Anne Zimmerman works for a small family-run winery in McMinnville, Oregon, and is writing a book about the food writer M.F.K. Fisher.

Movie food

Sneaking cookies into the movie theater

By Anne Zimmerman

November 21, 2008

I have been going to the movies a lot lately. I go to escape from the world — from a stressful period at work and from the bad economic news that seems to be on the front page of every paper. The movie theater is alluring because it is cool and dark. I can sit alone for an hour or two, absorb myself in the problems of other people, laugh, or cry a little. I walk out of the theater, and the world can’t help but look a little bit newer and shiner. It’s a good thing.

Recently I heard on the radio that despite the economic downturn and the outlandish price of movie tickets people are still going to the theaters. What they aren’t doing is buying huge tubs of popcorn doused with fake butter, super-sized boxes of Milk Duds or sour chews, and gas-tank-sized Coca-Colas. Instead they are doing what all movie theater executives wish they wouldn’t: They’re packing their own snacks. Had this idea never occurred to the masses before?

When I was a kid packing a pocket full of Junior Mints was the only way we went to the movies. We’d stop by 7-11 on the way to the theater and each pick out a bag of M&M’s or a Snickers bar. My mother would stuff the contraband candy in her purse and dispense it quietly once the real movie had begun — never during the previews.

Movie food.

Even when we went to the movies with friends we weren’t allowed money for large tangles of licorice or other sugar stuffed candies that would bring us home swollen and giddy. We brought our own treats, stuffed as well as possible into a pocket.

So, it should come as no surprise that I’ve been breaking the “no outside food” rule for more than 20 years. Lately, I’ve just gotten a little better at it. And by better I don’t mean that my purse is bigger or that I’ve gotten extra good at muffling the sound of a can of root beer opening.

I mean that my movie food is becoming a serious treat.

I don’t really condone the idea of mindlessly munching away in the dark. And yes, I am perfectly capable of sitting through a movie with only a mint or two to keep my mouth happy. But it is fun to watch a movie and have a treat, and it’s even more fun when the treat is so good you really can’t wait for the opening credits to roll.

One of the last movies I went to was truly delicious. It was set in Spain and brought back all the good memories of traveling abroad with good girlfriends. There was sunshine, beautiful scenery, and more than a little dancing and flirtation. The movie was made even more enjoyable by a very childhood-influenced treat — a buttery cookie punctuated with chopped candy morsels.

My cookies came with chunks of Heath bar, a candy I never would have eaten as a child, a candy my mother loved and packed into the theater as her treat. To me a Heath bar was small and boring — too sophisticated and minimalist for my taste. But now I’m a grown-up with a nuanced sweet tooth. I can appreciate a good Heath Bar and love even more a good cookie that can be easily bagged, hidden inside my oversized purse, snuck into a matinee on a Sunday afternoon, and eaten with true enjoyment as I watch the cinematic joys and terrors of somebody else’s life. It always seems to work out at the end, and I always exit satisfied on many different levels.

Cindy Burke is the author of To Buy or Not to Buy Organic and recipe writer for The Trans-Fat Solution.

Welcome to the peanut-free lunch

Alternatives to PB&J

By Cindy Burke

November 19, 2008

When Allison started first grade in September, we received a note that said her classroom would be a “peanut-free zone.” To avoid problems for nut-allergic students, all peanut products would be taboo — not only in treats brought for the entire classroom, but even in individual student lunches.

Her classroom is not unusual in banning all peanut products. At many schools across America, the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich — that childhood lunchbox staple — has been permanently banned.

I wouldn’t want to endanger any child’s health, so I strictly follow the peanut-free rule for school lunches. I have a lot of sympathy for parents of children with severe food allergies. But I have to admit that my first thought when I read the note was more selfish than sympathetic.

“Oh, great,” I groused. “The only kind of sandwich that my kid will eat has just been banned from her lunch.”

Scones with bacon, cheddar, and chives make a great lunchbox treat.

One of the other moms in Allison’s class took it even harder: the weekend before school started, she had industriously prepared 30 peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches (crusts removed, pre-bagged) and frozen them for quick ready-to-eat lunches.

The last time she and I talked, she pleaded for lunchbox suggestions. “I am seriously out of ideas,” she told me. “Sometimes my daughter’s whole lunch comes back home uneaten.”

