Meatless Monday: For the Planet’s Health as Well as Your Own

Anonymous made a good point when he (or she) left a comment on my last week’s post, stating that for some the Apocalypse HAD arrived. I had not meant to be flippant when making reference to the rolling 6 pm global earthquakes which had not materialized. Clearly life will never be the same for survivors of the devastating tornado in Joplin, Missouri, and I would never make light of that.

Tornadoes have a direct link to the weather. While it can’t currently be proved that the strange weather patterns of this late Spring are caused by climate change, some scientists believe this is a possibility. This story in the Huffington Post contains updates on the Joplin tornado, describes the weather conditions favoring the formation of tornadoes, and offers some opinions from meteorologists on why this year’s outbreaks have been so severe. Huffington Post also offers ways in which you can help those in the disaster areas. Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org, raised the question about the link between climate change and our recent bad weather in a widely-read Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post. 

Most scientists believe that the CO2 in our atmosphere is rising to dangerous levels, leading to global warming.  It is a fact that meat production is a huge contributor to this rise. An often referenced 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, here summarized by Scientific American found that “current production levels of meat contribute between 14 and 22 percent of the 36 billion tons of ‘CO2-equivalent’ greenhouse gases the world produces every year. It turns out that producing half a pound of hamburger…releases as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as driving a 3,000-pound car nearly 10 miles.”

The PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) site is an excellent source of materials documenting what is wrong with the meat industry — from the creation of CO2 to the unethical treatment of the animals being raised for food.  PETA has also compiled an informational kit on going vegetarian/vegan. You can request a free copy in the mail or view it online. Included (along with the graphic images of factory farms) are an interactive quiz on animal traits, celebrity endorsements of PETA’s work from musicians Sir Paul McCartney and Joan Jett and actors Alicia Silverstone and Kevin Nealon, a treasure trove of recipes, and a comprehensive vegan shopping guide for a conventional grocery store. [Vegans like to grill and snack as we all do.] Even if you do not decide to embrace the vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, perhaps you will come to appreciate the reasons behind the choice, and maybe find a recipe or two.

On this Monday of cookouts across America it seems a particularly good time to remember that Meatless Monday’s goal is to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet. [Bold type is mine.] I went in search of vegan Field Roast Grain Meat sausages for the grill and found some at our nearly local Whole Foods. Next Monday I’ll let you know how they turned out and I’ll even throw in my coleslaw recipe which I’ve been tweaking a bit.

Enjoy your holiday. Have a great week. And come back again soon.

I try to blog on food or food issues each Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Meatless Monday: Tools You Can Use

Now that the Apocalypse scare is behind us, we can contemplate the beginning of summer and its first long weekend, just a few days from now. Whether you spend time at home or away, food will most likely play a big role in your holiday plans. Here are a few tools to help you eat well and sustainably, while providing abundant opportunities to discover something new.

Perhaps a staycation is in your future. Check out the Pick Your Own website, where you can find local listings for Pick Your Own (PYO) farms in the US, Canada, Britain and various other locations around the world. Strawberry season is just around the corner in Connecticut where I live. On the West Coast picking for several crops has already begun. Support your local farming communities while having some fun and saving some money. Often the price per pound gets lower the more you pick.

Mountain View, California Farmers' Market

The LocalHarvest site is another great tool. I suggest starting at the home page where you can enter your zip code and define what you are looking for, from farms to restaurants to farmers’ markets. If you don’t want to leave your home, you can even shop online. 

The Eat Well Guide allows you to find good food wherever you are — at home or on the road. Find sustainable food options by entering a keyword, zip code, or city/state. This guide has a great feature for travelers. If a road trip of any length is in your future, use Eat Well Anywhere to help plan a route allowing you to eat good food along the way. The Eat Well Guide is a program of the GRACE Communications Foundation. 

Here’s to a summer of good eating.

Have a great week. And come back again soon.

I try to blog on food or food issues each Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Mid-May 2011 News Roundup & Blog Updates 5.21.11

I have to say that even I can’t believe that this is my 151st post! I am hoping it is not my last, but so far so good. It’s been turning 6:00 pm around the world and there have been no signs of cataclysmic earthquakes or zombies. If it’s not yet 6:00 pm May 21, 2011 in your time zone, you still have time to prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse courtesy of the CDC, just in case.

WATER WATER EVERYWHERE:  For the latest on the Mississippi River flooding, check out Jeff Masters’s blog, and visit the Huffington Post for live updates. The surge of fresh water down the Atchafalaya River and through the bayous of Louisiana has hit Cajun country, built upon silt, particularly hard. According to a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, the volume of water being pushed toward the Gulf of Mexico is the largest ever recorded on the Mississippi. 

