yearofplenty

The Foodie Revolutionaries

Came across this revolutionary talking about her plans to bring change. She's got a black cap on, and has a serious "subvert the empire" vibe going on. And what is the tool of her subversion? Is she part of a network of eco-terrorists? Is she describing her group's plans to squirt ketchup on unsuspecting celebrities? Is she sharing about her experience getting arrested for storming the headquarters of an unjust mega-corporation? No. As she states, her dangerous idea is to get people to "eat real food." She says, "Food is the way of organizing our community...Any way you look at it, food is the key."

She must have read Heather Flores' book, Food Not Lawns. Heather emailed me and expressed interest in coming to Spokane this summer to start a local chapter of Food Not Lawns, and promote International Seed Swap Day of Action. Sounds like a good idea to me. Anyone else interested in helping organize the event? Free black foodie revolutionary beanies for everyone who helps.   

Master Food Preserver Week 4 - Canning Acid Foods

I just had my last Master Food Preserver Class but I'm not up to date on reporting on each class so I'll report in sequence even if the class was actually a couple of weeks ago.

The fruit is about to arrive from Greenbluff and Yakima so let's talk canning low acid foods.

We learned that the key to sorting out what method of canning to use is the acid level of foods. Foods higher in acid with a pH 4.6 or lower include rhubarb, apples, grapefruit, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, sweet cherries, pears, and apricots. Note: the lower the pH the higher the acidity. These foods are safe to can using the water bath method using a recipe from here, here, or here. Note that the growth of molds can reduce the acidity and move fruits into the low acid category and make them susceptible to the growth of botulism. Go here for help choosing the right set-up for canning.

Tomatoes have a pH that ranges from 4.0 to 4.6, and because of this borderline status of acidity they must be acidified before processing with either bottled lemon juice (1 tbs/pint or 2 tbs/qt), citric acid (1/4 tsp/pt or 1/2 tsp/qt) or vinegar of 5% acidity (2 tbs/pt, 4 tbs/qt). Note that acid must be added whether you are using a boiling water bath or a pressure canner. The state of Washington extension office recommends boiling canned tomatoes for 10 minutes before eating as an extra measure of caution against botulism poisoning. Please note that canning times have changed recently for tomatoes, so  make sure to use an up to date version of recipes available here, here, or here   

Random notes on safety and quality: Make sure to adjust water bath time for altitude. Steam canners have major problems and are not recommended as a replacement for water bath canning. Vacuum packing machines are not a substitute for heat processing home canned foods. Use jars made for canning and lids with screw bands. Using metal scrubbers to clean jars can weaken them and lead to breakage. Screwing the band on too tight can lead to the lid buckling. Hot packing is generally recommended for improved quality. Check your appliance manufacturer's recommendations before you can on your ceramic stove stop. It is not considered safe to can quick breads. It is also not safe to home preserve veggies in oil, so throw out that garlic in oil your cousin gave you and that oil that you added peppers to last summer for the fun of it. The oil creates an anaerobic environment which can lead to the growth of botulism toxin. Some thing we see in the store we can't safely prepare in the home. 

Links:
Canning Fruits pdf
Canning Fruits and Tomatoes ($2)
How Do I Can?
How Do I Can Tomatoes?
How Do I Can Salsa?

The information in this post is taken from the Master Food Preserver Class taught by Washington State Extension in May and June of 2008. I will soon be dubbed a Master Food Preserver which I will put right up there with my Master of Divinity.

Spider Drama in the Garden

Found this spider in the garden today, ready to pounce on an unsuspecting bug. Anyone know what kind of spider that is? Not sure I want to know.

