As an avid gardener, garlic is one of my favorite crops to grow.  Why is it so rewarding?  First of all, I love to eat garlic.  As a garlic grower and eater, I can choose great-tasting varieties of garlic that are not commercially available in grocery stores.  Knowing that I grew the garlic that I’m eating  makes it taste even better.  Second off, garlic is a crop that stores very well.  Therefore, it is possible to grow enough garlic at home to meet some or all of your garlic needs throughout the year, without an extensive preservation process required by many other crops.  Third, garlic seed is easy for the home gardener to save from year to year, making it possible to grow the crop each year without purchasing more seed.  Finally, I love the growing season for garlic.  Since garlic is planted in the autumn, grows over winter, and is harvested in early/mid summer, it is a wonderful “off-season” crop that does not compete for garden space with other crops during most of the growing season.  After garlic is harvested in late June or early July, there is still time to plant a summer crop of basil, beans, or summer squash in the same bed, especially if transplants are utilized.

Garlic Growing Basics

The first step in growing garlic is acquiring garlic seed.  Garlic “seed” is actually each individual clove divided from a whole garlic bulb.  If you are growing garlic from year to year, save the biggest and best 10% of bulbs from your previous harvest for planting in the fall.  This selection process should yield seed quality improvement from year to year, adapted to your individual soil and climate. Otherwise, purchase garlic seed from a seed catalog.  My favorite supplier of garlic seed is Peaceful Valley Farm Supply (www.groworganic.com).

The two basic types of garlic are softneck and hardneck varieties.  Softneck varieties are what we generally find in supermarkets.  They keep longer than hardneck varieties and have more subtle flavor profiles than hardnecks.  Hardneck varieties tend to have more dramatic and distinct flavors.  They are easy to peel and have bigger cloves.  I suggest growing a combination of hardneck and softneck varieties.  Eat the hardnecks first (and enjoy their dramatic flavors) and eat the softnecks later, since they will store longer.

Garlic prefers a slightly acidic, well-drained, sandy-loam soil with decent soil fertility, though I have had success growing garlic in a variety of soil types.  Prepare the garlic bed by digging in well-cured compost between late September and late October (in the Northern hemisphere).  Using a furrowing tool of some sort, dig rows 18” apart and about 2” deep.  Break apart garlic bulbs into individual cloves, and plant each clove blunt end down, 4-6″ apart.   Be conscientious about choosing the largest cloves for planting, as there is a correlation between clove size and ultimate bulb size.  Cover the cloves with soil.  You may want to add a compost, leaf, or straw mulch, lightly in southern climates (1 inch), or heavily in northern climates (up to 8 inches).  Talk to experienced local garlic gardeners in your area to determine mulch requirements in your climate.  Living in northern California and southern Oregon over the last 20 years, my climate has been mild enough that mulch has not been necessary.

After planting, water in the garlic and maintain soil moisture throughout the growing season.  Garlic shoots should appear within a few weeks.  While the garlic grows, make sure you keep weeds out of the bed, especially in early spring when weeds tend to compete vigorously with the garlic.  By late spring/early summer, it will be much easier to keep the weeds down, as the garlic plants will get bigger and will compete much better for light and space.

The garlic plants may send up a flower stalk in the spring.  If they do, cut off the stalk, which will signal to the plant to put energy into the bulbs, rather than the flower, and will result in larger edible yields.

Harvest in the summertime (generally late June/early July) when the foliage falls on softnecks or when the bottom leaves dry out on hardnecks.  When the garlic leaves start to turn brown, stop watering the bed for a couple of weeks.  Use a garden fork to loosen the soil and then pull up the plants by hand.  Immediately put the whole garlic plants in a shady, dry place with good air circulation to cure.  Curing takes several weeks to a month, depending on the local climate.

When the garlic is done curing, cut off the tops and roots.  Use an old toothbrush to brush off dried-on soil and remove the outer layer of “skin” to clean the garlic.  Store in mesh bags in a cool, dry area.

Put aside the biggest and best bulbs for storing until planting time in the fall.  The rest can be eaten.  Hardnecks will store for up to 6 months, while softnecks will store for up to a year.  First thing, try making a yummy summertime pesto utilizing your home-grown garlic!

Today, urban agriculture, “urban ag”, is not simply about delicious, local food, it’s about creating new food production and delivery systems, it’s about public health and food justice. Boston chefs, community advocates and entrepreneurs are broadening the dialog and shortening the distance between farm and table. Never mind the 100 mile diet, how about 100 blocks, or 100 steps?

Meet a few new urban farmers, giving us a window into the promises and the challenges of urban agriculture in its many forms.

Since 1992 The Food Project has been bringing young people and adults together to learn about creating new food systems through urban agriculture. Today they farm 4 acres in 7 urban communities and 36 additional suburban acres. Most recent harvests included over 200,000 pounds of produce, with nearly 50,000 pounds donated to various hunger relief organizations. The rest is primarily sold via 492 CSAs and 4 farmers’ markets in low-income neighborhoods including some located in what were previously food deserts. The documentary Planting for Peace: Bury Seeds, Not Bodies (“P4P”) shows the impact of urban agriculture and support from organizations like The Food Project.