To our South, Colombia experienced the worst flooding in its history. 

OTHER NEWS from ALL OVER:

Japan has said “no” to new nuclear plants. On May 10, Prime MInister Naoto Kan announced that Japan had abandoned plans to build more nuclear reactors. 

The European Union has begun paying fishermen to collect trash. 

Time Magazine reported that the time may have come for an idea promoted by eco-entrepreneur Georges Mougin since the mid-1970s — towing icebergs to the world’s thirstiest regions. A new computer simulation shows that it just may be possible. Mougin’s next step is to secure funding for a pilot test.

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted to ban the delivery of unsolicited commercial phonebooks (Yellow Pages). If the policy is voted into law as expected, the Yellow Pages can only be delivered to customers who request them in-person or give prior approval by phone or email beginning on May 1, 2012. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, the nearly 1.6 million business directories dropped on doorsteps here annually would stack up at about 8 1/2 times the height of Mt. Everest, according to statistics provided by the city. The books generate 7 million pounds of paper waste and clog recycling equipment, necessitating costly repairs. 

3,500 Yalies the world over rolled up their sleeves and got to work last Saturday for the 3rd annual Global Day of Service. Yalies in New Haven volunteered for the 4th year in a row at 14 sites including Middletown Avenue Park. [more on this in a future post]

Connecticut received an additional $30 million towards development of a high-speed rail line between New Haven and Springfield, Massachusetts. This is a portion of the $2.4 billion for a Tampa-to Orlando rail line refused by Florida Governor Rick Scott. Thanks, Florida. Connecticut is now one step closer to the dream of daily passenger service between the two cities at speeds up to 110 miles an hour.

NEWS from NEW HAVEN:

The Yale Farm now has chickens! A May 17 tweet announced: At long last: the Yale Farm has chickens! Come by and meet the ladies at our workday this Friday from 1:00-5:00 pm.

The Elm City Market issued a press release saying it is on track to open at the end of the summer. The market has over 500 members and hopes to have 1,000 by opening day. The market plans to hire 100 employees in the next 90 days and is soliciting applications (due May 31) from its membership for two open positions on the board of directors.

Over 500 riders raised more than $50,000 in the Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride on April 30, a benefit for 14 environmental groups in the community. Organizers have set the date of April 21, 2012 for next year’s ride and have set a new fundraising goal of $100,000. 

Senator Richard Blumenthal stopped by the New Haven Land Trust’s Ivy Street Garden on May 20 to see the volunteers in action.

Today New Haven’s Department of Public Works should be delivering my new brown 48-gallon Toter. This will become my trash container. My large blue Toter will become the container for recycling on the May 31st collection day. I hope this isn’t too complicated for my neighborhood… I’ll keep you posted.

Square Donuts in the 9th Square. Finally, in the “It’s green because I say so.” category I want to pass on this tip for great homemade donuts on Orange Street. The Independent  has known about these for months now. I only recently sampled them. My choice was the glazed whole wheat. Tony Poleshek, Jr. of the Orangeside Luncheonette truly makes a donut as a donut is meant to be. Check out this delicious local food, just around the corner from the Elm City Market, near the Devil’s Gear Bike Shop.

SPECIAL EVENTS:

Now until May 31

Vote to bring fruit trees to New Haven. 

Friends of Edgewood Park have been nominated to receive a free fruit orchard. Help the Friends get to the next level of the competition. Vote for them once daily at the Edy’s Fruit Bars site. 

June 5

Opening of the Edgewood Park Farmers Market

Enjoy your weekend. Come back again soon. I’m pretty sure I’ll be back talking about food on Monday. 

Meatless Monday: Back to the Ramps

Happy Monday everyone.

Remember the reeking ramps I bought last week? 

I made something delicious with the bunch I purchased. But before I give you the recipe, let me tell you a few facts about the plant Allium tricoccum, commonly known collectively as ramps, or singularly as the wild leek.

Cultivating Ramps: Wild Leeks of Appalachia is a veritable treasure trove of information on this particular wild thing. From its authors Jeanine M. Davis and Jacqulyn Greenfield I learned that ramps can be found growing in patches in cool, shady areas with damp, rich soil high in organics, as far north as Canada, west to Missouri and Minnesota, and south to North Carolina and Tennessee. Their arrival as Spring’s first “greens” is celebrated with festivals, which have become major tourist attractions throughout southern Appalachia.