Sunday Edition - Grace Garden

Summer of 2008 Farmers' Market Challenge

It's been two weekends in a row of Farmers' Market field trips. Last Saturday Noel and I ventured to the Saturday Kootenai County Farmers' Market. It's been around for 23 years and it shows its age in a good way. It's situated under the shade of trees, has a bunch of vendors and the shoppers to match. They have semi-permanent wood stalls set-up with the names of the vendors on them. It's also located just next to the north south thoroughfare in Hayden. We bought a bird house and when we got home we stuck it on a 10 foot pole in the middle of the garden as a peace offering to the hail gods.

Yesterday Lily and I made a field trip to Cheney to visit the five year old Friday Farmers' Market that runs from around noon to 4:30pm. I love the location, on a historic street under some sycamore trees. Not too much action but the season is still early and much of the produce hasn't come in yet. Just for some perspective, we had more local produce on opening day at last year's Millwood Market than we had this last Wednesday. By my estimation that puts our local growing season a full month behind last year. Things look like they are picking up though, so if you've been dissappointed in the lack of veggies at your local market, take heart that it's on the way. Just think of the plus side. We've had an extra long asparagus season.

The Cheney Market is run by Pathways to Progress, a non-profit partnership between the city, Eastern Washington University, and local merchants. I think the City of Millwood has some good things to learn from this organization with regards to the Millwood Farmers Market and development of the historic district.

This has got me thinking about the health of farmers markets and a study from Oregon State University about the success of failure of Farmers Markets. They found that almost 50% of markets fail within or after the first year and provide some insights on how to help them succeed. The Millwood Market is into year two so I guess that's a good milestone.

They describe in the study why they think it's important for them to succeed:

Farmers’ markets link small farmers with consumers in a unique community gathering and serve a key role in local food systems. A useful term for describing this newly emerging form of local or community food system is “civic agriculture” (Lyson 2004). Civic agriculture describes a system made up of economic and personal relationships within a community. The concept emphasizes community economic development balanced against the social and environmental objectives of a community. Regarding farmers’ markets, Lyson points out:

As social institutions and social organizations, farmers’ markets can be important components of civic agriculture. They embody what is unique and special about local communities and help to differentiate one community from another (2004:93).

How about a summer of 2008 Farmers' Market Challenge to help our local markets succeed. Here's the challenge, to visit every farmers' market in the Inland Northwest this summer. I counted 17 and they are all listed after the jump. I'll give it a shot. Either that or we'll see who can attend the most. So far I've got 5 under my belt. Annyone have more?

All the area markets are listed with times and location after the jump. Or go to www.localharvest.org to find a market in your community.

Locavore Dust-Up At the LA Times

A little back and forth here at the LA Times about the benefits of local food, raw milk, and globalization. Both of them basically say that eating locally has its benefits, but it isn't a magic bullet.

Quote:

And then, of course, there's the question of how many people can be fed locally. Countries like the United States, blessed with superb soils and climate, can indeed feed themselves "locally." But countries like China and India, whose soaring populations have already exceeded their food output, will need imports for the foreseeable future -- in the coming decades, we will probably need more global trade, not less. The challenge will be to find ways to do it sustainably and equitably.

And even here, in the breadbasket of the world, the physical infrastructure needed to distribute local food -- the old farm-to-market roads and rail spurs that once connected farms to cities -- has long since been abandoned or removed to make way for national and global supply chains. By one estimate, the average American community produces just 5% of the food its citizens consume.

If we "can" feed ourselves locally, especially in such a rich agricultural region like the Inland Northwest, why would we not do it?   

Find Your Region's Food Tradition On This Map

This "Renewing America's Food Traditions" Map tells me we are in Pinyon Nut territory. Either that, or we're on the border of Salmon Nation. Now that the Salmon can't make their journey inland with all the dams, I'll probably haave better luck connecting with the Pinyon Nut food tradition. Personally I'd rather be in BBQ or Gator Nation, but you've got to bloom where you're planted.

Go here for the run down on Pinyon Nuts, also known as Indian nuts. As far as I can tell it's a wild pine nut. Looks like we'll have to add harvesting wild Pinyon Nuts to our annual pilgrimage of collecting huckleberries.

