In and Out of the Garden: A Blog

This morning I heard an interesting talk given by Raj Patel on the subject of his new book "The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy." You can see a video of the talk here. He may stumble over a few of the words -- he says at one point that he talks more lucidly about things in his book -- but his message is a fascinating one. Listening to him talk about the hidden ecological and social costs of things like food, made me realize that I really should read his previous book "Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System." So right after breakfast at Renaud's I popped over to Chaucer's bookstore and picked up a copy. I will report back after I've read it. And feel free to leave me a comment about the book. I'd love to hear from someone who has read it.

It's actually past the time that I should have made my New Year's resolutions. But just because we're well into January, doesn't mean that I haven't stopped thinking about things I'd like to do this year. And especially since I've had time to read all the blogs and articles and Twitter postings about resolutions, I feel I've had time to give it a little thought. So here are 5 things I'd like to do or change or add to my life in 2010... all food related, of course.

1. Learn to Make Yogurt. I did actually attempt it once last October during my Eat Local Challenge, but it didn't turn out. I love the texture and taste of Greek yogurt, so that is my goal. And if I can get my hands on some local goat milk, I might be tempted to try to make goat's milk yogurt. All things are possible.

2. Read One of Elizabeth David's Cookbooks. For some reason, I have managed to get this far without owning or reading any of Elizabeth David's classic books on French, Italian and Mediterranean food. She's considered one of the foremost writers on food in the 20th century, and someone I really should have in my library. She's written "French Provincial Cooking," "Italian Food," "A Book of Mediterranean Food," and "Is There a Nutmeg in the House?" which I would read for the title alone.

3. Grow More Herbs and Vegetables. Currently the little bed of herbs in my garden looks like a neglected overgrown patch of natural selection experiments. The oregano has driven out a number of other weaker companions, the curry plant has turned into a curry hedge and the lemon verbena is about 8 feet tall and leggy. I find myself always needing a little more of some herb or another that is not in my garden. I'd like to add tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos to my plot because those are things that are handy to have on hand (especially when making posole), as well as more Italian parsley, sage, chervil, dill and a few varieties of basil.

4. Avoid Plastic. I know that it will be just about impossible to eliminate plastic entirely from my life, but with all the concerns being raised about plastic leaching into our food, not to mention the landfill problems it creates, I would like to get rid of as much of it as I can. I'm also concerned about the lining on canned foods, and I've already started avoiding all canned food. I gave most of my plastic reusable containers to my husband to store hardware and supplies. Instead I'm using glass bowls with plastic lids - yes, that's still plastic, but at least the lids don't come in contact with the food. The upside is that glass looks better and cleans more easily. I'd also like to reduce the number of plastic produce bags that I use by getting a set of cloth produce bags, like these.

5. Take More Photos of Food and Blog More! It seems like 2009 really got away from me in terms of blogging. One of my problems was purely technical: when I upgraded my operating system, the image upload in my blogging software stopped working. I've figured that out now, but it's still hard to get back in the groove. So, I plan to keep a camera in the kitchen to make it easier to take photos of what I'm cooking. When I have good photos of food, it's always an inspiration to blog. And one of our Edible Santa Barbara writers and recipe editor, Nancy Oster, will hopefully join again on the Edible Santa Barbara blog. Also my cousin has a new blog called "I Don't Cook, But My Boyfriend Does!" so maybe I can talk her into being a guest blogger once in a while.

Here's to a delicious and satisfying 2010 - Cheers!

There are two bloggers that I want to highlight. The first is Alelia's Red Door Epicure. I had the pleasure of spending time with Alelia at the Full of Life Flatbread dinner for Douglas Gayeton's wonderful book "SLOW: Life in a Tuscan Town." It was an unbelievable evening of fantastic food and wine and companionship. Please read Alelia's entry about the evening with mouthwatering photos and descriptions of the entire evening:

SLOW ~ Anatomy of a meal in the Santa Ynez Valley

The other blogger that I recently discovered is Katie Falbo's California Organic Foodie. She is currently participating in our Eat Local Challenge and she has some informative and interesting entries about what she's eating and doing. Start with her first entry for October and then continue to follow her all month:

Pledge to Eat Local

In October we're co-sponsoring an Eat Local Challenge in Santa Barbara. This is something that I've wanted to do for quite some time. Perhaps the idea was planted when I first read Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. And perhaps the idea really came together after talking with Sam Edelman of the Farmers Market and realizing that this was something that we could do in conjunction with epicure.sb — the collection of food festivals and events throughout the month of October.

I particularly like the fact that it's for a month. It's long enough to feel like you're embarking on a challenge and yet not so long as to feel daunting. In fact, I think the interesting thing about it might end up being how very unchallenging it is. How can we feel deprived with all of our fantastic sources of produce, meat, seafood, honey, oils, wine and beer? And yet, perhaps there will be some interesting lessons to be learned. Why does Santa Barbara County not have a dairy industry? Why do we have to go up the coast to find artisanal cheese?

I also like the fact that I'm not embarking on this alone. Here in Santa Barbara County, the Isla Vista Food Co-op is doing an Eat Local Challenge for the month of October and nationally the group blog "Eat Local Challenge" will be doing one as well. So there will be ample resources and the feeling of a shared experience. We have just set up a Google Group called SB Eat Local Challenge where you can post questions and share information about finding sources of local food. There are already some great discussions up there about dairy, coffee and local sparkling water.

So consider participating in any way that you can. Whether you take the pledge to eat exclusively local foods for 31 days, or whether you just try to incorporate more local foods into your everyday buying habits, I think there are huge benefits to building this awareness of local foods.

When I mention that I'm a member of a CSA, people often ask what the heck that is. CSA is the abbreviation for Community Supported Agriculture, and it describes a program or a relationship with a farm where the consumer pays upfront for a share of the produce throughout the season or year. Every CSA program is slightly different, but what they all have in common is that they connect you in a very tangible way with the farm and farmers who grow your food.

There are now several CSA programs in Santa Barbara County, and though I'd like to be a member of all of them at the same time, that would be a little challenging even for me. So I think I'll have to try them out one by one. Currently I'm happily a member of the Shepherd Farms CSA. Membership is $300 a quarter or $1,000 for the full year. If you go to the farm in Carpinteria, you can pick out what you like or you can arrange to pick up a box of preselected items at Backyard Bowls in downtown Santa Barbara. Either way it's $25 worth of produce and it varies according to the season.

The picture above is what I picked out at the farm this week:

1 bag of Shepherd Salad Mix
1 bag of spinach
3 small yellow onions and 2 white onions
2 heirloom tomatoes
1 avocado
2 peppers
1 basket of strawberries
a bunch of basil
a bunch of kale
a handful of carrots
lots of little yellow zucchini
a large bowl of thin green beans
a large bowl of dried white beans

You can see that you can get quite a bit for $25. And what will I do with this bounty of produce? Well, this week the tomatoes and avocado will get used with the salad mix for a few salads. The strawberries will get eaten with breakfast or as a dessert. I'll use some of the beans, carrots, onions, kale, green beans, zucchini and basil for a minestrone soup. The veggies that are left over will probably go on top of pasta on a couple of nights this week. And then it will be time to go pick up next week's batch!