Down in the dumplings

I adore dumplings. I haven't been able to get them out of my head since Matt and I ate some, what, two weeks ago from Copycat. My landlady, Jacky, has a soft spot for them, too. So when an opportunity arose this week to participate in a free Slow Food Live streaming session on how to make proper Chinese dumplings led by a Boston-area chef who recently authored Double Awesome Chinese Food, you can bet we signed up.

As a food educator myself, I really enjoyed learning from a good instructor. Mei Li was a lovely teacher -- a funny and patient mom who smiled as a pack of novice dumpling makers from around the country hung on her every word for how to make simple, perfect dough and tried our hands -- literally -- at making our own little morsels of pillowy deliciousness. Really, it's just flour and hot water? Amazing. I especially loved that the chef herself demonstrated how she made beautiful but imperfectly sized dumplings, and Jacky and I were both encouraged by the fact that she successfully made these dumplings with her four-year-old from time to time, using whatever filling ingredients she had on hand. Corn, beans, and pre-roasted squash, say, or ground lamb and curry spices. Our dumplings were filled with a finely chopped mix of the contents of my vegetable drawer: red cabbage, carrots, shiitakes, ginger, and green garlic. Delish! Round two was filled with the veg mix plus some minced chicken and hot sauce. Also delish! (Don't shake your head at me, of course there was a round two!)

Tasty and so quick to make! I think the longest part of the process was letting the dough rest for 30 minutes before rolling it out and filling it. (I was convinced a handful of times during that thirty-minute eternity that enough time had passed, but luckily Jacky was actually watching the clock and wouldn't let me start handling our dough until a full half hour had passed. It was worth the wait.) Here's how to make your own, based on our slightly floured, handwritten notes:

Basic Dumplings

Makes about 24 dumplings

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour (we did 1 cup each of white and whole wheat), plus a few TBSP for rolling out dough
• 1 cup just-boiled water
• 2 cups or so of whatever filling you have around, mashed or finely chopped, such as...
  traditional potstickers: cooked shrimp or shredded pork with mushrooms and scallion
  vegetarian: mixed veggies with ginger and garlic
  southern: leftover fried chicken with hot sauce
  polish: mashed potatoes with cooked onions and shredded cheese
• dipping sauce: we used a few tsp soy sauce + 1/2 tsp freshly minced ginger

Directions

Use a wooden spoon to combine flour with 3/4 cup hot water in a medium bowl. Stir until most of the flour comes together into a crumbly dough, adding more hot water as needed, 1 TBSP at a time. Once it is cool enough to handle, gently knead it with your hands until it forms a soft ball that feels "like a baby's butt." Don't roll your eyes at me, I can't help that it's an accurate description! Cover the bowl with a damp kitchen towel and let dough rest for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, gather/chop/cook your filling. Seriously, the world is your oyster here, people, clean out your fridge!

After your dough has rested for the requisite 30 minutes, divide it into 4 sections.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out one section at a time into a fat worm, keeping the remaining sections of dough in the towel-covered bowl to keep them moist.

Cut each dough worm into 6-8 little marshmallow-sized blobs.

Roll out each marshmallow until it is a thin, roughly circular pancake -- say 3-5" in diameter. These are your dumpling wrappers. I would only roll out one or two at a time, so they don't start sticking to your counter or cutting board. Or you can commiserate with a co-chef, as I did, with one of us rolling out dough and the other filling/sealing dumplings.

Holding one dumpling wrapper in one hand, use a spoon in your other hand to scoop a teaspoon or two of filling into the center of your dumpling wrapper, Fold the two sides together, as if making a taco, and pinch the edges together. You may need to wet the inner edges of the dumpling to get them to stick. (Our dough was still nice and moist so we didn't need to do this, but I've had to use water in the past when sealing dumplings.) Now you have your dumplings ready to cook or freeze!

Mei Li showed us how to steam fry our dumplings, which is my favorite way to have them: heat just a splash of oil in a heavy pan (we used cast iron) until it shimmers, over medium heat, and add a half dozen dumplings. Once the bottoms have browned, carefully pour in 1/2 cup of water and quickly cover. Check after a couple of minutes -- if the water has all evaporated, let the dumplings cook for another minute or two to crisp up the bottoms and then put them on your plate drizzled with your ginger soy sauce. You can start steam frying the next batch while you enjoy the first one.

