Cook, Pray, Eat

Somewhere just after I poured soy sauce on my stir fry of broad beans and cipollini onions I realized I had just turned two very Italian vegetables into Asian-American food. Served over rice with some peanuts it was Asian style, on another occasion, those broad beans and onions might be a puree under some lean meat with pesto, much more Italian, or even the veggies in a risotto, again much more Italian, but basically the same food. America was a stir-fry pan more than a melting pot tonight.

After a stressful meeting at school, I headed home. I had thought of stopping at the local pub for a pint and a meal, but as I drove past, it seemed crowded, likely due to the unusual last taste of summer we've been having here. I was not in the mood to deal with the crowd and noise, so I continued on the last four blocks to home.

I was exhausted and not feeling like cooking, but needing some comfort food. I poured a glass of California Sauvignon Blanc and rummaged through the fridge--what was easy and satisfying? That's when I realized there were still some of those broad beans and they really ought to be cooked. I picked them up at Strawberry Hill the other weekend when Ali and I went to Green Bluff. It was now or let them go to waste--not acceptable for an ethical eater.

And after this stressful day (and one glass of wine) cooking became a more palatable idea. As I chopped and stir fried and the smell of the onions hitting the oil, I became more relaxed. As things were coming together, even for this simple meal, I felt gratitude for this food and being able to prepare it. For too many across the planet, just having enough food is a cause of constant stress.

Cooking can be prayer. It often is when one cooks for others. But tonight, for me, cooking was a prayer for the care I deserve to give myself after a stressful day. I am thankful for this food and thankful for the care I can sometimes remember to show myself. And I am also thankful to have been given the grace to remember.

Strawberry Hill Farm

I think I may have missed the mark with my "dining for dollars and making sense" posts. I realize now that when thinking about eating ethically and inexpensively, my lifestyle, being single and cooking for mostly just myself doesn't really get to the heart of the issue for a lot of people. Plus, I pretty much always have leftovers, which means sharing recipes of a week doesn't help a lot. So, I know I have to get back to this issue somehow later. I am still trying to figure out how to best do this.

Setting that aside for the moment, I made another trip to Green Bluff yesterday. After talking at Trezzi on the 9th, I wanted to get back up there to do some more exploring, picking, reveling in the great bounty just north of town. It struck me that this is a good model if it could be done everywhere and more directly--an agricultural area supporting an urban center.

My friend Ali and I were glad that he weather held and we were able to make it up to Green Bluff. I had thought about picking apples and getting a jump on fall, but we were treated instead to some late summer veggies and berries--have to love the late summer berries! We weren't headed to any particular farm up there, but just turned when we got to a place neither of us had been and that meant we ended up at Strawberry Hill Farm. It was small and sweet. The teenager who showed us around and helped us find good picking places couldn't have been nicer.

They don't use chemicals on the plants, but are too small to get certified organic. this is food that is often referred to as "safe." When we got out of the car and into the little shop to meet our guide, we were treated with some freshly sliced cucumber and a little bit of information about the farm. But it wasn't until we were out back on the farm itself that our guide told us that the music we were hearing was because the owner believes the plants do better when they get to listen to music. It was nice classical music.

We picked two kinds of green beans (including some Hilda beans which were giant flat romano green beans and are delish! Strawberries, blackberries and golden raspberries. Carrots and cucumbers. Yum. They also had tomatoes, basil by the bushel it seemed, onions, summer squash and winter squash and pumpkins (soon to be ready, though). It was a lovely, easy to navigate spot I'll be sure to go back to. On the perimeter of the garden patches and he green house were chickens, emus, a couple of llamas and some goats. This is a full service kind of place.

After we finished our picking, we headed to Harvest House for a slice of pie, some pumpkin donuts and some hot apple cider. We sat and talked about how good it is to be able to head up to Green Bluff for an afternoon, to really appreciate what we have and to feel good about eating the food we have picked and will be able to eat. Can't wait to head to the Farmer's Market next weekend--Ali's going to come along and it promises to be a nice morning, once again feeling good about local food.

Dining for Dollars Part 2

So, it's hump day now. And how well have I been doing eating ethically on a budget? With the exception of yesterday, pretty well I think.

Monday I had coffee and yogurt for breakfast (total $1.05). For lunch I had some of the soup I made on Sunday, but I forgot to bring any cheese for a garnish (total $1.29). As a snack I had two tiny, Italian plums (the kind that dry into prunes) that were organic and local bought Saturday at the farmers market ($.60). Dinner was some left over pizza from Sunday (total $1.61). Daily total--$4.55.