Since I try to keep trans fats and high-fructose corn syrup out of Allison’s diet, I can’t take a short cut and feed her those pre-packaged boxed lunches marketed to children (yep, I’m anti-Lunchables). That means I’m on the line every morning to come up with a lunch that is simultaneously easy to make, nutritious, and irresistibly tasty. No pressure!

The first few weeks of nut-free lunches were a challenge, but it forced me to get out of the PB&J rut and be more creative. Here are a few peanut-free lunches that have been successfully tested on my very picky elementary-school student.

• I bought bento-box-style containers with four small sections at a Japanese grocery store in Seattle. One section holds sliced strawberries (or grapes, or banana slices). The other sections contain a variety of dips: vanilla yogurt, crushed (peanut-free!) cereal, shredded coconut, and chocolate protein powder. Kids love finger foods, and dipping is fun. I also like these sectioned containers for a dollop of goat-milk yogurt, a scoop of maple-crunch granola, and two kinds of frozen berries (which have thawed by lunchtime).`I also use the sectioned containers to put together a Mediterranean-style lunch of toasted pita triangles, hummus, crumbled feta cheese, and baby carrots.
• A hard-boiled egg with a message written on the shell can be fun for kids. You can also dabble with food coloring and a pastry brush if you’re feeling creative. A miniature set of salt and pepper shakers swiped from a first-class airline meal makes it even more special.
• Mini-bagels filled with my special Honey Bunny cream-cheese spread are tasty and easy. To make the spread, mash 4 ounces softened cream cheese together with 3 tablespoons honey, 2 tablespoons softened butter, ¼ cup finely shredded carrots, and ¼ cup raisins. Spread a thick layer on a plain mini-bagel (save the leftover spread for another lunch). To gild the lily, sprinkle a little cinnamon and sugar on top of the cream-cheese mixture.
• If you have a panini grill, make a little grilled sandwich of Gouda cheese, thin-sliced salami or turkey, and slivers of roasted pepper. Use a sturdy bread like ciabatta or a rustic white bread and grill it lightly. Grilled sandwiches are great cold and have a pleasing crunch that kids love. Grilled sliced prosciutto and Havarti cheese with thin slices of Granny Smith apple is another idea. Chocolate-hazelnut spread (the name brand here is Nutella, but it contains trans fats) with a light glaze of raspberry jam is also excellent as a room-temperature grilled sandwich.
• Falafel wraps have been a surprisingly popular lunch treat. Crunchy falafel nuggets, drizzled very lightly with tahini sauce and wrapped in a soft pita, are topped with shredded carrots. This wrap stays crunchy even when it’s eaten cold. Cucumber slices and grapes go well with falafel.
• Try bacon, cheddar, and chive scones, sliced and buttered, or spread with a little plain cream cheese.
• Once in a while, for a special treat (or if I’m out of ideas), I make a sandwich out of white bread smeared with chocolate spread or butter and homemade blackberry jam. Not a scrap of sandwich comes back home on those days.

It’s important to keep children with severe allergies safe while they are at school, and we’ve found that it’s really not that difficult to pack nut-free lunches. If you find yourself in a similar situation, my suggestion is to get creative with school lunches, try lots of new foods, and make it work for everyone.

Wendy Cohan is a registered nurse and gluten-free educator. Her book, Gluten-Free Portland: A Resource Guide, is available through her website.

A gluten-free Thanksgiving

How everyone’s favorite holiday can be gluten-free

By Wendy Cohan

November 17, 2008

Thanksgiving is my all-time favorite holiday, and I’m not alone. Many people appreciate it for the genuine feelings of thankfulness and generosity the day inspires, and for its relative lack of commercialism. And the food — it’s nearly everyone’s favorite meal, classically American, carbohydrate-rich, and satisfying on so many levels.

The Thanksgiving meal is also a kaleidoscope of color, with the bright orange of yams or winter squashes, the crimson of cranberries, the bright green of asparagus or green beans, and the rich earthy colors of roasted turkey, stuffing, and gravy.

I grew up in a Finnish-American multi-generational family, with a powerful matriarch. There was no question of who would be stuffing and tending the bird, although all the women in my family — and I use that term loosely to include close friends who were always part of our celebrations — were great cooks. They shared their kitchen wisdom, the men watched football, and the kids played dress-up and had the responsibility of setting the table with the good china.

After dinner, my uncle would fire up the stove in the sauna, and we’d all troop down to the basement for a good long sauna, the kids lined up on the bottom bench where it wasn’t too hot. Grandma would come by and splash us down with water and chase us out for a cold shower when we started looking flushed. It was a great end to a wonderful day.