I met the film maker, Mike Cermak at a youth growers event prior to the screening of Fresh, the award-winning film by Ana Sofia Joanes. Cermak’s documentary tells the story of urban ag’s power to change young lives, documenting La Nuestra Huerta (supported by Neighborhood of Affordable Housing in East Boston and ReVision Farm in Dorchester. P4P shows how gardens and farming are used to teach valuable skills to youth against the backdrop of urban violence. Young gardeners named the two raised beds “Hope” and “Faith” – hope that they can bring change to urban food systems and enhance lives. And faith, that they can grow, sell, reinvest and replenish the food desert and work for food justice.

One of the challenges highlighted by the experience of youth gardeners is the inflexibility in school lunch systems. The gardens, often located near schools, grow more than food. They grow life skills. And yet, the young growers are unable to sell their produce into their own schools.

On the Menu

Chefs like Steve Johnson at Rendezvous in Central Square and Marco Suarez of Ledge Kitchen & Drinks in Dorchester know that fresh is better. And local – really local – is as fresh as it gets. When produce comes to the kitchen from atop your own roof, you’re making significantly less environmental impact – no trucking, packaging, refrigeration. You’re also getting produce at its peak of ripeness, something that makes chefs swoon.

On a recent visit with Johnson, I got to see how he’s capturing water from rooftop air conditioning units to water his herb garden. Through capillary action the crates of herbs and vegetables take up the water as needed. Only rarely has he had to supplement the self-watering with additional H20. Johnson’s eyes light up when he speaks of the potential to recapture water that would otherwise be wasted. “This is one small building, imagine how much water could be captured from any one of these surrounding us?” One unit alone on his roof produces 15 gallons of water per day, it’s clean water, simply condensation from the air conditioning systems.

His Sunday menu features rooftop radishes and herbs. Rosemary is used in many ways including infusing the olive oil for the crackers served with each meal. Chiles show up in ceviche. Purslane, lovage, lavender, chervil, mint, even potatoes are grown in crates and he’s built a winter box of reclaimed cedar and windows to shelter the plants which winter-over on the roof. Johnson is not seeking to fully supply his kitchen from his garden. But, like other chefs, he gets enormous personal satisfaction from the garden and from sharing the experience with his kitchen staff, many of whom are new to the experience. They find inspiration in working with produce grown steps away from the kitchen. Look for mint to show up in Rendezvous’ inventive summer libations, too.

Johnson is humble about his “little garden” but it serves as a potent, and fragrant, reminder that even small steps can be inspiring.

From Empty Lots to Full Larders

Glynn Lloyd, City Fresh Foods’ CEO and co-founder of City Growers is committed to providing local, sustainable food for the urban community. He is also focusing his company on implementing a whole new model of food production and delivery systems. Both Lloyd and City Growers co-founder Margaret Connors know very well the challenges of growing and changing infrastructure, capturing funders’ attention, and managing a base of support.

City Growers was founded on the premise that unused space in urban areas could be developed for the purpose of renewing neighbors’ connection to their food sources. Reclaiming, remediating sites that are fallow or may have become environmental “brown fields”. City Growers successfully turns them into raised bed, organic gardens producing healthy food from space that was once wasted.

In a 1/4 acre plot behind the Sportsman’s Club in Dorchester, and on two acres in Milton, City Growers is building a model of a new food system. First, land is reclaimed, improved with raised beds of clean fresh soil before healthy gardens can be planted. Sometimes this involves negotiations with the city, or landlords, or both. Can they grow a model that provides green jobs? Can economic sustainability be built into the model? So far, one talented grower, “Farmer Tim” is sustained and other farm managers, workers and volunteers are being recruited and trained from local neighborhoods.

Delivering Change

Then, there’s the delivery models. Not only the actual physical delivery (much is done by pedal power!) of the produce, but also the management of the CSA and restaurant deliveries. Can the vagaries of Mother Nature be coaxed into meeting chefs’ regular need for inventory, and on what scale? So far several local restaurants have found delicious reasons to work with City Growers for at least some of their regular produce needs.

Big goals inspire and big challenges persist, but they remain optimistic about the value of the good agricultural practices and the promise of a new urban economy. New acreage is constantly being reviewed and added, zoning meetings go on, plantings are rotated and food — good, organic, local food — is grown by and sold to locals, finding its way into neighborhood restaurants and onto the tables of families, schools, child care and senior centers who once lived in food deserts. Standing among the newly replanted beds, with the sound of children playing nearby, you feel they are growing more than beets, arugula and lettuces. They are growing hope and a future for those kids that includes healthy, local food. They are growing a new food economy.

For further info:
The Food Project: “The Food Project’s mission is to create a thoughtful and productive community of youth and adults from diverse backgrounds who work together to build a sustainable food system.”

Fresh: a film by Ana Sofia Joanes. Look for local screenings and follow news on the Fresh blog, including the series “Women Who Nourish Us.”

My husband and I are privileged to have 6 grandparents between us, all of whom are now in their 80s and 90s. I can clearly remember as a child watching mine at birthday parties, unwrapping presents, carefully saving each piece of paper and folding them neatly – for use again at someone else’s birthday! That, and never writing on the outside of envelopes (so that you could use them again and again) really used to make me wonder: why didn’t they just get new paper and cards each time, like we did? Who would want to give a present with some second hand tape with wrinkles in the wrong places?

