So Long and Thanks For All the Fish

Lately our neighbors cat has been trying to adopt us. This morning, I was attempting to write what will be my last blog entry for the Loca Lifestyle Experiment. I am leaving shortly, and Paul and Jessica will be stepping in to see the final preparation of the feast through to its conclusion. As I was assembling my thoughts, the neighbors cat appeared at the door asking to be let in. He begins these visits with a little jump led by his head to meet my hand. From there, I know I’m committed to scratching his ears and chin and talking to him for several minutes. Today, he seems particularly in need of affection and is reluctant to leave. He has fully explored the house, sat on the couch with me, and kneaded the entire surface. Thirty minutes later, I have to resort to clever ways of drawing his attention to the outdoors. I’m feeling slightly guilty now as I’m not sure he truly wanted to return to the wilds just yet.

Cats are opportunists. If things are not working out for them at home, they find someone else to take care of them. I’m not saying my neighbors are not taking care of him, for I’m certain they are. It is just that they have a new member of the family, a young puppy, that might have him feeling a little crowded. So for the time being I’m willing to be the distant relative who takes him in until he feels more reassured. In a similar way, I feel that the Eco-Art class, the umbrella for our project, is very much like that, a temporary home where we are nurtured and encouraged to formulate actions that we can then weave back into our own families and communities upon our return.

During the short life of this project, I have learned from and been inspired by my project partner Paul, from the other eco artists participating in this exhibition who are exploring equally significant issues, from my own experiences seeking out local foods and recipes, and from Andree, our mentor. Andree constantly reminded us that the news can be overwhelming, but stressed optimism, and kept us focusing on hope, always hope, and solutions.

After this experiment, my blinders have been permanently removed in regards to food production and consumption. I was a fairly regular devotee of the farmers market, but I will now look at all those additional, supplemental foods I buy from the grocer differently, and make my selections in a more careful “mind full” manner. I will vote with my feet and support only those grocers that provide local and/or organic. I will read the labels and take particular note of the origins. Also, I will take more time and be careful to not stock my refrigerator and pantry with items that will end up wasted because I haven’t planned well. Recently at a CUESA panel discussion, I heard that our food waste is equal to the footprint of Bangledesh, with a population of 150 million people. According to a recent online article, (www.triplepundit.com/pages/waste-font-ii-by0th-numb-002783.php), “about a quarter of the food we consume and prepare gets tossed into the garbage only 2% of that is composted.” So you can see that simply not wasting can make a significant contribution to reducing your footprint. I am also planning on supplementing our purchased food with what we grow. To that end, we have recently started our compost heap, broke ground to begin our garden, and joined the ecology center to have access to expert resources (www.ecologycenter.org).

I’m sure there will be a few fuzzy blueberries and watery cucumbers that will need to be composted and perhaps a convenience item or two that may slip into my grocery cart in the future, but I am trying. My vision is no longer overcast, it is much clearer. I now see further than the stem of asparagus. I see the farmer and the land and the energy. I think about the origins of the seed, the health of the soil, the planting, the harvesting, the transporting, and time invested so that my family and I might sustain our health with this vibrant, alive, flavorful and succulent food.

To all I give my express thanks and love and encouragement to continue to lead a more awake life,
Kelly (aka Birdwoman)

P.S. Don’t forget if it isn’t local AND organic, remember the locavore pledge (www.locavores.com/who):

If not Locally Produced, then Organic
If not Organic, then Family Farm,
If not Family Farm, then Local Business
If not Local Business, then Fair Trade

News from the Kitchen Test Front

KITCHEN TEST PREPARATION

"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in
practice there is" -- Yogi Berra

Last week was a crazy week of over-planning on my part. It is easy to get carried away. I wasn’t sure how to organize so many of us in the kitchen at once, so I had “on paper” separated each step of each recipe into Prep, Mix, Stovetop, and Oven sections. And as a followup I made little evaluation forms to record our pronouncements like judges at a food competition (not that I’ve ever been to a food competition mind you). It was hilarious because once in the kitchen I’m not sure we even looked at my plan and at the end of the evening, I forgot to pull out the evaluations.

The one exception to tossing the planning aside entirely was the shopping list we used beforehand. Obviously you need to know what to buy and the quantities before heading off to the market. The list was compiled assuming we would be producing one batch of each recipe on the menu, with the exception of the onion tart which we decided to not include at the last minute because of the complexity of preparation.

Paul and I split the shopping. We were able to find everything at the farmers market except the following: avocado, celery, sprouts, milk, nutmeg, mustard, butter, and red pepper. With the kitchen test scheduled on a Friday, we had to rely on a smaller set of farmers at the Thursday market rather than the larger Saturday market where we would have perhaps otherwise been able to find everything. We bought what we couldn’t find from local organic grocers.

Berkeley Bowl was a good source for milk and butter. Strauss (www.strausfamilycreamery.com) is organic and locally produced near Tomales Bay and previously recommended by Paul (see his response to the blog posting dated March 31, 2008). I thought the nutmeg would be a problem, but again at Berkeley Bowl, I found an entire rack of organic and local spices, Spicely Organic from Union City (http://www.spicely.com). The original source of the ingredients though is not indicated, so maybe it is not locally sourced, but locally produced?