Easy, right? Okay, fine, if you want tips on fancy dumpling folding, you can order a copy of the Double Awesome Chinese Food cookbook. I think Jacky already did....

Get mashed

"Two tickets, please."

Every so often, membership has its privileges. Though often combined with a fun and tasty potluck meal, most of my work with Slow Food DC involves many meetings and lots of logistical planning. It was fun this past Friday night to simply kick back with a couple of free tickets to a fantastic benefit dinner for my local Slow Food chapter thrown by two amazing chefs.

Did I mention it was a beer dinner?

Not only that, but one of the chefs -- Andrew Gerson -- is also one of the driving forces behind my all-time favorite spent grain cooking blog. I was so excited to be in the same room, and listened eagerly as the surprisingly humble but knowledgeable chef explained the beer pairing as we passed around each of the six courses. So entranced was I that I almost spilled my beer. Twice. (I maybe don't need to mention that I was entirely too shy, even after five or six drinks, to approach Chef Andrew to tell him how much I love his work. I mean, he's a real spent grain chef. Me, I dabble. No need to babble.)

The food was stellar, as was the beer. But the genius was in the pairing. Okay, fine, there was quite a bit of inventiveness in the food itself, actually, as chef Hiyaw Gebreyohannes mingled traditional Ethiopian flavors with globally inspired dishes ranging from a surprisingly spicy guacamole with toasted injera chips to a watermelon and catfish ceviche to beer braised lamb shanks to a custard with figs and honeyed injera. My favorite, though, was the chicken and peanut stew. (Oh, no, not because it was paired with my favorite Brooklyn pumpkin ale. No, really. That is good beer, though.) Kenton and I left the four-hour-long meal around midnight with full bellies and happy hearts.

To the Brooklyn brew crew and Slow Food DC, I must say thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

It was an amazing meal, and so beautifully presented, that some of us who will remain anonymous maybe took their placemat home as a memento....

Back to my roots

This past Saturday, aspiring and accomplished urban gardeners celebrated the 6th annual -- and best ever -- Rooting DC. It was the fourth time I attended the free, all-day conference, and the second time I've presented. (Me! An expert at something! I have been known to preserve a thing or two in my day....) This time, instead of demonstrating how one could make vegan kim chi, as I did in 2010, dozens of us made kim chi together. And pickles, too. It was an exercise in controlled chaos.

As soon as I finished giving a primer on the basics of pickling and fermenting, the workshop attendees pounced on the tableful of produce, spices, and equipment. (I forget sometimes that adults need instructions and parameters, too. At least they were all avid handwashers, if not so much washers of tables and dishes.) The enthusiasm was electrifying, though, and as I made a few rounds passing out additional kim chi mashers and suggesting folks pass along ingredients they weren't using to other groups who needed more greens or mustard seed, I couldn't help but smile.

There were easily double the number of people I'd expected. Luckily we had enough jars, kindly donated by my fellow Slow Food DC board members, supplemented with more jars donated by my friend Jessica at GrowingSOUL, and a random assortment of glassware I'd amassed in the weeks leading up to the hands-on workshop. Using a big, beautiful crate of beets, turnips, radishes, cabbages, kale, and onions from the lovely Farmer Mo at Moutoux Orchards, plus cucumbers from the grocery store (they're not in season yet, but I didn't want to get attacked by folks expecting traditional pickles at a pickling workshop) and a load of spices picked up at GLUT, we chopped, peeled, mashed, and stuffed jars full of savory treats. Cinnamon sticks were hammered on cutting boards, vinegar solutions concocted in mixing bowls.

People asked lots of good questions, and I left with some research to undertake. (Like what is this about pickling grapes?? I'm so on it!) Nobody lost a finger, and the only missing implement after all was said and done was a set of measuring spoons. Not bad.

The sacred cow

This past Sunday, I had the good fortune to meet Ms. Sally Fallon (Morell) -- perhaps best known for founding the interesting and at times somewhat extreme Weston A. Price Foundation, but she will always live in my heart as the woman behind the awesome, activisty cookbook, Nourishing Traditions. And for her advocacy around legalizing raw milk -- which in the District is harder to lay one's hands on than hard drugs, apparently -- she is one of my heroes.