Thanksgiving today

Things are different now; my family is scattered. (The power of strong matriarchs to hold families together is not to be underestimated.) Although we visit my husband’s family sometimes at Christmas, gradually we’ve developed our own community of like-minded souls with which to share holidays and other memorable moments.

With my gluten-intolerance and multiple food sensitivities, and because I love to cook for a crowd, I prefer to host Thanksgiving in my own home. Yes, it’s a challenge to pull together, but planning helps. Last year I cooked for 17; after the turkey went into the oven, I left the house to go horseback riding for a few hours on a spectacularly bright, sunny day. One year we went cross-country skiing while the turkey cooked.

Dinner after Wendy Cohan’s recent gluten-free Thanksgiving prep class.

So I’m not a slave to the kitchen — besides, if I were, I’d have no time to spend with my guests. My trick is to use lots of fresh ingredients, simple preparation methods, and pre-planning.

How to prepare a gluten-free Thanksgiving dinner

Order an organic turkey from your local natural-foods grocer in plenty of time, or choose a less expensive option such as Honeysuckle White (my favorite). Some commercially produced turkeys may contain gluten in the broth used to inject them full of flavorings, salt, and fat. It’s important for you to start with a gluten-free turkey as the centerpiece of your conscientiously prepared meal. The labeling on the turkey package should state no MSG and no gluten on the front or under the nutrition label on the back. Also, remember that many turkeys are only available frozen and require thawing time. (Honeysuckle White is available fresh.)

Season your turkey with high-quality herbs like sage, thyme, and rosemary, or go Latin with cumin, chiles, and lime, but forgo additional salt. Most turkeys are pre-salted, some excessively so. The turkeys I surveyed at my discount grocer ranged in sodium content from 160 to 325 milligrams per serving. Honeysuckle White, which I cooked at my recent Thanksgiving prep class, had 200 milligrams per serving, and I did not need to add any salt when cooking. It was moist, flavorful, and delicious. Turkeys have a flavor all their own, and salt can obscure the natural flavor.

Gluten-free stuffing is easy: Just buy or make the best gluten-free bread, cube it, and dry it in a low-temperature oven. Gluten-free bread from Angeline’s Bakery, available locally here in the Pacific Northwest, makes excellent stuffing (it does contain milk powder). You can also make a wild rice/brown rice and dried cranberry pilaf-style stuffing, which can be cooked separately or used to stuff the bird. And you can make terrific stuffing using my recipe for focaccia bread.

Use sweet rice flour to replace the traditional wheat flour in thickening gravy. If it’s not quite thick enough, you can add a little tapioca starch.

For pumpkin pie, all you really need to do is make a killer pie crust and make sure your filling is dairy-free if necessary. You can substitute Earth Balance vegan baking sticks for regular margarine — they’re gluten-free and dairy-free — or, if you tolerate dairy products, use butter. You can even use oil to make pie crust.

Poached pears or other fruit make a lovely alternative to pie, especially when prepared with the finest ingredients like vanilla beans and star anise and served in an attractive dessert bowl. I use my mom’s retro-1940s curvy glass bowl, which always brings back happy memories.

Gluten-free Thanksgiving menu

A Thanksgiving Planner and Recipe Guide, containing 12 gluten-free, cane-sugar free, and dairy-free recipes, is available for purchase on my website (scroll to the bottom of the page for the menu and other specifics about the spiral-bound book).

Happy Thanksgiving!

A former AOL blogger and editor, Sarah Gilbert is a freelance financial writer; she keeps chickens; and she’s a beginning urban farmer. She lives with her three small boys and husband in Portland, Oregon, and keeps her own blog, Cafe Mama.

The church of local food

A religious experience at Wordstock

By Sarah Gilbert

November 13, 2008

He had such kind eyes. Not the eyes of an imperious chef. And I, who had never eaten in his restaurant but felt that I knew him and his oeuvre so well, had made one of those connections that an audience member can sometimes make with a speaker. I know this because when I speak, I find them, someone whose gaze is comfortable to meet. A simple understanding: one is there to listen, the other to hold forth, and both of you are in the same room, metaphysically speaking as well as, yes, literally.

Despite my eagerness to hear his point of view on a hundred topics, we kept missing. I would ask a question and someone else on the panel would answer, then he would be cut off by the moderator before he could add his response, leaning forward and opening his mouth only to close it again. I sighed to myself. Here he was in this room with me — Vitaly Paley! — and I wasn’t able to hear his thoughts on how to write about local, seasonal food so that a book audience, fed through the filter of book editors and publishers, could sup.

