fauren

A 50-Year Farm Bill

Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry have contributed a short but eloquent op-ed to Sunday's New York Times about the dangers of industrial agriculture and our need for what they call "a national agricultural policy that is based upon ecological principles":

Clearly, our present ways of agriculture are not sustainable, and so our food supply is not sustainable. We must restore ecological health to our agricultural landscapes, as well as economic and cultural stability to our rural communities... We need a 50-year farm bill that addresses forthrightly the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities.

After the passing of a mediocre 2008 Farm Bill and President-elect Obama's appointment of Tom Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture – which upset (or at least disappointed) many folks advocating for large-scale sustainable agricultural practices in the States – it's as important as ever that these voices are being heard. Here's hoping some more change is on the horizon.

New York Times: A 50-Year Farm Bill

Hearty Roots Braised Bok Choy

This spring, my roommate Emily and I signed up for a vegetable share from the Greenwood Heights CSA, which gets its produce from Hearty Roots Community Farm in Tivoli, NY (yes, it's the farm that got the hipster treatment in that New York Times piece a few months back). Apart from feeling particularly good about local veggies in light of yet more food safety trouble -- we're now at 36 states reporting salmonella illness from tomatoes -- I am loving the element of surprise. We don't know what we'll get until the morning we pick it up; it's just whatever is ready for harvesting at the end of a given week.

The bonus is that the newsletter Hearty Roots sends along each week includes a recipe for one of the vegetables they're harvesting, and since some of what we've gotten so far is completely foreign to me (sweet Japanese turnips, anyone?) it's a very helpful thing. That's where this recipe for braised bok choy comes from. Braising makes the bok choy very tender and brings out the sweetness of the red onions, which is subtly offset by the acid of the rice vinegar. Easy and delicious, which was just what this lady needed after a wonderfully tiring weekend.

Strawberry Ice Cream, Strawberry Sorbet, Food Coma

Guess what I did this weekend.

What can I say? I'm the type of lady who likes to deliver on her promises.

While I was home this weekend, my parents were hosting some folks who'd come down for a nearby wedding. Turns out, they were part of the family that runs Butterworks Farm in Westfield, Vermont, and they arrived with arm loads of fresh yogurt and heavy cream for the wedding brunch and as thank you gifts. Between that and the pint of deep red strawberries awaiting us when we woke up Saturday morning, I took it as a sign. A rich, delicious sign.

Looking Forward: PF1, Outstanding in the Field and Added Value

Tomorrow is the opening of PF1, the architecture-cum-farming project at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center. I will be out of town this weekend, visiting my folks and newly-into-her-third-trimester sister (yay!), but I hope to make it out there next weekend to snoop around and see what's growing.

I also just ordered my copy of Outstanding in the Field: A Farm to Table Cookbook, which Sam Sifton called one of the summer's "most interesting new cookbooks" in the New York Times. I've been a long-distance admirer of Outstanding in the Field for quite a while now, and I'm doubly excited to get this cookbook -- not only will I get to try out some new recipes in the kitchen, but it'll also give me a guaranteed topic of conversation at their dinner in Brooklyn this September. Yes, despite not yet having been economically stimulated by the IRS I managed to shell out for a ticket, which I am sure will be more than worth it.

The dinner was scheduled to take place at Added Value (recently profiled in Edible Brooklyn), which I'm hoping will still end up being the case. I've biked by the farm several times, on my trips to the Red Hook Ball Fields for huaraches the size of my face and ceviche out of paper cups, but I've never gone to take a look. After seeing their new office space on Van Brunt Street shape up on my trips to Fairway and meeting someone who worked for them (my vegetable tour guide at Stone Barns), though, it would be great to spend some time there. But if not dinner, there's always the chance to join in on one of their volunteer days this summer.

Generally speaking, some of my favorites foods are now cropping up at the Greenmarkets. Yesterday, the little market near my apartment in Bartel-Pritchard Square was overflowing with pints of strawberries, and this week's pickup from our CSA yielded some beautiful garlic scape. It's going to be a delicious summer!

Briefly, Dan Barber's Op-Ed in the Sunday NYT

Having gone home for Mother's Day to the land of the Boston Globe, I missed Dan Barber's insightful op-ed piece in Sunday's New York Times. Check it out here.

I'm Back, Almost

To any concerned parties: I am alive. I've just been in the throes of event-planning hell at work, which combined with personal events has left me with no choice but to neglect this blog. My apologies.

As I work to catch up on the many things I've had to report in the last two weeks, here is a brief recap in pictures to tide you over:

That's the garden in Eric's back yard, nearly three weeks ago (and Ricky, way in the back, wrestling with the Japanese Knotweed). I spent a very productive afternoon over there, planting things. It was wonderful, and it took three days for my hamstrings to recover.