In recent years America’s top chefs began promoting ramps as a gourmet delicacy, and ramps now appear on the seasonal menus of many “white tablecloth” restaurants. The medical community has also been interested in ramps since a 2000 study indicated that selenium rich ramps reduced cancer in rats. Increased demand has led to the dwindling of the native ramp population, and studies have shown that it takes many years to recover from a single harvest. For this reason, the Smoky Mountain National Park banned harvesting of ramps in 2002. 

Seed germination studies were already underway when Cultivating Ramps was published. Efforts continue to cultivate ramps in a forest setting as a way to meet the  burgeoning demand. If you can supply the right environment and want to give ramp cultivation a try, here is a source for seeds and bulbs.  

Now, back to the recipe. I was inspired by Blake Royer’s recipe for Ramps with Linguine at Serious Eats.  I tweaked it a little, partly because I only had a small bunch of ramps. Here is my version.

Elaine's Reeking Ramps with Linguine

20 ramp bulbs

4 tbsp good quality olive oil

1 clove American garlic, thinly sliced

1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs, toasted in olive oil

freshly grated imported Parmesan cheese

1/2 pound Barilla linguine, cooked al dente

First, prepare the ramps.

Clean the ramps, removing the roots and outer husk from the bulb. 

Slice to separate the leaves from the bulbs and stem.

Stack the leaves on top of one another, 

roll them lengthwise and slice thinly into ribbons.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. 

Remove the pan from the heat and add the ramp bulbs 

(with stems attached). 

Toss well until the pan cools just a bit. 

Return the skillet to the heat.

Stir until soft. Add garlic and stir for an additional minute. 

Add the cooked linguine. Stir.

Add the ramp leaves and breadcrumbs. 

Toss until the leaves are wilted. 

Transfer to two warm plates and top with cheese.

Mangia. [Note that this delicious dish exudes a pungent aroma. It may remain for hours, if not days, depending on how airtight your kitchen is.]

Have a great week. Ciao for now, but come back soon.

I try to blog on food or food issues each Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Meatless Monday: Stepping Out on the Wild Side

Happy Monday everyone. 

The Wooster Square Farmers Market opened for the season on Saturday, and Google was there, driving many a sale.

“What’s in the bag?” I asked the students staffing the Yale Sustainable Food Project  booth. “Nettles,” they replied. “Nettles? What do you do with them?” I asked. “Some people make them into tea. You can use them in soup. Google nettles and you’ll  find lots of recipes. Just be sure to cook them first.” The nettle leaves had an intense dark green color and certainly looked very fresh. I was told they’d been selling very well that morning, and they were only $3 a bag. I’d gone to the market in search of a culinary adventure and gladly handed over exact change.

Dirty, reeking ramps

I moved on to a similar experience with a farmer selling ramps, which I knew to be a very coveted item on Top Chef. They didn’t look like much — small bulbs, purple stems, many roots (holding lots of dirt), floppy leaves. The price? Sold by the small bunch, it came out to about 50¢ a bulb. “How would I cook them?” “Just google, you’ll find lots of recipes.”  

As I was handing over my money, and the farmer was handing over my purchase, I discovered that ramps reek, really. I gladly accepted the plastic bag the farmer offered (and tied it in a knot as I left the booth). I also learned that the farmer had not cultivated the ramps: they grew wild on his property and only recently had become desirable enough for the farmer to harvest and bring them to market. 

Somewhere in rural America they are laughing — twice over! When I got home and showed my farm-raised husband the nettles I had bought for only $3, he responded, “I’m pretty sure those are the weeds we dug out of the pasture, and I don’t think we ever ate them.” Between the ramps and the nettles I had handed over $8 for some very local weeds. How very sustainable of me!

Back to the nettles. I was lucky enough to leave them in the bag until I’d done my googling. The Yalies had neglected to tell me I would need protective hand-gear to prepare them for cooking. Nettles Urtica dioica are a common weed throughout North America (except apparently in Arkansas) whose scientific name comes from the Latin word uro, which means “I burn.” Also called “stinging nettles,” the plant’s stems and leaves are covered with tiny, needle-like hairs that will give anyone who touches or brushes against them unprotected a nasty and very itchy rash. 

Cooking renders these compounds harmless. Nettles can be cooked and eaten, dried for tea, or brewed into beer! The plant is rich in minerals, and has for years been uses as a tonic and, in dried form, for treating wounds. Naturalist Steve Brill believes that eating nettles or drinking their tea makes your hair brighter, thicker and shinier. Medical researchers are exploring the use of nettle root, nettle leaves, and nettle spines for treating a long list of ailments.