The next questioner stood up. She was larger than life, with an enormous red scarf and many hand gestures. She had a question that wound its way along, scattering opinions and generalizations as it searched for the point: “It seems that the way to get a book published is to find a hook, a trend, a gimmick . . . I mean, no offense, but ‘local and seasonal’ is the latest fad. What is it going to be next?”

I may not have all the words right, but I remember specifically that she called local food a gimmick. A trend. A fad.

Gene Thiel, carrot genius.

I must have reacted physically, almost jumping out of my seat in horror. While she was looking to find the next mania, I was roiling. Imagine if you are a devout Roman Catholic and some person you do not know calls the sacrament of holy communion a schtick. Or something. Local and seasonal a gimmick? No!

After nearly a year of faithfulness to eating food that is local, sustainably grown, seasonal, real, I’ve come to believe that it is not at all a trend, it is a Way. The way food always was, until industrialization and cheap oil screwed it up. The way food has to be, or we will be destroyed. I wanted to say all this to her. Loudly.

Vitaly Paley — who without knowing it and almost without my realization has quietly and passionately been creating a lovely, delicious path for us here in the Pacific Northwest for 20 years in his restaurant, Paley's Place, and now in his cookbook, The Paley’s Place Cookbook — jumped too. He grabbed the mike and said it: Local food is not a gimmick. Local food is the natural and only possible end to our road. Local and seasonal is where we’re going. Local and seasonal has always been, and someday we will get together over winter stews of celeriac and heirloom cannellini beans and Brussels sprouts and we will laugh at the very idea of a fresh raspberry tart with almonds for dessert. Ha ha ha! So silly.

When the Wordstock panel of cookbook authors had concluded, I spoke for a while to the amazing woman with a name like mine, Sarah Hart of Alma Chocolates, Sarah who did not make her amazing figs stuffed with blue cheese and dipped in chocolate in the summer because figs were out of season. She too was a believer.

I went to the cookbook aisle and I gazed and the wonderment of Paley’s book, I almost cried when I saw the portrait of wrinkled local carrot genius Gene Thiel, I closed the book and brushed my hand over it ever so gently.

I could not afford Paley’s book. I had spent all my cash at the farmers’ market the day before. But I did have Ivy Manning’s book, The Farm to Table Cookbook, and Paley had recipes in it, so I got signatures from the two of them, and I told Paley and his wife that I agreed, that I believed in them, not as prophets so much as passionate missionaries spreading the good news of the church of local food.

Perhaps we are zealots, but I believe that the eternal life of our food system is through local and seasonal and sustainably grown food. I believe this in a way that is both religious and mixed up in religion; I think of the land flowing with milk and honey, I pray for more converts every night before bed, I tithe (and then some) in the farmers’ market, I thank the good lord for the red winter kale and garlic he has provided us.

And I pray for the food soul of that woman in the red scarf. May God richly bless her with potatoes, leeks, and Oregonzola. Amen.

Born and raised in the Bronx, Harriet Fasenfest has lived in the Northwest since 1978.

She teaches classes on food preservation at Preserve and lives happily with her husband and children in Portland, Oregon.

The lost art of householding

Urban homesteading means reevaluating your appetite

By Harriet Fasenfest

November 10, 2008

Editor’s note: Harriet Fasenfest was featured in a recent New York Times piece on root cellars.

Now that I am locked and loaded for winter and the rain is giving me permission to consider life from the inside out, I’m on to the next part of this experiment: planning meals from all the stuff in my packed pantry, freezer, and root cellar.

Managing this is not as obvious as it might appear. More than one food preserver will admit to never eating some of the stuff he has so carefully prepared. Marge, my now-retired partner in Preserve, offers many cautionary tales, such as, “If you don’t like applesauce, don’t make it.” Easier said than done, Marge. When you have lots of apples to contend with, and applesauce is oh-so-easy to make, you inevitably end up with lots of jars staring you down come April.

Which brings me to this reality check. Becoming a food gardener and preserver of any significant means requires a reevaluation of how you live and eat. Logical? Maybe. Simple? Nope.

I can go on and on about why I think living this urban-homesteading life is disjointed from the rest of the “real” world. Oh, you know I can. Suffice it to say that what starts out as spirited intention can quickly present obstacles. One, in particular, is the extra work and time all this takes. No doubt, you have to make some trade-offs. But in addition to the time needed is the skill — not just in the garden but in the home. What I’m talking about is the lost art of householding.