And here is Dan Barber, petting a pig. On a recent visit to Stone Barns, Dan kindly invited my friend Chelle and I to tag along for a stroll around the farm's livestock with him and his meat guy from Blue Hill here in the city. Top it off with some treats at the Blue Hill bar, and that's a good day.

Having now bought my first official asparagus of the spring, I also spent some quality time saying goodbye to hearty winter greens. I love them, but I am ready for PEAS.

And finally, as I continue to be a neurotic mother to my plant babies, I have to proudly share the current state of my basil sprouts. They've come up so successfully, I'm now in the process of thinning them by occasionally plucking a couple delicious, spicy sprouts from the pot and eating them like candy.

More to come this week, as I wrangle my ducks back into a row.

Federal Conservation Program Suffers Under High Commodity Prices

A little more on the effects of rising food prices: David Streitfield has a piece in today's New York Times about farmers who are taking their idle land out of the government's Conservation Reserve Program in order to cultivate and cash in on the current high prices of commodity crops. There's a glimmer of hope in his (very) brief mention that the USDA seems to be leaning toward bolstering the program rather than trimming it, but it's not much to offset what a contentious issue it's become among the lobbies that have a vested interest in the land.

New York Times: As Prices Rise, Farmers Spurn Conservation

Community Farm Profiled in This Month's Atlantic

The Atlantic has a nice piece on Nuestras Raíces, a community farm in Holyoke, MA, in its April food section. A particularly moving passage:

"We have nine community gardens in some of the toughest neighborhoods in the city if not the country," [Nuestras Raíces  Executive Director Daniel] Ross said, "and the incidence of vandalism has been almost zero." Joel Cortijo, a colleague along for the tour, said simply, "It’s ours." Cortijo, 30, grew up in Holyoke and spent six years in the Army before returning to run a high-school basketball league; he is now co-coordinator of Holyoke’s Food and Fitness Policy Council... Harming a garden, he said, "would be like vandalizing your own car."

The Atlantic: A Papaya Grows In Holyoke

March Miscellany

A hodgepodge of some other tidbits I've been meaning to share over the last week:

In the ongoing story of the Westland/Hallmark Slaughterhouse debacle and ensuing beef recall, Westland/Hallmark president Steve Mendell testified before a congressional panel last week, contradicting his earlier written statements by admitting that it's possible downer cows from the plant entered the food chain. (Washington Post: Slaughterhouse Owner Backs Off Claims, New York Times: Meat Packer Admits Slaughter of Sick Cows)

Chinook (a.k.a. king) salmon have literally disappeared from Bay Area waters, meaning the regional fishery there will most likely remain closed through this year's season. The causes are unclear, and though populations farther north may still be fished this summer, don't expect your Alaskan king salmon to come cheap. (New York Times: Chinook Salmon Vanish Without a Trace)

The Times has led me to find a CSA with a pick-up location mere blocks from my apartment. YAY. Sunday's Dining & Wine section featured a piece about the folks behind Hearty Roots farm in Tivoli, NY. (New York Times: Leaving Behind the Trucker Hat)

And finally, yesterday I came upon the website of the Green Edge Collaborative, which is dedicated to discussing "how our consumption choices affect our social, environmental and economic worlds – in our local neighborhoods as well as the global community." I'm excited about this discovery and hope to attend the potluck on the 30th, since home composting is at the top of this spring's to-do list. Report to come!

Field Trip!

Punctuality has never been my forte, so perhaps it comes as no surprise to the people who know me that I'm just now posting about something I did more than a week ago: I finally took my first trip up to Stone Barns. This was significant, considering I'd been meaning to go for about three years.

I was admittedly motivated to get off my duff about it by Dan Barber himself, whose discovery of my proclamation of love, though more than a little embarrassing, was happily also a conversation starter. So on a crisp Saturday morning, friends Martin and Zabrina and I rolled out of bed and hit the road up to Pocantico Hills.

First activity of the day was the Insider's Tour. Though mid-February might not seem the best time to be walking around on a farm (and don't get me wrong, it was COLD), it was really interesting to see what could be considered the farm's off-season activity. Of course, there really is no such thing as an off-season at a working farm, but I know so little of what goes on from November to May that it was really interesting to see the peas and salad greens already growing in the greenhouses and the beds of the dooryard garden that had been planted with garlic.

The greenhouses were bright and warm, and we got to nibble on a few samples right from the beds. There's nothing like picking a little leaf, brushing the dirt from it, and popping it right in your mouth. Here I discovered my new favorite salad ingredient: golden frills. It's an unassuming little mustard green, but it packs a spicy punch not unlike horseradish. Unexpected and delicious!

From the greenhouses we wandered out to visit with some little friends.