Somehow, over the course of the months we spent corresponding by email leading up to the free talk and potluck I was organizing for Slow Food DC, I managed not to gush too much. I refrained from going on embarrassingly about how much I adore that cookbook of hers, with its recipes for fermented foods and the joys of whole grains and unapologetic tirade against modern health trends. I mean, for heaven's sake, the subtitle of the book is "The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats." (Yes, it really says Diet Dictocrats in the title. Love it.) Unfortunately, my introduction of this local celebrity was a little gushy and awkward, but hopefully most folks forgot about that by the time Ms. Fallon got a few slides into her presentation.

Lord, I hate public speaking.

After some history of the research of Dr. Weston A, Price, whose work studying the links between health (specifically dental health) and diet in populations around the world, Sally -- hee, hee, I used her first name -- launched into a diatribe against the vacillating patterns that are the dietary/nutritional recommendations and health scares of our day. One day butter is bad. The next day it's good. Carbs are bad. No, wait, they are the main component of the USDA food pyramid, but a growing number of people can't properly digest contemporary commodity grains. Red meat is bad. Dairy is bad. Raw milk is dangerous. Fruit is too high in sugar. There's e coli on the spinach.... Aaaagh! What the heck are we supposed to think? Or eat??

After trashing processed foods (no arguments here) and maligning a series of new-fangled diets including vegetarianism (hey, though I do love my pastured bacon and grassfed lamb stew there's no need to hate on the veg lovers), Sally got to the meat (har, har) of her argument: we Americans have lost touch with what our bodies need, which is a complete diet that includes healthy fats. Things like lard. Yes. Lard. You know: Evil Ingredient #3, only bumped out of the top two spots by High Fructose Corn Syrup and Arsenic as things we should avoid putting into our bodies according to the folks telling us what to eat these days. Well, the lard from pastured animals is actually good for us. The junk they call lard that comes from animals raised in confinement is not. (For the record, I am not a fan of HFCS nor a proponent of arsenic consumption. I have been known to cook with lard on occasion.)

Now, I take these sorts of ideas, these calls to eat more meat and animal products with a grain of Salt (which, incidentally, is also not an inherently bad ingredient in moderation), and I was a little taken aback with how extreme her views were at times. However, Sally (hee, hee, I just called her Sally again) did have some good points. There are a lot of important nutrients we can get out of eating animal foods -- eggs, milk, butter, cheese, meat, and (though I squirm to think about it) offal -- but we need to raise our animals differently than we have been. Out on pasture, roaming and eating what they would normally eat rather than a steady diet of commodity corn as they're crammed shoulder to shoulder in a windowless cement building. Raising animals slowly, letting them put on weight naturally over time, and as a result having the flavor of the land they are raised on... these are Slow Food principles if I ever heard any. And since it takes so much more time and work to raise animals this way, the quality of the meat would be higher and the higher price of meat would mean that we would eat less of it overall. I imagine at the higher price, too, we would not want to waste any bits of it... including things like liver (which I would welcome my dad to eat my share of since he loves it).

Speaking of appreciating good food, who could turn down something as delectable as the raw milk cheese Ms. Fallon brought from her farm?

Yes, we had much to chew on -- literally and figuratively -- at the potluck that followed, including some of my beet risotto (this batch made with homemade, free-range chicken stock).

I must have that recipe!

Today marked the first Slow Food University event that I have organized: a book talk and potluck with local author and culinary adventurer, Nani Power. She's my kind of woman. In fact, we have quite a bit in common:

1. We share a persistent search for meaning, love, and community through food.

2. Food is officially an obsession.

3. We find cooking therapeutic.

4. We are both just itching to get ourselves to India, primarily for the food.

We probably share a lot of ideals that I don't even know about yet. I need to get myself a copy of her latest work, Ginger and Ganesh, which tells the story of her life-changing experience learning to prepare authentic Indian cuisine from women all around her native Northern Virginia -- a two-year adventure which began with a simple ad on Craigslist offering to supply ingredients + $10 per hour for in-home cooking lessons from Indian women. Yep, I do believe this may be next up on my reading list. And I'm pretty sure quite a few of the 40-some folks at the gathering were thinking the same thing as we stacked chairs and bid our adieus at the end of the event.