Harriet alongside the food on her cellar stairs.

The lost art of householding

Householding as a way to manage the workings of the home is not new. There is a long tradition and wisdom regarding the comfort that a well-tended home and homestead can offer, not just to ourselves but to the ecosystem at large. In fact, that interrelatedness of land and home, along with the stewardship required for both, was more than common wisdom: it was life.

In a time when householding and homemaking have been relegated to the stolen moments between work, meetings, meals out, movies, and kid’s soccer games, it’s hard to revive the spirit. Again, this begs back to our notion of time and what we, as urban dwellers, have filled with it. But even if we would want to enter back into some holy reverence with the act of householding, where would we start? In fact, other then the odious tasks of sorting laundry, washing dishes, and cleaning toilets, we hardly know what it might mean.

That is why I’m happy to see all the folks showing up as the new mothers and fathers of invention, or should I say reinvention. Folks like my friend Chris Musser and her classes on some of the lost arts related to homemaking. She is part of the urban-homesteading group I talk about, but more than that, she’s working on the steps needed to reconstruct this life.

Certainly some of it is about meal planning, but more of it is about the relationships between our gardens and our homes, our sense of place and our planet. In many ways, it is about projected imaginations: living and putting up limited resources as if they were really, actually, limited.

And that is a clue into what makes this somewhat surreal. Most of us are never snowbound or without the means and choices to live with the world at our fingertips. We can get anything, anytime, all day and night, so setting up home and life as if you cannot might seem like an silly affectation. But that is what it will take.

To reenvision this urban-homesteading life is to superimpose conditions of one life on top of another one. It requires that we change our self-perceptions or, as Carlo Petrini (founder of Slow Food and, in my opinion, hot at any age) said during a recent Slow Food panel discussion, we must change our language.

Learn to eat what you put by.

When asked by Michael Pollan what we as consumers can do to change the food system, Petrini replied, “To start with, stop using the word ‘consumer’ and substitute it for ‘co-producer.’” He was making a point about language and how the words we use often defy the solutions we are seeking. I loved the way he questioned the ability to balance “development” with “sustainability.” “An oxymoron,” he insisted. I concur.

Learning a new language

For my part, I am thinking, writing, and living my life with an eye towards this new language. It is part of the premise behind “The Seamless” — my thoughts and writings on the linguistic conflict between natural systems and economic systems. But that was for the world at large. This winter, I turn my thoughts toward home and the notion of “living in the seamless,” that investigation of living in a form and fashion within a world that challenges old pattern language.

I suspect some of it will lead me to my role as a home steward, a householder, a homemaker. But what would or could those words mean in these new times? How can they transform our notion of work, time, and bottom lines if we value our homes, soil, food, and meals as gifts from the natural world? How will we envision ourselves when we recognize, then accept, that there is no way to get around the work (in kitchens and gardens) that is required?

This coming spring and summer, should I figure out what the heck I am talking about, I will add it to the food-preservation series. I will teach householding in the context of gardening, preserving, and meal planning within the logic and language of seasons. I will try and imagine a new context for evaluating these efforts along with the opportunities and celebrations that will surely arise from it. Think of the relationships we will build and solutions we will create when we share in an effort that has heretofore been hidden by the notion and language of leisure, convenience, and take-out.

Tall order, I know, but I’m hoping for an epiphany of sorts, something that gets me out of my mind and into a life, a joyous life that is infused with new rhythms and circle of co-conspirators committed to the same. Think community cider pressing, pickle making, garden harvests, and Thanksgiving. The notion fuels me on.

So until or during that time, I’m turning applesauce into breads and cakes or, simply, eating it as dessert. I admit to looking at those sad little bowls as sorry replacements to “real” dessert but not, thankfully, my darling husband. He likes it layered between graham crackers and calls it his “applesauce parfait.” God love him.

I’m also learning to love a bowl of canned pears and peaches in a way I never have, with reverence for the time and season of their preservation. I’m thinking about summer’s cucumbers and beans, now pickled on the shelf, as a way to add crunch and enzymes to a winter meal when the kale, collards, and brassicas in the garden are getting to me.

I’m thinking about innovative ways to use all those pumpkins — in ravioli with sage, sautéed in oil and topped with balsamic vinegar; in lamb and hominy stew; in fragrant couscous; in luscious pies. And I am searching out these recipes so I may put good food on our family table. And that, as it may well turn out to be, is the final punctuation for a garden, pantry, home, and life well tended. And that’s a language I can live with.

