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July 2007 Newsletter
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Dear Kitchen Gardener,
Walking through the well-known farmers' market in Uzès,
France, as I recently had a chance to do, is a religious experience for
food lovers. The
olive stands alone are worth the trip. Add to that heaping
tables of sun-drenched produce, artisan breads and cheeses, a
mind-boggling choice of honeys, meats and seafood fished from the nearby
Mediterranean Sea and you have all the
makings of a memorable meal, if not several.
In fact, the quality and
variety of the produce is so dazzling that you might be tempted to ask
yourself why any area resident would bother growing some of his or her
own. Yet, despite the fresh bounty on offer twice a week at the Uzès
market, the kitchen garden, or "potager" as the French call it,
seemed much alive and well where I was staying.
I had a chance to meet and
speak with a few gardeners while I was there. If they grow some of
their own food, it's for the same reasons that you and I do: taste,
variety, freshness, economics, concerns about the environment, and, most
importantly, because they enjoy the process. My trip
reinforced what I already knew: kitchen gardening is a universal
language with many different dialects. What's different is that
some of us have a better garden view out our back door than others!
I learned a lot while I was
there. Rather than try to share it all in one gush, I'll let the
stories, pictures, and recipes trickle out over the course of the next
several months. In fact, if there's sufficient interest, we may at
some stage even consider organizing a KGI trip for those of you
interested in seeing and tasting the pleasures of Provence firsthand.
I'll look forward to updating
next month in the week leading up to
Kitchen Garden Day. I hope you'll find a way of recognizing
the day in some small way. We've got a lot to celebrate and share
with others.
Warm regards,
PS: Interested in starting a
local kitchen garden group in your area?
Check out
our new info page on gPods
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Chocolate Zucchini Cake recipe
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Do you think you'll die if you see another zucchini? Well then here's a recipe to die for. The photographer made hers in a Bundt pan, but the recipe below suggest a 13 x 9 baking pan. Either way, you're going to love this cake. Before you know it, you'll be out in the garden pulling back leaves looking for one or two zucchini for another batch.
Ingredients
2 1/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 cups grated unpeeled zucchini (about 2 1/2 medium)
1 6-ounce package (about 1 cup) semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
Procedure:
Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter and flour 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt into medium bowl. Beat sugar, butter and oil in large bowl until well blended. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla extract. Mix in dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk in 3 additions each. Mix in grated zucchini. Pour batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle chocolate chips and nuts over.
Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Cool cake completely in pan.
Serves 12.
Recipe source: Bon Appétit, November 1995
Photo credit: Tania Ho
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Global food crisis looms as climate change and population growth strip fertile land
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by Ian Sample, printed in the Guardian, August 31 2007
Climate change and an increasing population could trigger a global food crisis in the next half century as countries struggle for fertile land to grow crops and rear animals, scientists warned yesterday.
To keep up with the growth in human population, more food will have to be produced worldwide over the next 50 years than has been during the past 10,000 years combined, the experts said.
But in many countries a combination of poor farming practices and deforestation will be exacerbated by climate change to steadily degrade soil fertility, leaving vast areas unsuitable for crops or grazing.
Competition over sparse resources may lead to conflicts and environmental destruction, the scientists fear.
The warnings came as researchers from around the world convened at a UN-backed forum in Iceland on sustainable development to address the organisation's millennium development goals to halve hunger and extreme poverty by 2015.
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Two ways of looking at chicken parmesan
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When most of us think of chicken parmesan, we picture something similar to the photo above. It's a simple and delicious dish: breaded chicken breasts, pasta, red sauce, with a sprinkling of zesty parmesan cheese.
But, as the bright young minds at Middlebury College in Vermont have recently learned, it's not as simple as most people think. Below is a screen capture of a Google Earth map that some students and faculty put together to show the complex route that chicken parmesan's ingredients take to go from farmers' fields to Middlebury students' forks. It should be noted that Middlebury is considered a leader in its efforts to move towards local sourcing for its cafeterias.
The point of the exercise (and - we'd say - the local foods movement in general) is not to say "no" to all foods that have traveled, but to become more aware of where our food comes from, who produced it, how it was produced, and the good local alternatives that exist. The more attention we give to these local options, the more of them there will be.
To learn more about Middlebury's food mapping work, please see: http://geography.middlebury.edu/applications/Food_Mapping/
Chicken parmesan photo credit: My Amii
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