Stay hydrated this summer with my summer drinks! Check out my latest article for some cool and spicy non-alcoholic drinks to liven up your summertime fun.
Recipes include:
Blueberry-Jalepeno Spritzer
Berry-Herb Lemonade
Fruit Ice
Rose Spritzer
Get Wet With These Summertime Drinks. July 24, 2008.
It’s a tad late, but better late than never. I wanted to post my berry madness before I got this up. Head over to my Queens Chronicle piece about Food for the 4th. Really, it’s good food all summer long, so it’s still worth a glance. Cheese filled burgers, cucumber coolers and easy fruit ices await you…
It has been forever…
The New York City school year wrapped up this week and I’ve been busy planning a farm-to-school nutrition education program for public school 4th graders, starting in fall 2008. This project, a one-month food advocacy course, led by the local organization Just Food, a visiting 17-year old cousin from Tennessee and weeding my garden– despite D’s assurance that gardens need no work once planted, consumed my energies these past weeks. (And the beautiful weather, of course.)
Food is to come and perhaps a special appearance by D describing his new kombucha project.
In the meantime, you can see the above picture of how much the City Garden has evolved from week one and check out these interesting links below.
In the picture, corn at back, silks are already starting to show! This past week we planted beans at their base. To the left of those (off camera) are my tomatoes, basil, Brussels sprouts and D’s tobacco. Already making excellent headway. Just in front of the corn is eggplant, and mixed peppers (sweet, hot and paprika) are in front of that. Then winter squash to the right, lots of grass yet to be pulled, and the two lighter plants in the front are watermelons.
Links…
My food advocacy class provided this great link, On Day One. What do you want the new president to do on his first day in office? My favorite is linked here: turn the white house lawn into a garden, providing local food to the white house and local food pantries. You can place your vote, or submit your own, on a number of topics.
As a reaction to turning all our lawns into gardens, here’s a piece from Alternet: Turning Your Lawn into a Victory Garden Won’t Save You– Fighting Corporations Will.
A taste of what’s to come:
Homemade goat yogurt
Strawberry madness
Berry crepes
Simple Summer Appetizers
July 4th Food ideas
Many people I know have a funny relationship with food: they are on constant diets, yet continue to gain weight. I’m not counting people with real health problems, but those consistently obsessed with weight loss and dieting (although I suppose this could be considered a real health problem psychologically).
We are a nation obsessed with our image and one of the most obvious ways to control our look, short of surgery or buying new clothing, is to control what we ingest. The problem as I see it, is that when we stop listening to our bodies and rely on special diets, we deprive ourselves of what our bodies actually need. If you don’t have strict enough control, you end up bingeing when you are confronted with the food your body craves.
Each of us is in fact a unique individual with special needs only our bodies understand– not a diet book that can supposedly work miracles on millions. If we can stick to real foods (fruits, vegetables, grains), without too much added salts and sugars, staying away from processed goods (which just make you crave more), our bodies eventually regulate and notify us about what is required for continued function. Of course, I’m no nutritionist.
There is one woman in particular I run into every month or so on the street: oh Stacey! You look like you’re losing weight!
It may or may not be true. This greeting, or, “Wow, you’re looking great,” are two common conversation starters people like to provide when it has been a while between sightings (and continues our obsession over our bodies). Every time I see this particular woman it is the same statement, followed by, are you on a special diet? Every time I see her I provide the same secret answer.
She asks, one because it is polite I suppose, but two, because she has a litany of legitimate health problems, many of which can actually be solved if she can create a healthy relationship with food. She is looking for the secret. Sure, I tell her. I’ve been frying my eggs in leftover bacon fat. I eat pork chops, roasted chicken, yogurt, cheese and a lot of vegetables, raw or sauteed in olive oil… You know, whatever is around.
Well you must cook a lot, she counters. I make lasagna, that’s it.
Well, that’s good, I say, that you cook. But in my mind I’m reminded of weekly food calendars, with hers looking something like this: Monday, lasagna; Tuesday, lasagna; Wednesday, lasagna… In the time it takes to make lasagna for a week, could she make, say maybe some chicken? Or in even less time some fish? Or really, anything other than lasagna?
Sure I cook (not as often as most people think), but most of what I make are quick meals that take just as long as opening a can and setting the microwave– and even faster than heading to a restaurant and placing an order. If it’s a food that takes longer to prepare, I make enough for leftovers I don’t mind eating cold or which can be reheated easily on the stove top (I don’t have a microwave).
