SHORSHIYUT:Deep-rootedness

File this under the heading Stuff You Don't See Every Day

2011-12-15T10:02:00.000-08:00

Photo by Peter Sagal via Twitter.

Yo-Yo Ma gets down with a wombat:

http://www.suntimes.com/9447566-417/yo-yo-ma-and-a-wombat-meet-on-a-bathroom-floor-seriously.html

Great Chanukah show this Sunday

2011-12-14T11:18:00.000-08:00

Join me for a special Chanukah preview show this Sunday, 12/18, from 10-11am Pacific Time on the Portland Yiddish Hour on 90.7fm KBOO. I'll be playing really cool Chanukah tunes from Y-Love and Yasmin Levy. I'll also be featuring Chanukah songs from the Klezmatics' Woody Guthrie Chanukah album, which came out in 2006. If you have no idea how the Klezmatics tie in with Woody Guthrie, you can find out on Sunday! hint, hint...
The Klezmatics will be in town next Tuesday, 12/20, playing at the Aladdin Theatre, btw, and you might want to check out the show if you're in the Portland area. It's going to be a great start to Chanukah.

If you're outside Portland, you can stream the show live online at http://kboo.fm.

Hope you can tune in! Please send a link to this blog entry to everyone you know who might be interested.

Shameless self-promotion

2011-12-08T15:55:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to my latest article in the Jewish Review, about my friend David Kominsky's new shul in my old neighborhood in SE Portland:

http://www.jewishreview.org/local/New-shul-grows-in-Southeast-Portland

Unfortunately they didn't use the exact title I proposed, A Shul Grows in Portland, a play on the book title, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Ah well.

Comments are welcome...hint, hint, hint...

More connections between food and the Occupy movements

2011-10-13T10:38:00.000-07:00

Great post from Civil Eats. In response to many activists' question, "What does the Occupy Movement have to do with food?" some of my favorite answers:

• In the U.S. today, the richest one percent hold 40 percent of the wealth, while almost one in five Americans is on food stamps. Rampant Wall Street speculation on commodities is driving up food costs, small farmers are being driven off their land, and agribusiness holds monopoly control of our seeds and stores.

• At the most obvious level, as the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy recently wrote, “Wall Street deregulation has not only made the stock market extremely volatile, it has increased prices and price volatility in agricultural markets.” That is, the relationship between government and Wall Street firms has turned food into commodity like any other, subject to the whims of the market.

• In 2000, a wave of industry-backed deregulation raised and then removed these limits on speculation, which opened commodity markets to a flood of new players—these later included funds controlled by some of the biggest Wall Street firms looking for new investment opportunities after the housing bubble burst. Flooded with new investments unconnected to any direct stake in crop prices, in 2008, the commodity markets exploded, driving up grain prices worldwide. The grain price spikes were catastrophic for millions of people worldwide. Farmers, who sometimes benefit from high grain prices, mostly were no better off, because similarly skyrocketing energy prices also drove up prices of agricultural inputs.

• Wall Street firms aren’t just gambling on food prices, they have begun speculating on land as well. Alerted to the potential market in agriculture, investors are buying up huge parcels of farmland all over the world, displacing the occupants, and converting subsistence production to cash crops—or, worse, simply leaving the land fallow and waiting for its value to increase.

Mark Bittman on the Occupy movement

2011-10-12T09:21:00.000-07:00

Great column from Mark Bittman, the NYT's self-appointed "opinionator," about the Occupy movements and how they relate to food activism.

How to dip your apple in honey

2011-09-28T08:43:00.000-07:00

Shana tovah!

My adventures this week(end)

2011-09-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

Earlier this past week I went out to water the garden (I was wearing a skirt; this detail will become important). I spent about 15 minutes outside and then came back in. When I sat down at my desk, I felt a sharp sting on my ass. Then another. I looked on my office chair but saw nothing. Sat back down. Another sting on my abdomen. Youch! Now I was freaked out and started shaking out my skirt. Sure enough, a yellowjacket flew out. My sweetie, hero that she is, caught it and put it outside, where, presumably, it is happily stinging somebody else.

Three stings and a lot of baking soda paste later, I was fine, if annoyed. Good thing I'm not allergic.

Then today I put a burned CD into my car stereo and couldn't get it out. When I went online to search for a solution (ain't the Web wonderful?) I found this:

Not sure what language he's speaking (it's not Swiss-Deutsch or French; could be Romansh), but you don't need to understand what he's saying to get the gist.

The fun just never stops here...

Don't look for explanations in 9/11 remembrances

2011-09-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

I've been hearing lots of people's reactions to the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and I heard several people complain that even though the media blitzed us with commentary, photos, video, interviews with survivors and families of victims, there seemed to be a lack of discussion about the underlying causes of 9/11.

I wasn't particularly surprised at this absence; nobody agrees about why 9/11 happened. In my New Yorker this week, Lorrie Moore, quoting writer David Rieff, summed up my take on it more eloquently than I ever could: "Politics is the ghost at the banquet of any national commemoration."

Honey laundering could sour High Holidays

2011-08-24T20:00:00.000-07:00

I was disturbed to read about smuggled honey from China in this article a couple days ago.

As is true for most well-informed people who pay attention to where their food comes from, tainted food products coming out of China is not news to me. The scandals about powdered milk and pet food made international news when they broke (and caused a number of deaths of both children and pets, here and abroad), and there are a depressing number of other examples to cite, should one be so inclined.

For Jews, the story about tainted honey carries a special significance. During Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which is coming up on September 28 (1 and 2 Tishrei in the Hebrew calendar), it is traditional to dip apple slices in honey to celebrate the sweetness of the new year. Clearly, using honey that contains illegal antibiotics and heavy metals negates the whole purpose of this tradition; never mind the health effects of consuming such additives.

Passing off inferior or illegally imported honey as safe and legal is far from the only example of such trickery/smuggling. Many high-end seafood and sushi restaurants serve fish identifed as tuna or something else equally expensive and desirable, when tests have shown the fish is in fact something else entirely (in all fairness, sometimes the restaurants are themselves cheated by their fish suppliers; without DNA tests, it can be very difficult to verify which fish is which). The same is true in the world of olive oil; often low-grade oil is sold as high-end virgin, and sometimes other oils are mixed into the olive to increase quantity.

But this honey story hit me in a different way. Not only is the product in this instance not what its sellers claim, but it is actually potentially dangerous to consume. With fish and olive oil, we're talking about basic fraud, but such frauds do not usually result in a product that can make you sick.

More to the point, from the Jewish perspective, using tainted honey to celebrate the New Year angers me, because the honey is being used in a symbolic traditional way, not merely for regular eating or cooking. It both enrages and saddens me to think of eating such honey to mark one of our holiest days.

On a related note, I just returned from the 6th annual Hazon Food Conference (I'll be writing more about that in upcoming editions of The Jewish Review; be sure to check it out). It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the scope of change facing all of us who work in the areas of sustainable, ethical food. The conference recharged me on many levels and I am excited to implement what I've learned here in Portland.

May this year bring real, lasting change to our broken food system, and may we all greet it with an apple slice dipped in locally produced honey, perhaps from the hives of someone we know. Amen.

The Green Thing

2011-07-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

I subscribe to a food activism listserve; this was posted on it a couple days ago. I wish I could credit the author, but I don't actually know who wrote it.

In the line at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized to her and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment."

She was right—our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts—wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house—not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana .

In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us.

When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.

We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service.

We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Save locally grown greens!

2011-07-26T08:25:00.000-07:00

Today the USDA and Big Ag are conspiring to implement a set of rules that favor giant industrial growers while placing small, diversified farms at risk. Known as the National Leafy Green Marketing Agreement, this set of rules was designed by industrial growers to protect their market share while harming their main competition, the growing local and organic food movement. The Leafy Green agreement, drafted by the largest vegetable growers’ lobbyists in an effort to whitewash their growing food safety problems, would implement draconian practices that saddle farmers with one-size-fits-all rules and would drive local and organic farmers out of business with expensive regulations.

Tell Secretary Vilsack that it's time to protect family farmers and stop letting Big Ag write the rules by adding your name to the petition:

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/sign/leafygreens/?referring_akid=.92252.M13cg7&source=mailto

Tuv Ha'Aretz 3rd annual edible garden bike tour

2011-07-15T13:43:00.000-07:00


Spoke cards from previous bike tours; this year's is the yellow one.

On Sunday, July 10, Portland Tuv Ha'Aretz, Portland's Jewish connection to sustainable, ethical food for all, hosted our third annual garden bike tour. Led, as always, by intrepid Tuv member Beth Hamon, this year's ride theme was building community through edible gardens, specifically (and obviously) community gardens, for which Portland is justly famous.

A bit of Portland's community garden history:

The Community Garden program, founded and managed by Leslie Pohl-Kosbau, has provided gardening opportunities for the physical and social benefit of the people and neighborhoods of Portland since 1975. (Leslie has recently retired after 35 years on the job, and all gardeners in Portland, not to mention every citizen of the city, gardener or not, owes her a tremendous thank you for her work in making our city more beautiful and more edible).

There are 35 community gardens located throughout the city, developed and operated by volunteers and Portland Parks & Rec staff, offering a variety of activities. Immensely popular since their inception, there's now a 3-year waiting list (with over 1000 names on it) for a plot. A local nonprofit, 1000 Gardens, is hoping to add another 1000 plots by 2012.

We started our ride at the Woodlawn Community Garden, which is 14 years old this year, and shares space with Woodlawn Elementary School. One unique feature of this garden is the Thai jar rainwater-harvesting cistern, the first of its kind in the northwest United States, which was installed in 2007. It collects rainwater from the school roof, which is then piped to spigots placed throughout the garden:

Thai rainwater jar at Woodlawn Community Garden

Our next stop was the Rigler Peace Garden, located at 54th and NE Prescott. Here's some info about this special place:

Inverted gazebo roof with rain chain at Rigler Peace Garden.

In 2000, Will Levenson and Starr Hogeboom, Friends of Trees volunteers who were in the Cully neighborhood selling trees door-to-door, noticed an ugly, dusty piece of land that Rigler School was using for overflow parking. Given that the neighborhood had no park, they came up with the idea of creating a community garden in that space. For the next two years, they applied for grants, recruited volunteers, solicited donations from local businesses, filed for city permits, and negotiated a lease with Portland Public Schools to prevent the land from being sold. In total, the group received $60,000 in grants and $10,000 in fundraising. Donated materials were worth an estimated $40,000. The garden opened in September 2005.

The Rigler Peace Garden, as it was unofficially named by the group of volunteers who built it, is used for both community gardening and for education. Its entrance, made of bricks and featuring a shiny sculpture made of galvanized steel and student artwork, invites children to learn about natural science as well as how to grow flowers and vegetables. A concrete path leads to a gazebo where teachers hold class. The inverted roof of the gazebo captures rainwater and funnels it down a chain into an underground storage tank that is connected to a hand-operated water pump. The north side of the garden is shaded by dozens of native trees, each one sponsored by a different Rigler classroom.


Student artwork decorates the gate at Rigler Peace Garden

Our final stop was at Columbia Ecovillage, a sustainable co-housing community in NE Portland. Our friend Dennis is one of about a dozen Jewish members of CEV, and he gave us a tour:

Dennis (turquoise T-shirt) shows us the hazelnut trees CEV has planted in the parking strip; the nuts are intended to be shared with CEV's neighbors.

Dennis and chickens. CEV has 30 birds, including a rooster. Eggs, anyone?

Just a portion of the amazing garden space at CEV.

Bees at CEV.

5,000 gallon water tank, which harvests gray water from the roof to use in watering the garden. CEV can store up to 29,000 gallons of water with its tanks.

Thermostat and namaste inside the temperature self-regulating greenhouse.

Dennis assembled a salad for us, complete with edible flowers.

Group photo at CEV.

So what's Jewish about all this? The examples of community building we saw in the gardens and at CEV aren't specifically rooted in Judaism, of course, but as Jews interested in making strong, lasting connections with our neighbors and the land we live on, we can learn (glean?) much about how to build a Jewish community from what we saw on this ride. It requires patience, determination, a willingness to compromise and listen, and affords ample opportunities, as with reclaiming the land for the Rigler Peace Garden, to practice tikkun olam, repair of our world.

You can see more pictures from the ride here.

Fire or water?

2011-07-07T17:36:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my sweetie and I made our annual pilgrimage to the Metolius River in Central Oregon. Well, I say annual because we've been going every year since 2006, but we didn't make it last year, so returning this year was especially lovely, like greeting an old friend.

Here are some random pics:

Closeup of Ponderosa bark; I used to call these "puzzle trees" when I was a kid, because the bark looks like a jigsaw puzzle. My favorite pines.

Near the head of the Metolius River, just below our campsite

Very late purple trillium near Cabot Lake

Black Butte from the Cabot Lake trail


On the Cabot Lake trail, which goes through part of the B & B fire area in the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness. That's Mt. Jefferson off to the right.

Shabbat citronella candle blessings

This trip brought us into proximity with both fire and water. Fire because we hiked a trail to Cabot Lake through part of the area that burned in the B & B fire in 2002, and water because of the Metolius, of course, and Scout Lake, our favorite swimming hole nearby.

So it occurred to me to wonder, one night while I was watching our campfire, whether watching fire or watching water, especially the ocean, creates different states of contemplation. Watching either can easily hypnotize me for awhile, and there's little I find more relaxing than gazing into the snapping flames of a campfire, or seeing the eternal ebb and flow of ocean waves.