Walking on the Wild Side Spring Nettle Soup

I chose soup for my experiment and googled a few of promising recipes. Step one was always the same for both — wear a pair of gloves while removing the stems from the leaves. Inspired by Molly Watson’s “Stinging Nettles Soup” and “Blue Ridge Restaurant’s Stinging Nettle Soup” to come up with this one of my own.

Walking on the Wild Side Spring Nettle Soup

1/4 pound fresh nettle leaves 

[NOTE: Use gloves while removing stems from leaves.]

1 tbsp butter

1 onion diced

3 shallots diced

1 lb. organic russet potatoes, peeled and diced

6 cups vegetable stock [I used all natural vegetable bouillon cubes]

Juice of two lemons

1 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

freshly ground black pepper

2 % Greek yogurt for garnish

Melt the butter in a soup pot over low heat. 

Add the onions and shallots and stir until transparent.

Add the stock and potatoes. Turn up heat to medium high. 

Bring to a boil and then lower heat to simmer until potatoes are tender.

Add the nettle leaves and cook gently for 7 minutes. 

Add lemon juice and seasonings.

Remove from heat.

Purée in the pot with an immersion blender.

Serve hot with a dollop of Greek yogurt.

Aside from preparing the nettles, the soup couldn’t be easier to make. The smell was wonderful. The taste delicious. The color so Springy! The only thing I might do is add another large potato or two to make it just a bit thicker. Go ahead, walk on the wild side.

Have a great week. Come back next Monday to find out what I did with the ramps.

I try to blog on food or food issues each Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Early May 2011 News Roundup & Blog Updates 5.6.11

With all that’s been going on these past few days, there are a number of stories that came and went without too much notice. I’d like to take this opportunity to recycle a few.

NEWS from ALL OVER:

According to Reuters, Japanese engineers are still struggling to gain control of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Two of the six reactors are now considered stable. Check out these Q+As for the latest on the progress. 

For a detailed summary and analysis of the April 25-28 tornado outbreak in the South, check out Dr. Jeff Masters’s blog.  If you scroll down the page, you will find a video of the Birmingham-Tuscaloosa tornado, which killed at least 66 and injured over 1000.

The threat of flooding along the Mississippi was so severe that the Army Corps of Engineers blew up the levee at Birds Point, Missouri (designed to be destroyed in the event of a record flood), intentionally flooding 133,000 acres of rich farmland. According to Jeff Masters, the levee was demolished once before, during the historic 1937 flood.

Yale Environment 360 reported that scientists at MIT have unveiled transparent solar cells that someday soon may turn skyscrapers into solar collectors. With perfection of this invention, the entire surface area of a building’s windows could be used to generate electricity, without interfering with the view to the outside. You can read more at the MIT site. 

Slow Food USA sent out an alert about Mark Bittman’s Op-Ed of 4.27 commenting on proposed legislation in several states that would make it illegal to photograph farms. According to Bittman, in Florida it would become a first degree felony to photograph any farm without the owner’s written permission. Slow Food is gathering signatures for a petition  and also requests that over the next few days everyone goes out armed with cameras and join their “farmarazzi.” Here is the link to the Slow Food Facebook page where farm photos are starting to appear. 

Santa Clara County joined the growing list of California communities banning the distribution of plastic shopping bags.  Customers without bags will have to pay 15¢ each for paper ones beginning January 1.

NEWS from NEW HAVEN:

Stop & Shop opened on Whalley Avenue and seems to be doing a brisk business. I’ve already been there a couple of times.

The Elm City Market solicited written good wishes for placing on the store’s dirt floor prior to its being covered with concrete.

I felt like Forrest Gump last weekend:

The Yale Institute of Sacred Music staged an elaborate Flash Mob at Union Station  on April 29. I was there but you’ll have to look really closely to spot me at 4 seconds in.

I rode in the third annual Rock to Rock bike ride on April 30, a benefit for 14 environmental groups in the community. It seemed everyone I knew came out of the  woodwork for a wonderful event on this sunny Saturday. This year more than 500 riders raised over $50,000. Those of us on the short ride were treated to a police escort and the thrill of zooming through the City on streets closed to traffic. The “Pot Heads” from the New Haven Land Trust were the winners of both the team spirit  award and the top team fundraising award. The group’s executive director Chris Randall won the highest individual fundraising award. The success of the event is a real boon for the City’s environmental organizations. As just one example, funding for the New Haven Land Trust’s community garden program in the proposed City budget is facing a $17,500 cut— from $25,000 to $7,500.

