Taking stock and calibrating to Kaitlin

Well, I’ve entered the world of “too-busy”: it was two days before I learned that the child of dear friends had a serious accident. She is still in ICU but she is going to make it. please send prayers to Kaitlin Estill, one of the most beautiful of Lyle Estill’s energy creations.

And all else seems small in face of it . . .
but in my sequestered life, the “too busy” seems to have taken over–between the draught and my dissertation, I let my garden go about a month ago, and it is gone. I’ve no fall garden in sight, other than seeds on the counter that should have gone in the ground weeks ago. There are about five pounds of jalapenos in my frige that I’ve yet to pickle, and all I’ve put up so far this Septemeber is about forty frozen fried green tomato patties and my latest crop of shiitake mushrooms. The last of my sunflowers–grown on Lyle’s land in fact–are cut and on my kitchen table. Wish I could send them to kaitlin. Mmm . . . haven’t blogged in ages either.

All is and will be ok. I am writing, I am buying more from the farmers market than I usually need to this time of year, I am still eating local daily (at least 90% on average), and have an awesome new housemate who I’m fast converting into a (paranoid, I’m afraid) locovore (the crash course being necessary though, as she’s the new marketing director for our Chatham Marketplace food co-op!).

That said, I also have made what feels like an active transgression. We’re making Kombucha. Primary ingredients: black tea and sugar–two things not normally on my purchase list, and yet here I am with pots of fermenting liquid and burgeoning mushrooms popping up on every spare shelf. Bound and determined not to turn to coffee in this dissertation madness, and not interested in spending $3.50 daily for storebought . . . And the cool piece in the story? The mother came from Cameron, my new housemate, via Alan at CM. (Alan also deemed my Rejuvelac a disaster, not that the smell didn’t give that away . . .)

I’ve co-opted it, with my typical “yea! moments-away-from-my-computer” passion. Today I branched into decaf mango tea . . . so not local . . . but I do have some dehydrated peaches somewhere, so next batch . . . I won’t linger long enough to write the recipe; they are everywhere on the web. But we do have a growing supply of babies/potential mothers, and a growing number of pages to send to my printer.

If you want an update on Kaitlin, check Lyle’s energy blog at piedmont biofuels, or the page jess made.

keeping things in perspective . . .

 

ELP

whoohoo–ok, another photo collection cause I’m busy dissertating when I’m not working on the annual SSAWG conference (Southern Sustainable Ag Working Group) with Jean Mills. But here we are The Soutestern Regional Network

of the

Environmental Leadership Program

That’s us, the inaugural Southern collective . . .

And below is the ELP staff: Errol, Maria, Cerise, and Edward McNally (Edward is one of the regional advisory board members and he hung with us all weekend, and Frank Peterman, another board member, not pictured, was there the first day–fabulous humans!)

workdays in session

my (pea)pod: Sarah (TN), Adam (AL), Omar (SC), Billie (NC), and me (NC)

me with Iantha and Barb, our diversity facilitators

A few of us popped off to the Birmingham PepperPlace farmers market sat am before our 9am start-time. It was fabulous: we got some real food/not cafeteria food (notice I took no pictures of our meals, which is unlike me, yes?), coffee, and a taste (literally, weak pun sorry) of the locale. Notice the Dr. Pepper sign in background of last photo–old plant is the site of this growers only market, which is quite large, full of great variety, had live music, multiple coffee stands, and crafts as well as produce and cut flowers. Really, was a blissful outting for me, Sarah Bellos (we’ve two Sarah’s), Davina, Edward, Ben, Errol, Billie. And we were only five minutes late getting back on site.

 

just for those paying attention to personal details: seeing my family in the Catskills was wonderful (though missing my little brother), my new boss at SSAWG is fabulous, and the date was seriously sweet too. And I came home to multiple birthday celebrations with friends. life is good te

 

in lieu of blogging: read eat local, view CIRA photos

Busy dissertating and trying to get out of town for a week: 4 days with family in Catskills in NY, 4 days in Birmingham with Southeastern Environmental Leadership folks, a meeting with Jean Mills in Birmingham about SSAWG conference in Kty in Jan, and a very promising blind date in Birmingham. I’ll let you know . . .

Here’s the post I wanted to write anyway from eat local.

