Meatless Monday: 3.18.13 Food News Roundup

Today I am taking a break from my recent run of recipe posts to give you a brief rundown on some of the recent food stories I have been following. Recipes will be back soon, I promise.

GMO Labeling is a very hot topic.

• Whole Foods recently announced that by 2018 all products in their U.S. and Canadian stores must be labeled to indicate whether they contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs). 
• Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield paid a visit to Hartford, CT’s state capital, on Friday, March 15. According to GMO Free CT, Jerry was one of 200 supporters to offer testimony in support of CT HB 6519, a bill to require the labeling of genetically modified food sold in the state. 
• Ben & Jerry’s recently committed to sourcing non-GMO ingredients for all their products by the end of 2013. Ben & Jerry’s is a strong advocate for the consumers' right to know what is in their food and was one of the early supporters of labeling of rBGH in dairy products. It is interesting to note that Ben & Jerry’s is owned by Unilever, one of the corporate giants who funneled money into the campaign to defeat California Proposition 37. 
• California Proposition 37 was narrowly defeated in November, but other states are continuing the fight for the consumer’s right to know what is in their food. States with proposed GMO labeling legislation in their current sessions include: Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.

Dead Pigs, Contaminated Water in China

• On March 13 the BBC reported that according to a statement issued by the Chinese government, the number of pig carcasses found floating in the Huangpu River totals nearly 6,000. The government also claims that the water quality of the river “meets government-set standards.”  The source of the dead pigs remains a mystery. According to information from the NGO Pacific Environment, “Nearly 1/4 of Chinese [people] lack access to clean drinking water, over 70 percent of lakes and rivers are polluted, and pollution accidents happen on a near daily basis.” In today’s South China Morning Post there is a story reporting that residents of the village of Changshou in Hunan province have long refused to drink tap water they have been told is “safe.” You might want to think twice before purchasing frozen produce from China.

Girl Scout Cookies

• After news service UPI reported in February that more than 13,000 boxes of unsold Girl Scout cookies were thrown away in Riverside, CA, the story went viral. A reporter for a CBS affiliate in Los Angeles shared a video of a tractor smashing the cookies before they headed to the landfill. You can watch it here. Apparently this practice has been going on for years. While one can debate whether or not Girl Scout Cookies are actually food, one cannot dispute that farmers grew the wheat and chickens laid the eggs, etc. This story helped make food waste in the US front page news.

Protected Waters in New England

• The Pew Charitable Trust just released a call for action to oppose the reopening of nearly 5,000 square miles of protected New England waters to commercial fishing. The short video “Cod: The Fish that Made New England” features a number of “old salts” reminiscing about how different fishing was just decades ago. Their compelling tales emphasize the importance of this issue. You can take action here. 

In closing, here is a quick request for your vote from my chapter of Slow Food: 

• Slow Food Shoreline in CT is a finalist in the Health Justice Challenge - a $10K grant to support Slow Cooking Education. Their entry is a proposal to teach busy families how to cook healthy food using a slow cooker. Watch the video here and show your support. Hurry! You are allowed to vote once a day which means you can vote once today, and once tomorrow. Voting ends on March 19 at 11:59 pm EST.

Have a great week.       

I often blog on food or food issues on 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: Welcome to Claire’s

Long before the phrases “sustainable food movement” or “artisanal” were coined, and before most of us had heard of Michael Pollan or Alice Waters, New Haven had Claire Criscuolo. In 1975, on a prominent downtown corner, Claire opened Claire’s Corner Copia, a casual restaurant serving healthy, affordable food, initially cooked entirely by Claire and her family. Much has changed in New Haven and the world during the decades since then, but Claire’s and Claire are still on the same corner where it all began. Welcome to Claire’s is a new cookbook celebrating the landmark restaurant’s first 35 years.



I love Claire. This is not the first time I have dedicated a post to her, nor is Welcome to Claire’s the first of her cookbooks I have purchased. Welcome, however, does the best job of conveying the essence of Claire’s. In this book you hear Claire through her recollections and section intros. You see Claire through the book’s many colored photographs — of Claire, her staff, her food, and her satisfied customers. And you get a sense of just how important Claire’s is from the customer testimonials scattered throughout its pages. 