So, yes, in spite of the past 48 hours of hand-wringing... and fear that nobody would show up... or that a bunch of people would arrive but wouldn't have brought any food... or that the guard would be home sick and hadn't unlocked the building... or... I swear I'm not a worrier (that's dad's specialty)... it was a resounding success. It's not just my own impression, either, I swear. Our esteemed speaker asked if I might be able to gather some of the recipes for the food offered by our humble Slow Food DC community this evening. A number of attendees seconded the request.

As I await the recipe for the divine coconut burfi made by my friend (and former teaching colleague) Carol, I offer my own Indian-inspired concoction. No, not the curried chickpeas with sweet potatoes and kale. (What can I say, I was worried people wouldn't bring enough food, so I made a few dishes.) I'm talking about the

Dark Chocolate Torte with Cardamom and Ginger Whipped Cream
...which is not so much authentic Indian as inspired by Indian spices...

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Brush an 8 or 9-inch cake pan with butter and dust with flour.

Melt in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently:

• 7 oz dark chocolate, cut into pieces
• 1 1/2 sticks (12 TBSP) butter, cut into pieces

Remove from heat and whisk in:

• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• seeds from 6-8 crushed cardamom pods
• a dash of ground allspice

Let cool for about 10 minutes.

In a separate bowl, beat together until thick (6 minutes or so) with an electric mixer:

• 5 large farm fresh eggs, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup raw/brown sugar

Gently fold chocolate mixture into the egg mixture until just mixed (uniform color). Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 40-45 minutes.

Cool in pan, run a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen if needed, and then turn out on a wire rack or plate to slice.

Serve with fresh whipped cream beaten with:

• a few spoonfuls of powdered sugar
• a dash of ground/powdered ginger

Yeah, pretty delicious. Let me know if you try it at home!

Leveling the farming field

[photo courtesy of Ed Coper, New Media, Slow Food USA]

Yep, that's me with my big mouth open, standing among fellow Slow Foodies on the steps of the USDA during the lunch break. I swear I thought Ed had already snapped the picture when I turned to... actually, I have no idea what I was doing. Yelling? Singing? Talking with someone coming out of a door? Yawning? Hmmm. Reason #423 there aren't more photos of me on this blog: I don't stand still very well.

I spent most of yesterday at the last of a 5-part series of workshops on Competition and Antitrust issues in the agricultural sector. (Funny, I've lived in DC on and off since the late 1980s and been obsessed with food my entire life, and yet this was my first time inside the USDA building. Next time I need to scope out the People's Garden.) The sessions mark an unprecedented joint effort led by the USDA and the Department of Justice to learn from producers and consumers about the current state of agriculture in this country and possible paths forward, with a specific eye to cultivating a playing field in which small, sustainable producers have a fighting chance to get (and stay) in business. At least that's my take on it. It was quite a diverse group, from the panelists to the onlookers to the folks giving testimony. People from across the spectrum of the food reform movement and around the country sidled up to the microphone during the public testimony segments and I had a chance to hear folks offer their stories, their suggestions, their hopes for a fairer food system. If our country is going to be able to feed itself, each speaker urged, we're going to need to level the playing field.

I'd first heard of the meetings a number of months ago from the folks at Food Democracy Now. (Hold on. Are you on their mailing list yet? You should be. Even my mom is impressed with the advocacy work they are doing. I get an e mail from her every time she signs a petition. Ah, moms. I'm proud of her.) I ran into the FDN dream team (Dave, Lisa, and Paul) in the hallway between sessions, returning from the Hill where they'd delivered a giant box of comments -- printouts from nearly a quarter of a million concerned citizens around the country, pleas for policymakers to break up domineering food monopolies and give family farmers a chance. It's always good to see some of my favorite food advocates. While the sessions themselves were somewhat meandering -- I don't want to say that the questions panel leaders posed could've been better, but, well, they could've been more probing -- I was proud to be a part of the larger effort of groups ranging from Slow Food USA to Why Hunger to Food & Water Watch to Farm Aid who had come together to demand safer, healthier food and support for the dedicated farmers who produce it.

