Pickling talk and back to CSA

After a 2-week hiatus, it's back to our CSA share tomorrow morning. I'm also recovering from being sick this week (flu-bronchitis-upper respiratory crap that caused me to lose my voice and my energy) and decided to attend a pickling talk at the D.C. historical society tomorrow morning, put on by Ed Bruske, past president of D.C. Urban Gardeners.

Saturday, October 18
10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Urban Gardening Series
Not Your Grandmother's Canning
Historical Society of Washington, DC
801 K St. NW at Mt. Vernon Square
Admission: Free

Here is his blog, The Slow Cook -- if you're curious about pickles (kimchee, Indian cauliflower pickles, eggplant pickle, etc) and can't make his talk, then check out his blog, since he posted many of the recipes that he's been working on in preparation for the talk.

A little restauranted out

Friday: Bukom Cafe in Adams Morgan
Saturday: Havabite eatery in Farifax, Vienna Inn in Vienna (VA)
Sunday: Amphora diner, Vienna (VA)

As much as I love discovering new foods and getting a break from the kitchen once in a while, I'm actually looking forward to getting back to "normal" life (i.e., not eating in restaurants every day while M's parents were visiting). Perfect timing, as it's now September and I still plan to honor my "locavore challenge." The keyword there is "challenge" : I've already "fudged" a bit but to my credit, all three of the things I've ordered in restaurants so far in September have been vegetarian (which was one of my goals):

Havabite: Greek mezze plate (hummus, taramosalata-- okay, so I'm not counting fish -- eggs, tzatziki, pepperoncini, olives, pita, feta, tomatoes and cucumbers
Vienna Inn: Veggie 5-bean "heirloom" (whatever that means in their context) chili with cheese
Amphora: cheese blintzes (with overly cornstarched strawberry "sauce" and sour cream on the side. I also stole bites of M's Eggs Benedict, which I guess is a cheat)

A review of Bukom cafe is in order (highly recommended for some items) but for now I'm going to stop here. My NYC report is also overdue!

Labels aren't everything

A New York Times article on 'cage-free eggs' that my good friend tipped me off to; she grew up on a farm and her mom still raises chickens and sheep back in Minnesota.

Again, a reminder that if you really want to go sustainable/ethical, it's best to not only check the label but know the source. And that's where local is better, for some things at least.

For me, free-range eggs are much better just from a taste standpoint. And obviously ethically they are better as well. It just might not be possible for large producers to supply truly free-range chickens -- because for one thing, that would require more land for them to range on. Multiple, small producers that supply local consumers with truly free-range eggs might be the most sustainable option.

Guidelines

So I think like any other goal I've pursued, whether it's meditation or less negativity, the process benefits by having clear guidelines. I'm posting them here as encouragement for myself more than anything else.

Exceptions:
-olive oil, rice, dried beans, spices, citrus fruits (for now), rice stick and other Asian staples, alcohol (wine and beer)
-Eating in restaurants when we travel (I also want to support local businesses even if not everything they serve on the menu is "local" in a simplistic food miles sense)

Try for:
-Only buying produce from the farmer's market until it closes (with rare exceptions)
-Only eating meat that was grass-fed and sustainably raised
-Doing some canning this fall

Personal goals:
-Make own cheese, yoghurt, and bread (and try to source local milk and flour)
-Grow herbs indoors in the winter
-Grow as many veg as possible in the summer
-Subscribe to a CSA (if I find that it works out financially for us)

Absolutely not:
bananas, factory-farmed meat

Work in Progress...

Another take on food miles

This commentary on the New York Times: Food that Travels Well
sheds more light on the complexity of the food miles issue. The question is, where do you draw the line? When does it become obsession/elitism? As eating locally becomes more and more publicized I could see this becoming similar to the organic movement, where most people will label check, toss the item in the cart and call it good. I'm pretty sure that as I explore this (relatively) new way of thinking about what I'm eating, that I will change my opinion numerous times along the way. Meantime, it's kind of fun to have guidelines to eat by (that don't involve counting calories or carbs; this feels more like a treasure hunt, a delicious challenge!). Instead of bok choy from California, we ate red kale from Maryland tonight. And it actually tasted pretty good with soy sauce (although I'm not sure if M agreed...)

Making choices

I recently finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's memoir, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A year of food life." While I'm not so crazy about the title, and some of her descriptions ring a little false, I agree with her premise that eating locally can benefit yourself, your community and the environment. So many of the health problems in society today can be traced to industrial farming practices. Also, as someone who is passionate about food, I tend to appreciate the locally grown vegetable not only because of where (and, frequently, how) it was grown, but also how it tastes.

I'm not a vegetarian by any stretch of the imagination, though I have toyed with the idea before. The last time I seriously tried it was about two months before I left to study for 6 months in China; that didn't last long over there. After reading Kingsolver's book, I feel more than ever that the ethical choice for me is not going to be about meat v.s. veg, but about local v.s. (fill in the blank). It's funny to think that I would puzzle more over buying a banana or orange than I would a grass-fed steak, but that's what I've been doing lately.

There are four main reasons, that I see, why it's not a good idea to buy meat raised and produced in factory farms:
1) Not good for your health (bad fats; meat is pumped full of antibiotics; e coli)
2) The animal led a miserable existence, if you can call it an existence
3) Huge amounts of waste are produced - from the natural waste of the animals, to the gas burned up in trucking the meat cross-country.
4) It's expensive. Maybe not as expensive as the locally produced, free-range and grass-fed meat that you might get at your local farmer's market, but at least that I see as an investment (and reasons 1-3 do not apply).

Obviously it's not something that happens overnight, and her family has the means (and the land) to live on locally produced products for a year (their established radius was 50 miles). There are some things that are easy for me: not buying soda or processed, packaged food; shopping at the farmer's market; baking my own bread when I have the time; growing tomatoes and herbs on my balcony. When I think about it, the hardest thing, if I were to embark on a project like this, would be to give up citrus and other tropical fruits. Oh, to live locally in Southern California...

The other really hard thing for me would be to give up so-called "ethnic food." As evidenced by my entries here, a lot of the restaurants that I enjoy eating at serve dishes containing ingredients that winged their way to my table from thousands of miles away.