Of course there are also recipes. Those designated “Claire’s Classic” are directions for preparing time-honored staples from the restaurant’s menu, including my husband’s favorite — Moroccan Sweet Potatoes — and the item most associated with Claire’s — her beloved Lithuanian Coffee Cake. The collection also contains numerous vegan and gluten-free offerings. Indeed, the only readers who may have to look hard to find something to satisfy a craving are those on the Paleo Diet.

I baked the Pumpkin Spice Bread so I would have something to trade at Slow Food Shoreline’s Slow Food Swap last Saturday. I doubled the recipe and baked one large and four small loaves. [I kept two for us.] The use of cardamom instead of the more expected nutmeg, and the addition of dried cranberries as well as the usual pecans, made these loaves deliciously different. My kitchen smelled great for hours. I would caution you, though, to check the breads earlier than the stated time. It might have been my pans or the fact that I had a double batch, but my loaves were done far earlier than I had expected. All turned out fine. I caught them in time. And they made a fine currency for trading.

Claire dedicated the book to her husband and business partner Frank whom she called, “the love of my life.” Sadly, Frank passed away late last year before the book was printed. He would be proud.

I am very glad I’ve added Welcome to Claire’s to my collection and I urge you to do the same. The book is available at Claire’s, in area bookstores, at the Elm City Market, and online. 

I often blog on food or food issues on 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: Slow Food Arrives in New Haven

Slow Food International is a global grassroots organization founded to “counter the rise of fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.” Its origins can be traced back to a protest in response to the arrival of McDonald’s near Rome’s Spanish Steps in 1986. Today there are over 100,000 members in 1300 local chapters.  One of the newest is right here in the New Haven area — Slow Food Shoreline, founded in the late summer of 2011.

The chapter’s board has been very busy over the past few months, making their presence known up and down the Connecticut shoreline. The board members were the invited guests at New Haven Green Drinks on January 18. Chapter chair Michael Cook presented a summary of the group’s history and goals with his talk: “What is the Opposite of Fast Food?” In New Haven, everyone is connected. Chris Randall, executive director of the New Haven Land Trust, was in attendance, camera in hand. You can see his photos from the evening here.

The next scheduled event is Slow Food Shoreline’s first monthly Food Swap, this coming Saturday, February 4th at Woodland Coffee. What is a food swap? According to information on the group’s website, “A Slow Food Swap is part silent auction/part village marketplace/part fun-loving open house where your homemade, homegrown, and foraged creations become your own personal currency for use in swapping with other participants.” Read more about it here. 

What else is on the calendar? On February 11, Slow Food Shoreline will be tabling at the opening of “Big Food: Health, Culture and the Evolution of Eating,” a hands-on exhibition at Yale’s Peabody Museum. And, Slow Food Happy Hour returns at New Haven’s Soul de Cuba on Monday, February 13 from 5- 7 pm. 

On December 11, I attended my first event as a chapter member — an Art Tour at the Yale University Art Gallery, led by board member Vanessa Lamers who is also a graduate student at Yale and a Wurtele Gallery Teacher at the museum. Our guide took us on a tour of food-themed pieces in the gallery’s collection — from an Assyrian tablet dating from 900 BC to a modern-day sculpture by the artist Marisol. At each piece, after listening to  a short description of the artwork and its historical context, we were asked a couple of questions to guide us in our thinking. Why did the man in the Assyrian tablet have wings? Was he plucking dates or watering them? Why are there oranges on the floor in Manet’s painting of the woman reclining in Spanish costume? What was Marisol trying to tell us in her self-portrait “Dinner Date,” where the meal before her is a TV dinner? [A particularly interesting question for s Slow Food group to consider.] This afternoon of guided reflection was a welcome break in the busyness of the holiday season and a good way to meet chapter members.

The group contemplates “Dinner Date”

Such study has been proven to increase one’s observational skills. In fact, we in the Slow Food group were being guided in our observation of works of art in much the same way new medical students are taught to observe. All first-year students at the Yale School of Medicine are required to spend time looking at paintings in a visual tutorial which has been a part of the school’s curriculum since 1999. According to a 2009 article in Yale News, Dr. Irwin Braverman had been trying to find a way to increase observational skills of medical students. Linda Friedlaender, a curator at the Yale Center for British Art, was frustrated by the misdiagnosis of her close friend’s illness. A chance meeting brought the two together, and the class was born. The program was proven so successful that by the time the article was written, a decade later, over 20 medical schools were including a similar program in their curriculums.