And here are picutures from CIRA conference and working meeting a couple weeks ago:

 

 

excerpt from a campus admiinistrator write up:

The CIRA Collaboration on Re-Localizing Food provides an example of the engagement the Center fosters. An interdisciplinary team of UNC-CH faculty and graduate students work with three different regions in North Carolina. Two of the regions (the NE and the SE) are lead by grassroots organizations with over 25 years of experience each. The third region (the NW) is headed by the founder of the Sustainable Development Program at ASU working closely with the Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture and other Appalachian groups. At UNC-CH, the CIRA Collaboration team is composed of 9 faculty and 7 graduate students from the Anthropology, City and Regional Planning, Communications Studies, the Ecology Curriculum, Epidemiology and Nutrition. The discussion at our July 2007 conference and planning meeting on re-localizing food was aided by representatives from the Heifer Project, Rural Advancement Foundation International, Center for Environmental Farming Systems (at NCSU) and many other non-profit organizations and institutions working on local food systems in the state. Our main goals for this year are to undertake participatory food systems assessments across the regions in order to identify interests, desires, opportunities and potential for strengtthening localized food and to organize a statewide youth summit on sustainable food systems.

 

Deborah Webb of Kentucky’s CFA: live blogs at NCBlue

I just put on the last three dozen eggs to boil, for local food snacks tomorrow and Sat for the CIRA working meeting. Alice Brooke brought eggs to the last meeting and they were a big hit. (Of course I overcooked the first batch cause I was on the phone with Jean Mills from Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group; ain’t that the way.) Check out the July issue of Gourmet mag’s article on Maverick Farms or Tom’s blog about the interview!

Deborah Webb is here to talk with the CIRA folks.  Once again stolen from NCBlue:

Deborah Webb, executive director of the Community Farm Alliance (CFA) based in Frankfort, Kentucky, is keynoting the conference.

A lawyer by training, Deborah has worked with the CFA since 1986. In 2000, CFA was instrumental in fashioning legislation to allocated $1.7 billion in tobacco settlement funds for the purpose of transitioning Kentucky’s tobacco dependent communities.

I’ll let you know what ’s what after the conference!

And completely unrelated–my new favorite blog!!! Check out Cricket Bread! Not only my hero cause he’s making Kimchee outta leftovers, but he writes multiple times a week. I swear, soon . . .

 

in defense of Food Miles

Treehugger had a posting recently titled “Eco Diet isn’t Just About Food Miles.”

“I’m a bit worried about the food miles [debate] because it is educating the consumer in the wrong way. It is such an insignificant point,” said Ruth Fairchild at the University.

Whoa.

Food Miles is addative, not a replacement. It is a next step in the big picture of assessing our Food Footprint. Maybe I’ve been thinking of it too inclusively? I see Food Miles as inclusive of all energy consumed between production and consumption: Dr. Jennifer Wilkins, of Cornell’s Division of Nutritional Sciences and featured on NPR’s “Eating Local” a while back, says that 20% of US fossil fuel use goes to food production. Ten calories of fossil fuel are burned for every calorie of food eaten. Like the Treehugger article says, food’s “ecological footprint comes from food processing, storage, packaging and growing conditions.” We are not just talking trucking and refrigeration–production is highly consumptive of fossil fuels and in most people’s minds fossil fuel is processed in miles. Food Miles may be simplistic, as this article claims, but off the point? I don’t think so–on the road to thinking of energy consumption in toto.

OK, the big picture is no where near simple. Lentils from far away may greatly outvalue the tomato from my very yard, which may require so much water to grow that the calories produced are negligible on some environmental scale. And I’m talking whole foods here, not even broaching processed foods. . . . Always, knowing the farm makes a huge difference in knowing how to make choices. We also need to know foods themselves, and ecosystems . . . The point in “educating the consumer” is that we are very far away from all that knowledge and very far away from living by those thinking processes. So I still believe that distance makes local the essential place to start.

That said, I go to the Piedmont Biofuels staff meeting on Mondays–and fossil fuel consumption is always on my mind. When you peel garlic–from, what, 500 feet away from where it was grown?–while you listen to biodiesel production talk, you get biased.