They used to say, “waste not, want not“. As a child, I admit I never really understood that. It was only when I left home and became responsible for running our household, that the penny finally dropped.

Do we really think about what – and how much – we throw away every day?

Freeganism

Some discarded edible fresh goods: sustaining a Freegan lifestyle

It is a movement of people who (not for reasons of poverty or desperation, but for political, social and environmental reasons) choose an anti-consumerist way of life.

One of the main aims of Freeganism is to reduce waste and limit the amount of destruction that results from the production of goods. Freegans often frequent supermarket and restaurant dumpsters and “forage” on whatever “waste” they can find. Mostly, they will find food that is still good, but perhaps in damaged packaging, slightly burnt, a little out of shape or just about to expire.

This leads us to question what kind of waste management practices supermarkets and food service establishments have, and how ethical or conscious they are.

For anyone who runs a household, you’ll know just how much time it takes to make sure that there is enough food, drink and other consumables to keep everyone happy. And I think sometimes we too quickly just throw things in the trash, without giving it another thought. We tend to focus a lot more energy on what we are buying, and hardly give a second thought to what we throw away.

What’s in the trash?  The study of garbage.

Yes, this really does exist! Its called garbology. Marketing researchers use it to try and get a better understanding of people’s consumption behaviour (if you can monitor and analyse what people BUY, then surely analysing what people THROW AWAY can be even more insightful – since you know what they have really consumed, vs. what may have ended up in the back of the cupboard).

Anthropologists also use this technique to help us understand ancient civilizations of the past, who have left no trace or evidence of their being other than their waste. It is also now being used as an educational tool to help people and industry to understand how they can implement better waste management practices.

What can we do with our trash?

In an effort to achieve ultimate sustainability, we need to become more conscious of what we purchase – but also mindful about what we throw away. Simple practices like worm farming in the home are fabulous ways of reducing trash that may have ordinarily been discarded, and unnecessarily cluttering up a land fill site. Here are some easy steps to setting it up and getting it right.

Worm farms don’t have to take up a lot of space

Composting and mulching are also great ways of keeping your garden tidy, happy, and your trash to a minimum.

What about those that you share your household with? Instead of purchasing “specially formulated dog food” (which, by the time you feed it to your best friend is actually about a year old) how about cooking up the kitchen scraps? Any leftovers, vegetable peels and the like make a treat for our canine companions. When I tried this, I watched how not only the awful skin irritations on my border collie disappeared within days, but how his hyperactive obsessive temperament waned. I could compare him to a child with ADD who suddenly found his sense of calm. And needless to say dinner time is always a treat!

The garden also loves used tea bags and coffee grounds. I collect the coffee and red espresso® “pucks” (or round ground residues that you remove from your espresso maker) from our offices and dig them into my flower beds. Rooibos tea makes excellent compost, as does coffee, and my garden has the faint, delicious scent of a bustling coffee shop!

“An historic shift found amongst consumers”

I was thrilled to read a report by Euro RSCG that shows the shifts in consumer consciousness and their discontent about mindless consumption.

It states that people are craving a more fulfilled, meaningful and satisfying approach to life, and are really starting to move away from hyperconsumerism to a more mindful approach to living and consuming.

Two thirds of the 5700 adults surveyed across the US, Brazil, China, France, Japan, Netherlands and the UK believe that we would be better off if we lived more simply. Slow food, Buy Local, “substance shopping” and actively seeking out fewer “bells and whistles” on products (and packaging) are some of the ways that people are dealing with their burgeoning quest for a simpler life.

Most fruits are already a pre-packaged gift from Nature! Why do we need more?

These shifts in consumer behaviour mean that manufacturers and marketers will not be able to rely on the old ways of triggering consumption. They will need to shift their offerings, packaging and communication to those that speak to the new ideals that are becoming increasingly important to people.

And this power of “consumerism” is what will drive industries and companies to find their consciousness – and this is where change towards sustainable business practices really will have a meaningful and significant impact on our world.

Recycling – check. Worms – check. Mulch pile – check. Household companions – check.

My ingenious mother made my puppy her favourite toy out of things that would have been trown away: an old long sock (darned too many times over) with a broken tennis ball shoved inside and tied with a knot at the end. How creative! Aside from your regular recycling, the next time you reach for the trash can, think creatively about what else you could be doing with that item you’re about to throw away.

Waste not, want not.

Our grandparents, could be classified as “set in their ways”. They still, at their ripe old age, are saving paper and envelopes at birthdays. Their motivations may have been different to ours (they did grow up during the wars and the Great Depression) but I love what their actions stand for, and how relevant they are to us in today’s modern world.

If we have this mantra at home or the office: “waste not, want not” just think of the positive implications on both our pockets and on our environment. And if we do not change our ways, just think of what the garbologists of the future will say about our “modern” society?