Have a great week. I hope to see some of you locals at one of the next Slow Food events in and around New Haven. I’ll “see” the rest of you back here next Monday.

I often blog on food or food issues on 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.”

On My Radar 12.29.11

Recent News. Happenings. Discoveries…Here are some of the items on my radar.

NEWS from ALL OVER:

The ethanol subsidies have come to an end. You can read more about the history of ethanol support and the long road to its final demise in many sources. Here is a particularly good summary by John Voelcker for GreenCarReports posted at TPMIdeaLab. 

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has posted an interactive map which leaves no doubt that this was a year of extreme weather events across the US. The bold copy above the graphic announces:  In 2011, there were at least 2,941 monthly weather records broken by extreme events that struck communities in the US. The summary for my state of Connecticut lists the following events: “Record-breaking heat in 5 counties and a total of 13 broken heat records; Record-breaking rainfall in 3 counties and a total of 8 broken rainfall records; Record-breaking snow in 6 counties and a total of 12 broken snowfall records; Multi-million dollar losses from extreme flooding and hurricane damage; 3 billion dollars in damage from October snowstorm; Snowiest January on record.” [I remember that month very well.] Visit the site to check out the graphic and also to read more about the NDRC’s view that extreme weather and climate change are directly related.

In late November, a report by author Elizabeth Grossman in Yale Environment 360 warned that the acidification of the world’s oceans from an excess of CO2 has already begun. Author Carl Zimmer had issued a similar warning in February 2010. 

For the last few days, it was widely reported in a number of blogs that McDonald’s had pulled out of Bolivia. Today’s Marketplace Morning Report confirmed this story. Here is part of the exchange between Marketplace’s Adriene Hill and Reuter journalist Monica Machicao in Bolivia: “Hill: …Tell me, why did these McDonald's in Bolivia close? Machicao: There are a number of hypotheses. One of those — people prefer local food rather than McDonald's. It's the fact that it's more cheap; and in fact, it's really more tasty. Hill: So the local food is actually cheaper than McDonald's fast food? Machicao: Absolutely. Local food can even cost a third of McDonald's.” The same report also stated that Wendy’s was returning to Japan with a premium menu after a two year absence.You can read the rest of the transcript here. 

Gray whales are arriving early and in record numbers off the coast of Southern California. Check out the photos here. 

NEWS from NEW HAVEN:

Frank Criscuolo, a beloved figure from the downtown New Haven restaurant scene, died unexpectedly at home on December 14, at the age of 62. Husband of Claire Criscuolo, Claire and Frank were co-owner and proprietors of the 35-year-old vegetarian restaurant Claire’s Corner Copia and Basta Trattoria (for ominvores) next door. He will be greatly missed. You can read his obituary at the New Haven Independent.

The number of owner/members in the Elm City Market continues to grow. When the store opened its doors on November 2, membership was at 750. There were 1200 members when the store’s site was last updated.

The new Connecticut chapter of Slow Food USA, Slow Food Shoreline, has held a number of events including happy hours and a food-centric art gallery tour. Read more about them at their new website.

With its roll-out in the Hill neighborhood in mid-December, the new brown toters for trash have now been distributed in every neighborhood and single-stream recycling in the large blue toters (formerly used for trash) is the rule of the day. You can read about more about the nuts and bolts of the program at the City site and reports of the program’s successes and challenges at the New Haven Independent. 

DISCOVERIES:

During a recent tour of New Haven specialty shops, I was happy to learn that many socks are made in Vermont. Idiom featured colorful non-matching socks from Solmate Socks from Vermont's Sock Lady. At J. Crew I learned that all their socks were sourced from Vermont. After checking out the company website, my guess is that they come from Cabot Hosiery Mills. Chances are if you bought “Made in the USA” socks from L. L. Bean, Orivs, or Bass, they came from Cabot. The mill also makes its own private brands, Cabot & Sons Vermont and Darn Tough Vermont.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

January 1

11:00 am - 1:30 pm

Lighthouse Park, New Haven

New Haven First Day Winter Festival featuring the 

Polar Plunge for Parks and Community Gardens

You can dive in and collect pledges, or sponsor a hardy soul if you don’t want to take the plunge yourself. Your choice. Either way it sounds like a good time. Check out www.firstdaynewhaven.org/ for more info.