But the hypnotic state created isn't the same, at least not for me. When I watch a fire, I don't usually find myself contemplating anything in particular. Perhaps it's the mercurial, elusive nature of flame (as soon as you fix your eye on it, it moves or disappears). I'm just drawn into the fire itself and my mind doesn't fix on any specific ideas or thoughts. Whereas when I sit and watch the ocean, often my mind will turn towards the big eternal questions of existence, or at least to thoughts about particulars in my own life. Perhaps it's the regular rhythm of waves that creates this state of mind.

What about you? Do fire and water stimulate different thoughts (or lack thereof) in your head? Or similar ones? What happens for you?

The Grower's Mantra

2011-06-26T18:16:00.001-07:00

Plant a seed. Watch it grow. Eat the result. - Nigel Slater

Monsanto foiled in U.S. Court

2011-05-23T10:03:00.000-07:00

Great news about Monsanto, for a change:

From the Center for Food Safety:

COURT OF APPEALS DISMISSES MONSANTO’S APPEAL OF BIOTECH BEETS CASE, PRESERVES VICTORY FOR FARMERS, ENVIRONMENT

San Francisco, CA – May 20, 2011 – Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a summary order concluding a long-standing lawsuit over the impacts of genetically engineered (GE) ”Roundup Ready” sugar beets. As a result, previous court rulings in favor of farmers and conservation advocates will remain, including the order requiring the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to prepare a rigorous review of the impacts of GE sugar beets, engineered to be resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, before deciding whether to again allow their future commercial use.

Here's a link to the complete news release:

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/2011/05/20/court-of-appeals-dismisses-monsantos-appeal-of-biotech-beets-case-preserves-victory-for-farmers-environment/

Tomato dreams...

2011-05-18T19:39:00.000-07:00

I planted our tomatoes today; one Sungold, a delicious, incredibly sweet orange cherry tomato:

one heirloom yellow Brandywine:

and two Early Girls, which are good for canning (I don't have pictures of them, but imagine your standard-sized red round tomato).

It was actually hot in the sun while I was working and getting my hands dirty in the soil of our garden bed (I almost never remember to wear gloves). I still have dirt in the cracks of my fingers, a sure sign of spring's arrival.

I never tire of planting things, just as I continue to be awed by the miracle of tiny seeds morphing into enormous zucchini, or 4-inch starts becoming 6-foot tomato plants heavy with fruit. It's a timeless source of amazement for me, one that will never diminish.

I dream of August and the longed-for taste of a tomato exploding in my mouth with that first, sun-warmed bite.

Alex Ross likes us...he really really likes us!

2011-05-14T10:09:00.000-07:00

Alex Ross, classical music critic for The New Yorker, wrote this on his blog, regarding the Oregon Symphony's performance at Carnegie Hall this week:

"OREGONIANS TRIUMPHANT (accompanied by a great photo of Carlos Kalmar with his fantastic conductor hair flying)

Spring for Music is heading into the home stretch, with two concerts remaining. Last night's performance by the Oregon Symphony, under the direction of Carlos Kalmar, was pretty extraordinary; you can listen online. The good folks at NPR Classical are archiving all the concerts in the series. I will have more to say in a future issue of The New Yorker."

I'm a huge fan of Ross' writing; I don't make a habit of reading lots of music criticism, unless it's for work, but he's a cut above everyone else out there today. I'm also kind of in awe of him; he's a year younger than I am, has a dream job and won a MacArthur Fellowship a few years ago for his book, The Rest is Noise. Talk about setting a high bar...

Oh, and the New York Times liked us too:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/14/arts/music/oregon-symphony-at-carnegie-hall-review.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=oregon%20symphony&st=cse

shameless self-promotion(s)

2011-05-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

Check out my latest gig, for the Jewish Review, Portland's bi-weekly Jewish rag...

http://www.jewishreview.org/local/aliyah-inspried-by-love-affair-with-pja

I'll probably be writing several times a month for them; you can always access the JR online, if you're outside Portland, here.

Also, the Oregon Symphony heads to Carnegie Hall this week to perform in a new music festival, Spring for Music. Here's an overview from Anthony Tommasini, music critic for the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/arts/music/spring-for-music-festival-to-open-at-carnegie-hall.html?_r=1&ref=anthonytommasini

I won't be going in person, but my notes will be there, in the program book. It's a great program, titled Music in a Time of War. Here's more info.

So how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Write, write, write!

Trying to fight my yetzer cynique...

2011-05-10T10:03:00.000-07:00

In Jewish tradition, we learn about the yetzer tov and the yetzer ra, the good inclination and the bad inclination. Both are locked in constant conflict, each trying to dictate our actions and reactions. I submit there's a third inclination, the yetzer cynique, or cynical inclination. I must admit I have more trouble not giving in to my yetzer cynique than I do resisting my yetzer ra (I'm basically a good person, after all, however boring that sounds).

So imagine the difficulty I have containing the old yetzer cynique when I read this:

MEDIA ADVISORY

Launch of Major New Food and Ag Policy Initiative

Long-Term Initiative Funded By Eight Leading Foundations

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 27, 2011 – On May 3, eight of the world’s leading foundations will launch a major new initiative designed to impact food and agriculture policies on a global scale.

The world will have more than 9 billion people to feed by 2050, with two-thirds of them living in cities, putting greater demands on our agricultural and environmental resources. Current food and agriculture policies cannot meet the needs of this future without drastic consequences for our environment, health and rural communities.

This initiative is funded by Ford Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and The Walton Family Foundation.

Please join us for a press conference detailing how the initiative will engage on food and agriculture policy on May 3, 2011 at 10 a.m. at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Who: Deborah Atwood, Executive Director

Dan Glickman, Co-Chair, former USDA Secretary under President Bill Clinton

Gary Hirshberg, Co-Chair, President and “CE-Yo” of Stonyfield Farm

Jim Moseley, Co-Chair, former USDA deputy secretary under President George W. Bush

Emmy Simmons, Co-Chair, former assistant administrator for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade at U.S. AID

Todd Barker, Partner, Meridian Institute

What: Launch of a new initiative to transform food and agriculture policies

Where: The Fourth Estate, National Press Club

529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor, Washington, D.C.

When: Tuesday May 3, 2011, 10 a.m. – 11 a.m.

It sounds good, doesn't it? But I can't help thinking this is just one more instance of the haves taking over food production from the have nots. Given the USDA's conflicted mission: to promote US agribusiness and to safeguard our food supply (guess which one wins out 95% of the time), I question the integrity of any current or former USDA official. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation I've already written about, and their love affair with technology over sustainable socially just solutions (particularly with regard to their advocating GMO crops, esp. in Africa). So much as I'd like to think Bill and Melinda are doing a good thing here, I have serious doubts.

Anyone else's yetzer cynique sending off warning bells?

Eric Schlosser on food elitism

2011-05-10T09:38:00.000-07:00

Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, wrote this in the Washington Post a few days ago. He makes great arguments against the idea, promoted by agribusiness, that advocating for sustainable food systems is inherently elitist, and makes them well.

Here's my favorite part:

"Calling these efforts [by Alice Waters, Jamie Oliver and Michelle Obama, among others] elitist renders the word meaningless. The wealthy will always eat well. It is the poor and working people who need a new, sustainable food system more than anyone else. They live in the most polluted neighborhoods. They are exposed to the worst toxic chemicals on the job. They are sold the unhealthiest foods and can least afford the medical problems that result.

A food system based on poverty and exploitation will never be sustainable."

Worth reading.

Tell President Obama No GMO beets and alfalfa

2011-05-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

Please join me in telling the Obama administration it's time to halt the sale and planting of Monsanto's Roundup Ready GMO alfalfa and sugar beets until proper independent peer reviewed science can be conducted.

On January 17, 2011, Dr. Don Huber, an internationally-recognized plant pathologist sent a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack attempting to warn him of a serious problem facing U.S. agriculture. This letter, marked “CONFIDENTIAL and URGENT”, warned Secretary Vilsack of a previously unknown pathogen, “new to science” that “should be treated as an emergency”.

Huber’s letter discussed the new pathogen in the most dire terms, saying that the findings of this top team of scientists had already discovered a link between the new pathogen and the steady rise of plant diseases in Roundup Ready corn and soybean crops and in association with high rates of infertility and spontaneous abortions of animal livestock.
Huber warned Secretary Vilsack that the discovery of the new pathogen was “highly sensitive information that could result in a collapse of U.S. soy and corn export markets and significant disruption of domestic food and feed supplies.”

Unfortunately, less than 3 weeks later, the Obama administration approved 2 new Roundup Ready GMO crops, which are set to be planted this spring.

Please join me in this urgent action telling President Obama and Secretary Vilsack to halt the sale and planting of Monsanto's Roundup Ready GMO alfalfa and sugar beet seeds until more independent scientific testing can be conducted to ensure the safety of our food supply.

Watch the interview with Dr. Huber and learn about the science at Food Democracy Now! -
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/sign/dr_hubers_warning/

Thanks!

Tell the EPA to ban cancer-causing strawberry pesticides

2011-04-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

A message from the good folks at Earthjustice:

Earlier this year, officials in California approved a cancer-causing pesticide that's chiefly used in strawberry fields. They did this over the objections of scientists who warned that use of the chemical would make farmworkers and people in nearby communities sick. The chemical—methyl iodide—is so toxic that scientists in labs use it in very tiny amounts to create cancer cells.

It's already being used in Florida; if California growers start applying it to strawberry fields later this year, millions of pounds of this toxic gas could end up being released straight into our air and water.

But we have a chance to make this right. Officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are signaling they want to take a closer look at whether or not to ban this pesticide.They've given the public until April 25 to weigh in with their comments. We need to let them know that methyl iodide is much too dangerous to be used in our fields and farms.

Here's a link to post your comments to the EPA:

https://secure.earthjustice.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1123>

End the Monsanto monoply

2011-03-27T20:06:00.000-07:00

Last year, the Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Agriculture held a series of five hearings investigating anti-competitive practices in the food and agricultural sectors. The hearings were historic and gave a vital opportunity for hundreds of thousands of America’s farmers, agricultural workers and citizens to call for an end to agribusiness’ excessive monopoly power.

Last December, Food Democracy Now! delivered more than 200,000 citizen comments to Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney with your demands to break up the worst abusers.

Nowhere are these abuses more prevalent than in the extreme market share enjoyed by the seed and chemical company Monsanto, which has a virtual stranglehold on seed supplies in crucial sectors that has severely limited farmers' choice in what seeds they can buy. Monsanto’s control of the seed market is so high that 93% of soybeans, 82% of corn, 93% of cotton and 95% of sugarbeets grown in the U.S. contain Monsanto's patented genes.

Not only is this level of market share allowing Monsanto to jack prices up on farmers because there’s no competition, but it also threatens our democracy as Monsanto uses their corporate power to influence our regulatory agencies, like the USDA, EPA and FDA, as well as Congress and the White House.

It’s time to fight back, and the only way to do that is to make sure that the Department of Justice continues their investigation into Monsanto’s anti-competitive business practices.

Click on the link below to automatically add your name to the letter asking for the Department of Justice to break up Monsanto. It’s time to stand up for farmers and our democracy. Tell the Department of Justice that it’s time to do what’s right!

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/357?akid=303.92252.psrbEl&t=7

Over the past two months, the biotech industry has gotten their way in Washington with the approval of three new genetically modified (GMO) crops. First GMO alfalfa, then GMO sugar beets and most recently an industrial GMO corn for ethanol.

The common link among these crops is that they face virtually no oversight once they're planted and their genes are allowed to contaminate neighboring fields and our food. These multinational corporations are not required to submit rigorous, independent peer reviewed studies prior to approval, but are allowed to submit their own corporate science to the federal government for approval.

To date, no petitions for approval of GMO crops have been denied. The only way to reign in the abuse that determines the quality and safety of the food that you and your family consume is to put pressure on the Department of Justice is to make sure that they follow through on their investigations into Monsanto’s abusive practices.

Last year seven state attorneys general launched an investigation into whether or not Monsanto “has abused its market power to lock out competitors and raise prices” while the DOJ is investigating anti-competitive practices with Monsanto’s marketing abuses in limiting access to seeds for farmers and competitors through manipulative contracts.

It’s time to end Monsanto’s abuses. Tell the DOJ to do their job and complete this investigation. It’s clear that abuses of farmer’s rights are taking place and the U.S. government needs to stand up to them now!

Click on the link below to automatically add your name to the letter calling for the DOJ to protect our democracy and break up Monsanto!

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/357?akid=303.92252.psrbEl&t=9

Legal matters

2011-03-22T09:30:00.000-07:00

Last week, the Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against the USDA challenging the USDA's decision to allow the planting of GM alfalfa. You can read more about it in their joint press release here.

In other legal news, the Iowa state house last week approved a bill that would criminalize secret videotaping of activities on farms, specifically related to the mistreatment of animals. While the ag industry is crying victim here, saying they're being held hostage by PETA and other animal rights groups, the larger issue is that investigations into farm and animal conditions would be illegal, if video was used. The bill could also apply to crops, not just animals. In other words, the makers of Food, Inc., could, under this bill, have been arrested if they'd filmed in Iowa and this bill had been law at the time the film was made. Florida is reportedly also considering a similar bill. The Iowa Senate has yet to weigh in.

If you're an ag company and you're supporting a bill that would make it illegal to video your crops, exactly what are you hiding? Yes, that is a somewhat rhetorical question, but I ask it because I don't personally know a single farmer who'd object to anyone filming their farming practices.

Other thoughts? I'd share more of mine but am posting this while I should be writing program notes. Back to Bartók.