Recently in my own work I was reminded of the quote from Lampedusa’s The Leopard – “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change” (translated from the original – “Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga com’è bisogna che tutto cambi.”)  Now I am not sure that we really want all things to stay as they are in the food and agriculture world but we do want to produce sufficient, healthy, interesting food in a manner that does not inhibit our ability to feed future generations.

In this way we do want things to stay a bit the same (or at least how we imagine they used to be, a generation ago). But obviously to get there in the face of scarce resources and changing values we do have to do things differently. The question then is – how do we get from here to there? Should change be driven from the top down, percolate from the bottom up or arrive in surprising transformative ways? The answer is probably all of the above and that is certainly what is happening in the food industry. 

On the food safety front, the EU Food Safety Agency and Center for Disease Prevention Control released their most recent study of food borne illnesses in the EU (45000 illnesses and 32 deaths in 2008 generally down from 2007 levels). The report provides data that can be used to focus government and industry efforts to improve food safety.

 Thus it might be of use to China as it established a new food safety commission after another melamine recall. This commission is part of a new set of laws on food safety in China. The US food safety reform laws continue to be discussed in Congress. However, some recently expressed concern about the potential for increasing corporate influence over those bills due to the recent Supreme Court ruling removing limits on corporate campaign contributions. So government is the change agent and industry is the problem, right?

 Well maybe not so fast. The retail chain Target in the US recently received kudos from Greenpeace among others for phasing out farmed salmon from more than 1700 stores in the US. This should help encourage sustainable seafood consumption -and is being followed by other corporations as well.  However, those are only small examples and not relevant when many parts of the agriculture industry continue with factoring farming practices that are evil, right?

 See, for example, this account of recent expose in the US media on ABC-TV.  So thank goodness we have government to reign in industry particularly when it may be engaged in monopolistic practices in the market for such basic inputs such as seeds. See some commentary here on the new US Dept. of Justice investigation into Monsanto. But government also gets it wrong by banning traditional products such as raw milk. So we need revolutionaries such as this Canadian. And of course Michael Pollan is here, there, and everywhere (including now Oprah) to remind us to eat like our grandparents. So the blogospherists, locavores, bio crowd are our protectors and should drive the change right?

 But, according to some, they may not be advocating a practical way to actually feed the world in a sustainable way (see this review of James McWilliams new book Just Food on Pamela Ronald’s website) And they are part of an elitist trend of good food for the rich. So we need the politicians to use the bully pulpit to get us to behave better as Michelle Obama recently tried to do on the topic of childhood obesity with her Let’s Move initiative  According to some who did not believe it was appropriate for her to personalize the issue, this is the wrong way to go about it.   

 So where exactly does that leave us now? Honestly I do not know where this all ends up. It is good to see so much energy and activity being put into debate around food and agriculture. It is too much to think it can be channeled in any one direction and that the free market of ideas will steer us toward a sensible result. In the meantime, I will escape from the real world for a bit and try my hand in the virtual world of Farmville where maybe I can avoid these debates for a while….

Today I received a call from one of our producers in Mexico. It was a sad call. Although they continue to survive, the economic downturn has taken its toll. And our inability, as their importers, to make inroads into the US market for their product has been a major factor. Yet if each of our customers knew their story, tried their product, visited their land, they would all come to the same conclusion that I did the first time I met them. This small company, rooted in its community, is doing the work necessary to save their small corner of the World.

Xoxoc is a producer of prickly pear products in the Hidalgo region of Mexico, an area that was once a major producer of Pulque, a favorite fermented alcohol produced from the Maguey plant. But in the mid 1900’s when beer became popular, the maguey plants were left to die and the local economy along with them. Over subsequent years, many of the region’s men left to look for income elsewhere, and devastating erosion washed away the deserted fields.

Yet in this harsh land, one type of plant survives well – the nopal or cactus. There are over 300 types of nopal, many of them producing a sweet edible fruit. Of these, only nine are considered Xoconostle, the type of prickly pear used in the Xoxoc products. The xoconostle fruit has a higher acidity and the seeds are located in the center of the fruit (as opposed to spread throughout the fruit) making them easier to de-seed. It is the fruit of the xoconostle that the folks at Xoxoc are betting on to save their community and the land.

They cultivate their own xoconostle and they have convinced farmers from three surrounding towns to plant xoconostle, promising to purchase their harvest at a fair price. Their efforts have not only begun to revive the local economy, and bring hope back to the community but it has begun to reverse some of the erosion that has devastated the land. Over the last few years, they have watched the flora and fauna return to their land as they continue to cultivate more xoconostle. And more farmers are turning to this crop for income.

With initial funding from the government they have built a small facility using local materials and labor and relying on the power of the sun and gravity to help process their product. With the help of local women (in a community where there is very little hope of employment), they peel, cut, sun-dry, and cook the xoconostle to prepare it for market.

The Xoxocs of the world are the reason I founded Rooted Foods, an initiative within my import business that recognizes products that are truly rooted in their communities. Visiting them, it is so clear the interconnectedness of our every day purchasing decisions and how they affect the world we live in. Every unit of Xoxoc that is sold in the U.S. brings the company closer to achieving their goal of building a self-sustaining community – economically, socially, and environmentally.