So the secret special diet is that it is not a secret at all. It’s one people generations before us followed because there was no alternative: eat foods with ingredients you can name, know where they come from, or how they are produced or grown. Avoid processed and packaged food and drink, stay away from corn syrup, hydrogenated oils and bypass the advertisements telling you to load up on sugars, starches and new “low-calorie,” “all natural” treats… And maybe one other thing: Follow the variety seasons offer.
As I ate my breakfast this morning I thought about her question and was inspired to take a picture. Was I glad I was not eating lasagna? Yes. Was I glad this meal took all of 8 minutes to prepare? Yes.
There is no recipe to this meal because by the picture I think it is pretty straight forward:
sauteed asparagus
an egg, however you like it
a piece of cheese
slice of whole grain toast with butter
some other veggies or fruit, if available
fresh herbs, if available
I’m guest blogging over at Sustainable Table. My first post is all about vermicomposting (worm composting). Truly, not as disgusting as it sounds (or looks). Since picking up my worms I have swayed many unbelievers– including D who first thought my worms totally gross and now gets extremely mad if we forget to feed them or throw something out that could be destined for the worms.
So many have changed their tune that at our last party I had a group of 8 friends standing around our worm bin asking questions and participating in a feeding (I kid you not and swear most parties do not resort to worms for entertainment or conversation).
Composting is a great solution to stamp out our dependency on synthetic fertilizers, especially petroleum-based ones. It is easy to accomplish in any space– from small scale apartments to large farms. What to do with the compost? Your houseplants and garden will love the rich compost you provide for them. Not much of a planter? Donate your harvested compost to a community garden, neighbor or friend who does plant. You’ll have a friend for life (and maybe some veggies out of the deal!).
Vermicomposting is ideal indoors in a small apartment or house. You can find these, dare I say, fashionable, cedar worm bins on ebay (my friend L has one and loves how it blends into her decor). I have a basic plastic bin with a lid I bought at a discount store for about $10. A bin that will fit under the kitchen sink is a perfect size for a small family.
There are no noticeable bad smells associated with vermicomposting. The only smell will be a sweet Earthiness, and only noticeable when the bin is open, during feeding time. You can still go on vacation when you have your worms and they are not nearly as difficult to care for as a cat, dog, or even fish!
Head over to my post on Sustainable Table: Vermicomposting 101 to read the ins and outs of vermicomposting.
Over the past few weeks I updated Sustainable Table’s Dairy pages. The research taught me a lot about the U.S. Dairy Industry and I’m happy to finally share it with you, my readers. My pages are slowly going live and I’ll post each new one as it goes up.
Thought you knew everything about milk? Think again. This first page is all about Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, or rBGH. Ponder this: We are outraged when athletes voluntarily inject themselves with performance enhancing growth hormones (we don’t drink our athletes’ milk), but the dairy industry pumps cows full of growth hormones and we guzzle the poison up, without knowledge or outrage.
The result of rBGH is that cows produce more milk, which equals the cash cow shown above (my rendering). RBGH turns dairy cattle into milk machines, wearing them down and out faster than pastured cows, it destroys cows’ health leading to a slew of horrible and painful conditions, leading to a regiment of antibiotics and more. And humans? Increased risk of cancers.
Can it get worse? Of course. Monsanto, producer of Posilac, the number one selling rBGH, is fighting rBGH-free labeling currently taking place around the country. Out of consumer fear of what’s in the milk, dairies are beginning to label when their products do not contain rBGH. Monsanto claims it’s libel and misleading to say something is rBGH-free, implying that the synthetic hormones are bad. (Aren’t they?) What about all those “Fat-Free,” “Low-Carb,” “High Fiber,” “Low-Sodium” labeling that is smacked on just about every box, can and bag at the grocery? Aren’t those misleading? Implying they are healthy (or more healthy), when in fact they are still packed with so much other junk they’re horrible for you.
But no worries, there is hope. Head over to Sustainable Table’s Issues pages on rBGH, www.sustainabletable.org/issues/rbgh to learn more and find out what you can do to take action.
Keep posted for information when my pages on the U.S. Dairy Industry, Raw Milk and Hormone go live!
Sincerely,
Stacey, NYC Milkmaid
When I was young I had a book by Steven Kroll called, That Makes Me Mad! about a young girl, Nina, enraged with the world around her. You follow Nina through her pains: when she’s told “something delicious” is for dinner and it turns out to be her least favorite dish, it makes her mad. When her newborn brother gets more attention, it makes her mad. When adults ignore her wonderful attempts at attention, it makes her mad.