Why the Gates Foundation worries me

2011-03-10T10:37:00.000-08:00

When it comes to philanthropy, few can top Bill Gates. He's donated so much of his money to various educational and health-related causes over the years that he's no longer the richest man in America. Good for him. Seriously. I think it's great that he is using his wealth to better the planet. What worries me is the credo his foundation seems to operate under, which could be summed up as technology uberalis. The foundation believes in using high-tech solutions for things like eliminating malaria in Africa, or, more recently, advocating for industrial farming practices in developing nations in order to produce enough food to feed everyone.

The Gates Foundation, along with the Rockefeller Foundation, wants to launch a new Green Revolution in Africa. While the Green Revolution had measurable benefits in a number of countries, its success relied primarily on industrial farming methods: use of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and chemical fertilizers to boost gain.

Enter the UN report I posted a few days ago, which is referenced again in this report from Humanosphere, that proves low-tech farming is both more productive and better for farmers and land.

Still not convinced? Even if you think industrial methods are the best way to increase yields, all those pesticides, fungicides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers do enormous damage to the soil, rendering it less fertile over time. The runoff from all these industrial inputs contaminates water supplies. Most important, industrial farming relies on petroleum to create all those (say it with me) pesticides, fungicides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers.

Uh, Mr. Gates? Petroleum is not a renewable resource (I don't have time to address the global warming implications of using a petroleum-based farming system here, but you can fill in the blanks yourself).

What worries me is that America's biggest philanthropist is so seduced by the lure of technology that he's willing to ignore or downplay low-tech methods that have a proven track record of success. I get it that low-tech isn't sexy. But if you really want to feed more people, and low-tech methods work better and are healthier for the farmers, the soil, the water, the people who eat the food, and, ultimately, the planet, you need to wean yourself away from the glitz and glamour of high-tech.

Gates has a penchant for reaching for the brass ring high-tech solution. In 2005 I read an article in The New Yorker about the Gates' Foundation work to eliminate malaria in Africa. Turns out one of the most effective methods is mosquito nets (very low-tech, and they've been around for thousands of years in one form or another). But Gates wanted to focus his efforts on finding a vaccine, because that would allow him to use science and high-tech to further his philanthropic agenda.

I'm not questioning Gates' sincere desire to feed the hungry, or make malaria a thing of the past. I do question, and object to, his slavish devotion to The Next Big Thing, the cool new technology, the sexy science, while ignoring proven low-tech, low-cost methods. I get that Gates, one of the best-known representatives of high-tech, wants to use the technology that made his fortune to right some of the world's biggest wrongs. His motivations are admirable, but it's his money that will make the difference, not necessarily the technology he champions. After all, what's important here is feeding people, or curing malaria. Let's not lose sight of that.

UN Report endorses eco-organic farming practices

2011-03-08T09:37:00.000-08:00

Organic farming advocates have been saying this for years, and places like the Rodale Instistute have been proving it with numerous field trials. The Union of Concerned Scientists published a report two years ago called "Failure to Yield," which also debunks the empty promises made by advocates of GMO crops and industrial farming (chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides), that industrial farming methods are the only way we can feed the world. And yet, despite these and many other studies, The Economist last week published an article which concluded, "although the concerns of the critics of modern agriculture may be understandable, the reaction against intensive farming is a luxury of the rich. Traditional and organic farming could feed Europeans and Americans well. It cannot feed the world."

More on the Economist article in an upcoming post, but I just have to point out how well it pushes the divide-and-conquer button. It's all well and good for rich first-worlders to play with organic methods, but it's totally unfair of those same pampered well fed folks to advocate for organics in the developing world, because organic methods can't feed millions. There's a lot of research this article conveniently leaves out, but I'll get to that in a later post. I just need to fume for a moment, 'cause I hate it when good writers use their powers for evil. Okay. Done.

Meanwhile, back to the good news:

Now that the UN is advocating "ecological methods," I hope that will give farmers in other countries a tool for combatting the reach of global chemical and seed companies, which are trying to force governments in the developing world to use their products, rather than allow the farmers in these countries to farm in a way that protects and enriches the nutrient value of their soil.

Here's a companion article that supports the U.N. report, by Anna Lappé, author of Diet for a Hot Planet. (Yes, for all you baby-boomers, Anna is the daughter of Frances Moore Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet, which was such a central part of the the 1970s environmental movement).

Here's the UN news release:

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

8 March 2011

Eco-Farming Can Double Food Production in 10 Years, says new UN report

GENEVA, 8 March 2011 – Small-scale farmers can double food production within 10 years in critical regions by using ecological methods, a new UN report* shows. Based on an extensive review of the recent scientific literature, the study calls for a fundamental shift towards agroecology as a way to boost food production and improve the situation of the poorest.

“To feed 9 billion people in 2050, we urgently need to adopt the most efficient farming techniques available,” says Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and author of the report. “Today’s scientific evidence demonstrates that agroecological methods outperform the use of chemical fertilizers in boosting food production where the hungry live -- especially in unfavorable environments.”

Agroecology applies ecological science to the design of agricultural systems that can help put an end to food crises and address climate-change and poverty challenges. It enhances soils productivity and protects the crops against pests by relying on the natural environment such as beneficial trees, plants, animals and insects. “To date, agroecological projects have shown an average crop yield increase of 80% in 57 developing countries, with an average increase of 116% for all African projects,” De Schutter says. “Recent projects conducted in 20 African countries demonstrated a doubling of crop yields over a period of 3-10 years.”

“Conventional farming relies on expensive inputs, fuels climate change and is not resilient to climatic shocks. It simply is not the best choice anymore today,” De Schutter stresses. “A large segment of the scientific community now acknowledges the positive impacts of agroecology on food production, poverty alleviation and climate change mitigation -- and this this is what is needed in a world of limited resources. Malawi, a country that launched a massivechemical fertilizer subsidy program a few years ago, is now implementing agroecology, benefiting more than 1.3 million of the poorest people, with maize yields increasing from 1 ton/ha to 2-3 tons/ha.”

The report also points out that projects in Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh recorded up to 92% reduction in insecticide use for rice, leading to important savings for poor farmers. “Knowledge came to replace pesticides and fertilizers. This was a winning bet, and comparable results abound in other African, Asian and Latin American countries,” the independent expert notes. “The approach is also gaining ground in developed countries such as United States, Germany or France,” he said. “However, despite its impressive potential in realizing the right to food for all, agroecology is still insufficiently backed by ambitious public policies and consequently hardly goes beyond the experimental stage.”

The report identifies a dozen of measures that States should implement to scale up agroecological practices. “Agroecology is a knowledge-intensive approach. It requires public policies supporting agricultural research and participative extension services,” De Schutter says. “States and donors have a key role to play here. Private companies will not invest time and money in practices that cannot be rewarded by patents and which don’t open markets for chemical products or improved seeds.”

The Special Rapporteur on the right to food also urges States to support small-scale farmer’s organizations, which demonstrated a great ability to disseminate the best agroecological practices among their members. “Strengthening social organization proves to be as impactful as distributing fertilizers. Small-scale farmers and scientists can create innovative practices when they partner”, De Schutter explains. “We won’t solve hunger and stop climate change with industrial farming on large plantations. The solution lies in supporting small-scale farmers’ knowledge and experimentation, and in raising incomes of smallholders so as to contribute to rural development.”

“If key stakeholders support the measures identified in the report, we can see a doubling of food production within 5 to 10 years in some regions where the hungry live,” De Schutter says. “Whether or not we will succeed this transition will depend on our ability to learn faster from recent innovations. We need to go fast if we want to avoid repeated food and climate disasters in the 21st century.”

(*) The report “Agro-ecology and the right to food” was presented today before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. This document is available in English, French, Spanish, Chinese and Russian at: www.srfood.org and http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/food/annual.htm

Olivier De Schutter was appointed the Special Rapporteur on the right to food in May 2008 by the United Nations Human Rights Council. He is independent from any government or organization.

For more information on the mandate and work of the Special Rapporteur, visit: www.srfood.org orhttp://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/food/index.htm

Political activism in 30 seconds

2011-03-03T10:00:00.000-08:00

Here are three petitions you can sign, from Change.org: one protests Monsanto's stranglehold on the USDA, one protests GMO crops, and the third demands that President Obama protect our right to buy and eat GMO-free foods.

I know that the Center for Food Safety plans to sue to stop the planting of GMO alfalfa (and GMO sugar beets), but have not heard if they have actually filed their suit yet. You can click on the link to their site here for more info. They also have many more petitions to sign.

Adding your name to a petition, as I once said in an earlier post, is a pretty spineless form of activism, but it's better than nothing. If I hear of more direct ways to get involved, I'll post them.

FYI, these petitions have widgets that you can embed on your Facebook page or blog; at the bottom of each one there's a "Get Widget" link for the embed code. Feel free to pass them along.

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »

Buzzkill

2011-03-02T23:23:00.000-08:00

Save the bees, via this message from Slow Food:

Bees are dying off around the world - and it's getting serious. Without them, much of the food we eat would disappear, and the impact on the US economy and food prices would be severe.

Scientists are suggesting agricultural pesticides are one of the main culprits, so you can tell the Environmental Protection Agency it's time to solve the mystery of what's killing our buzz (and food chain).

The EPA is under increasing pressure from the pesticide companies to do nothing about it, so please click on the link below to let the EPA know you're concerned about bee populations.

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5986/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5833

Seriously??!!?

2011-03-01T17:52:00.000-08:00

Republicans have discontinued several green programs in the US Capitol. This article in Mother Jones details the rollbacks, including the return of the styrofoam coffee cup.

It's hard to know how to respond to such idiocy.

And for all you politicos out there...

2011-02-23T15:16:00.000-08:00

who don't think GMO food issues are a burning political issue, read this editorial, from today's Christian Science Monitor.

10 Things You Can Do About GMOs in the Food System

2011-02-22T17:49:00.000-08:00

This is a great site I recently discovered, with lots of useful info on a wide spectrum of food issues. Gail Nickel-Kailing, Editor/Co-Publisher of GoodFoodWorld, recently sent out this info in GFW's weekly newsletter:

10 Things You Can Do About GMOs in the Food System

(BTW, #8 on her list should read, "To date, the best way to ensure that you are not consuming GMOs is to buy organic food. The National Organic Program does not allows any GMOs in fresh or processed foods.")

Michael Pollan GMO redux

2011-02-21T11:47:00.000-08:00

WNYC interviews Michael Pollan on the latest decisions by the USDA to approve GMO alfalfa, sugar beets and a new kind of GMO corn. As always, Pollan manages to lay open the heart of a very complex issue. His point about the lack of independent research on GMO foods is particularly germane, imo.

Check out the interview here, then scroll down the site to "Dish on GMOs." You can stream it from the site or download it to listen to at your leisure. If you're still confused about why GMOs are such a big problem, or you're trying to convince someone who's skeptical about the brouhaha, Pollan's remarks will provide useful talking/argument points. Plus he's the most articulate spokesperson we have.

Cooking for both ends of the life cycle

2011-02-20T12:29:00.000-08:00

Last week, I had the unique privilege of making soup for two sets of friends on either end of the life cycle. One couple is celebrating the birth of their first child, and the other couple lost their mother/mother-in-law.

As I was cooking my lentils and chopping my garlic and steaming my carrots and celery, I thought about what it means to feed people at these profound, powerful moments in their lives. I didn't come up with any great pearls of wisdom about it. I'm glad to be able to feed my friends when they need it, either because they are celebrating a new life or mourning the loss of a parent. I suppose, in some small way, the food I made provides them some of the energy they need, whether they're changing a diaper or sitting shiva. And so, in some infinitesimal but nonetheless important way, feeding people at times like these allows me to participate in their moment, to nourish them with my love and support, as well as my lentil soup. And really, when I think about it, that is no small thing.

Update: Obama Goes Rogue on GMOs

2011-02-17T18:45:00.000-08:00

In the past 3 weeks, the Obama administration has chosen to approve three biotech crops: Roundup Ready genetically modified (GMO) alfalfa, Roundup Ready genetically modified (GMO) sugar beets and a new industrial biotech corn for ethanol production. Obama's recent approval of them will allow them to be planted as early as this spring, despite widespread acknowledgement that these crops are certain to contaminate both conventional and organic farmers non-GMO crops. Only last Friday, the USDA's approval of the new industrial biotech corn for ethanol production occurred despite massive outcry from major food companies who know that it will contaminate and possibly ruin the food they sell to you everyday.

Here's a brief recap of the Obama administration's appalling cave to Monsanto and the biotech industry in just the last 3 weeks.

1. Monsanto’s Roundup Ready GMO alfalfa - Jan. 27th, 2011 - Over the objections of hundreds of thousands of American citizens, the White House approved this unnecessary crop - despite the fact that 93% of alfalfa hay grown in the U.S. does not use herbicides and that genetic contamination with conventional, non-GMO and organic alfalfa threatens the livelihoods of tens of thousands of family farmers and the food choices of more than 50 million organic consumers.²

2. Monsanto’s Roundup Ready GMO sugar beets - Feb. 4, 2011 - Defying a court order to complete a proper Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) the USDA announced that it is granting a “partial” approval of Monsanto’s GMO sugar beets, giving farmers and seed dealers the clear signal that final approval is right around the corner. By the time the EIS is expected to be complete, sometime in May, farmers will have already started planting their crop for the next year since the USDA says it gave the green light to avert a “sugar shortage” in the U.S. Sugar beets comprise some 54% of U.S. sugar found in everything from soda, other beverages, candy bars³

3. Syngenta’s Enogen Alpha-Amylase Corn for Ethanol - Feb 11, 2011 - This new GMO amylase corn product contains an enzyme that allegedly allows an increase in ethanol production with a reduction of natural gas and water usage, thus saving ethanol plants money. While caving to the biotech and ethanol industries, the Obama administration basically ignored the concerns of leading food manufacturers who fear that if this new industrial corn cross-pollinates with or is accidentally mixed with corn used to make food products, it could lead to crumbly corn chips, soggy cereal and a host of other food processing disasters.⁴

Despite being comprised of more than 43 powerful companies such as General Mills, ConAgra Mills, ADM Milling and Quaker Oats, the Obama administration completely dismissed the concerns of the North American Miller’s Association, comprised of some of the largest food manufacturers in U.S. in order to favor the biotech and ethanol corporate agenda, both industries with checkered pasts and products of dubious benefit.