Alex Davis co-wrote Dinner at Your Door with Andy Remeis and Diana Ellis. She formed her first dinner co-op in 2003, with no family nearby from whom to mooch great dinners. Her sassy ad copy has appeared in Bon Appétit, People, BusinessWeek, and Sunset.

Why I love my dinner co-op

Somebody else cooks and delivers

By Alex Davis

November 6, 2008

What a blessing and responsibility to be the weeknight cook in your family. On a good night, you’re inspired — you’ve got fabulous ingredients and are ready to rock the kitchen with a certain meal you know everyone loves. But when the fridge is empty and you’re out of ideas, it’s a whole other story.

Wait a minute! You’re a great cook. A crafty, engaged food shopper. You love recipes, grow your own herbs, and care about nutrition. So why do you run out of steam around midweek? Your problem isn’t weeknight cooking. It’s TOO MUCH weeknight cooking.

Even passionate cooks have subversive fantasies of blowing off the weeknight dinner hour altogether. Out on a bike ride? Keep on riding. Feeling lowly? Hop in a hot bath and hide out until mealtime is long past. I am now living these fantasies two nights a week, except our family still eats a fabulous dinner at home — it’s just prepared by somebody else.

When I formed a neighborhood dinner co-op, I found balance and got re-energized in the kitchen. In fact, you could say I got my groove back. I had so many weeknights to NOT cook, that when my night rolled around once a week, I was ready to turn some heads. Cooking for two extra families broadened my audience and somehow elevated my game.

Door-to-door dinner.

I work in advertising, and my best work almost always happens when there’s a little pressure to perform — and a clear deadline. With my dinner co-op, I allow myself about two and a half hours once a week to throw down 12 servings of something exciting. My husband and kids do the deliveries for me, then I’m off the hook for days.

One of the best things about our dinner co-op has been the variety of meals that we’re trading: Roasted Eggplant Lasagna, Salmon with Fresh Strawberry Relish, Indian Lentil Burritos, Vanilla Pork with Granny Smith Apples, exotic noodle salads, roasted, caramelized beets and root vegetables, incredible chutneys, and fresh fruit salsas. Finely shaved prime-rib sandwiches with horseradish sauce and watercress. Crisp salads with grapefruit, avocado, hearts of palm, cheeses, seeds, nuts, homemade croutons, and fresh herb dressings. Stuff you cannot pull out of a freezer.

Trying to get your groove back? You could go all the way to Jamaica in search of Taye Diggs. Or just hop on your cruiser bike and see what’s cooking right down the block.

Cynthia Lair has been a member of the nutrition faculty at Bastyr University since 1994. She also stars in the humorous online cooking show Cookus Interruptus.

White House vegetables

Time to put a garden at the White House

By Cynthia Lair

November 4, 2008

Several groups are gathering e-signatures to petition our next commander-in-chief. Their common goal? To get the next president to encourage better energy usage and better eating habits (and hence better health) by putting in a kitchen garden at the White House.

It isn’t a new idea. John Adams tended his own garden at the White House. Some past presidents have planted fruit trees; others installed a greenhouse. And then there was Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous Victory Garden, which was mirrored all over the country during World War II.

The history of what has taken place on the White House lawn, including the current putting green, can be found in a video posted by Eat the View, one of the citizen groups asking our 44th president to plant a garden on the grounds of the White House. Another group is the Who Farm, aka The White House Organic Farm Project, a nonpartisan, petition-based initiative.

Lawns, not food, at the White House.

A White House garden was part of Michael Pollan’s recent plea in his open letter to the next president published in the New York Times:

Since enhancing the prestige of farming as an occupation is critical to developing the sun-based regional agriculture we need, the White House should appoint, in addition to a White House chef, a White House farmer. This new post would be charged with implementing what could turn out to be your most symbolically resonant step in building a new American food culture. And that is this: tear out five prime south-facing acres of the White House lawn and plant in their place an organic fruit and vegetable garden.

So after you vote today, be sure to follow up with a vote for better food.

Cynthia Lair has been a member of the nutrition faculty at Bastyr University since 1994. She also stars in the humorous online cooking show Cookus Interruptus.

Food bank

Whole foods are good investments

By Cynthia Lair

October 30, 2008

When you eat, you are making a deposit in your body. If you choose to eat nutrient-dense whole foods, you have plenty of cash for the day, plus some savings — meaning you can maintain muscle energy plus have extra nutrients to do other physiological work.