Yesterday,well, my breakfast was the same--coffee and yogurt (total $1.05), but for lunch I was invited to the Jesuit Community at school to talk some shop with a new teacher and last night I had dinner out at a local brew pub with a friend (cost with tax and tip, $15.00). This is a bit of an aberration and not typical for trying to eat on a budget (although maybe there is such a thing as a free lunch).

Today was much more typical. I had my coffee and yogurt breakfast. It's still my Roast House coffee and local yogurt without any artificial colors or sweeteners (total $1.05). Today for lunch I had soup with chips as garnish (total $1.29). For a snack I had some homemade trail mix made with local apples I dried last fall, some nectarines I dried a few weeks ago, some dried unsweetened organic coconut and some walnuts. I have to do some estimating here since I can't remember exactly what I paid for those Green bluff apples last October. I am guessing it's around $1.50. Dinner tonight (since I am actually typing this while on a conference call board meeting and soon will be making dinner while at the meeting, too!) a garden burger (bought on sale, $.83) on an organic whole wheat bun ($.62), with home made french fries from Olsen farms potatoes ($.50). I'll use some organic ketchup ($.24) and some mustard (negligible) and some sliced tomato (grown by a colleague in his garden, thanks Doug!). Total -- $2.19--that's dollar menu prices at a fast food joint, but for much healthier local food. Not bad, if you ask me. For the day that comes to $6.03. That's less than half my dinner out from last night.

Community Food Security

Spokane is participating in Sustainable September. I guess that means we've come a long way. One of the tracks of events has to do with local food. Being part of the committee has allowed me to meet some interesting new people and get to know better some people I had merely met once or twice.

One of the events of the food track is going to be a dinner at a Green Bluff farm next week. I am particularly excited about it because it is about ethics and food and I am going to be one of the speakers. I had planned only on blogging about this after the event, but it has been a while since I have written (I'll say more about that another time). And, well, we're trying to sell a few more tickets for the event.

The idea with Sustainable September is that communities come together around events that highlight the different aspects of sustainability in their own community. For Spokane, local food is one of these aspects that is becoming a lot more important as we realize the great benefits our local community can share and contribute when it comes to what one eats and what gets grown in our own area.

That's the focus of my talk -- Community Food Security. A little preview to pique your interest--food security has been the dominant way that those in international development circles have been talking about hunger for decades now. As the concept worked its way into the American discussion of domestic hunger, it shifted to be more about nutrition than starvation. And the idea of communities being food secure started to come to the fore. There has been a lot of debate about what that might mean--for a community to be food secure. For individuals we look at the ability of a person to have reliable access to healthy food to support an active lifestyle for 21 meals a week. But for a community that definition doesn't quite work. There are other assumptions at play.

At the brief presentation next week (and I promise it will be brief) we'll discuss what it might mean for Spokane to be food secure and how that might require some work and changes to our local food policy and to personal choices about food.

One choice that is a good one would be to join us at Trezzi farms on Thursday the 9th for a wonderful meal, a little thought provoking conversation, and some beautiful scenery!

U-Pick Strawberries

Last week I intended to go pick strawberries and it just didn't happen. So, today, even after getting up late and being still tired from a late night out with friends at a great party, I got myself into the car and headed north of the city to the Green Bluff collective of farms to pick strawberries at Knapp's. One thing you learn quickly when picking strawberries is a lot of what you pay for in the grocery store in the labor. Picking strawberries is dusty, hot and back-breaking work. But, if it is work that one does for enjoyment and especially ripe strawberries it is worth it. (Although I am always struck by the fact that this is a day's activity for me and for most of the others picking. It is something to do for fun. It is a luxury that I do not have to do it for work. U-pick seems like the ultimate American invention.)

Many of the people there were picking with children. It is good to see kids on the farm looking at the strawberries, the ponies, the plants that will yield the fall pumpkins that will be their jack-o'lanterns. It will make nice memories for them, I hope. I hope also that it will mean they have some sense of where their food comes from.

It's the freshest food around--I know exactly when it was picked--between 10:15 and 11:15 this morning. And in that hour I picked about 7 pounds of strawberries which was about 2/3 of one planted row. I have a raw spot on my left palm from the scratches the straw between the rows and plants made. And I missed a spot on my upper arm when putting the sunscreen on. Small prices to pay. And the price for the berries themselves was pretty small too. At 99 cents a pound it is a great deal.