Please take a moment to tell President Obama that you’re outraged over his decision to approve a crop technology that has not lived up to its marketing promises, increasingly harms farmer profitability and has potential negative human health and environmental consequences.

These decisions are a devastating blow to our democracy and the basic rights of farmers to choose how they want to grow food on their land and the rights of consumers who increasingly choose organic and sustainably grown food for its positive health and environmental impacts.

Let them know that you care about organic integrity by following this link from Food Democracy Now!, then please pass this on. Please join me in telling President Obama that it's time to stand up to Monsanto and reject these GMO crops today!

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/sign/update_obama_goes_rogue_on_gmos/?referring_akid=298.92252.fsnfig&source=mailto

Living in a food desert

2011-02-17T18:27:00.000-08:00

I don't imagine most people reading my blog have ever experienced anything like what Olga Perez describes in this NPR story (fortunately, neither have I), which is all the more reason why you should read/listen to it.

What he said before

2011-02-17T18:23:00.000-08:00

Somehow I missed posting this when it first came out two weeks ago, but here 'tis, more wisdom from Marc Bittman.

What he said

2011-02-09T16:25:00.000-08:00

Marc Bittman says "ERF," and I agree. What's ERF? Read more here:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/is-eat-real-food-unthinkable/?ref=opinion&nl=opinion&emc=tya1

As for who's Mark Bittman and why should you care what he says? Well, I'll leave that up to you to decide.

This is really disgusting

2011-02-07T18:32:00.000-08:00

But hardly surprising...
Onward Corporate Food Crusaders!
This is the part that really gets me:

The question is, why should the private sector invest in global hunger?
"The Next Billions: Business Strategies to Enhance Food Values Chains and Empower the Poor" financed by (you guessed it) Bill Gates comes right out and says it:

Globally, 3.7 billion people are largely excluded from formal markets. This group, earning US$8 a day or less, comprises the 'base of the pyramid' (BOP) in terms of economic levels. With an annual income of US$2.3 trillion a year that has grown at 8% in recent years, this market spends US$1.3 trillion a year on food. Around 70% of the BOP (2.5 billion people) depends on the food value chain for their incomes, either directly as small scale farmers and farm laborers, or indirectly as small scale entrepreneurs... The BOP represents a fast-growing consumer market.

That's right, folks. We're not concerned about feeding poor people because they're hungry. We want to feed the poor because then they'll buy more of our stuff and become yet another demographic group we can exploit.

Like I said, hardly surprising. This is corporate business mentality at its essence, in all its sickening, appalling rapaciousness. Anyone got a bucket I can throw up in?

Lists and the people who love them, part deux

2011-01-21T11:51:00.000-08:00

I couldn't have timed this better if I were actually in control of what comes over the news wires into my little cyber-space. Here's a list from Anthony Tommasini, classical music critic of the New York Times, of his picks for the ten greatest (dead) classical composers.

As might be expected, all the usual suspects are there. As also might be expected, there are no female composers listed or even discussed. Making lists like this is so reductive as to be a pretty pointless exercise, imo. And yet we continue to make these lists, and people continue to read them and talk about them. So they must serve some purpose. Anyone care to discuss?

I am majorly procrastinating making my own list of music for this week's Yiddish Hour, which is going to be an all-classical extravaganza featuring interviews with composer David Schiff and Linda Magee, Executive Director of Chamber Music Northwest; I'll be playing music from Chamber Music Northwest's upcoming Feb. 2 concert and I'll be talking to Schiff about the world premiere of his newest work, Borscht Belt Follies. Tune in here on Sunday 1/23 at 10am PST; just click on the "listen now" button. Or if you're in Portland, you can listen to us on the air at 90.7fm.

But about those lists...talk amongst yourselves (and leave me a comment too; I really wanna know)

The 50 Most Powerful People in Food

2011-01-20T15:23:00.000-08:00

Lists and the people who love to make them. What does it mean to be on this list, or not on it? Discuss.

Also, should Steve Jobs (yes, Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple) be on it, just because his company is named after a fruit? Actually, he was chosen for other reasons. Check them out here.

Better food is coming to a college campus near you

2011-01-20T11:30:00.000-08:00

Check this out.

How to find hope in five minutes

2011-01-15T18:26:00.000-08:00

Watch this:

Twoo nub, part deux

2010-08-04T14:47:00.000-07:00

Great news. Of course, nothing is decided permanently, and I fear what will happen when this gets to the Supremes, but it's good news nonetheless.

Carrot love

2010-08-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

In the words of William Goldman, author of The Princess Bride, "It's twoo nub!"

Shameless self-promotion

2010-07-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to my latest post on The Jew and the Carrot. Enjoy!

Garden anxiety

2010-07-14T19:04:00.000-07:00

This time last year we were eating cukes, zukes, patty pans and possibly even beans out of our garden. This year, plants are still tiny, half my seeds didn't germinate, and I only just now noticed we have fruit on our tomato plants (nothing ripe yet, of course).

I find I've been experiencing actual anxiety over our garden this year. We had a long, cold wet spring (it rained on the 4th of July, something almost unheard of here), and so far summer seems to be progressing in fits and starts, weather-wise. Everything is late, and some things haven't come up at all, despite repeated sowings (I don't think we'll have any onions this year, which bums me out).

We planted a lot: potatoes of various varieties and colors, basil (not doing well yet, but I'm hopeful), carrots and greens in pots this year (they seem to do better than when I planted them in the ground, plus slug control is easier in pots), tomatoes, cukes, zukes, patty pans, delicata squashes, asparagus beans and bush beans. Oh yes, and strawberries, which we planted as a ground cover and hope will produce a bumper crop next year. So lots of food potential, but no actual food yet.

The poor growing season is definitely impacting our grocery budget, as I'm having to buy veggies and fruits that in other years we'd be eating out of the yard by now. But it's not the financial burden that occupies my thoughts. What's interesting to me is how my mindset has completely altered. I watch the weather reports now with the eye of a grower, and when I hear about hot weather coming I'm happy, even though I hate heat (dry Oregon heat notwithstanding). I track the sunlight and note where it falls in the yard each day. My hatred for the non-native hemlock on my neighbor's property grows, as it continually shades out parts of my yard that were formerly sunny. My thoughts are constantly wandering out to my garden, as I take breaks from my symphony work.

I'm just a nice Jewish girl who grew up in Los Angeles. I never gave any thought to weather or rainfall or soil temps. I mean, there is no weather to speak of in LA; it's always 72 and hazy. I was an urban kid in most senses, although I loved being outside and felt an affinity for forests and oceans from the time I could walk.

Now, although I continue to live in a city, I've become much more attuned to the vagaries of growing. My thoughts and mindset are that of a food producer, of someone whose fortunes are, albeit in a small personal way, tied to the land and the seasonal cycles. I like the change, and I love how growing food has given me a personal stake in, and attachment to, the patch of dirt in the city in the state on the planet I call home.

Random stuff from Folklife

2010-06-02T08:27:00.000-07:00

Best picture:

Best name for a business (could double as an indie band): Mutual Fish. My friend A tells me it's a great fish market.

Pictures and video from NW Folklife

2010-06-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

Got back yesterday from NW Folklife. Fabulous as always. Am too tired to write much about it, but here are pics:

The Bobs, whom I first discovered as a college student, lo, these many (many) years ago in Santa Cruz. Musically interesting and lyrically silly a capella vocal group.

A closeup of Amy "Bob" Engelhardt's skirt. Thought it was cool.

Two points if you can identify this instrument.

Seattle Chinese Orchestra, the only traditional Chinese orchestra in the Pacific Northwest.

Classical Indian dance. This was one of my favorite things at Folklife this year; it just transported me. The video doesn't really convey the experience, of course. If you've seen this kind of dance before, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, get yourself to a classical (not Bollywood) Indian dance performance ASAP. It's amazing.

We saw Tango Argentino (caught their show last year) and once again I got to lust after the fabulous shoes the women wear. I have flat feet and use custom-made orthotics, so I'll never be able to wear this kind of shoe, which is possibly why I think they're so sexy. If you're interested, do a google search for tango shoes and you'll see what I mean, but you can't appreciate their full effect unless you see the women actually dancing in them. Yowza. Here's a video (this isn't the group I saw, but you'll get the idea):

There are about a gazillion tango videos on YouTube, if you wanna see more. It's pretty hypnotic stuff.

We got to see friends we (regretfully) only see once a year, and managed not to melt (it rained most of the weekend). I satisfied my yearly urge to contradance, and my sweetie got to play drums with Yeshivas Goldensteyn, otherwise known as the University of Washington Klezmer Ensemble. Here's a link to sweetie's blog entry if you wanna know more, complete with pics.

Gotta go collapse. Am SOOO tired, but also basking in the post-Folklife euphoric glow...

Michael's done it again

2010-05-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

Michael Pollan's assessment of the current state of the food movement, through five book reviews, in the June 10 New York Review of Books. As always, he manages to gather all the strands of this complex and often conflicted socio-political movement and present them with eloquence. Really worth reading.

Interfaith Hillel Sandwich

2010-03-31T11:32:00.000-07:00

Check this out. Chag sameach!

Shameless self-promotion for a good cause

2010-01-04T09:37:00.000-08:00

So if you want to know about the Hazon Food Conference I attended last week in more detail, there are a number of posts on The Jew and the Carrot, which you can check out here. I wanted to mention specifically one article in the JTA online service, which quotes yours truly about food justice at the conference.

I plan to blog about my personal experiences at the food conference later this week, so stay tuned.

Still here

2009-12-31T13:37:00.000-08:00

I'm violating blog netiquette by noting how long it's been since I've posted, but there it is. It's been a long time since I last posted and if you are reading this without my prompting you to look at my blog, thanks for sticking with me during my dry spell. I'll get back to more semi-regular posts in the new year.

Too much to update in detail but here's a thumbnail sketch of my life since my last post:

Got a mostly full-time temp job for six weeks in October that ran through early December (hence the lack of posting-no time). Thanks to my friend E. for hiring me and giving me the opportunity to earn money rather than filing for unemployment. Wish the job could have lasted longer; it was lovely to not worry about money for awhile.

Just got back from California where I spent just over a week attending the Hazon Food Conference and afterwards visited friends and family. More on the conference in a subsequent post.

Started doing yoga again after a 20+ year hiatus. Feels good, on many levels. Sweetie is doing it with me. She finds it challenging, but is intrigued by it too.

Here's hoping you all have a better year, and a better decade, in every sense of the word.

Sukkot thoughts

2009-10-11T13:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to my latest post on The Jew and the Carrot.

Today I am the answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything

2009-10-08T09:15:00.001-07:00

Two points to anyone who gets this.

A toiznt dank!

2009-10-07T19:08:00.000-07:00

Thank you to everyone who called in to KBOO to support the Yiddish Hour this past Sunday during our membership drive. We more than doubled our goal for the show; in fact, we brought in more money than any other show that aired on Sunday.

A thousand thanks.

BTW, if you didn't get a chance to become a member, you can go to KBOO's website and join online, or tune in this coming Sunday for another special show hosted by my friend Ed Kraus. I'll be on the air as well, in a support capacity.

Special Yiddish Hour this Sunday

2009-09-30T17:26:00.000-07:00

For those of you who celebrated the holidays, a sweet and healthy new year.

This Sunday, Oct. 4, I hope you can tune in to a special edition of the Yiddish Hour at 10am on KBOO 90.7fm (for those of you outside the Portland area, you can stream the program live online at http://kboo.fm). I'll be featuring performances from "Happy Hour with Sholom Aleichem," stories by the incomparable SA read by actors from the Jewish Theatre Collaborative, directed by Sacha Reich. Sacha herself will be on the air for a special story about Sukkot, and will fill us in on the JTC's upcoming programs for Jewish Book Month in November and December.

This program is part of KBOO's fall membership drive. I know, I know, nobody wants to listen to a radio show during a membership drive, with its constant demand that you, the audience, step up and support the station. Believe me, as a 20+ year non-commercial radio listener and member, I get it. I'd be happy to never be subjected to another membership drive again, either as a listener or a host.

Except...

Without audience support during the membership drive, programs like the Yiddish Hour and radio stations like KBOO will cease to exist. That is not hyberbole, just an inconvenient truth (sorry, Al). These are desperate times for grass-roots-run organizations like KBOO, which gets more than 80% of its funding directly from listeners who become members. I know that many of you tune in regularly, whether or not I am hosting, to hear the music and interviews we present on the Yiddish Hour every week. I know that you value the unique programming we offer on the Yiddish Hour. A lot of you have gone out of your way to tell me how much you enjoy listening to the show, and that you have made us "destination radio" on Sunday mornings. That means a lot to me, and to my co-hosts. Without KBOO, a whole lot of unique programs will disappear, including the Yiddish Hour.