During the session, I learned that our country has lost more than 800,000 farmers over the past 40 years and meanwhile the remaining farming population continues to age. While many of the folks going into organic farming are relatively young -- at least according to the informal data I gathered from farms around the country during the bikeable feast -- the recent trend of young people going into farming is not on a large enough scale to compensate for the aging general farming population. Not only is the work incredibly hard and poorly paid (reminds me of my days as a high school teacher), I also worry about the ability of these young farmers to handle the debt they are taking on to start these small but critical operations. In an economy like the one we're in, will they be around in 5 years? Then there is the competition they are facing from large, commodity-focused farms subsidized by the government and a food system that depends on cheap labor and low-quality products. My take home message: we need to encourage and support regional food systems led by these small, sustainable farmers. We cannot continue to be controlled by gigantic, self-interested food conglomerates that rake what few farmers remain over the coals.

While the next Farm Bill isn't up for debate until 2012, this first dipping of my toe into federal ag policy has definitely shown me that I've much to learn between now and then so that I can be a more educated and effective advocate for regional, responsible food systems. I'm hoping such learning opportunities in the future don't involve biking in 20-degree headwinds at 7am....

"There should be more school gardens than McDonalds franchises"

I thought only Oprah was outspoken enough of a public figure to malign a subgroup within the food industry and get away with it, but no: thus spoke Slow Food USA president Josh Viertel during the well-attended US-member meeting at Terra Madre last week. (Holy heck, was I in Italy just last week? Mama mia!) And what a meeting it was, also featuring Edible Schoolyard patroness Alice Waters, rockstar economist Raj Patel, feminist farmer and activist Denise O'Brien, and the man himself, Slow Food International founder Carlo Patrini. I left the meeting galvanized for action... slow but steady action. (Well, the Slow Food mascot *is* the snail, after all.)

"You can't just vote with your fork," Josh urged some 500+ Slow Foodies at the US community meeting, "you have to vote with your vote." Turns out it's no longer enough to support local producers at the market with your individual or family food dollars. (I still plan to continue that practice while getting involved with food advocacy work.) "You're not going to get into heaven based on the contents of your tote bag at the farmers' market... though it is a prerequisite," quipped Slow Food USA's dynamic new leader, "We need to band together to affect change at the policy level." He's right.

What's this, Slow Food getting political? Yes. Finally. Under the banner of "the universal right to good, clean, and fair food," Slow Food, it seems, is in the process of transitioning from an elitist group of foodies into a community of activists. In a way, it is a return to the roots of the movement, which started as a response to the vagaries of Fast Food in Italy. Moving beyond the traditional fine dining events and artisanal food worship (though plenty of both remain for those on the lookout), Slow Foodies are building gardens, hosting Eat-Ins, and talking to politicians. Near the end of his Terra Madre talk, Josh encouraged members to learn about the Farm Bill coming up for review, legislation which has the potential to advance (or undo) the way food is produced, and the kind of farms and farmers we support across the country. The membership is substantial enough that we can, if we so mobilize, be heard. "Yes!" I thought, "We can save our food system yet! Put me to work!" I left the meeting downright giddy. (The four hours of sleep and two espressos may, admittedly, have been partly to blame for this, but it was an amazing meeting nonetheless.) A belated thank you to those who helped me attend the conference: Jim, Martha, Paul, Dad, and Uncle Sam.

Maybe you're wondering how you can get involved with Slow Food's important work. Well, you can attend an event in your area -- activities range from potlucks to film screenings to farm field trips. Some chapters have even sponsored (and built) gardens, like the SF Charlotte chapter I learned about during my time at Friendship Trays. You can join your local SF chapter. (Annual membership is a steep $60, but there are periodic reduced-rate opportunities, so keep your eyes peeled. Last autumn I joined my DC chapter during a $1 membership drive; this year I renewed for $25.) And if there isn't a chapter near you, start one.

More gardens, less McDonalds. Together we can make it happen.

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Helping hands

During my time in Charlotte, NC I was lucky enough to stumble across one of the most successful -- and inspiring -- collaborative models for food outreach I have ever come across. It all started with an offhand suggestion in an e mail from my college friend Mark (whose hectic work schedule prevented us, alas, from meeting up in person while I was in town, but whose local food and farm recommendations have for the most part been stellar)....

Okay, I know I've gushed about a few programs over the past 16 months since I started the blog, but seriously the innovative partnership between Friendship Trays (a meals on wheels-style nonprofit based in Charlotte), The Community Culinary School of Charlotte (CCSC), and the local Slow Food chapter is something I simply have not come across before. I taught in the public education system and have worked in a few nonprofits that paid lip service to (and in a few instances actually worked toward) "collaboration," and I am telling you that it can be quite a challenge to pull off a true collaboration successfully, to be able to tap into each person's (or organization's) interests and talents and networks. Here, friends, is a model for how to bring food to those without access (physically and/or financially), empower and employ those without jobs, and educate folks about how to grow healthy food and communities in an urban setting.