On my walking back from the fields to pay for the berries I noticed that you could probably just walk away without paying. But that would be a crime twice over. At once there would be the obvious theft of the strawberries themselves, but then there would also be betrayal of the trust that the farmers had placed in those that they let wander their fields. Farm life is different than urban life and trust works differently. It certainly is not something I would ever consider--stealing from a farmer.

As I made may way to the area where they weigh the strawberries and you pay, I chatted briefly with someone who works there. She said the shade felt good, I said I had enjoyed being out in the sun. She said that there hadn't been a lot of sun this year yet and we spoke for a moment about the weather this spring and summer and how it had made things difficult for the farmers in the area. When I said I really felt for those who were trying to grow things this season she replied, "thanks, we are trying."

When picking strawberries I pick the ripest ones I can, they are often not the biggest. I think a lot of people must pick the big ones before they are really ripe so that they can have big ones. You also see a lot of oddly shaped ones that weren't picked and have gotten too ripe. But who is to say that those oddly shaped ones are perfect? They are literally the fruits of nature at work. That's perfect enough for me.

I'll be eating fresh strawberries and baking with them for a while now, and will still have some to put up for the off-season. That way I can have some ethical berries for longer, making the ones in the stores in the winter that I know are not local a lot less tempting.

Learning to Love Leftovers

Leftovers. Sometimes it's a dirty word. I remember as a child the nights we would make dinner by, as my parents put it, "cleaning out" the refrigerator. It was not usually my favorite night. Sometimes there would be something that was good and we impatiently made claims, my brother, sister and I, on what it was that we wanted. Sometimes we made almost no claims on the leftovers--none seemed appealing. Usually dinner was a little of this and a little of that and not always a balanced meal with all the four food groups represented.

But the longer I study food and its ethical implications, the more I think that we in the developed world had better learn to love leftovers. This is for a couple of reasons. First is that for many people all over the world having enough food is a luxury, so having too much is something unfathomable. Yet many days in my own kitchen, even if I am just cooking for myself, there are leftovers. Now, I try to make good use of them so I often make more than I eat at one sitting so as to have a hot lunch the next day (I embrace soup for example for this very reason).

Second, though, is that many people, myself included, carry a few extra pounds on our frames. Remembering exhortations to join the "clean plate club" I often ate more than I should have when I was young, and often still do. Sometimes it is because something is just so good, but other times is out of a bad habit to finish what is on my plate. But if I were to learn to love leftovers even more than I do now and in a different way than I do now, maybe that could change a little bit.

So for these two, disparate reasons, learning to love leftovers is important. It is good for me physically as I could stand to lose a few pounds and good for me intellectually and spiritually as I recall that many go without. Now, I don't mean for this last point to sound like the "clean your plate there are children starving in China" (or some other country) thing that many of us heard and has been memorialized in television shows and movies. We all know that if I eat all that is on my plate it doesn't do a thing to feed a starving or malnourished person. But the idea here is a little different. It is an acknowledgement that when we have enough to have leftovers we should be recognizing that we are living in a time and place of plenty which is not the case for so many others around the world, around the country and probably around the block. And it moves from this recognition to hopefully action that works to prevent hunger and malnutrition.

So today it has been primarily dining on leftovers. Breakfast was coffee (fair trade and locally roasted, of course), juice (from a northwest farmers collective) and toast from left over bread from the dinner party. Lunch was made from the leftovers from the appetizers from Monday's party too. Homemade hummus, cucumbers, feta cheese and some more baguette. Dinner was made up of leftovers, too. Some roasted acorn squash bought in October at Green Bluff and held over the winter (just a few squash left--thank God they won't be seasonal again for a while!), leftover wild rice salad and chicken marbella. I put some arugula with the rice salad -- got it eat it while it is still green on the plant now that it has bolted!

And a side note--last night I was out with a friend for a drink who told me after I ordered my drink (and somewhat obnoxiously I admit, changed her drink order) that she had been wondering after seeing my blog how I would go out for a drink ethically (that is, "ethically" in the sense of eating ethically). She said that when she heard my drink order she answered her own question--drink locally. And boy, oh boy, does that Dry Fly Gin mean drinking locally and drinking well. Hope she liked it!