 

Fish abundance: Roberson farm donates talapia

I’m trying to finish my dissertation at UNC at Chapel Hill, so am also scrambling make ends meet. But I’m one of those ridiculously lucky people who just falls into fabulous jobs. I’ve got a few going right now, and I love my life: I’m growing Rue for the company that makes biteblocker, I teach yoga, and I’m working for the Ag Extension and Deborah Eagle on a Biodiversity project. The project is now on an Industrial site at Piedmont Biofuels, but next is a farmscape site at Roberson Farm. And as the world turns, the Robersons just donated 75 talapia to next week’s Farmers market benefit dinner (444-9300 for tickets).

The fish are ready this weekend, the dinner is next weekend: fish cleaners needed. Rachel Burton calls, people answer, and so this vegetarian treked off to join the volunteer crew she garnered in 24 hours time. Once again, I love my life, and I really love my community.

Pictures tell a thousand words–and I’ve got a few thousand words to write elsewhere . . .

these are highlights–not nearly the whole crew–but I was wrapping the final fillets (killing things is not really in my skill set) so most of these photos are thanks to Rachel.

Crew (I’m missing somebody. Who? I’ll fix it–let me know.): Andy, Jeff, Mary, Rachel, Sandi, Scott, Screech, Todd, and Tracy. To Vicky & Bobby, especially, thanks!!

Todd Dumke, of ECO and savory chef for coming dinner, and Vicky Roberson of Roberson Farm, donator of the talapia! And the smallest of the three farm dogs . . .

 

link to BlueNC.com: what NC eats

check out the What NC Eats page on Bluenc.com! (Thanks Chris! You better still send me links when you move to San Francisco.) Good info and great links. As one commenter says: a lunch time well spent . . .

These are stolen from wherever Blue stole them. The bottom shows the poverty area clusters that the CIRA group is working on. (See first true foods blog and CIRA.)

 

Good Compost: Petrini, Farm Bill, farmers’ market dinner

CEFS sponsored the Carlo Petrini dinner here in Raleigh NC on May 23rd, and about 750 people showed up–VIPs, ticketed friends, and free general admission. On June 10th, Piedmont Biofuels Industrial is hosting a benefit dinner for the Pittsboro Farmers Market. The dinner is sponsored by Eat Local Triangle, Eastern Carolina Organics, and driven by The Abundance Foundation. They have a 75 person limit for $25 for an adult plate and $10 for children’s plate. Tami says talapia has already been donated from the Roberson’s farm: They are moving their greenhouse from down the road to about two hundred feet from the house, and they’ve kindly made the market dinner beneficiary of the moving process.

In between the two,

“the House Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry passed on to the full committee on Thursday a briefly-worded provision that could have huge ramifications for the abilities of state and local governments to effectively oversee anything involving agriculture. Under the heading Miscellaneous Provisions, Sec. 123 USDA Inspection and Determination of Non-Regulated Status, the subcommittee approved a provision that would ban a state or locality from ‘prohibiting an article the Secretary of Agriculture has inspected and passed, or an article the Secretary has determined to be of non-regulated status.’”

Highlights on this: “passed without discussion.” It’s on our growing small farms chatlist, thanks to Lawrence London; it’s on blogs everywhere, even under unexpected titles: try post menopausal ponderings. There are no limits on who can jump in . . . There are serious repercussions if not enough of us jump in . . .

Where it all comes together? Petrini made me laugh, out loud, with a bunch of other foodie/farmer/environmentalists who were laughing out loud. That’s a deeply good thing. Showing up is good, laughing is good. My favorite quote: “happiness is shit” and I lost some of that on translation, but on a guttural level, I get it. Carlo Petrini’s wrap up point was a simple description of bodily and earthly metabolic systems—our bodies and excrement are healthiest when we are putting in good fuel/food, and then that excrement is most fertile—i.e. builds good soil and food. This cycle works, on micro and macro levels. If we create healthy bodies, we will bodily feed the worms better and contribute to healthier planet. (Now this jumps us into green burial practices, which is a necessary but momentarily tangential direction.) I nutshell this with: we are shit/compost, and our happy/healthy bodies make a happier/healthier earth. I.E. it is a bodily duty to be healthy/happy . . . It’s from a philosophy of abundance and a position of privelege, but for those of us with the latter, it is a really good place to start . . .