I spent last Thursday afternoon -- no, not two days ago, I mean last week, and, yes, this blog post is more belated than intended, but there's been a lot to process in the ibtibrain -- at the weekly Friendship Garden open volunteer day. My friend Laura tagged along and we helped harvest beans and squash, added compost and water to some of the beds, snipped the buds off of the basil, and chatted with other volunteers. As we were finishing up, Lani -- the volunteer coordinator at nearby Friendship Trays -- stopped by and gave us a tour and a bit of history on the green space. The garden, we learned, was made possible with the hard labor of (and some funding from) folks over at Slow Food Charlotte. It was meant as a demonstration garden, so that people from around the city could come and learn how to create similar community gardens in their area. And Lani told us that funding has been secured to build 4 more gardens within the next year.

Oh, but there's more. The produce from the garden -- including beans, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and a whole mess of fresh herbs -- is often harvested and used by students at the Community Culinary School of Charlotte right next door. Well, a culinary school that is connected to seasonal produce sounds right up my alley. Lani apparently thought so, too, and promptly introduced me to CCSC's gregarious director, Chef Ron, who gave me an overview of his program that trains and helps place unemployed community members in the food industry. There are some income-generating aspects to the 12-15 week program, including corporate cooking classes and the student-and-alumni-run catering business, but the general idea is to help empower folks (who for one reason or another have a hard time finding work) with the skills and experience necessary to find decent, gainful employment in food.

Wait, wait, you're probably wondering what the connection to Friendship Trays is beyond simply being next door. Get this: instead of paying tuition, students in the culinary school are required to log a certain number of hours cooking with Friendship Trays, which cranks out roughly 700 meals each day for delivery in the Charlotte metro area. So along with the 85 volunteers who help pack and deliver these meals, there are real chefs (and chefs-in-training) feeding their communities. I was so intrigued that I made my way back over to Friendship Trays the following morning for the 8-11am food packing shift. It's all true. And apparently the webmaster happened to stop in with his camera while I was adorned in hairnet and plastic apron. I chatted with him a bit afterwards and was tickled to find a piece on my little project on the website a few days later. (For the record, I had *no* idea he was using the mega-zoom feature. Tell me, is my nose *really* that enormous? Actually, don't answer that.)

Interestingly, I learned from Amy (one of CCSC's administrators) that the program is closely modeled on the DC Central Kitchen in my very own beloved Washington, DC. (You'd better believe I mean to check out the work going on there when I get back. Oooh, I'm getting excited just *thinking* about it!) I would love to be involved with a similar food justice collaboration back home.

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Fame del lupo

It means "hungry like a wolf" in Italian, and is a phrase I have bandied about for many years. I get hungry a lot, even before I was biking 70 miles a day (like I did yesterday), so it comes in handy quite often.

Bet you didn't know I studied Italian in college. Yep, I spent a semester in Rome studying film and church architecture and the history of the papacy and a bit of the language. (Officially. Unofficially, I studied the charming carabinieri and stunning cuisine and managed to put on ten pounds that I directly attribute to the discovery of Nutella.) Italy, the birthplace of the Slow Food movement, the home of luscious gelato and spaghetti westerns. And this October I'll have a chance to break out the few shreds of the language that I retain from my semester of Italian 101 because...

I'm going to Turino!!! I found out this afternoon that I have been accepted to the most exciting international food conference in the universe: Terra Madre 2010.

You'd better believe I almost fainted after reading the message from Slow Food USA on the side of the road when I stopped to check my e mail on the way into Charlotte, NC earlier today. Farmers, food educators, chefs, and activists coming together from around the world. Workshops on food appreciation and cultivating biodiversity and building regional food communities. Sounds like my kind of gathering. I'm... speechless. Except... due cappucinos per favore!

The carnivore's dilemma

One of my dad's greatest fears is that I'll become a vegetarian again.

