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It's tomato time!
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Tons of tomatoes, and over 70 different varieties are represented at the Portland (Oregon) Farmers' Market annual tomato fest. These farm fresh tomatoes have character, beauty, and yes, even charm. Oh, and did we mention taste?
For more on tomatoes, see the links below:
8 easy international recipes using fresh tomatoes
Saving tomato seeds
Building tomato cages
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Fire roasting red peppers
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You've read about this, seen the technique on TV, and now it's time to give it a try at home using those red peppers that your garden (or local farmers' market) is so generously providing. And who better to demonstrate it than Chef John of FoodWishes.com?
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50 Ways to reduce your carbon footprint
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"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
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Traditional Provencal aioli recipe
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Aioli is a garlic mayonnaise made of garlic, egg, lemon juice, and olive oil. In Provence, aioli (or more formally, Le Grand Aioli) also designates a complete dish consisting of various boiled vegetables (usually carrots, potatoes, and green beans), boiled fish (normally salt cod), and boiled eggs served with the aioli sauce.
While modern cooks have taken to making aioli in a blender or food processor, the traditional method is to use a mortar and pestle which gives the sauce a creamier texture. The technique described below comes from J.B. Reboul's classic cookbook, La Cuisiniere Provencale, published in 1897 and widely considered to be the bible of Provencal cooking.
Take two cloves of garlic per person , peel them, place them in a mortar, reduce them to a paste with a pestle; add a pinch of salt, an egg yolk and pour in the oil in a thin thread while turning with the pestle. Take care to add the oil very slowly and, during this time, never stop turning; you should obtain a think pommade. After having added about three or four tablespoons of oil, add the juice of a lemon and a teaspoon of tepid water, continue to add oil little by little and, when the pommade again becomes too thick, add another few drops of water, without which it falls apart, so to speak, the oil separating itself from the rest.
If, despite all precautions, this accident should occur, one must remove everything from the mortar, put into it another egg yolk, a few drops of lemon juice and, little by little, spoonful by spoonful, add the unsuccessful aioli while turning the pestle constantly. This one calls "reinstating the aioli" (relever l'aioli).
An aioli for seven to eight persons will absorb something over two cups of oil.
In his similarly classic book, Simple French Food, Richard Olney recommends toning down the recipe for non-Provençal palates unaccustomed to such a heavy dose of garlic. He suggests four cloves of garlic for an aioli serving 8 people. He also recommends starting with two egg yolks before starting to add the oil.
Photo courtesy of Chris John Beckett
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