January 4th

6:30 pm - 9:00 pm

Pint Night

Co-sponsored by Trailblazer and Box 63 
in the Broadway District of New Haven

Also in support of the New Haven Land Trust. 

More details here.

BLOG NEWS:

On December 8 I briefly left my comfort zone and gave a talk based on some of my blog discoveries. Finding Your Own Way to Greenness: Tips and Tools for Greening Up Your Holidays was part of the Sustainable Quadrangle speakers series at the Yale Divinity School. Notes to what I discussed that day are posted here. 

On Thursday, January 5th, aspiring Master Gardeners in New Haven County begin their studies at Edgerton Park. I am one of the new students in this intensive course which is part of the University of Connecticut Cooperative Exension System. I guarantee you will be kept abreast of my progress and discoveries over the next four months. Wish me luck!

Meatless Monday posts will return on January 2, after a one-week break.

Happy New Year. I hope you will visit often in 2012. I like to think that together we can make a difference!

On My Radar 10.14.11

Passings. News. Happenings. Fall Clean-up Tips…Here are some of the items on my radar.

FAREWELLS:

Steve Jobs died on Wednesday, October 5, at the age of 56. The news spread instantly on devices of Steve’s design, and the world paid him homage in ways that would have been impossible without his vision. We mourn his passing and wonder what more would have been in store if Steve’s life had not been so short. On the day after his death it was reported that former Yale SOM Dean Joel Polodny had been recruited by Apple and Steve Jobs to plan a training program in which company executives will be taught to think like Jobs, “in a forum to impart that DNA to future generations.”

Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai died on September 25. In an era where women in Kenya were not educated and had little power, she was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree, and in 1977 founded the Green Belt Movement which has planted an estimated 45 million trees around Kenya. Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, reminds us to honor Wangari’s life by remembering what one person can achieve.

NEWS from ALL OVER:

On October 8, Denmark’s new “fat tax” went into effect. The nation imposed a tax on fatty foods, including butter, believed to be the first such action in the world, as an additional step to raising life expectancy of Danes. Denmark, as well as some other European countries, already has higher fees on sugar, chocolates, and soft drinks. 

Faster than the speed of light? A new discovery, if proven true, may upend our understanding of the universe and our concept of time. Researchers working underground in Italy in one of the world’s largest physics laboratories recorded neutrinos traveling at a fraction of a second faster than the speed of light, an event that is impossible in Einstein’s theory of special relativity.

NEWS from NEW HAVEN:

While New Haven is still no shopping mecca, it is no longer a shopping desert.

New Haven’s Apple Store opened on September 24 to jubilant High-5s from all the new employees. The first 1000 visitors received a commemorative black t-shirt.

New employees of the Elm City Market have begun stocking the store's shelves........ A soft opening is promised for members (currently at 688) later this month as soon as all the permits are in order. The Market still has job openings and is in particular need of a meat cutter. Members, there is a $50 gift certificate in it for you if you recommend the person who is hired. 

Common Ground High School raised $2,551 at the Community Day at Whole Foods in Milford last month. All of those funds will be invested in their core programs. That figure represents 5% of the net sales at that one store on September 21. That’s a whole lot of shopping!

New Haven’s Wild, Wild West. A query about wildlife sitings in Westville and Beaver Hills  (for those who don’t know, just a couple of miles from downtown) yielded a remarkable number of results including: plenty of woodchucks, the occasional deer, 4 wild turkeys trotting down the sidewalk, turtles, an opossum who ate all the baby robins from a nest right outside a window, and a red-tail hawk who swooped down and caught a squirrel at a busy corner. The woodchuck I reported earlier in the summer on the east side of town has not been seen since shortly before Hurricane Irene (at least by me).

