting to get in and out (as was the case at Burcham Park and Clinton Lake), and good food from local vendors that just happen also to support local charities through the Lawrence GiveBack program.

What I liked

Easy transactions. Didn’t have to wait at all to buy tickets to use at the vendors. Ticket sellers were readily available, and I thought selling in $5 increments made a lot of sense and saved much time on change-making.

Short menus but wide selection. Most vendors offered three or four items, but they covered the riverfront. You could get such July 4th traditions as hot dogs and hamburgers/sliders and watermelon; almost as traditional barbecue ribs and sandwiches and corn on the cob; and decidedly untraditional items such as chicken satay and bruschetta and veggie spring rolls and veggie korma and tofu wraps. I thought the prices were reasonable too.

4chix

Chicken salad from Local Burger

Good but not overpowering music. I like live music. I also like conversation. I appreciate it when the music is loud enough to enjoy but not so loud that you can’t talk to the person next to you. That’s exactly how it was Saturday. Thanks!

Being close to other activities. I liked being able to go watch the Tour of Lawrence criteriums and then back to the park, and I know some people swam at the city pool next door before moving north for food and fireworks.

Good fireworks. OK, so the trees block some of the fireworks for people in the park. It was still a great show, and I was impressed at how long it went on.

NEWS FLASH: The Lawrence Originals paid for the fireworks. The Jaycees evidently lost a major sponsor, so the vendors came up with around $6,000, Constance said, to pay for the show.

The weather. Good job, Mother Nature!

Click on the thumbnails for somewhat bigger pictures of more of the food:

Zen Zero offerings Watermelon at 10 Bruschetta from Genovese

4maris Kansas sangria from Local Burger

Good cause

Meanwhile, members of local charities trolled the area looking to sign up more GiveBack participants. If you aren’t participating, do check it out. The program rewards you for patronizing these independent local businesses, and it builds the community by letting you designate a charity to which businesses donate as part of the program. I figure any way I can help good causes with my ordinary spending is a great idea. Even if you don’t go to restaurants, you can still help when you use the card at Checker’s supermarket.

lgbIn fact, at the park on Saturday, organizers presented checks to three of the charities. Wolfe said that since the card started (around the first of the year, I think), people had used them on more than $1 million of transactions, and the participating businesses have donated more than $25,000 to local charities. And if your favorite charity is you, you should know that you get $10 on the card to use at the same businesses if you use the card enough. How cool is that?

I ran into Constance Sunday morning at the park after the festivities. She was checking to make sure trash got picked up. Looked pretty darned clean to me. She said some vendors sold out their food, some didn’t, but I’d guess that’s par for the course, even if you aren’t in the first year of a big event. She said they might want to make a few changes if they do it again next year (Please do!), but I honestly have no complaints, and I can complain with the best (worst?) of them.

All in all, the event was a great way to celebrate Independence Day-and independents’ day, too. What did you think?

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