Here's the thing: what we offer on the Yiddish Hour can't be found anywhere else in NW Oregon. If that matters to you, please make a point of calling us during the drive on Sunday and becoming a member of KBOO. The specific amount is unimportant; it could be as little as $5 or as much as your personal financial situation allows. What matters is that you show your support for the show and the station. If you're in Portland, you can call us at (503) 232-8818; if you're outside of the Portland metro area, you can call us toll-free at 1-877-500-5266. We'd prefer you to call if you can, because the ringing phones really give a boost to those of us at the station, not to mention all the volunteers who are waiting to take your call, but you can also become a member online at https://kboo.fm/membershipform. If you join online, please mention the Yiddish Hour in the comments section.

For those of you who have issues with some of KBOO's other programs, I understand and share your concerns. My co-host, Ed Kraus, is working on a new show about Jewish news and current events to offer different perspectives about Jewish issues than what is presently available on KBOO. I encourage you to listen to his debut show, Shalom Portland, and let the Program Director, Chris Merrick, know that you'd like it to stay on the air. You can contact him at chrism_8032@yahoo.com.

In addition, I think it's important to remember that KBOO is a community radio station, which means it presents all kinds of programs with all kinds of viewpoints. I don't agree with or even like a fair amount of what I hear on KBOO, but I look at it this way: Bernice Johnson Reagon, co-founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, once said, with regard to building coalitions, "If you're comfortable with everyone in your coalition, then your coalition isn't big enough." The same is true of community. You don't have to agree with everything KBOO puts out on the air; I certainly don't. But I don't need to agree with or even like everyone in my community to support and value the uniqueness of that community.

Thanks for your help; hope you'll join me on Sunday.

Best news I've heard today

2009-09-30T17:13:00.000-07:00

The Oregon Symphony has done something totally unexpected. I must say, after reading so many awful stories about symphonies in dire straits, this is welcome news, and not just 'cause I write for them.

White House Farmer's Market opens

2009-09-21T10:49:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Michelle Obama for spearheading this effort. She rocks my food world. Check out the video:

Here's a great post, with pics, from Sam Fromartz' Chewswise.

I can't think of a better way to mark the new year, myself. Shana tovah.

Did you know...?

2009-09-15T15:10:00.000-07:00

Whodathunk it? It's a start. For a good explanation of what this means, check out Sam Fromartz' post here.

Michael Pollan's latest

2009-09-15T15:07:00.000-07:00

If you haven't already seen it, here's Michael Pollan's latest article in the NYTimes from Sept. 10, about the necessity to address the American diet when talking about reforming health care. As always, well written and worth reading.

Tikkun Olam/Pikuach nefesh on Shabbat

2009-09-05T11:59:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know, as Jews we're supposed to rest from our weekday labors on Shabbat, even including the practice of tikkun olam, repairing the world. Jews who observe Shabbat more traditionally than I do tend to refrain from social action on Shabbat. However, there is a ruling in Talmudic law (isn't there always?) that allows us to sidestep Shabbat prohibitions against typical activist activities, called pikuach nefesh, saving a life (soul). Here's a more complete explanation of the concept.

So why am I violating Shabbat by posting on my blog today? I should explain that my personal level of observance allows me to use my computer on Shabbat, but I do try to create a separation between how I spend my time on Saturdays and what I do the rest of the week. It's my way of making Shabbat different and special, even if I don't adhere to the traditional prohibitions on work.

So what's such a big deal that I choose not to wait til tomorrow to write about it? Taking down Monsanto. You think I'm being funny? I'm as serious as a heart attack. IMO, Monsanto is currently one of the most dangerous companies operating on the planet, for innumerable reasons. Here are some:

• The folks at Monsanto gifted us with Agent Orange, aspartame (otherwise known as NutraSweet) PCBs and bovine growth hormone, among other products.

• Monsanto controls 90% of the soy, 65% of the corn, and 70% of the cotton market, and has a rapidly growing presence in the fruit and vegetable market. That's just in North America. Their influence in developing nations like India is even greater (check out this 2006 article in the New York Times about Indian farmer suicides for a direct link to the need for pikuach nefesh). India Together, an independent online news outlet based in India, reports that there have been 182,936 farmer suicides in that country since 1997. Other news outlets and blogs, including The Daily Mail and The Ethicurian, attribute these suicides directly to debt incurred when the farmers were urged by the Indian government to plant GM crops, like those engineered by Monsanto. (In the interests of balance, here's a different take on this issue in a study cited in The Guardian, which suggests the farmer suicides are a result of lack of financial support rather than GM crops specifically.)

• Percy Schmeiser is a farmer from Saskatchewan, whose canola fields were contaminated with Monsanto's genetically engineered Round-Up Ready Canola by pollen blown by the wind from a nearby farm. Monsanto said it didn't matter how the contamination took place, and demanded Schmeiser pay their Technology Fee (the fee farmers must pay to grow Monsanto's genetically engineered products). Monsanto outlined their request for patent infringement seeking damages totaling $400,000. Click here to learn more about Schmeiser's case.

• In order to be productive, the entire line of Monsanto's seeds essentially require the use of Roundup herbicide, forcing all of their customers to purchase it. Roundup is owned by Monsanto.

• In the middle of a recession, while farmers' incomes are dropping, Monsanto recently announced a 42% price hike on its most popular genetically modified seeds. In many areas of the country, seed distributors carry only Monsanto's GM seeds.

Can you spell M-O-N-O-P-O-L-Y, boys and girls?

CREDO Action is calling for a federal investigation of Monsanto for violation of anti-trust and monopoly laws. They're circulating a petition to be sent to President Obama's antitrust chief Christine Varney. If you're interested, you can sign it here.

I'm the first to admit an online petition is a relatively spineless form of activism, but it's a start. Shabbat shalom.

Seriously?!!!??

2009-09-03T15:20:00.000-07:00

This is a bit far afield from my usual blog topics of late, but it's so absurd I just had to post about it. Except I'm not actually posting about it, I'm just posting the article 'cause I'm late and procrastinating again.

My favorite quote: "The fact that people want to keep their kids from hearing the President of the United States encourage them to do well in school shows a true level of ignorance."

Seriously??! Am I really a citizen of this country? Hey Canada, can I move in? Pretty please? I'll be your best friend...

Meanwhile...

2009-09-01T08:39:00.000-07:00

This is what's happening in India to farmers there. This situation is ongoing and largely unknown to the food communities here in the U.S. Raj Patel's book, Stuffed and Starved, is a scathing critique of the global industrial food system and its catastrophic consequences for farmers and eaters around the world. If you care about food and justice, it's really worth reading.

I find it not at all ironic, but really sad, that this follows my previous post. It just highlights how broken our food system really is. For every feel-good story like the White House garden, there are so many others, like this one, that go largely untold. While I believe the United States is experiencing a food revolution, a radical rethinking and re-educating about what we eat, I also believe that the rest of the world will continue to suffer under the kinds of conditions detailed in Patel's book for a long time to come. So it goes...

Michelle is my hero

2009-08-31T18:32:00.000-07:00

Michelle Obama and White House Chief Chef Sam Kass tell the story of the White House vegetable garden in this 7-minute video. I guarantee it will make you smile.

Farmer Obama

2009-08-28T12:34:00.001-07:00

President Obama says he wants to set up a farmer's market just outside the White House to sell produce from Michelle's garden and give local farmers a venue for selling their food. How cool is that?

Here's the actual transcript of a question from recent press conference with the President, and his response.

Harvesting angst

2009-08-25T09:51:00.000-07:00

This is something most every vegetable gardener can relate to, I imagine. Right around now is the time when everything ripens at once. I find myself feeling vaguely oppressed by all the bounty in my garden, even while I revel in it. I recently joined a social network called Homegrown.org, and posted a comment that talked about feeling rich when I contemplate my abundant tomatoes (sorry, folks back east).

When it comes to food, I do feel rich. I feel lucky to have land to grow food on. We had friends over for dinner twice last weekend and I loved feeding them meals that were more than 60% homegrown. But I also feel kinda crazed when I look at everything ripening at once. I can only eat so much in a day, and my sweetie can eat even less, owing to her Crohn's disease, which limits her veggie consumption. I've been donating extra food to a local pantry, but what I really want is to stretch the calendar, extend the growing season, so that I can enjoy all this bounty for more than just 6 weeks a year.

Last week Portland Tuv Ha'Aretz hosted a canning and jam making workshop, so I learned the basics of food preservation, and that's one way to extend my harvest. But there's nothing like the taste of a freshly-picked tomato or cucumber. Of course, by the time I start hankering for fresh tomatoes in December and January, I'll be eating the beets and parsnips I planted earlier this month...

Does sustainable food stack up?

2009-08-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

Heard this earlier today on NPR's Talk of the Nation. An interesting discussion, worth listening to.

Got milk?

2009-08-20T18:18:00.000-07:00

Listen to this.

There was a hot time in the old town last night

2009-08-14T05:22:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to hear Joel Salatin, of Polyface Farms in Virginia, speak at a benefit for the Hollywood Farmer's Market. Salatin is featured in Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and more recently in the film Food, Inc. (BTW, if you haven't seen the film, go, this minute, and take everyone you know, even if you have to drag them kicking and screaming).

Salatin is a self-described "Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist-farmer," which gives you some idea of his philosophies and approaches to, well, just about everything. His talk was based on food safety and how governmental approaches to it are not only not making our food safer, but are also marginalizing and criminalizing small farmers who raise animals on a non-industrial scale. In other words, farmers who raise pasture-fed beef, pork and poultry, in numbers that are appropriate to what their land can handle, and whose animals are slaughtered locally (sometimes on the farms themselves) and as humanely as possible.

I didn't go to Salatin's lecture expecting to learn anything new; I've read several of his books, including Everything I Want to Do is Illegal, and I also know a bit about this subject from other sources and from my work in the food sustainability world. I went to the lecture to experience Salatin himself (I also hoped it might be a potential networking opportunity, which didn't turn out to be the case, but I did bump into a couple folks I knew). And he was definitely worth the price of admission.

Salatin is, among other things, an entertaining writer, with a love of language that pays homage to his Southern roots. In person he is even more so. I felt like I was in a tent camp revival meeting gettin' some old time religion. He exhorted, he roared, his energy couldn't be contained on the small stage, he overwhelmed the levels on the rather feeble amplification system he was using (that's the radio geek in me coming out, that I would notice such a technical thing). It was a pleasure to hear him trace back the history of our attitudes towards food safety, going back to Pasteur and germ theory (Salatin's redux on Pasteur's approach is that germs are out to get us, so we have to destroy them before they destroy us).

Instead, as Salatin pointed out, we should be focussing our energies on creating environments where these killer bacteria, such as salmonella, E-coli, campylobacter, listeria, etc. etc. can't thrive. In other words, outlaw feedlots and other concentrated animal raising operations that feed animals things they were never supposed to eat and that make them sick (corn, in the case of cows), force animals to live hip deep in their own feces, with no access to the outside (in the case of factory poultry) and no ability to move about freely. If the USDA outlawed these kinds of operations, the proliferation and spread of these dangerous germs would be drastically reduced and our food would be measurably safer. That, along with the myriad ways government bureaucracy sets up obstacles for small farmers who want to raise animals sustainably and in a manner designed for their maximum health (not to mention ours), was the gist of Salatin's talk.

I didn't agree with everything Salatin said. He's a true libertarian as far as his contempt for anything governmental is concerned, and he believes the free market and capitalism are a sufficient corrective to industrial food abuses (He cited Upton Sinclair's The Jungle as an example; after it was published in 1906, sales of meat products dropped by 50%). I'm way too much of a socialist to ever buy into that point of view, and my contempt for capitalism is almost as deep as Salatin's is for government. But it was great to sit in a room with like-minded folks (many of them young farmers) and share a sense of purpose, to renew our individual and collective commitments to raising, buying. eating and advocating for good (and I mean in every sense of the word) food. And it was balm to my spirit to hear Salatin describe that commitment as "noble and righteous." Amen to that.

Tomato porn

2009-08-14T05:15:00.000-07:00

I harvested our first heirloom tomato on Wednesday, a colossal and supremely ugly Brandywine. Of course, as every heirloom grower knows, the uglier the tomato, the better it tastes. I don't think the pictures do it justice, in terms of how large it actually was (I served it to friends in a salad for dinner, and two days later am still finishing it), but here you go:

Needless to say, I hope, it was fantastic. I feel for all those folks in the NE whose tomatoes have been destroyed by blight this summer. I hope you can glean some vicarious enjoyment from this one.

Garden report

2009-08-01T12:47:00.000-07:00

Today we sowed beets and parsnips, in anticipation of autumn and winter. It's hard to look ahead to cooler temps right now, as we continue into our second week of 90+ degree days (earlier this week it was 106, an almost unheard-of temperature for Portland. It was so hot that I went to bed in a soaking wet shirt and turned the fan on; it was the only way to stay cool enough to sleep). Those of you who think it rains all the time here, think again.

It is HOT. And DRY. Our greens, what's left of them, are pretty wilted and bitter, despite my efforts to water regularly. They just can't stand these extreme temps. Our tomatoes, on the other hand, are loving life right now, and will be sweeter and generally more flavorful when they ripen. We're already eating our Sungolds (we came back from our annual pilgrimage to the Metolius River on July 10 to find a couple already ripe even then), and today we harvested our first Early Girls, which I will have for lunch, along with some of our basil. All I need is to learn how to make homemade mozzarella (I'm told it's not hard) and I can serve a Caprese salad (see below) made entirely of homegrown and homemade stuff.

We have begun harvesting our summer squashes and cukes. A few days ago I took about 10lbs. of pattypans and zukes to the local emergency food pantry; we're at the point where every day yields a few more, and we can't eat them fast enough to keep up. The cukes are deliciously crisp and cold and crunchy. I have resolved to keep up with the watering (I do it all by hand, although I dream of a drip irrigation system someday) so they stay sweet and juicy.