On September 24, people around the world by participated in Moving Planet. In New Haven there were a number of events, including the planting of 44 fruit trees in Edgewood Park,  awarded to Friends of Edgewood Park as a prize for winning a national Communities Take Root contest sponsored by Edy’s Fruit Bars and the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation. A large part of the day’s theme was the celebration of alternative forms of transportation, and hundreds rode their bikes (and people-powered vehicles) through downtown streets, beginning and ending on the historic New Haven Green.

Even with the recent expansion of the City’s ambitious tree planting campaign and the new fruit trees in Edgewood Park, we are in the red this year. New Haven lost 1,250 trees during Hurricane Irene, and several were felled recently on Trumbull Street in preparation for the new storm sewer, one a very old London planetree. We watched with sadness as each limb was crudely sawed off… 

The new Connecticut chapter of Slow Food USA, Slow Food Shoreline, held its first event, a happy hour at Zinc, on Tuesday, October 11. You can follow them on Facebook  or Twitter. Now is a good time to join Slow Food USA. Through October 15, membership is give-what-you can, and the gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the generosity of a Slow Food USA board member. 

RECYCLING OPPORTUNITIES:

E-Cycling for New Haven Residents

City residents can bring old electronics (any item can be plugged in, with the exceptions of light bulbs, batteries, and equipment containing refrigerants) to the Transfer Station (260 Middletown Avenue) Monday through Saturday from 9:00 am - 12:00 noon. All electronics collected during the month of October count toward New Haven's total tonnage in a statewide competition that rewards the community recycling the most electronics per capita during the month of October. The first prize is a $3000 scholarship for New Haven schoolchildren.

Community Shredding

If you live in CT, you can go online to locate shredding events in your area. 

Helping Hands Community Thrift Store & Furniture Bank is in particular need of beds and offers free pick-up in New Haven. Click here for a list of what they do and do not accept as donations. 

October 29

National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day

Last year nearly 4,000 state and local law enforcement agencies throughout the nation participated in drug take-back  events, collecting more than 309 tons of pills. You can enter your zip code here to find a collection site near you. 

October 29

Last Fall collection day at HazWaste Central (Collections will resume mid-May, 2012) Free to residents of Bethany, Branford, Cheshire, East Haven, Fairfield, Guilford, Hamden, Madison, Milford, New Haven, North Branford, North Haven, Orange, Wallingford, West Haven and Woodbridge, CT. For details click this link.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

October 15

1:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Common Ground - 358 Springside Avenue in New Haven

Tour-Ganic: The Voodoo Fix Rocks for CitySeed & Common Ground! 

Common Ground - 358 Springside Avenue in New Haven

The Voodoo Fix, an LA-based genre-bending rock band with roots in blues, soul, and funk, is bringing their national Tour-Ganic to Common Ground. All proceeds from the concert will help CitySeed and Common Ground get good, local, affordable food to our neighbors who need it most. $10 suggested donation.

October 16

11 am - 2 pm

Cabot Creamery Cooperative Open Farm Sunday

If you live in NE or NY, check this link to locate a farm near you

October 19

5:30 pm -7:30 pm

New Haven Green Drinks

The Red Lentil, 25 Temple Street, New Haven

Theresa Labriola, Senior Associate, Northeast Fisheries Program will speak at 6:30 on the topic of the program’s campaign to implement new, more conservative, catch limits on menhaden, which have dropped to less than 10% of their original population.

October 24

First Annual Food Day 

“Food Day seeks to bring together Americans from all walks of life to push for healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way. We will work with people around the country to create thousands of events in homes, schools, churches, farmers markets, city halls, and state capitals.” Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) are the Honorary Co-Chairs for Food Day 2011 which is sponsored by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Click here to find an event near you.

October 28

Critical Mass Halloween Ride

Gather at the flagpole on the New Haven Green at 5:30

There will be costumes. Wear a helmet. Have a working light.

October 29

CT NOFA’s 2011 Annual Meeting

Noon - 4 pm, Common Ground High School

Farm Tour and Potluck

Special Guest Rep. Richard Roy will speak about his efforts to label GMO food in CT

BLOG NEWS:

I have had several visits from readers from Mississippi. I now have all 50 states, and every continent except Antarctica. Thanks.

Over 135 people have signed my petition requesting that Stop & Shop use American grown green beans in their Nature’s Promise line. I am trying to get to 500. Please click if you have not done so already.

TGIF. Have a great weekend. Come back soon.