This reminds me that I want to add a trip to the Inchelium Indian reservation to learn about their food tradtions, especially the garlic that bears their name.

More on RAFT here.

Why Pay More for Good Local Food?

This is one of the questions we get a lot. People want to know if what we are doing is more expensive, as if the answer to that question might bring into question the whole operation. Here is how Barbara Kingsolver addresses this issue of food and cost in her book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle";

Grocery money is an odd sticking point for U.S. citizens, who on average spend a lower proportion of our income on food than people in any other country, or any heretofore in history. In our daily fare, even in school lunches, we broadly justify consumption of tallow-fried animal pulp on the grounds that it's cheaper than whole grains, fresh vegetables, hormone free dairy, and such...It's interesting that penny-pinching is an accepted defense for toxic food habits, when frugality so rarely rules other consumer domains. The majority of Americans buy bottled water, for example, even though water runs from the faucets at home for a fraction of the cost, and government quality standards are stricter for tap water than for bottled.

Kingsolver can be a little overbearing in her commentary, but I think she makes a good point. Eating less food and better quality, fresh food might be the most simple and powerful answer to our public health issues. It's been a good policy change for the Goodwin family public health initiative.

Soaps of the Inland Northwest

No, not soap operas of the Inland Northwest. The stuff that keeps you clean. Thankfully it's not all that hard to keep clean from locally produced soaps and cleansers. Here are some of the Spokane area products we've discovered.

Bar Soaps: Mountain Madness Soaps has some great bar soaps manufactured in Spokane Valley. Jennifer's soaps are available at the Hayden Saturday Farmers' Market and occasionally at the Millwood Farmers' Market.

Shampoo: We've been using a Lavender shampoo from Garden Gate Farm in Medical Lake. It's available at the Saturday Spokane Farmers' Market.

Hand Soap: We're using hand soap from Liesure Lavender Farm in Otis Orchards available at the Saturday Liberty Lake Farmers' Market.

Cleaning Solution: This has been harder to find but Nancy just found MaidNaturally products, made in Spokane and available at Yokes. She really likes the glass cleaner.

Stay tuned on this. We haven't run out of deodorant yet. I've been really nursing mine.

In other news I've used the same razor blade for six months. I've got one more in the cartridge so I figure I'm good to go on that. 

Late Sunday Edition

I am re-reading an out of print book from 1998 called, "The Consuming Passion." It is a reflection on the Christian faith and consumer culture, with multiple contributors. It is one of the few books I'm aware of that tackles directly the issues of consumption and the Christian faith. The book title was my first choice for the title of our blog, but Nancy thought is sounded too much like a dime store romance novel.

I like what Rodney Clapp the editor of the book, has to say in the introduction about a thoughtful approach to responding to our consumer culture:

All its elements are not simply good or bad. It is pervasive in both grossly obvious and infinitely subtle ways. It is profoundly rooted in faith, culture and society as we now know them. To the degree it is toxic, it is an ivy in the garden with its tendrils wrapped around and through our most beautiful flowers and our most essential vegetables. It could not be violently or wholly extirpated without destroying much that we rightly prize and protect. But just like such a vining plant it has grown too abundant and thick, so that it is now choking the life out of precious flowers and indispensable vegetables. Christians and other people of faith are among those who must gird themselves for a long, intricate and difficult pruning.

My only addition to that description is that the faith community has too often been behind the curve on these issues. Instead of being pioneers, too often we have been about accommodating the rhythms of our consuming culture. Instead of innovating tenable alternatives, we have tried hard to find ways of making faith fit into the prevailing practices of consumption. As many of us in the faith community are just beginning the journey of awareness around these issues, other communities among us are well along in the journey of disentangling and pruning. I am learning that for me, this requires a posture of listening as well as speaking. I remember many classes in seminary on learning how to speak, but very few on learning to listen. This year is a good lesson for me in listening.