Here are some garden pics:

Sweetie made the bean trellis from some dead bike frames and wheels. The day after she put it up she got up early (around 5:30) and found some idiot trying to steal the frame (one of them used to be a high end desirable bike before it cracked), and she told him he was an idiot for trying to steal a dead frame. He slunk off, humiliated. It was a great moment.

What's doing well this year:

The Copra onions we planted are coming along well, and I look forward to having a great supply for storage this winter.

I put the basil in our main patch (you can see it in front of one of our tomatoes), where it gets full sun all day, instead of in the herb beds next to the house, where it only got half-day sun. It's flourishing.

Tomatoes

Summer squashes

Cukes

Potatoes (we assume, since we haven't dug them up yet, but the plants look good). We planted blue and Yukon golds this year.

What's not doing so well:

The acorn squash we put in doesn't seem to be doing well; it blossoms, but then the blossoms just dry up and die without producing any squashes. I planted this with the intention of giving all the squashes to a food pantry, so it's not a huge loss for me personally, but I'm puzzled by it. Any ideas?

The bush beans we put in were devoured by slugs, and the second round of bush beans we put in to replace the first wave didn't fare much better. The scarlet runners also got eaten a bit, but managed to recover somewhat, although we have fewer plants than we'd hoped.

All you gardeners out there, if you have suggestions for future forays into winter squash and bush beans, please send them along. If you are growing your own, hope your garden is faring well this summer.

Portland Tuv Ha'Aretz Jewish Garden Bike Tour

2009-07-26T11:07:00.001-07:00

Sorry to be such an absent blogger lately; there's no real reason for it, and I'll try to get back to posting soon.

Here's a post I wrote for The Jew and the Carrot. Enjoy!

Is the food movment elitist, and if so, does it matter?

2009-06-16T13:23:00.000-07:00

My interest in food and my work within the food movement began, as passions do, at the personal level. I love eating and cooking and growing food, and I wanted to learn more about what went into the food I ate. Simple as that.

Over the past couple of years, I've done a lot of self-educating, in the form of reading, research and writing about food. I've also shared what I've learned with friends and family, who, to my pleasant surprise, seem interested in the topic, even if not to the total-immersion-extent that I am. The universality of this issue is clear, since we all need to eat.

Which brings me to the title of this post. The local/organic/sustainable food movement has been accused, with some justification, of being elitist. If you google the words “food movement elitism,” you’ll find a lot of attacks on Alice Waters, widely considered by many to be the founder of the local food movement in this country. Alice Waters is an easy target, and much of what she advocates can be construed as elitist, in the sense that buying and eating local fresh food is too expensive for a number of people to afford. For this reason, many are left out of the food movement, not because they are indifferent or unaware, but simply because they can't afford to participate in it.

However, there is another, seldom-acknowledged, form of elitism at work, specifically the assumptions that many within the food movement hold about people outside it. I recently had discussions with several friends and acquaintances, including a local farmer, about why low-income people don’t eat local, fresh, organic food. I was surprised at their responses (I’d characterize these folks as liberal progressives). One person said that if people just stopped buying soda they could afford fruits and vegetables instead. Another said that if people took the money they spent on drugs and alcohol and used it for food, they could afford to eat properly (he was apparently equating the term “low-income” with “substance abuser,” something that really surprised me). Several people commented, in rather disparaging ways, that if people understood more about nutrition and health they’d make better choices. Not one of the people I spoke with talked about the cost of high-quality food as a barrier to eating better. As a low-income person myself, I was amazed at these responses.

We must re-examine our own assumptions about who eats good food and why or why not. This kind of intellectual or moral elitism is equally damaging to the food movement, because it creates an “us” vs. “them” dichotomy. In fact, cost is the primary barrier to eating well. Another issue for many people is lack of access, in terms of geographical proximity, to a farmer’s market or full-service grocery store. If you don’t have a car, getting to the best food can be a challenge. A third issue for some people is lack of knowledge about how to cook fresh foods.

Is the food movement elitist? If by elitist you mean does it exclude people, then yes. Does that mean we should dismiss it, or disparage it? No. If all we do is participate in the local food movement ourselves, then we are being elitist, but if we make our personal participation a springboard for other activities that allow more people to have access to good local fresh food, then we are combating that elitism. Again, Alice Waters is a good exemplar. She is best known as the founder of the restaurant Chez Panisse in the Bay Area, and for her decades of advocating for greater availability of fresh local food. However, she is also the founder of an innovative school lunch program in the Berkeley school district, which serves a wide variety of children of various income levels and ethnicities. This program, Edible Schoolyard, provides fresh local foods in the school cafeteria, and also includes a school garden and cooking classes, in which kids learn to grow and cook the foods they eat. She’s also expanded the Edible Schoolyard program to the national level, in the hopes of putting edible gardens in public schools nationwide.

Another common target of the charge of elitism is Slow Food, a movement founded twenty years ago by Carlo Petrini in Italy. At its best, Slow Food’s events and efforts promote the best of the local food movement: fresh local food and appreciation for regional cuisine and unique food cultures. However, Slow Food has too often been what Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved, a scathing critique of the global food system and its impact on cultures around the world, characterizes as “a bunch of tossers who sit around talking about olive oil.” Here’s an interesting discussion of Slow Food’s attempts to re-brand itself as a socially conscious movement.

In a recent article in New Voices, a Jewish student magazine, Michael Pollan, the food movement’s most eloquent advocate, acknowledges this elitism. “A lot of important movements begin as elitism—women’s suffrage, abolition, environmentalism,” he says. “And then, hopefully, they filter down and they don’t remain elite.” In an interview with Rebekah Denn in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Pollan added, “If the food movement is still elitist in 20 years, that is an indictment, that will be an indictment. But it's a very new movement and I don't think we should write it off because right now it's elitist.”

Pollan's historical overview of social change may be correct, and his assessment that the food movement in its current state is elitist is true, but we cannot simply sit back and wait for food equality to trickle down to the majority of the population. Access to high quality food should be a universal right, not a privilege. As Jews we are charged with the obligation of tikkun olam, repairing the world. If we have the means, it’s great to support local fresh food production where we live, through membership in a CSA, buying at farmer’s markets, or growing our own. However, it's not enough for us to merely participate in the food movement ourselves. We also need to channel our efforts to include everyone, particularly poor folks. Although the systemic issues that contribute to these inequities may not be solved except on a national level, as individuals, there are a number of things we can do right now within our own communities to insure everyone has access to high-quality fresh local food.

Some ideas:

1) Volunteer with an organization that helps low-income people grow their own food. In Portland we have a non-profit, Growing Gardens, which provides food security to low-income folks by teaching them how to grow their own fruits and vegetables. In several local community food assessments published here, a majority of the participants surveyed said they’d be interested in a home garden program.

2) Grow extra food in your own garden and donate it to a local food pantry. This is an idea that's been gaining national attention, particularly over the past year or so, and it’s an easy way to help bridge the gap. For an example of one such program, check out the Oregon Food Bank's Plant-A-Row program.

3) If you don’t garden but have a yard, consider renting your yard out to an urban farmer. In Portland we have a terrific program, City Garden Farms, a CSA that sells vegetables from a collection of urban vegetable plots and vacant lots scattered around Portland. If you're interesting in farming but don't have access to land, try doing something similar in your community.

4) Find out if your local farmer's market accepts food stamps and WIC vouchers. If they don't, work with them to include these programs and increase access to locally produced foods. In Portland, EBT (electronic benefits transfer) machines are provided to farmer’s markets at no cost, but these machines require a landline. For markets without access to a building with a landline, wireless machines are available, but they can cost up to $800. While many farmers’ markets in Portland have EBT machines, not all do. If this is true in your community, consider finding ways to fund the machines, either through allocation of city funds, or grant programs.

Our olam is in dire need of some tikkun, and where better to start than by making sure everyone can eat the best food available?

Slow Food Portland talks about Jewish food movement

2009-05-21T09:47:00.000-07:00

Just got sent this post from a friend who saw it on the Slow Food Portland blog. Glad to see food folks in Portland, who are largely secular, are taking notice of trends in the Jewish food movement. It is interesting, however, that the post doesn't mention Tuv Ha'Aretz generally or Portland Tuv Ha'Aretz even though it does mention Hazon. Go figure.

Tune in this Sunday

2009-05-08T16:05:00.000-07:00

I'll be hosting a special Mother's Day edition of the Yiddish Hour this Sunday (actually, the fact that it's Mother's Day is incidental), featuring a Catskills musical retrospective-Mickey Katz, the Barry Sisters, etc. etc. You definitely won't hear this stuff anywhere else on the radio, so I hope you can join me and tune in.

Blooming

2009-04-21T09:32:00.000-07:00

Sweetie took these pictures last week and I meant to post them several days ago; spring changes happen so quickly these may soon be out of date. This first one was a pleasant surprise; this tulip used to be a solitary flower, but over the winter it split and now there are two. I'm pretty ignorant about bulbs (we inherited all our bulbs when we bought the house), so this was news to me.

Here's one of our rhododendrons. They usually bloom in sequence: first the white, then this magenta one, then the two purples. I guess the long hard winter delayed the white one, and the magenta doesn't usually bloom til Mother's Day.

Our lilac is just now bursting into bloom outside our bedroom window. If it weren't for our seasonal allergies to tree pollen, Sweetie and I would revel wholeheartedly in all this beauty. As it is, we revel as best we can, through our allergy-reddened eyes and in between sneezes. More pics soon.

Rename this blog!

2009-04-17T12:03:00.000-07:00

I have thought for some time now that the name of my blog is rather bland and doesn't really reflect either my personality, sense of humor or, most importantly, what it is I blog about. Because my blog posts cover a wide and often unrelated series of subjects (food, food policy, gardening, music, radio, Jewish topics, general politics and occasional personal musings), I've had a hard time coming up with a good title that captures the essence of all that.

So I'm throwing this open to all of you, dear readers. Please submit your suggestions for a better title for my blog. The winner will be chosen at my discretion and will receive my everlasting gratitude, and (if you're local), a big hug.

UN Discusses the Right to Food & Food Sovereignty

2009-04-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

This is very cool, and long overdue, imo.

From the Community Food Security Coalition's latest email digest:

"The President of the UN General Assembly held a discussion on the Global Food Crisis and the Right to Food on April 6, 2009. The first panel, moderated by Brother Dave Andrews, entitled Policy Choices and the Right to Food in the Context of the Global Food Crisis, featured: Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food for the United Nations; Professor Sanjay Reddy; Professor Daniel De La Torre Ugarte; and Congressman Jim McGovern. The second panel, Answering to the Poor: Right to Food and Sustainable Models of Agriculture, was moderated by Barbara Ekwall and featured: Henri Saragih; Molly Anderson (CFSC Board President); Dr. Judi Wakhungu; and Miguel Altieri.

"Farmer voices were presented by Henry Saragih, General Coordinator of La Via Campesina, who discussed the state and international community’s obligation to protect the right to food, food sovereignty and the right to sustainable food production. Professor De Schutter made two presentations the following day in Washington D.C. to help increase policymakers and non-governmental organizations’ understanding of these issues.
Read statements from all panelists.

Jews, Food & Ethics show now online

2009-04-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

I am happy to announce that my radio show, Jews, Food and Ethics is now available online. When you visit the Yiddish Hour page at KBOO, click on the "Audio" tab at the top. Scroll down to the second audio file and you'll find it. You can stream it from the site or download it to listen to at your convenience.

If you know anyone you think would be interested in hearing this show, please forward them the link to the Yiddish Hour site, rather than sending the audio file itself. For one thing, the file is quite large and would take awhile to send by itself, but more importantly, this show is part of the Yiddish Hour and I'd like people who may not have visited our site before to check it out.

I look forward to hearing your feedback. I've never done a show of this type before, and I must say, after conceiving, planning and recording it over a period of nine months or so, I feel like I got as close as I ever will to experiencing the miracle of birth. The best part of it is no stretch marks and no 2am feedings!

Farewell to all that

2009-04-09T10:48:00.000-07:00

Twenty years ago yesterday I gave my senior voice recital at UC Santa Cruz. I haven't considered myself a classical singer in any serious sense of the words in some time, and I haven't sung classical music, as either an amateur or paid professional, in over a decade, so in the rush of getting ready for Pesach I had forgotten about what I did on April 8, 1989.

My senior recital was a major milestone in my life then. It represented more than a year's worth of preparation, and also signaled the end of my college career. My parents, maternal grandfather and brother came from far and wide to hear me sing. My dear friend A, a pianist I had met the summer before at a music festival in Switzerland, and who had first worked on some of my music with me, drove all the way down from Portland to Santa Cruz (alone, I might add, no one to share the drive with), a distance of almost 600 miles and probably 10-12 hours, to lend her support (and cookie-baking expertise for the reception afterwards).

Here's the program:

Three Ladino Songs

Anonymous

Scalerica de Or

Ya Viene el Cativo

Cuando el Rey Nimrod

Three Lieder

Gustav Mahler (1862-1911)

Hans und Grethe (1886)

Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht? (1892)

Das irdische Leben (1893)

Fetes Galantes I (1892)

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

En Sourdine

Clair de Lune

Fantoches

- I N T E R M I S S I O N -

Yosha's Morning Song

Malcolm Goldstein (b. 1936)

Six from 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson

Aaron Copland (b. 1900)

3. Why do they shut me out of Heaven?

5. Heart, we will forget him

8. When they come back

9. I felt a funeral in my brain

10. I've heard an organ talk sometimes

12. The Chariot

Music nerds among you might notice Aaron Copland's date does not include his death, because he was still alive in 1989. (He died a year later).