I’ve been mulling a lot lately on how to build local food systems infrastructure: how do we literally put our money and mouths toward building the community we want and the ideals we believe in? I’m convinced that most positive change comes from the bottom up. You start as simply as individually choosing to stop eating processed, chemical laden foods in preference of fresh, heirloom varieties and regional traditions in preparing them, and eventually you end up half way across the world evangelizing the same, but for bigger reasons than you could have initially imagined. What I put on my own table and in my own body–here’s my acamemic/queer/feminist sensibilities showing–makes the personal political and the political personal.  My food budget, my refrigerator matters in bigger ways than just within my household.

Every personal decision I make matters. That’s another element of abundance and connectedness philosophy. And so exactly what we can and can’t determine locally and at the state level about our own desires to exceed FDA regulation (efforts) is intensely important, not only to how we create our local community and environment, but also to the potential to make national change happen. Out of that personal decision we connect and collaborate. We’re working on it. . . . When numerous strong and effective local food systems are in place–world wide–then we begin to have a better shot at equity of distribution to those suffering most from social, political, and environmental repercussions. This is where the privledge of Slow Food movements and the simplicity of a $25 benefit dinner fall into the broad mix of the in between–the working on it part–and wrap around to potential broad scale action and impact, right?

Join me for dinner on June 10th. I want to make good compost.

( back to dissertation writing . . . someday soon, I won’t have that on my plate . . .)

 

Petrini, recipie for spring asparagus

If you are local to the NC triangle, on Wednesday, May 23, Slow Foods Movement founder Carlo Petrini will be speaking at the McKimmon Center in Raleigh at 7pm. The main sponsor is CEFS, Center for Environmental Farming Systems at NC State and they have more info or you can call 919-513-0954. Check out what Mental Masala, of Ethicurean: chew the right thing, had to report from Petrini’s recent San Fran talk. Locavore Sage Van Wing tagged him as political and dynamic beyond what folks might expect of Slow Foods. He’s preaching “all gastronomes must become environmentalists, all environmentalists must become gastronomes” and I’m happy to hear that sermon spread.

OK, so I just made a lunch worthy of a marriage proposal from a complete stranger. Granted, that’s my opinion. Jeff the Chef from Chatham Marketplace just announced our intentions to craft a owner-compiled co-op cookbook in his last blog. He also put out the call for recipies.I’ve a new goal to build my own home 90% (or better) local cookbook (family Christmas presents, I’m thinking . . .), as we build the Co-op cooking book. This recipie only makes it if I leave out the grain bed. Hmm . . . Since I’m dissertating today, no real blog–just sharing my lunch:

Spring Asparagus

ingredients

4 medium red and white potatoes, cubed, not peeled

1 lemon*

4 basil leaves, more to garnish

two dashs oil* of choice, could use butter if necessary

six garlic cloves, peeled, left whole

1 lb asparagus spears, cut into two inch lengths

4 oz. feta cheese

1 roasted red pepper

1 1/2 cups grain for serving bed (rice*, quinoa*, millet*, etc)

Toss potatoes and garlic in dash of oil, juice of half a lemon, and finely grated rind of whole lemon. Roast at 400, turning at about fifteen minutes, until crispy on outside.

Cook grain while potatoes are roasting. (I used millet today, which bumps me way off 90% target.)

(Here’s where I go do some computer work, and pop out to the garden for the basil leaves.)
When potatoes are almost done, heat dash of oil in pan and when hot throw in thin sliced basil leaves. Then braise asapragus spears, quickly, squeezing second half of lemon over them while cooking, and adding slices of roasted red pepper near end. Finally toss in crumbled feta and roasted potatoes and garlic. Serve over bed of grain.

costs about $6 (farmer’s market purchases);

serves two to four, depending on serving size (1/4 shown in photo);

90% local, depending on grain source–if SC rice, still beyond 100 miles . . . ;

35 minutes, including cooking time;

zip on difficulty scale.

I really want a lemon tree . . .

 

livin locally: thus far in the Pennywise local eating challenge

So my housemate, Chris, cooked a near local meal for me last night. I let him put tofu from Virginia (about 175 miles from us) in his broccoli/shiitake/kale stirfry, and he had quinoa with his. We had a beautiful arugal/Sunny Slope tomato/Celebrity Dairy goat cheese salad on the side. I’ve eatten arugla every day for the last two weeks–a seasonal over-endulgence for me. I’d made a sweet potato curry (local artisan sells curry sauces) for him the night before with a rare arugala free salad of biodynamic lettuces from a farm one town north of here.