Basically, none of us want to be lied to or ignored. It’s something I think many of us have forgotten today.
I remember this book was one of my favorites and I distinctly remember toting it around in the car on trips. To this day when things make me mad I think of little angry Nina. I have mentioned the book to others, but no one else seems to have read it. Sometimes I think I should make the grown up version of this book, but maybe that would be too depressing.
If I did write it, a few pages of my adult That Makes Me Mad! would cover rising food prices, global warming/ the environmental crisis, and other current chatter– That Makes Me Mad!
D forwarded me this article from CounterPunch about rice shortages in Haiti and how the country could once feed itself– before the U.S. stepped in to “help.” It’s happened in other countries and well, That Makes Me Mad! The scenario often goes something like this:
Open trade borders
Artificially low-priced U.S. crops filter into country
Local farmers are driven out of business and move to cities
City populations grow
Joblessness and poverty increases and quality of life is reduced
Corporations move in to “make use” of once used farmland; Build polluting industry; Pollute the land and hire unskilled workers on the cheap (ie ex-farmers– who more often than not are not allowed to unionize)
Countries become “civilized” through industrialization
Land is destroyed and made toxic and we once again distance our understanding of sustainable land use
When is the U.S. going to stop subsidizing mono-cultures, ultimately artificially lowering prices on single commodities, like sugar, rice and corn, and put their money where it actually helps?! Subsidize items like corn and you create a huge surplus. (Because hey, if I’m a struggling farmer trying to make it, I’m going to grow whatever the government is paying big bucks for.) What to do with a huge corn surplus? Export it at prices other countries cannot compete with, turn it into high fructose corn syrup, figure out how to feed it to livestock, put more oil into it than it actually produces to make ethanol, and in general filter it into just about every processed food made, creating obesity throughout the land and making the health care industry (with funding from big Ag) a happy camper.
All of this make me very, very mad!
How about sustainable agriculture methods? Make organic fruits and vegetables more affordable for people– not corn syrup! But as so many people say, I guess the poor broccoli has no multi-million dollar spending lobbyist in Washington fighting for it, huh? I created this one, above right, for the purpose.
So it all seems really big and unbearable, right? Rather than change a light bulb, why not support a local sustainable farmer? Join a Community Supported Agriculture program (their prices are often less than non-organic prices at conventional supermarkets). Or here is another option: Don’t support Big Ag (not because you don’t want to support farmers, but you want to change where subsidies go!)! Read labels on products you buy, stay away from high fructose corn syrup, and in general, ingredients you can’t pronounce or don’t know how they are grown or produced– soy lecithin, not a soybean.
A follow up to my natural dye egg post, here is the published story on the topic via the Queens Chronicle.
I am a big fan of bean dips and sauces. A healthy great tasting snack that is easy to whip up in seconds cannot be wrong. Personally, I always keep an emergency can of beans in the cabinet for meals in a pinch, when friends drop in hungry or to thicken up soup stock. So when D told me about a new bean dip his friend was working on I thought it was a great idea. Why not a ready-made dip for all those emergency instances and everything in between!?
Brothers Big Guy and Little Guy, makers of Cool Beans, were nice enough to send over some samples for review as well as host a giveaway to one lucky Just Braise reader for a 3-pack sample of some beans (read on!).
Bravo to the Charlotte Observer for their current multi-level six-part series on the horrors of industrial poultry plants and the many injustices workers there face.
I mentioned this back in December after seeing the film, Mississippi Chicken, less about Mississippi chicken facilities and more about the people that bring us our food. While the horrors of industrial beef and pork plants are coming more into light, the chicken industry often gets overlooked. I think films and exposes like these are all too important to highlight a subject that few people want to look into. As is often said, ignorance is bliss.
We are more often concerned about the welfare of the animals in these industrial food facilities (which truly are horrendous), but there are people that work in these places that face very real injustices that are overlooked. It is all too easy to say these folks can find other jobs, but blaming the victim never gets us anywhere. The people are not the problem, it is the system that employs them that is.
One line that is particularly hilarious to me and just rings of doubling safety books in the industry and corruption:
They [Critics] point to one government measure showing that employees in toy stores are more likely than poultry workers to develop musculoskeletal disorders.
The most common musculoskeletal disorder, according to the piece, is carpal tunnel. I worked for a toy store for over 5 years, while in high school and on college breaks. I never felt my life, hands or safety at all endangered (oh wait, I did consume a lot of candy), but to compare these two occupations is absurd!