| 1. |
December 2007 Newsletter
|
|
|
Dear Kitchen Gardener,
There are
different ways of knowing whether winter has arrived. If you're in
Maine, the joke goes, you know because the driving actually improves as
the potholes fill up with snow. You can also tell the old
fashioned way by looking at the thermometer. Mine read 8 wintry degrees
(-14 C) this morning. Consulting the calendar is another popular,
albeit controversial, way. Astonomically speaking, winter is due
this Friday, but,
meteorologically, the calendar says that winter already arrived the
first week of December. Hmmm.
As with other
perplexing life questions, I like to turn to my compost pile for
guidance. Northern gardeners like to say that winter hasn't really
arrived until your compost pile is frozen solid and hasn't really left
until your pile has thawed completely. Up until last week,
my hot pile of
leaves, grass clippings, and kitchen scraps was still chugging along
nicely, melting its way through all the white stuff the sky has been
dropping on us since late November. Coincidentally, up until last
week, we were also still harvesting salad greens from our cold frames,
arguably the best-tasting greens of the year (but I admit that part of
this is due to the "it's-winter-and-I-am-still-eating-from-my-garden!"
factor which is one nature's best flavor enhancers.)
The past few days
of snow, ice, and bitter cold, however, have changed things remarkably,
putting my compost pile's
soil bacteria and worms on the defensive. If you look closely at the
photo above taken earlier today, you can see a bit of melting taking
place, but I think it's safe for me to oil up my compost fork's handle
and put it to bed for the winter.
This winter was interesting in how suddenly it came
upon us in my area. One day, I was outside in a light sweater
raking leaves and
planting garlic, the next day I was all bundled up with a snow
shovel in my hands.
A
gardening article in the New York Times a few years back suggested
that instead of talking about global warming, we should be using the
term "global weirding". While the trend is definitely toward
warming, there'll be a lot of weirdness along the way. Speaking of
the New York Times, I've been following their coverage of local food
issues these days and even managed to contribute
2 cents of my own to the debate through a letter to the editor published
in last Sunday's edition.
Another item in
the "good news" category: I learned last month that I have been chosen
as a "Food
and Society Fellow" by the Thomas Jefferson Agricultural Institute.
I'm pretty excited about this and I don't excite easily. That
award and your generous support will help me to keep KGI going and
growing, even during the dark, cold days of winter.
Don't worry,
though, about the award going to my head, at least not this winter.
It will need to penetrate a thick wool hat first.
Happy holidays,
PS: I'm busy making your
holiday gift. It's not so much a new gift, but a better version of
an old one, a gift that will allow you to grow as gardener, learn new
things, contribute your knowledge to the gardening commons, connect with
and help new gardening friends, near and far. Have you guessed
yet? It might be too late for the holidays, but will be just in
time for those of you itching to talk about gardening before the ground
and the weather allow you to do any.
PPS: Stay tuned in January as
a "special KGI correspondent" will be reporting from Argentina on a
school garden project that we're helping to launch.
|
| 3. |
PMS and Pain
|
|
|
It’s no
secret that many women suffer through their monthly periods, experiencing
cramps, bloating and lower back pain, to name...
|
| 4. |
In a Lebanese kitchen garden
|
|
|
We're delighted to feature a video this month entitled "Cooking With Love: Alice’s Kitchen" produced by the good folks at "Cooking Up a Story". It features Linda Dalal Sawaya who talks about how her love of gardening, cooking, and her own Lebanese heritage got passed down over the generations from mother to daughter. Linda shares a biteful of this oral history in this short video and a heaping portion in a book she wrote called "Alice's Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Recipes".
Related recipes:
Summer Squash Stuffed with Rice
My Father’s Tomato Salad
Easy Garden Fresh Tabouleh
Lebanese Okra and Tomato Stew
|
| 5. |
50 Ways to reduce your carbon footprint
|
|
|
"Just hop on the (biodiesel) bus, Gus. Make a new (home energy) plan, Stan..."
We know from singer songwriter, Paul Simon, that there are 50 ways to leave your lover, but did you know that there also 50 ways to leave your carbon-wasting ways? The Metro Silicon Valley News has recently published a helpful list of 50 things we can do to reduce our carbon footprint. Remarkably, 10 out of the 50 had a connection to food, drink and gardening. Maybe it's time we all found a new plan.
26. READ LABELS AND BUY LOCAL. Organic from Canada or overseas isn't as easy on the environment as locally produced products. Buying anything imported across an ocean means a container ship transported it. "Just one container ship traveling one mile produces NOx emissions equaling 25,000 cars traveling the same distance," says Anthony Fournier of the Santa Barbara County Pollution Control District. Foreign manufacturers often use carbon-intensive industrial and environmental practices that are illegal here. Many imports are made in sweatshops where people labor in dangerous work environments and aren't paid fairly. Reducing the demand for imports not only reduces our carbon footprint but also sends a message to big business that we want better for everyone.
34. BECOME A LOCAVORE. When you choose out of season organic food that's from journeyed overseas instead of locally grown anything, the pollution caused by the container ships outweighs any benefit you're going to get. Locavores say eating what's available locally is healthier anyway. Cooking dinner? Make a few meals at the same time and stash them in the fridge.
35. SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL FARMER. Visit www.localharvest .org and find the farmers market nearest you. Even better, find a CSA and get your produce from a sustainable local family farm.
36. MAKE YOUR OWN SALAD. Live Earth Farm's Debbie Palmer says make your own organic salad mixes from scratch and use less bagged and precut produce because they use a lot of resources to produce.
37. DON'T BE A SLAVE TO CONVENIENCE. We'll all be paying later for using convenience foods like packaged mixed salads, because they use a lot of resources to produce.
38. AVOID FAST FOOD. Methane-producing factory farming and long-distance shipping are the heart of its business model and they're clear-cutting rain forests to graze their cows.
39. EAT LESS MEAT. Especially beef. The Worldwatch Institute says growing numbers of intensively farmed livestock are responsible for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and account for 37 percent of emissions of methane, which has more than 20 times the global warming potential of CO2, and 65 percent of emissions of nitrous oxide, another powerful greenhouse gas, coming from manure.
41. GREEN COFFEE IS DELICIOUS. Barefoot Coffee Roasters' Andy Newbom says that when you buy fair trade or organic coffee you're supporting sustainable farming practices that don't clear-cut trees or use pesticides or chemical fertilizers and that makes a big difference. "Buying fair trade coffee rewards and supports sustainable farming, reducing developing nations' carbon footprint," he says. "It's easy for the first world to say let's reduce our carbon footprint, but it's harder for farmers in developing countries to do this." Buy fair trade beans whole or ground, get a press or cloth filter and make your own.
42. DISPOSABLE CUPS? Really? Do the math: Buying coffee every day in a disposable cup generates at least 20 pounds of paper a year plus several hundred megaindustrially produced plastic covers. Styrofoam cups are worse. Dr. Theo Colborn, in "Our Stolen Future," says researchers have found traces of polystyrene in 100 percent of human tissue tested, because it migrates from the cup into hot food and beverages. Yuk! Bring your own coffee cup!
47. YOUR GARDEN ISN'T AS GREEN AS YOU THINK. Alrie Middlebrook designs and builds native plant gardens locally. She says take out your water-guzzling lawn and replace it with native plants. They use less water and nourish birds and bees.
Photocredit: Andy
|
|
Everyday Menus: No Cook Recipes
Comment This Article
Refer it to Friend