By supporting small companies like Xoxoc through our purchasing decisions, we as consumers are helping to:

Protect Genetic Diversity – small producers around the world grow century-old varieties and heritage breeds that are unique to their environment. With no demand for these products, they are often left to die out.

Promote Cultural Diversity – recipes that have been passed down through the generations are cultural treasures to be preserved and enjoyed.

Provide Healthier and Tastier Food – native foods produced using local naturally grown ingredients are healthy and flavorful, and they often contain medicinal properties that have been lost in the over-bred foods of the western world.

Encourage Sustainable Practices – small producers are more tightly woven into the fabric of their communities and are often the true stewards of the land.

Strengthen Local Economies – small businesses are at the foundation of a thriving local economy. In the case of Xoxoc, there efforts have helped to reduce emigration from the land and immigration to the US. Thus we strengthen their economy while reducing the burden of immigration on ours.

Ensure Food Security – food and water scarcity are serious problems worldwide. Supporting small producers protects communities from global food crises by empowering them to feed themselves. It also reduces the need for poverty-reduction support services.

People often ask me how I reconcile my work as a food importer with my belief in supporting local food producers. I live in the Pacific Northwest and am fortunate that I can get a high percentage of my food from local sources for a good part of the year. But for the items that I can’t purchase locally, I want to ensure that my dollars are going to support small local producers in other communities. Last I checked, prickly pear doesn’t grow near Seattle.

Over 80% of all food products on grocery shelves are produced by a handful of large multinational corporations. Take a few moments to absorb that fact. Very little of what we purchase as consumers actually goes to support the people or communities who supply the resources or is produced in a manner that is restorative to the environment.

We need to flip/flop these statistics. I envision whole aisles of foods that are truly rooted in their communities, produced by independently-owned and dedicated producers somewhere in the world.

Supporting foods that are rooted in their community, regardless of where that community is, encourages healthier, more stable and self-sufficient local economies worldwide. To me, being a food importer and a supporter of local economies is one in the same.

The recent blogs by Josh Levin and others on composting were just the nudge I needed to get going on something that had been on my to-do list since moving to a new apartment three months ago—my “urban jungle composter”. I don’t use the term as a metaphor: I do live in a small city in the jungle. Tena, capital of the province of Napo, Ecuador, was founded just 449 years ago, but city administrators have yet to conquer the engineering challenge of making sure the city’s water supply doesn’t crap out after a hard rain, or the challenge of keeping organic and inorganic garbage separated after they pick it up from bins marked “orgánico” and “ínorganico.”

Labeled garbage cans are as far as we’ve gotten in recycling here. Everything ends up in a landfill that a friend of mine gave me directions to by saying, “look for the circling vultures.” Though I still cringe every time I throw a plastic bottle away, I don’t have much excuse for not composting food waste. Daytime temperatures in Tena can average a sultry 80 degrees farenheit with about 90% humidity, so food that just sitting on my kitchen counter can be on its merry path to decomposition by the time I get home at the end of the day.

The problem in Tena, according to my friends and colleagues who work in community agriculture, is the absence of worms. Earthworms used in typical vermicasting in the U.S. aren’t native to the Amazon, and those that are imported have to be fed fresh food continuously; otherwise they slink off to other places and leave the stagnant compost pile to fend for itself.

A friend of mine stumbled on an article by Maria Guara about composting in Santa Cruz, California, through which the author discovered that maggots, larvae of black soldier flies (Hermetia illuscens), actually make quick work of food and yard waste in closed containers. The maggots eat so quickly that microbes, some of which produce methane gas, don’t have time to form.

I tried this approach a year ago or so, when I lived in a duplex. The landlord, who occupies the flat below and had control of most of the garden, was amenable to the trying the idea as long as it didn’t attract rats. So we found an old plastic trash can, drilled small holes in it, cut off the bottom so the waste would come in direct contact with the soil, and started dumping coffee grinds, plantain peels, shells from my landlord’s chickens, and the rest.

Unfortunately, I could never fully test Maria’s results because our experiment ran into a few user problems. Maggots appeared almost immediately, but my ex-landlord thought they could be better used as a protein supplement for his chickens than as compost producers. Often I’d walk down the stairs to the garden to the sound of ecstatic squawking: sure enough, five chickens would be pecking away at the compost, which never advanced past the sludge stage.

When the bin got full or started to smell, my ex-landlord scooped up the goo and buried it. I’m sure it did some good for his soil, but I never got any rich black humus to use for my potted plants. This was a bitter disappointment to me, since humus is so hard to come by around here (and after all, I was the one who suggested the composter in the first place). Despite several attempts to explain to my ex-landlord (who ironically works in forest conservation) that if we let the maggots do their thing we’d both have good “tierra negra” and he’d have a lot less work burying the sludge, he just smiled vaguely and kept on inviting the chickens to their feast. I decided not to fight that battle and just be happy that at least I didn’t have to toss my kitchen waste out with the other garbage.

Now in a new apartment with access to a garden, I’ve decided to try the experiment again. My new landlord heartily agreed to the idea and said, “We should all be doing this.” His attitude is refreshing in a place where many people throw trash out bus windows. So I bought another plastic garbage can with a black lid, tossed in some dry and green yard waste with my kitchen scraps, and am waiting to see if the maggots live up to their reputation.