I get a little food geeked out this time of year anyway, and this week has been no exception. The two nights eating with Chris were especially fun, as then I had a witness to my pleasure, plus he’s a total food geek too. That said, he’s not willing to participate in the challenge, and we don’t eat dinner together very often. We had corn bread with the curry the night I cooked and the veggies from the night he cooked were given to me by Todd Dumke, from ECO–Eastern Carolina Organics. Herein begins his point of contention and our agreed point of “cheating.”

On cheating–he says I’m cheating. I say I’m cheating. We aren’t talking about the same things.

We do both agree that Kerala Curry, though made and sold right here in our tiny town of Pittsboro, hardly qualifies as “eating local.” That despite the proud label of “Goodness Grows in North Carolina”

that denotes a NC business I guess . . . I used two tablespoons, he says condiments shouldn’t count, so it doesn’t matter in this case . . . I’m thrilled the local business if here, but nothing about the ingredients listreally fits my intentions for the week . . .

I’ve also been “cheating” to my mind by using locally milled oats and flour and cornmeal from Lindley Mills. None of which is grown any where near here . . . We are local grain deprived.

Now, where Chris says I’m cheating is on the budget. I have used green onions from my yard, parsley from the beds at Piedmont Biofuels, arugala from Melissa Bell’s garden in Raleigh, and now a bag full of ECO veggies–broccoli, kale, collards, mushrooms, chives, and a tomato–from Todd. Chris says it screws my whole budget. I say, one, I’m being transparent about what things I got free, and, two, it is part of living the way I do. I put about seven hours of sweat equity into preparing a field of Sunflowers for Piedmont Biofuels new Oil Research Station in the last week; stuff comes around. It just does, especially in a small town, rural living, and when surrounded by sustainably minded folks. He says he wants to KNOW how much it would really cost him to eat locally for a week. My agree, numbers are not “real.” I say, hey kid, it would cost you less cause you live with me, and my eventual website will cost me less cause I live with him. . . . Bartering, scavenging, and general karma . . . I think it is part of sustainable living.

Besides, as many folks have mentioned, figuring out how much a serving costs you is really time consuming, and this week is already too packed for me. Yo Chris, you want to deal with money details, you figure it out! And I’ll put a jar for your funds when the shiitake logs are harvested (not in time for eating this week, of course . . .), and that would be at $12.50 a pound.

BUDGET: as cheap as possible (as always)

EXCEPTIONS: oil, lemon juice, sprout seeds, tamari, salt, lindley mills products (spelt flour, cornmeal, oats, wheatberries, cracked wheat)
FOOD: (I ate locally much of last week, but started officially a day early)

Sunday–$5.50: Black Cohosh tea, lindley mills spelt buscuits, scrambled eggs, tomoato, moong bean sprouts, wheatgrass juice, arugala (free from Mel) salad with beets, carrots, moong bean sprouts, dried basil from last year, buscuit

Mon–$6.25: camomile tea, egg and buscuit, tabbouli, arugala (free from Mel) salad, strawberries, burdock tea, sweet potato oven-fries, salad with hardboiled egg/lemon dressing, strawberries, 1 Duck Rabbit ale.

Tue– $8.50: black cohosh tea, oats and fried egg, strawberries, (conventional) braised green beans, spring onions (from yard), cornbread, strawberries with wheatgrass juice

Wed–$5.60: burdock tea, left over green beans, hard boiled egg, biodynamic greens and arugala/tom/goat chees salad, white and red sweet poptato karala curry, boiled peanuts and raw cow cheese from Goat Lady, 1 glass Silk Hope wine (dinner for two was 8.80)

Thu–$8.00: camomile tea, oats and fried egg (I dry cooked the oats and this is new favorite!), tomoato, goat cheese, busicut, broccoli/kale/shiitake (all free) and tofu (from Virginia) stir fry with arugala salad and slice of tomato, 1 glass of Silk Hope wine. (dinner for two was 5.50 w/ free veggies)

Fri–no dinner yet, no tally yet . . . wheat grass juice for breakfast, hard boiled peanuts and arugala salad, mint tea.