I find it interesting that I included the following quotes from the Talmud in my concert booklet. Interesting because I wasn't particularly connected to Judaism during my college years, and I was certainly no Talmud scholar. But here they are in the program, and I couldn't tell you why or where I came across them:

"Nature is saturated with melody; heaven and earth are full of song."

"There are places that open only to music."

My life as a classical music performer has been over, (with no regrets on my part, let me add) for some time. I realized sometime during grad school that for me singing classical music was akin to trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I don't have the voice for it, nor the temperament. I never wanted to be a full-time singer anyway; I definitely didn't have the personality one needs to withstand all the rejection, to live only for your voice. I was never that singleminded. Like the address of my blog suggests, I have always been something of a Renaissance woman when it comes to the breadth of my interests and passions, and I was never willing to sacrifice that to acquire the focus I'd have needed if I were serious about making it as a singer.

Singing classical music was something that brought me joy for a time, but it also brought a lot of baggage and the growing realization that I was better suited, both vocally and temperamentally, to the folk and ethnic music I'd grown up with. Since I never wanted a professional vocal career, this realization was not a huge blow; actually, it was something of a relief: "Oh, right, I don't have to sing this stuff; I can sing the music I really connect with instead."

But there are moments when I miss all the years I spent as a professional chorister, my occasional solo gigs (I was always more of a collaborative than a solo singer), my life as a paid church musician and soloist in a pre-Vatican II choir that sight-read Gregorian chant in the old block notation every week (I probably know more about the structure of the Catholic Mass than many Catholics, and certainly more of the liturgy, something I find amusing since I'm just a nice Jewish girl from L.A.)

Moments of nostalgia, yes, but not many of them. What I really miss now is a regular venue for singing the sort of stuff I really connect with: folk music, Yiddish theatre, Yiddish folk songs. I fronted a klezmer band for about eight years, but haven't found another group to make music with (in all fairness, musicmaking has not been my priority, either). I've been so focused on jobhunting and networking in the sustainable food community that I've given short shrift to music. The closest thing I have to being a performer these days is hosting the Yiddish Hour, and while that is performance of a kind, it is not the same thing.

Perhaps I'll find the time and energy to bring performance back into my life, as spring unfolds.

President Obama hosts 2nd night seder in the White House

2009-04-09T10:38:00.000-07:00

This is a historic moment, especially because the event is designed not for major campaign donors to rub elbows with the President, but simply as a celebration for White House staffers and some of the Obamas' close friends. According to the post on Politico, there are only 20 guests, so it's really more like a seder you'd attend in your family's home, or one you'd host yourself, rather than some big gala Event.

I'd love to see Obama's face when he eats the maror, I have to admit...

Jews, Food and Ethics radio show-an update

2009-04-05T09:55:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all of you who tuned in to listen to my Jews, Food and Ethics show on KBOO last weekend. I appreciate the support, particularly as this was my first-ever foray into a public affairs/interview-type show. I think, all things considered, that it went fairly well. I certainly learned a lot about how to do this kind of radio, and will put it to good use next time.

If you weren't able to catch the show live, it will be available on the Yiddish Hour site. I have to edit the show a bit before I can put it online, but because Passover is next week, I probably won't be able to get it up on our site before next weekend. However, I do want to assure you that the show will be available to download, and I'll post here when it's ready.

If you're interested in more information about any of the topics I discussed on the show, you can find links to my guests, the eco-kashrut movement and the Hekhsher Tzedek Initiative at our site. Click on the Playlists tab at the top of the page and you'll find a list of the music I played, along with the aforementioned links.

If you're Jewish, chag sameach. If not, happy spring.

How NOT to make yourself crazy (and malnourished) during Pesach

2009-04-03T09:53:00.000-07:00

For many Ashkenazic Jews, figuring out what is okay to eat during Pesach is to negotiate a minefield of anxiety and judgment.

One of my particular pet peeves centers around the issue of kitniyot, or legumes. Halachically speaking (according to Jewish law), there is nothing wrong with eating kitniyot, which includes beans, lentils and rice. However, many Ashkenazic Jews do not eat these foods because, about 600 years ago, Ashkenazic rabbis declared them forbidden. Their rationale goes something like this: legumes swell when they are cooked, making them too similar to leavened foods like bread, therefore we must ban them just to be extra careful we don't violate the Biblical laws of Pesach kashrut, which, for those of you unfamiliar with the food prohibitions associated with Passover, are even more stringent than regular kashrut. (For a great article about how some Orthodox Jews are reclaiming their right to eat kitniyot, check this out.)

I was raised in an assimilated Reform household, and the only Passover food restrictions we observed were not to eat bread and bread products for eight days. I had no idea there were so many other restrictions associated with Pesach until I became an adult, and I adjusted my observance to a certain extent.

For many Jews, what (or what not) to eat during Pesach is as much a matter of minhag (custom) as it is a desire to follow Biblical law, or be "a good Jew," however you define that. Hence the reality that many Jews deny themselves the protein nourishment and the delicious flavors of beans and lentils, (not to mention rice), because they are operating from a place of minhag, a mindset that says, "This is how I've always done it, this is how my mother did it, it's not for me to change that, and if I did I'd be consumed with guilt."

Minhag can be a wonderful thing, providing continuity in one's personal observance of and connection with many Jewish practices. In this instance, however, I'm going to risk offending some of my Jewish friends when I say that refusing to eat legumes, and freaking out about having legumes even be present at any seder you may attend (most folks I know do potluck seders these days; it's just too much work to expect the host to do it all), is misguided and detracts from the whole point of Pesach, which is to celebrate our liberation from slavery in the company of friends and family.

I find myself going back to something Rabbi Arthur Waskow said in an interview I did with him for my "Jews, Food and Ethics" show on KBOO last Sunday. He made the point that changes to Jewish practice over time tend to be adopted based on whether they are life-affirming. In other words, does eating kitniyot enhance your enjoyment of Pesach? Does it decrease your anxiety about whether you are "doing it right?" If so, eating kitniyot is a life-affirming practice and should become part of your observance if you want it to be. Waskow also made a good analogy to feminist Judaism here: he said that when feminist Jewish practices first began surfacing, in the 1970s, many reacted by saying, "Not with my Torah, you don't!" But over time, it was found that including women's participation in rituals that had traditionally been limited to men was found to be life-affirming (I tend to think of it as simply more fair and practical, but I'll yield to Waskow's definition), so the practices were adopted. Today, even in some Orthodox communities, women's roles have expanded, and women's full participation is now de facto in the other branches of Judaism.

I respect the minhag of following minhag. But I also know that Judaism is an interpretive tradition that has evolved over the centuries, and so I believe it is equally Jewish to question or change one's minhag when it becomes burdensome, (especially when it is not based on halachah), and diminishes, rather than enhances, the joy of celebrating the Jewish holidays.

Chag sameach.

Important info about current food safety legislation

2009-04-03T09:39:00.000-07:00

You may or may not be aware of several food safety bills that are making their way through Congress at present. There's a terrific post from The Ethicurian today that lays it all out. It's a bit long, but worth the read.

Jews and food

2009-04-03T09:32:00.000-07:00

Check this out.

A gitn shabbes.

Pesach prep

2009-03-29T17:25:00.000-07:00

Take a break from hunting down that last crumb of chametz and check this out:

Special Yiddish Hour show on Jews, food and ethics

2009-03-25T22:49:00.000-07:00

Hope you all can join me this Sunday, March 29, at 10am PDT for a special edition of the Yiddish Hour on KBOO, 90.7 fm. This week I'll be focusing on the intersection of Jews, food and ethics, just in time for Passover. I'll discuss the concepts of eco-kashrut with Rabbi Arthur Waskow, founder of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia, PA, and I'll also be speaking with Rabbi Morris Allen, founder of the Hechsher Tzedek Initiative. In addition, I'll be interviewing two local Jewish organic farmers, Shari Raider of Sauvie Island Organics and Lyle Stanley of Gee Creek Farm.

Eco-kashrut is a growing movement in Jewish circles to re-interpret the Jewish dietary laws of kashrut (kosher). Eco-kashrut expands on traditional kosher practice by incorporating the ethics of sustainable growing systems, as well as humane, healthy animal production and fair treatment for farm workers and meat processors.

The Hechsher Tzedek Initiative has created the Magen Tzedek (Righteous Shield), a new ethical certification seal. Kosher food companies who successfully apply for ethical certification from the Hekhsher Tzedek commission will display the Magen Tzedek seal on their products.

Please tell anyone you think would be interested in a discussion of food, values and ethics from a Jewish perspective. Out of town folks can stream the show live online for free at www.kboo.fm.

If you can't listen to the show this Sunday, it will be available for downloading at the Yiddish Hour site at KBOO (http://kboo.fm/PortlandYiddishHour). We can't usually do this because there are copyright issues pertaining to music that prevent us from podcasting the show, but since this show is original material, we can post it on our site.

Thanks! Hope you can tune in this Sunday.

Tuv Ha'Aretz

2009-03-24T06:55:00.000-07:00

For the past several months I've been involved with the planning committee for Tuv Ha'Aretz, a new Jewish organization in Portland that connects Jews with agriculture, sustainability, food, and Jewish traditions. This week we are officially launching our Web site. I invite all of you in Portland who are interested in these issues to check us out, or even become a member (it's a nominal fee of $5/individual and $10/family). Also, please spread the word about Tuv Ha'Aretz to anyone you know who might be interested.

Here's our official news release. Pardon my self-quoting.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 11, 2009

PORTLAND’S JEWISH COMMUNITY JOINS HAZON’S FAST-GROWING AGRICULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY PROJECT

(Portland, Ore.) — Several Jewish organizations and a local farmer have teamed up with Hazon, a New York-based organization dedicated to a healthier and more sustainable Jewish community, to participate in Hazon’s Tuv Ha’Aretz program. The first Jewish program of its kind, Tuv Ha’Aretz brings synagogues, Jewish community centers and other Jewish organizations together with local farmers to support sustainable agriculture and Jewish environmental education.

Havurah Shalom, Congregation Neveh Shalom, the Mittleman Jewish Community Center and Sauvie Island Organics have come together to create the Portland chapter of Tuv Ha’Aretz, which translates as both “good for the land” and “best of the land.” Portland Tuv Ha’Aretz offers a variety of ways to combine interest in sustainably grown, healthy food with Jewish ethics and values. Among its program offerings, Portland Tuv Ha’Aretz gives people the opportunity to join Sauvie Island Organics’ CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. The CSA provides its members with weekly boxes of freshly picked produce throughout the growing season; in turn, members of the CSA support local, sustainable agriculture through their membership dollars.

“Portland is a major focal point in the sustainable and local food movement,” said Elizabeth Schwartz, a member of the Portland Tuv Ha’Aretz planning committee. “Many members of the Jewish community here already support local CSAs and shop at farmers’ markets, so it makes perfect sense to link Portlanders’ interest in food issues with programs that incorporate Jewish values.” “Judaism is an agricultural religion in its roots,” adds Havurah Shalom’s Education Director, Deborah Eisenbach-Budner, “so it’s really exciting to be able to reclaim some of that.”

Joining Sauvie Island Organics’ CSA is one component of Tuv Ha’Aretz. In addition, members of Portland Tuv Ha’Aretz will be able to choose from a variety of programs, including yearly visits to Sauvie Island Organics farm; movie nights featuring food-oriented films and discussions; weekly newsletters with recipes and short articles about the connections among Judaism, food and agriculture; workshops on growing and eating your own locally raised food; family-oriented hands-on programs for kids and adults; and text study that illuminates the ancient roots of Jews’ relationship to food and how those connections inform our food choices today.

Membership in Portland Tuv Ha’Aretz is open to everyone.

ABOUT TUV HA’ARETZ
Tuv Ha’Aretz is the first Jewish Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) program in North America and includes the first CSA in Israel, with a current total of 32 sites internationally. Founded in 2004, by 2008, Tuv Ha’Aretz had more than 2,700 individual members and raised over $600,000 in membership to support local farms. This year, Portland joins eleven other new Tuv Ha’Aretz chapters across the country and in Israel.

ABOUT HAZON
Hazon, which means “vision,” is a non-profit that works to create a healthier and more sustainable Jewish community and a healthier and more sustainable world. Best known for its series of Jewish Environmental Bike Rides in New York and Israel, Hazon is at the forefront of an emerging national movement at the intersection of food and Jewish life. Hazon’s food work includes Tuv Ha’Aretz; an annual Food Conference for chefs, farmers, educators, and food enthusiasts; Min Ha’Aretz, a day school food curriculum for children and parents on issues of food, health, and Jewish life; Challah for Hunger, whose chapters bake and sell challah to raise awareness of and money for poverty and disaster relief work; and The Jew & The Carrot: a blog about Jews, food and contemporary food issues. For more information on Hazon, visit www.hazon.org.

For more information on Portland Tuv Ha’Aretz, visit www.portlandtuv.org.

Lawns to food in 13 easy steps

2009-03-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

This year Sweetie and I decided to expand our vegetable patch and get rid of more of our lawn at the same time. Much of our lawn is too shady to become a viable vegetable garden, but we marked out a 4' x 16' stretch on the west side of our front walkway. Here's the plot with half the sod removed:

Step 1: Remove the sod and put it aside to use later. With the right shovel (flat-edged and sharpened), this was not as hard as I expected it to be. Glad I didn't have to do the whole lawn, though, because it is tiring.

Step 2: Spread compost over the de-sodded bed.