While I’ve seen lots of small diversified family farms in New England raising a few grass-fed steer for beef, I’ve only recently seen such beef raised by the thousands in the West. I was invited to visit La Cense Ranch in Montana because I’d asked the owner to write the Afterword to my new book, and I wanted to see the ranch in person. Actually being there was inspiring, because La Cense demonstrates that sustainable beef can be produced on a huge scale.

La Cense is a ranch of 88,000 acres, with about 4000 head of Black Angus grass-fed cattle. What makes it work are the talents of a dedicated ranch manager, several cowboys and ranch workers, and the intelligence and thoughtful strategies of its owner, William Kreigel.

Most ranchers breed their cattle to give birth in very early spring, when they need to be fed on stored or purchased feed. Kreigel introduced the idea of having cows birth later in spring, which allows cows plenty of the most nutritious new grass to nourish their young. Late birthing also reduced mortality, since the weather is more hospitable.

His cattle live in groups on portions of carefully controlled pasture, moving together onto new pasture daily. Cows and calves live together until they are ready to wean, and then are separated only by a strand of fence (still within sight and sound) to reduce the stress of separation. Steers live in their own community, as do heifers. Each group of cattle are electronically ear-tagged so that their history is always available. (Modern ranching involves laptop computers that read these tags, track weight gain and health, and offer the ability to trace every piece of meat back to the source). Any animal that may need antibiotics at some point of its life is given the drugs it needs, but is eliminated from the grass-fed beef program, and sold instead to feedlot operators as “natural beef” (that is, hormone-free but medicated at some point in its life).

Old cows that are no longer breeding are sold to fast food chains for burgers. And although the entirely grass-fed cattle are younger and lighter at processing time than conventionally raised beef, La Cense beef is still profitable because it’s a premium-quality meat only available direct to consumers by mail order.

Friendly Black Angus under the big sky

I didn’t know how unusual this interest in people was until I mingled with a group of conventional ranchers visiting La Cense under the auspices of the Montana Ranching Association. I overheard people marveling at the friendliness and curiousity of the cows crowding the fence line to watch us. La Cense is so committed to low-stress management that the ranch manager or another cowboy always accompanies the cattle to their Idaho processor to ensure that both the trip and the final experience is as humane, quiet and stress-free as possible.

The result of all this care is some of the most tender grass-fed beef I’ve ever put in my mouth. It’s just as expensive as you may imagine, and arrives individually packaged and frozen, in a styrofoam cooler with dry ice. If you are committed to eating only good meat, and are willing to pay more and eat less of it, La Cense beef offers a convenient delivery method that seems very well-suited for city dwellers. To see prices and order, visit www.lacensebeef.com.

A recently published article in the New York Times about genetically modified salmon made me wonder if I was a dogged ideologue. Or rather, are my strong opinions regarding food hindering my ability to see the whole picture? It was my initial reaction to this article about genetically modified protein that made me wonder. I am sure it was similar to the one I imagine everyone would give: “Genetically Modified Salmon!!!—insert gasp here—That’s Horrible”. But after I thought about it, I realized, I am making a judgment based on a science with which I am not too familiar.

It is commonplace to immediately reject certain foods in our country because of the perception attached to it. Many time reactions are perpetuated by a blog, a sensational story about food on the news or because your produce has dirt on it. Using the phrase “farmed” isn’t usually a bad thing for instance, but when referring to fish it is a four letter word. Is there a chance that these rejected products could feed millions of people at a low cost with minimal risk? I suspect that many people—even the ones who campaign against it—are not 100% certain.

Do we really know all the information and science behind these topics, or are we cherry picking reports that support an idealistic and uncompromising solution? And more importantly, why is it universally accepted that this conversation about genetically modified foods is happening behind closed doors as if it were an X-file? What is our vision for innovative research if we can’t encourage scientists to study GMO’s in public?

Knowledge Gap

Every hot-blooded food junkie has an opinion about how our food system should change. On the other hand, the average American couldn’t tell you the difference between corn syrup and Aunt Jemima. Jammed between these two voices is uncertainty, silence, and a legitimate illiteracy about consumption habits.

Rants about food are polarized to include two camps: Those who don’t care about what they eat, and therefore would rather pay less for artificial nutrients, and those who are very aware of the food they eat, and would much rather see a system in which food was, well, food.

The crossfire includes biotechnology, carbon analysis, economics, federal regulation, health and public policy to name a few. Just thinking about it makes me less hungry (and this is a rarity). People are stumped about the food they eat and how to feel about this convoluted talk. Perplexity makes it easy to accept parroted arguments promoting one food’s categorical sovereignty without actually examining the issues. Such ignorance is exemplified by the seemingly universal acceptance of the junk that is being served to children at schools.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

Somehow the disengaged consumer is forced to side with one extreme camp on these divided issues; there is no middle of the road. Either accept the manipulation from the food marketing titans, or protest all genetically modified foods, corn products, grain-fed beef, and farmed fish because someone said they are bad. Consider if the thousands of people who object to eating corn products actually understand why they are doing this.