When you choose cheap, empty calories, like white flour and high-fructose corn syrup, you leave a big fat IOU in your account. No kidding. You’ve got no bills in your pocket, and the promissory note tends to hang around your waistline. Those notes can start piling up on your behind.

With the economic and health issues we face, we need to keep a steady income of simple foods like whole grains, dark leafy greens, beans, fresh fruit, nuts, and fish coming into the body account.

Good food is a good investment.

Buying grains and beans in bulk and learning how to convert them into delicious soups, spreads, breakfast cereals, and main dishes pays off.

Keeping more expensive, high-quality items, like free-range chicken or organic walnuts, as side dishes and toppings saves money and maintains health, too. This is long-term sustainable eating that helps keep money in your child’s college fund or your retirement account instead of giving it to drug companies and hospitals.

Born and raised in the Bronx, Harriet Fasenfest has lived in the Northwest since 1978.

She teaches classes on food preservation at Preserve and lives happily with her husband and children in Portland, Oregon.

Blowback

Some days you just need to embrace your fashion self

By Harriet Fasenfest

October 28, 2008

So here is the moment, or one of them, I have been waiting for. It is not one that makes me particularly proud, but so what? I’m posting honest musings from an urban homesteader, not packaged ones. No gift wrap and bows here. Just the real dirt, inside and out.

So what’s the story? Well, for some reason I can barely stand to look at the garden these days. I walk outside, enjoy the last of the sunny autumn days, look at the garden beds planted with “green manure,” consider the few kale, sorrel, basil, pepper and yet-producing cucumber plants out there, and run back inside the house, exhausted by it all.

I can barely stand the notion of doing anything with my green tomatoes and feel nearly apathetic about the bountiful apple and pear harvest in full swing. Hell, last night I had the husband order a pizza.

I seem to be shutting down, turning off, lurching to the couch with a book and blanket when I should be scurrying around in the final punch of putting foods by. I think I’m experiencing blowback. Yeah, I have reason to be tired, and no one would fault me the efforts I have put into this life, but so what? That’s what this life is about. How is it that I’m feeling indifferent to the bounty? Where is that reason-for-the-season spirit?

Still life with shoes.

Now I have always been honest with you. I’m not doing all this work in the garden or kitchen because I’m either a half-wit or a purist. There is real cause for the effort, but I have always made a point of outing myself lest someone turn me into a role model. Hell, that would be too much to bear. I’ve got my happy-in-the-garden days and days, like the ones I have been experiencing lately, that depress me. Days when I think the only thing to do is gussy up and go shoe shopping. Yep, you heard me. I went to the mall.

Now I can’t say it was all that satisfying. I did like getting dressed up, but I’ve got real history dressing up. You see, I was raised on Vogue fashions. My father was an old-world tailor, apprenticed in Europe where the trade really meant something. He landed his first job within a few days after coming off the boat and stayed in the finest fashion houses in New York City throughout his career.

More importantly to me, however (I was a self-involved teenager, after all), was the fine personal tailoring I enjoyed and the shoes, hats, gloves, blouses, and miscellaneous accessories he would bring home after the season’s runway show. Ooh la la, kid-leather pumps and matching gloves. I know you feel for me.

Not only was my father sure to supply me with the best of the fashion world, but he himself was impeccable in every way. Tailored suits, cufflinks, silk ties, crisp shirts (which he always ironed), polished shoes, and never, ever, a T-shirt and jeans. I mean never. We were a stylish family, and not just by his urging. Nope, it was in the genes. If Marcus (my dad) was a fashion maven, I was his disciple.

I don’t think there was ever a time when I wasn’t interested in making a fashion statement. Even my fall from fashion grace during the late 1960s was peppered with design. I was the kid hanging out at the park in white silk slacks and tie-dye.

So giving up the fashion ghost has not been easy for me. In fact, I distinctly remember the moment at the Seattle WTO symposium and protests when I knew I would have to kick Paris fashions to the curb. No joke. It was a grieving of sorts, since it had always been a fantasy of mine to shop in the salons of Paris and send the outfits to my hotel room where I would engage in a personal viewing for my doting young lover (hey, if you’re going to indulge in make-believe . . .). Of course, I wasn’t completely frivolous. Sending the lover off to school in the morning (OK, law school if it makes you feel better), I would ring room service for the salt-of-the-earth — good coffee and the perfect croissant — to be enjoyed on my balcony overlooking the city.