There is a precedent for this: when I was 15, I stopped eating meat one day and didn't touch it for five years. (Much to my mother's chagrin. She thought I was just trying to be difficult. I was a teenager, after all. Meanwhile, dad would try to sneak it into things: anchovy paste in the rattitoille, chicken broth in the rice. I would have none of it. Stubborn? A bit.) I had decided, after much deliberation, and being around a best friend who had been a vegetarian (and for a brief period, a vegan...until I brought her back to the dairy dark side with a pint of Phish Food) for years, that I could enjoy a perfectly healthy diet without an animal's life being claimed to feed me. The decision to stop eating meat came about because it made sense for me at the time. I could not come to terms with the process of meat production for food. I couldn't accept what I knew of the way the animals lived and died.

I started eating fish on occasion my last year of college, and about a year later was eating red meat again. The change was born of necessity: I had joined AmeriCorps, where the combination of a collective food budget (calculated at the local poverty line) and physically intense projects like 10-hour days of building hiking trails and houses as we trained as forest firefighters meant that I moved from eating cheese and tomato sandwiches to devouring anything that wasn't nailed down. I needed the calories.

It's been about a decade since I started eating meat again. I don't cook much of it, but I do eat it. And if I do say so, I make a pretty mean lamb curry (with dried fruit, cinnamon, and rose petals). When I buy meat or order it for dinner, I ask a lot of questions. I want to know as much as I can about the life that the animal led on its way to my plate. Was it free to roam around and fulfill its animal nature -- grazing, rolling in the mud, drinking fresh water, lounging in the sun? Did it experience a humane death? If I wanted to, could I meet my meat and see how it's raised?

Following a delightful potato pancake brunch at the couple's inn earlier today, I had the opportunity to learn about Fountain Prairie Farm's grass-fed beef operation from the man himself, John Priske, and meet the herd. John told me about the challenges of raising the heritage breed in Wisconsin: comparatively few buyers are patient enough to wait for the animals to get to an appropriate age and weight, and generally only chefs able to appreciate the superior quality of the meat are willing to pay a fair price for it. Because the Madison area has a number of restaurants and events focused on local, sustainably-raised food, the farm does okay. But it's not just about financial sustainability. It's about respecting life and treating the land and animals the right way. John believes in his animals living full lives, well beyond the average lifespan of other breeds of beef cattle, and because of this he is unable to justify selling animals too young, especially veal calves -- "their lives are cut too short" -- even in the face of a market that generally treats cattle as nothing more than animals to fatten up as quickly and cheaply as possible for our fast food nation.

I've had some of the meat raised on the Priskes' farm -- marinated short ribs at the Sassy Cow event yesterday; burgers at the UW Slow Food dinner tonight -- and it is superb. I suspect I will continue to grapple with eating meat, but I do feel pretty strongly that if I am to continue to do so, I want it to be raised by people like John.


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Better to pay the grocer than the doctor

My rerouted trip further north along the coast gave me a chance to explore a bit of Portsmouth, NH and even Kittery, ME, as it was just over the bridge. (I know I said I wasn't going to Maine, but that's where I stayed for the evenings I was in the area.) My impromptu timing meant that I missed out on the activities of the vibrant Slow Food Seacoast network in the area, though I learned a good deal about it from my cheerful hostess and one of the group's founders, Michelle, over chickpea curry the first night and homemade pizza (with gorgeous local NH tomatoes) the second. The weather continued to be cold and rainy, but Ollie and I were not to be deterred. I spent Wednesday afternoon on a tour of the lovely Strawbery Banke Museum.

Now, as a child, I went to a LOT of museums all around the world. Usually, the museums were dark and dank, the tour guides droned on about this or that dead person and their taxidermied rodent collection or fine china, and I was counting the seconds until the tour was over so I could go outside and climb a tree. Not so at this place. Our fearless guide, John, led a fascinating tour of the gardens and pointed out the ways that the green spaces revealed so much of the cultural knowledge and history of the people who kept them. We could quite literally see through the content and configurations of the gardens -- vegetable, kitchen, or decorative in nature -- the way the community changed over time by observing what plants they valued, their aesthetic ideals. Of course, the opportunities to smell and taste various bits along the way made the tour even more appealing (what can I say, I'm a tactile learner), and I learned a bit more about some of the medicinal uses of plants.