As for genetically modified foods, does a legitimate two-sided forum and education outreach exist? Is everyone aware of the pros and cons? Drought-resistant gm crops could help to alleviate famine in developing countries, where low rainfall often leads to food shortages. Why are people against farmed salmon when most of the scientific evidence against it is lacking and outdated? How about Carbon Footprint. Is this a savvy term that sounds good at dinner parties or a legitimate argument when supporting your favorite locavore?

What’s the Issue?

Is it really about food, or is it an issue of lifestyle and the ubiquitous rejection of the kitchen?Knowing the US has no distinguishable food culture, maybe these debates are becoming too advanced, polarized and are missing the underlying problem: We (and I mean the majority of the country) don’t spend enough time in the kitchen, learning about food, examining our food system, touching real food, trying fresh vegetables and fruits, examining the basic issues of supply and demand, questioning elementary principals of food distribution. We are detached.

It is a fact that Americans spend less and less time around food, at the market, and ultimately at the dinner table. This minutes-per-day-with-food metric has been on the decline for years. A family dinner routinely consists of a few speed bumps through a fast food joint, and for those harried work and eat types, the “prepared” aisle of the supermarket will suffice. And why are restaurants so busy on Friday and Saturday nights? Shouldn’t this time be spent cooking with friends and family?

Maybe there’s a solution that doesn’t dive right into the deep-end of confusing discourse

Maybe it is time to take a step back and just get people to appreciate real food as more than a commodity. Focus on getting people into the kitchen and show them how simple it is to eat well without guilt. Perhaps Monsanto should try cloning Rachel Ray!

Increasing the Learning Curve

Here are my suggestions:

• Step 1. Start With Kids: Children are the educators for adults. Introduce a food curriculum into our compulsory education that would mirror that of English, social studies, algebra and gym. People will not just know more about where our food comes from, but they will eat better food. In addition, the principal mechanisms of the kitchen can teach kids about following instructions, teamwork, examining what they put into their body (anti-drug message?), and mindfulness of the senses. Food is economics, world trade, ethics, and law. I surely would have done better in my Macro-Econ classes if we were talking about trading food and not micro-processors. Why not stretch to advocate for this to be part of standardized testing as well.
• Step 2. Simplify, Simplify and Simplify a Little More: It is all too confusing. Behind the titles of these unflinching articles is a litany of words and stories that would sedate 99% of Americans. Confusion about good food forces people to McDonald’s. The conversation should function to get people into the kitchen. Show them how simple it is to prepare good food.
• Step 3. Objectivity: Food is steeped in politics. As a result of this, campaigns are established and money flows to sway public opinion—insert vivian krause. Like any educated voter, when examining our food it is essential that we learn about the issues rooted deep within the terroir of conversation.
• Step 4. Food Labeling: If the differences between food products are not on the label, people can not make an educated decision. If one drive is to harness the power of a free market, and let people vote with their fork, the information must be transparent, and the votes counted properly.
• Step 5. Start a Sustainable Tastes Better Campaign: At the end of the day, most people want a high quality product that won’t kill them. If food treated with antibiotics isn’t killing them, and Americans have been living longer lives year after year, why not keep eating these products. Sustainability is becoming a political movement, and politics certainly don’t taste good. So how is it possible convince someone that they should buy sustainably even if they don’t care about the environmental aspects? Show them that it tastes better. Quality equals sustainability.

Last fall I posted a story about the surge of Community Supported Fisheries (CSF), specifically the program out of Gloucester, MA called Cape Ann Fresh Catch (CAFC).  A brief summary of how it works: Just like the produce Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model, participants pay upfront for that season’s share. The money helps guarantee that the fishermen will make a decent wage off his/her catch. In exchange, they drive dayboat fish to various designated locations in the city each day, where customers come and pick up their share.

In response, I got a few (totally fair) questions about whether or not I had actually bought into a share myself. Unfortunately, I had not at that point; my work schedule didn’t allow me to get to the dropoff locations in time, and, frankly, it was too much fish for me to take. But this Spring an offer turned up that was too good to refuse.

One of my coworkers who already had a share noticed that the dropoff route on Tuesdays went right by our office. She called CAFC and proposed a scenario: If she could drum up enough interest among the staff, would they be willing to make a dropoff at our office? Sure, they said, provided we get about a dozen shares worth of sign-ups.

That wasn’t hard. In the end, we actually got about 20 people, I think. But other than the convenience of ocean-to-door service and a huge walk-in fridge to store the fish until the end of the workday, it turned out that there were a bunch of folks interested in sharing shares, which made the whole program very doable for a lot of people, myself included.

The other appealing factor: This season CAFC offered three different types of shares—all whole fish, all fillets, or alternating, in which you get whole fish one week and fillets the next. Seemed like a perfect opportunity for a beginner like me who wanted to learn how to work with whole fish, but didn’t want to be committed to that kind of project every week.