Step 3: Remove a trench of soil one shovel-length deep and one shovel-length wide (approx. 1 sq. ft). Set aside:

Step 4: Use a forked spade or similar tool (ours is kind of like a pitchfork, but designed for soil) to turn and loosen the soil an additional foot deep:

Step 5: Dig a second trench of soil, moving this dirt onto the trench you just loosened. Then repeat steps 3 & 4 until the whole bed has been dug and loosened (this part took Sweetie and me about 3 hours; we took turns with the shovel and forked spade so as not to wear ourselves out)

Step 6: Fill the last trench with soil from the first trench (wipe brow, straighten aching back, feel great about finishing the most manual part of this labor).

Step 7: Sprinkle lime over the bed. Lime is used to balance the pH in soil. Portland soil tends toward the acidic, but of course it depends on where in the city you are.

Step 8: Remember all that sod we removed? Now we get to replace it, grass side down and roots up:

Step 9: Sheet-mulching. Also known as lasagna mulching, because you make layers of compost, organic material (yard debris), cardboard and straw. First a layer of cardboard, courtesy of Sweetie's bike shop, which is soaked with water:

Step 10: Add a layer of compost or composted manure. Water thoroughly:

Step 11: Add a layer of yard debris; we had lots of dead leaves hiding under our rhodies and in our hedge. This picture only shows about 1/3 of what we eventually piled on. Water thoroughly:

Step 12: Add a layer of straw. We went out to Linnton Feed & Seed, a nifty store on Hwy. 30 north of Portland, to get a bale of straw. A bale of straw, in case you weren't aware, (as I wasn't) is a LOT of straw, at least for gardening purposes, although I'm sure a horse could make short work of it. Water thoroughly:

Step 13: Stand back and enjoy what you've created.

fyi: the bed on the far side of the path is our existing vegetable garden; we created permanent walking paths using extra cardboard and straw, so we don't walk on our vegetable beds and compact the soil:

When we dug our first bed, five years ago, we had no idea what we were doing. We made lots of mistakes but somehow managed to get quite a bit of food to grow that first summer. This year, armed with information (knowledge is power, after all, or so my 4th grade teacher told me), I'm excited to try new veggies and see how much food our little plots (221 sq. ft. total) can grow.

Nothing says spring like...

2009-03-21T22:59:00.000-07:00

Our yard faces north, so this might seem anticlimactic for all you folks with south-facing properties, but our first daffodil is out (finally).

Breaking news

2009-03-18T18:09:00.000-07:00

I just heard on ABC news that there will be a vegetable garden planted on the White House lawn near the fountain. Unfortunately I couldn't find the story on ABC news' web site, and of course it was just a sound bite, no details as to size of garden, what they'll plant, who will tend it, etc.

But still. It's. About. Time. Stay tuned.

Here's some backstory.

UPDATE: Thanks to Itai and Abigail for finding the full story here.

Mid-morning thoughts on listening to Mahler's 4th Symphony

2009-03-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

I've been spending the past few days researching and writing about Mahler's 4th Symphony for an upcoming Oregon Symphony concert (it's in May, in case you want to check it out, or, if you're like some of my friends, avoid it like plague).

I understand those who groan when they hear the name Mahler. He's not an easy listening experience. I would never take someone unfamiliar with classical music to a Mahler concert, for several reasons: the shortest Mahler symphony is just under an hour, so it's a lot of music to throw at neophyte ears; his music is complex, with many layers of meaning and subtext; sometimes it's relentlessly dark or ominous (Mahler was tortured, with justification, about a lot of stuff). Listening to Mahler without knowing much about him or his music can be like taking a first-time museum visitor to a Mark Rothko exhibit. (If you're not familiar with Mark Rothko, here are a couple of his paintings):

You look at the paintings, know you're supposed to "understand" them but don't, feel like an uneducated Philistine and give up. This is also some people's experience with Mahler. I get it.

All of Mahler's symphonies are distinct worlds. Listening to them is to enter into a soundscape, to take a journey without necessarily knowing the final destination. But Mahler's 4th Symphony is a complete departure from what we think of as "the Mahler sound." It's one of his shorter symphonies (still close to an hour, though), and its soundscape, its journey, is an exploration of childhood. Not a post-modernist self-consciously ironic portrait of childhood, either. It's cheerful and sunny and graceful, nostalgic without being maudlin.

If you've noticed the labels for this post, you are probably wondering at this point what the (insert favorite expletive here) Mahler's 4th Symphony has to do with gardening, of all things. The last movement of the symphony is a setting of a poem, originally titled "Heaven is hung with violins." (Mahler renamed it "The Heavenly Life" when he set it to music.) It's a child's concept of Heaven, which is a place full of music, dancing and other innocent pleasures. Heaven also offers a variety of delicious foods. What struck me about the poem is the specificity of the foods mentioned:

"Good greens of all sorts
Grow in the heavenly garden.
Good asparagus, string beans,
And anything we want!...
Good apples, good pears, and good grapes,
And the gardener who permits us everything!"

Kids who love vegetables so much they dream of them in heaven. My kinda place. Of course, I know the poem itself was written by an adult, and perhaps this childish yearning for good asparagus and string beans is simply projected wishful thinking on the author's part, but it still made me smile. Perhaps it only exists in literature, but at least somewhere there are kids who don't balk at eating vegetables.

As for gardening, my sweetie and I are expanding our vegetable patch (more about that in another post), and as I listen to the soprano sing about the delicious veggies I am imagining all the great food we're going to grow this year.

Signs of spring

2009-03-15T08:02:00.001-07:00

catching up

2009-03-10T19:52:00.000-07:00

Okay, I can't possibly post about everything that's been going on, so I'll do it as I can. Top of my list: radio training.

I spent 7 hours at KBOO last weekend attending two different trainings on how to host music shows and also how to host public affairs shows (I'm planning a public affairs-style show on the Yiddish Hour later this month about the eco-kashrut movement; more on that later). I find myself thinking a lot about one thing our intrepid trainer, Marilyn Pittman, kept saying, which is that as hosts our responsibility is to take care of our audience.

What does that mean? Well, several things. For one, it means that you need to give your audience a reason to tune in and a reason to keep listening to you. You need to sound competent and comfortable and conversational but the irony is that you can't actually talk the way you do in regular conversation because THIS IS RADIO. You just have to SOUND like you're having a regular conversation, but there's a whole lotta craft that goes into sounding conversational. It doesn't happen by accident. It takes preparation and warming up and a lot of time. It takes training, and being serious about your work, even if your show is comedy. Maybe even especially if your show is comedy.

Another thing about taking care of the audience is to remember that only 1 in 100 people actually calls a radio show. In other words, the callers are not your audience. Your audience is the other 99 people listening; it's easy to assume the callers represent the audience, but they don't, esp. on public affairs and news shows. At KBOO that's an important point to remember, because people who tend to call KBOO shows think they have a right to rant and ramble simply because it's community radio, and everyone should have a right to weigh in.

So now I'm going to say something that won't go over well in some circles, but this is my blog, so what the hell. Being a host is a privilege. Being on the radio is a privilege. I take that seriously. And I take a lot of time to prepare my show, both because I'm still pretty new at it and also because the audience deserves to hear a quality product. I'm a radio consumer as well as a host; I listen to the radio many hours a day. I'm trying to make the kind of show I'd like to hear (I hope other people like to hear it too).

What isn't going to go over with some folks is my beef with people who don't take their hosting duties that seriously, who pride themselves on not sounding "professional," (and they say it like that, with finger quotes), who ramble and um and er and clearly just rolled out of bed and into the air room. Their shows sound like crap, and even if the content is interesting I find it really annoying, bordering on disrespectful. I'm not referring to anyone in particular, but if you tune into KBOO at any given time, particularly on the weekday public affairs shows, you'll hear what I mean. The audience deserves better. I'm the audience. So are you. If the prime job of the host is to take care of the audience, then the audience for these shoddily-done shows is ill-served indeed.

Watch this space

2009-03-03T13:20:00.000-08:00

Wow, has it been a month since I've posted?

So much to catch up with, hard to know where to start, and I don't have time or energy to do it now, but stay tuned for further details.

Am trying out pictures for my header; this is Yofi, one of our food-obsessed cats. Comments?

Random fact for the day: Today, March 3, 2009, would have been my paternal grandfather's 100th birthday. He died almost 20 years ago, but I still think of him often. He was a mensch and a sweet, quietly heroic man.

Happy birthday, Grandpa Al.

Help for arts organizations in crisis

2009-02-04T19:24:00.000-08:00

Heard about this on NPR today, and also got an email about it from the Music Librarian's Association listserve. I'm glad the Kennedy Center is stepping up to help arts organizations, because in our current economic climate, trying to convince either government or individuals that the arts are worthy of help is next to impossible. I'm sure the Republicans who are stonewalling the stimulus package have raised lots of fuss over the proposal to increase funds for the NEA, for example, even though such increases account for a tiny percentage of the overall funds.

Here are some examples of organizations in crisis:

"Indeed, organizations from almost every part of the country have reported belt-tightening measures or worse. The Baltimore Opera Company filed for bankruptcy, the Seattle Repertory Theatre asked its staff to take two weeks of unpaid leave, and the Orlando Ballet
cut live music for The Nutcracker so the dance troupe wouldn't be reduced." (N.B.-The Oregon Ballet Theatre did likewise this past December, without consulting its music director first, I might add, thereby cutting the orchestra's income by approximately half, and with no notice).

"Organizations that have endowments have seen them cut by one-third," said Kennedy Center president Michael M. Kaiser, who is the author of The Art of the Turnaround: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Arts Organizations. "In cities like Detroit that are so dependent on the auto industry, the money is gone. Foundations are forced to cut back, and individuals have seen their wealth reduced."

Historically, Portland has never had a huge pool of private wealth to draw upon, nor do we have a lot of large Fortune 500 type corporations who have the funds to donate to the arts in sufficient amounts to keep performing organizations afloat during tough times. We may not be Detroit, but we're hurting too, and the fact that our civic image is of progressive tech-savvy people further masks how little public and private money there actually is to keep our arts alive and kicking. Thanks, Kennedy Center, for stepping up to help.

This is encouraging/Same as it ever was

2009-02-03T19:51:00.000-08:00

I've been behind on my posting and keeping up with food issues, but just came across this. Given my (and the food community's) disappointment with the choice of Tom Vilsack as Sec'y of Ag, I'll take any positive signs I can get.

On the other hand, I heard on the news tonight that the owner of Peanut Corporation of America, the company that owns the plant in Georgia responsible for the current salmonella outbreak in peanut products, sits on the Dept. of Ag's Peanut Standards committee. If you are surprised or shocked by this news, you should know this is business as usual for the Dept. of Agriculture, and with Vilsack at the head I doubt we'll be seeing any real changes there anytime soon. Not to mention the interview they did with a former worker at the plant who talked about rats and roaches being dry roasted with the peanuts...

One step forward, two steps back...

Holy cow, batman!

2009-01-25T15:59:00.001-08:00

We went to the Hillsdale Farmer's Market today, our only year-round market, and found this:

It's only right to give the farmers who grew this behemoth their due. The parsnip in question was grown at Ayers Creek Farm, in Gaston, a place Sweetie and I have visited (we learned about bees there at a Slow Food event last summer). Even they were impressed and seemed a little frightened by what they had yanked up out of the ground. One farmer offered to give us adoption papers, to make things official, but we declined, since we are going to slice it up and eat it.

When we got home we measured it and it's 23". Damn.

Before we left for the market, we saw a young Cooper's hawk in our tree, the first one I've seen this season. Their migration period begins in November, and last year we saw several of them, including one who tried to land directly on our birdfeeder in hopes of catching a meal. I'm surprised we haven't seen any before now, but it was worth the wait, esp. since it snowed again last night, so everything was coated in white.

Quite a nature day.

Get the word out

2009-01-22T12:12:00.000-08:00

From the American Farmland Trust. This is "9 in 09," their set of nine policy recommendations to the Obama Administration to, in their words, "help shape a better, brighter, and more secure future for American farms, farmers and consumers."

1. Recognize that agriculture can play a critical role in reducing greenhouse gases.
2. Engage agricultural producers in their efforts to improve water quality.
3. Mitigate against the loss of strategic agricultural resources and stimulate the development of green infrastructure to support the local agricultural economy with any new transportation-related legislation.
4. Support proper implementation of the Farmland Protection Program and its full funding.
5. Protect and promote farm bill regional food system programs.
6. Reduce, even mitigate, the federal government’s role in farmland conversion.
7. Provide timely research to policymakers about impacts of current and projected land use trends on national food and energy security.
8. Create a Farmer Corps to stimulate green jobs in the agricultural economy and encourage a new generation to enter agriculture.
9. Support local food in school cafeterias and provide access to it for low income consumers through Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Acts.

As best I can tell, this is a "get the word out" campaign. A friend told me recently that Michael Pollan had spoken to someone who had spoken to President Obama directly about changing our food national food policy (I know that's, like, serious hearsay, but there it is). When asked if Obama had read Pollan's "Open Letter to the President," published in the New York Times Magazine last October, Obama replied he had, and in response to the question of whether he would do anything to change national food policies, Obama is said to have replied, "Show me the public support for it."

So here's a chance to show your public support and get your friends and family members who care about food (really, that should be everyone you know, 'cause, well, we all gotta eat) to spread the word. One way to do that is go here and tell President Obama what you think of reshaping food policy in this country. We need a critical mass of people who will take the time (really, it's not much time) to express their interest in revamping our broken food system; the more people who do it, the more likely it is President Obama will consider making the changes we as a country so desperately need.

Disclaimer: in my more cynical moods I question whether or not this kind of activism is really effective. On the other hand, it can't hurt.

Inauguration thoughts

2009-01-20T16:36:00.000-08:00

Just two, actually:

1. This is the invocation we should have heard:

2. Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, FREE AT LAST!