John did an amazing job of reinforcing a belief held by so many for generations, one which we seem to have lost in modern times: it's better to pay the grocer than the doctor. (I'm not talking about our country's appalling lack of a sufficient public healthcare system with hundreds of thousands of Americans unable to get adequate medical attention -- that's a whole OTHER soapbox I reserve for another time, like when I get a little wine in me). I'm talking about utilizing the natural benefits of whole foods and herbs as preventive or curative "medicine" instead of the shocking array of pharmaceuticals that are so readily prescribed for every little belly ache or sneeze or headache. Of course there is a time and place for some of these, but consider how much more pleasant a steaming mug of fresh ginger tea with honey is than any number of pills or cough syrups with all sorts of side effects. (Okay, maybe ginger isn't a panacea, but it does seem to work for an upset stomach, menstrual cramps, fever, muscle aches, and sniffles, at least in my experience.)

Sorry, I got off topic there, and the anti-pharma rant is not John's axe but my own to grind. But I do think that so many of our contemporary ailments could be ameliorated by dietary changes and a less sedentary lifestyle. I'm not advocating that everyone ride their bicycles for 50 miles a day -- I mean, what kind of loony would do that? -- but a little time in the garden planting, weeding, mulching, composting, harvesting, and cooking your homegrown vittles. Yes, I *am* suggesting that. It's good for the heart and the soul. And wouldn't you know it, John just began hosting a workshop at SBM on starting your own victory garden using both old and modern gardening, composting, canning, and other techniques. Because, he reminded us, we have learned a lot about these things over the years -- some of the old ways of doing things are better, but let's not romanticize things to the point where we forget that many of the modern adaptations are good ones. Canning, for example, is much easier today, and we're less likely to get botulism, say. (I feel compelled to mention an exception to this: modern lawn mowers make it easier to keep enormous mowed yards while requiring comparatively little exercise riding around on them. Consider how using one of the old school push mowers would limit lawn sizes and save money on gym memberships. And what do you do with you lawn except look at it and perhaps play the occasional game of baci ball? At least a garden can feed you. In fact, at one point during WWII 50% of all produce consumed in our country was grown in backyard gardens.)

Dig up part of your lawn. Plant a garden. Tend it. You may scandalize the neighbors in your suburban neighborhood, but you'll probably happily outlive them, too.


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You say you want a revolution

Well, you know, we all want to change the world. With food, we can. And it starts in our kitchens and our gardens. No guns, just forks.


So, there are a few things on my mind these days. One is something I came across in my recent reading of "In Defense of Food," by one of my favorite authors ever, Michael Pollan. (To be honest, it is not his best work, and I kept putting it down as I struggled through the first 2/3 of the relatively short work -- dry and academic, this section, if shortened, might have fit well in a medical journal. Oh, but the last 1/3 of the book makes it all worthwhile. There was the writer I knew and loved.) Near the end, Pollan touches on the Slow Food movement and pitches the idea that to spend the time and money to prepare good food is just the ticket we need to reform the disaster which is the widely accepted American view of food. Don't get me wrong, I love America and Americans, but I also love food and it needs a bit of a leg-up in the cultural appreciation department these days.


Of course the Slow Food movement was started by the Italians (who else?) in response to this very thing: fast food and the attendant decline of culture. (And, yes, at the risk of sounding like a foodie, I do agree with Pollan and others that the decline in the value placed on food in our country is nothing short of a national tragedy.) It will take deliberate -- and, fortunately, delicious -- action to transition the dominant American perception of food as nothing more than cheap, fast fuel for our bodies into something we relish with all of our senses and enjoy with others. (I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.) When and where did we lose sight of the connection between the land, our food, and ourselves (our culture)? Pollan offers some theories and, thankfully, some solutions. Most of his recommendations are pretty sound. (While I don't agree with the anti-snacking -- I am a lifelong proponent of grazing -- I think I understand the reason it was included in the "How to Eat" section: too much snacking on low quality "food products" is a bad idea. Well... yes.)


Slow Food is "precisely the wedge that can begin to crack the whole edifice [...] To reclaim this much control over one's food, to take it back from industry and science, is no small thing; indeed, in our time cooking from scratch and growing any of your own food qualify as subversive acts." Now, I wonder if he is going to wind up on the list of most dangerous Americans for a statement like that, much as Barbara Kingsolver did when she promoted a similar idea in "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." (Wait, will this post get me on that list? Shoot. I can see the headline now: "Food-obsessed Gardening Cyclist Sows Seeds of Discontent Across America." Kind of catchy, actually.)