This season is about 13 weeks long, and I think we’ve just passed the halfway mark. Happy to report it’s been working out really well. On Tuesdays around 3 p.m., my coworker who organized the relationship with CAFC gets a call from the delivery guy when he’s getting close to our office. She and I grab a huge cooler and meet him outside, crosscheck our lists of how many whole fish and how many fillets we need, and then haul the cooler upstairs and everyone can take their share. Fortunately, some the America’s Test Kitchen staffers have a good bit of experience filleting whole fish and they’ve been kind enough to give a few demos on how it’s done. (CAFC also offers a how-to video that’s very informative.) Oftentimes a week’s share is one whole fish, so those of us sharing shares often grab a knife and fillet at work to divvy up dinner. We also chat each other up about what’s on the menu that night: cod and corn chowder, baked fillets with romesco sauce, Thai fish curry, whole fish stuffed with fennel and citrus and grilled…

My personal go-tos have been ceviche and fish tacos.  The first couldn’t be easier—citrus juice, fresh chiles, red onion, garlic, herbs, a little extra-virgin olive oil mixed with chunks of raw fish for an hour or so until the meat “cures.” I find it’s a forgivable preparation for those of us who are still less than savvy with a fillet knife (it just takes practice, I keep telling myself), fast, and delightful to eat in the summer.  Fish tacos have been a rotating preparation for me; most times I dip them in beer batter and deep-fry them, but this past week I broke out my new charcoal grill, slicked down a piece of aluminum foil with vegetable oil, and threw the fish (on the foil) onto the grates. Sort of a lighter take that I’d wanted to try for a while, and the fish took on some good smoke flavor from the hardwood. Anyone has other good suggestions what to do—especially for whole fish—I’ve still got about 6 weeks worth of fish to go!

Many people know of pesto as a basil-based green sauce commonly served over pasta.  The classic pesto (pesto alla Genovese) originated in the Liguria region of Northern Italy and consisted of fresh basil, fresh parsley, crushed garlic, grated parmigiano cheese, pine nuts, olive oil and salt.  The ingredients were traditionally crushed into a creamy consistency with mortar and pestle.  Modern-day food processors make pesto-creation quite easy.

What many people do not know is that pesto can be thought of as a food form, with innumerable variations.  Think of pesto as a creamy green sauce with the following ingredient combination:

• Green Leafy Herb
• Allium
• Nut
• Hard Cheese
• Oil
• Salt

Though basil pesto can be quite delicious, it is not necessarily the most nutritious form of pesto.  The basil can be replaced (partially or completely) by other more nutritious leafy greens, such as young spinach, tatsoi, kale, chard, or broccoli greens. To create a creamy consistency typical to pesto, it is important to use baby greens that are still tender.  The result is a delicious raw sauce, rich in vitamins, mineral, and phytonutrients, typically found in the brassica (broccoli) and chenopod (spinach) plant families.  Other herbs may be used to enhance the flavor and nutrition of the pesto.  Parsley, thyme, oregano, cilantro, and mint are a few of the many possibilities that come to mind.

The most common allium used in pesto is garlic.  Personally, I’m a huge fan of garlic and cannot imagine making pesto without it.  Plus, it is very healthy.  However, if raw garlic is too much for you, you may substitute it with other alliums such as shallots, chives, or leeks.

Pine nuts are traditionally used to make pesto, but by no means are they the only nuts that will work.  Try cashews, walnuts, pecans, brazil nuts, or macadamia nuts in place of pine nuts, and you will find that other nuts taste great and effectively add to the creamy consistency of pesto.  In addition, incorporating different nuts into your diet will help diversify your intake of various nutritional elements, especially essential fats.

The hard cheese element in pesto is optional.  You may use a hard Italian cheese such as parmigiano or pecorino, and you won’t regret it for the flavor it brings. However, if you prefer a vegan pesto, leave the cheese out.  You may use a small amount of nutritional yeast in lieu of hard cheese.

Olive oil has a wonderful flavor and you may want to stick with it for your pesto.  However, if you are feeling adventurous, you may try using grape seed oil, or flax oil to deliver other healthy fats into your diet.  Try replacing half of the olive oil with one of these other healthy oils.

Salt is a small, but very important ingredient in pesto, as it balances the flavor of the greens and fats.  I’d recommend unrefined sea salt, which is rich in trace minerals.  You can tell unrefined salt by its color:  If it is pure white, it is refined, and lacks mineral content.  If it is off-white, gray, or pinkish, it is unrefined, and much better. As an alternative, you may use tamari to provide the “salt” element to your pesto.

Here are a few recipes to help get the creative juices flowing:

Arugula Pesto

Spinach Pesto

Broccoli Pesto (this recipe calls for cooked broccoli, though you may also use raw broccoli micro-greens)

Once you begin experimenting with creating pesto, you will find that the possibilities are endless.  Not only that, but the possible uses of pesto are also endless.  Pesto may be used on pasta, yes.  But it may also be used on potatoes, in rice and other grains, as a sandwich topping, on meat, in eggs, or anywhere else you can imagine adding a savory and sharp-flavored creamy sauce.  You may even feel inspired to grow micro-greens in your garden, especially for use in making pesto, since ultra-fresh micro-greens are nearly impossible to find in grocery stores, yet are exuberant sources of vitality.  I do not know of a single nutritionist who would dispute that eating more fresh leafy green vegetables is the number one thing we could do to improve our diets.  Pesto secretly and delectably accomplishes this goal.   Use your creativity to go beyond basil and discover the possibilities of delicious nutritious pesto.