I was one of over 500 participants in Connecticut Food Bank’s annual WALK Against Hunger in New Haven on May 1. The WALK will take place in Bridgeport on May 15 and in Waterbury on May 22.

On Wednesday I discovered that at the tables down at Mory’s one can now enjoy a mean Vegetarian Green Tomato BLT. 

Brown paper still covers the window of the storefront on Broadway where it is rumored that an Apple store will open. Apple still has not made an official announcement, but on the Apple site, applications are being accepted for retail jobs in New Haven. Why does this matter? Broadway is a lot closer than Farmington or Danbury, which means smaller carbon footprints for local Apple addicts.

BLOG NEWS

I still need Mississippi. Someone must know someone there.

SPECIAL EVENTS:

May 7 (tomorrow)

Opening of the 8th season of the Wooster Square Farmers Market

Lettuce toss at 9 am. CitySeed  says special guests include Senator Martin Looney, Mayor John DeStefano, and Director of the New Haven Office of Sustainability Christine Eppstein Tang, who will bring along a few free compost bins.

May 1- May 8

Compost Awareness Week

Earth 911 has lots of information to up your awareness and get you started on making your own black gold. [more in my February 24, 2010 post] 

Now until May 31

Vote to bring fruit trees to New Haven. 

Friends of Edgewood Park have been nominated to receive a free fruit orchard. Help the Friends get to the next level of the competition. Vote for them once daily at the Edy’s Fruit Bars site.

Freebie Friday Returns!

In the spirit of my winter Freebie Friday posts I offer up this link to a A Google A Day,  a daily trivia game some of you may have seen in the New York Times. You are meant to google to get the answer, but to avoid spoilers, be sure to do it here. You can read more about the puzzle here.  Test out your search skills! Put your brain to work!

TGIF. Have a great weekend. And please come back soon.

Meatless Monday: Back to the “Farm”

Happy Monday everyone. Remember my mushroom farm? It yielded an impressive second crop last week. Check out the photo. Yep, we grew these babies!

What to make with this harvest? The answer came to me when I saw Alton Brown on Food Network drooling over a favorite crepe stuffed with mushrooms and Swiss cheese. 

I decided to wing it and create my own version of this delicacy. In Alice Waters’s The Art of Simple Food there is a recipe for buckwheat crepes I had been meaning to try — requiring the intriguing combination of milk, butter, eggs and beer. I had the requisite well-seasoned crepe pan, but I did have to make a run for a bag of buckwheat flour. [Note that this undertaking requires advance planning and a bit of time. The batter is best prepared a day ahead. And, lacking Alton Brown’s large crepe pan, I needed enough time to make the 30 crepes the recipe estimated.]

On Tuesday night I made the batter. On Wednesday evening I harvested the mushrooms. This time I did not supplement my crop with any purchases from the store. What you see in these photos I grew with patience and lots of misting. 

I first prepared the filling ingredients. I shredded 4 oz of Swiss cheese. I toasted 1/2 cup of sliced almonds gently for several minutes in a medium cast iron skillet and set them aside. I sliced the mushrooms lengthwise and gently sauteed them in 2 tablespoons of butter (using the skillet from the almonds). I washed some arugula and broke the leaves up into small pieces.

Then I made the crepes. It had been years, but making crepes must be like riding a bike: once you learn the art you never forget it. Once I got going each one took about 1 1/2 minutes. I stacked the finished crepes on a baking sheet in a 170° oven to keep them warm.

We placed a spoonful each of mushrooms and cheese on one half of a crepe, sprinkled almonds on top of that and then folded the crepe over. We topped these off with a bit of each of the fillings as well as some arugula to give some color and a little bite. We stuffed crepes until the filling was gone.

Crepes on the plate, briefly.

Done! [See photo.] They were delicious. The mushrooms, with a taste and texture reminiscent of the seafood for which they were named, imparted a subtle yet intense flavor.

Of course we didn’t eat all the crepes at one sitting. The filled crepes we didn’t eat the first evening were delicious warmed in the oven for lunch the next day. And the naked crepes made a great breakfast with vanilla Greek yogurt, syrup and fresh strawberries. 

Thanks Alice. Thanks Back to the Roots. I wish I still had leftovers…

Have a great week. And come back again soon.

I try to blog on food or food issues each Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”