So you see, I can relate to anyone struggling with this movement. I understand there are sacrifices that are sometimes too hard to bear. Luckily I have lived in Portland since 1978, which is long enough for a full fashion detox to take hold. God only knows what would have happened if I had to go cold turkey. I mean, until recently there was no real sense of style in this town; at least not one faithful to Paris fashions, fine tailoring, and even finer fabrics. Nope, this is/was a ready-to-wear town in Gortex and fleece. But old habits die hard. My husband still has to remind me that you don’t have to dress to go downtown.

So you’d think I’d be over it all by now. You’d think I would put my fancy self to rest since fashion is part of the poodle-ing of America I complain about. So what gives? Why did I feel particularly saucy prancing around in my latter-day Carnaby Street outfit the other day? Oh, I tried to play it down like it (or I) wasn’t really all that hot (you know the drill), but just as I was doing the full prance, I was busted by a friend registering voters in front of the post office. Holy crap. Talk about immediate karma.

“Don’t you look nice,” is what she said, but I figure there was some degree of judgment going on. Not that she’s kind of gal. Really, I think she struggles with the cost of caring as much as I do. Well, maybe as much, or else has come to terms with it in a way I have not. Still, I do a lot of big talking, so it seems fair if she did find fodder for a little gossip: “Guess which urban homesteader I saw today doing the hot trot?” Of course, she probably never even thought to mention it, but I felt both silly and sassy. In truth, I would have deserved a bit of it.

I would have preferred, I suppose, to be found signing up voters on the last day of registration than being caught doing the runway walk, but I wasn’t. It was a consolation of sorts that I was at the post office sending off the certified letter and check to the mortgage company. Honestly, I think my friend was more impressed with my shoes. They were pretty nice.

So today I am writing to say it happens. That in between the clear moves towards solutions are the moments when you just have to go back into the closet and pick out the furthest thing from a pair of overalls you can find. You need to embrace your fashion self or fine-dining self or high-living-in-high-style self, because it was all something to behold. But it is still a part of stuff we never imagined it would be, and that is true too. It is all so strange and sad some days. Sad to witness the passing of a lifestyle you never imagined could be so injurious to the planet.

So that’s today’s musing from the urban homesteader. Keep reading. Tomorrow (or someday) I will tell you how to hand-stitch a pair of old overalls into a sexy backyard party dress. Honestly, I once tried.

Hank Sawtelle is a former engineer and patent attorney and a recent culinary school graduate. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, daughter, Kitchen-Aid stand mixer, and Vita-Prep blender.

How to save money in the kitchen

A little knife work goes a long way

By Hank Sawtelle

October 24, 2008

One easy way to make your grocery dollar go farther is by doing some basic knife work in the kitchen. For example, why pay the store (or distributor) to cut up a chicken for you? The markup on chicken parts can be extreme.

On a recent trip, my local chain grocer was selling local, free-range whole fryers for $1.79 per pound (on sale). The same brand of boneless, skinless breasts were $7.99 per pound, and thighs and legs were $2.69 and $2.49 per pound. “Drumettes” (the big part of the wing) were $2.89 per pound.

I brought home a 4.72-pound bird ($8.45), cut it into parts, and weighed them (the results are summarized in a table below). Incredibly, the boneless, skinless breasts alone are worth more ($10.14) than the entire chicken at grocery-store prices!

As discussed in a recent Culinate article and Dinner Guest Blog post, there are plenty of worthy uses for the other parts of the chicken, which you are essentially getting for free when you cut up your own bird.

What allows stores to charge these markups? Are they cashing in on their customers’ anxiety about cutting up the bird? It’s really not very hard; if you’re comfortable cooking a chicken, you can handle breaking one down, too.

All you need is a halfway-decent knife and a cutting board that you can wash thoroughly afterwards (I use a dishwasher-safe composite board for raw proteins). A stiff or flexible boning knife is ideal for the task, but a chef’s knife is fine if that’s all you have.

If you’re not crazy about handling raw poultry, cheap latex gloves are an easy fix and are quite common in professional kitchens.

There is more than one way to cut up a bird; this video demonstrates my preferred method. The most important trick is to slide the knife cleanly through the center of the joints rather than cutting through any bones.

With a little practice, you’ll be able to break down a bird in a couple of minutes, and you’ll never pay the grocery store to do it again. (Thanks to Kitchen Gardens Network for the video.)