You have to really read between the lines when buying anything other than directly from the farmer. Deciphering the labels can be tricky. For example, the mustard took at least a half hour of reading labels to finally find one produced locally, although I don’t believe it is 100% organic. During this treasure hunt, I was outraged to even find a product labeled Napa Valley mustard that wasn’t even made in Napa, but in Oregon! And now, sigh, as I re-read the label on my local mustard, I realize it may not have been produced in Berkeley afterall. It states that it is produced for “Berkeley Bowl” and calls itself “Berkeley Dijon”, but there isn’t any more information on the production source.

To make one batch of everything, it cost approximately $120... a bit more than we had anticipated (we had budgeted $75).


THE KITCHEN TEST

The actual “kitchen test” was staged on Friday with Jess, Scooter, Michael, Paul and myself in the kitchen. Over the course of the evening, we prepared three rounds of food to sample.

The first round included the fava bean puree and garlic toasts with the lettuce wraps. We did not have almond butter for the lettuce wrap marinade, so we substituted with the orange dressing intended for the baby vegetables.

The lettuce wraps were delicious, but messy. We were concerned about the feasibility of being able to manage them without utensils at the reception. In the end, we decided they were just too good to not include on the final menu and that hopefully the messiness would simply add to the festivity of the opening event.


The fava bean puree was lovely, really lovely after Scooter, our “tv cooking show trained culinary expert”, came to the rescue. He added a few additional spices – red pepper flakes, tarragon, salt, and a bit more olive oil - (not entirely local, but from our spice rack) to the puree that perfected it.

Preparing the fava beans themselves though was very time consuming. First, we had to shell five pounds of beans. We needed two pounds unshelled for the puree. Next the shelled beans had to be blanched and then the outer skin from each little bean had to be removed. Here is Jess, holding up the paltry amount of beans left after such an extended effort, only weighing in at 1 ½ pounds, a bit short of our goal.


Initially we concluded that this puree just wasn’t practical for the reception, timewise. However, after tasting it, we decided if the beans were prepared a day in advance, then it could be done and was definitely worth the end result.


Round 2 included the avocado and hard cooked eggs with orange dressing (instead of the lemon dressing) and strawberries. We substituted the orange dressing for the lemon because we simply had so much of it! It was very tasty, but as soon as we reached for the first morsel, we were running to the kitchen for knives and forks. It was a nice dish, but far too impractical as reception food.

Scooter suggested tossing the strawberries in a bit of balsamic, a combination that sounded surprising, but worked nicely. It also had the added benefit of being very simple to prepare!

Round 3 included the Greek spinach balls, the asparagus leek frittata, and the steamed asparagus. By round 3 we were flagging, unable to eat any more. We decided to have only a small taste and package the rest as takeout. At this point, though, Michael announced that he had just finished peeling all of the baby carrots. Oops we totally forgot about the baby vegetables and vinaigrette! I thought he might actually try to force feed them to us since it had taken him so long to peel. Hopefully he has forgiven us for finding it all so amusing.


The Greek spinach balls were disappointingly bland. We decided they could be remedied with a few additional spices (suggestions forthcoming from Scooter!) and perhaps a bit of mustard. Also, we thought they would be more manageable and go further if half the size.

You could tell we were running out of steam because we forgot to put the leek into the frittata from the start, and added it later, but it still was quite good, if a bit thin. We concluded
that we should double the ingredients to bulk it up a bit.

Our final menu remained intact with the exception of the avocado and egg dish which did not make the cut due to the “utensil” factor. Otherwise, Paul and Jessica (and any other cooks who volunteer) will make one batch of everything with a double batch of the frittata. The food they prepare will be supplemented with local breads, cheeses and fruit brought by the other participating artists in the exhibition.

It was a fun and enlightening evening and we did manage to achieve our goal, that is, to create, sample, and shape the menu!

Reducing Waste

The Center for Urban Education and Sustainable Agriculture's weekly newsletter had a great article about reducing waste from packaging. Here's a great quote from the article, "According to a US EPA statistic from 2005, 31.2% of municipal waste is generated from packaging."

http://www.cuesa.org/cuesa/e-letter/archives/webmail-041108.htm

Packaging has multiple problems. The energy being used in generating the plastics plus the landfill space when disposing of this very temporary item. The Farmer's Market at The Ferry Building in SF is giving away free tote bags and encourgaing sellers/buyers to use reusable packaging. Great that this farmer's market is taking the next step in sustainability. Hopefully Oakland's markets will follow.

I notice when I cook more using fresh veggies we generate less trash. Take-out/fast food always generating the most. We can tell how healthy we are eating by looking in the garbage at the end of the week.

I'd say the majority of our plastic comes from those bags for fresh veggies. We try not to use them when possible but still do on smaller items like mushrooms. They are a pain in the ass to wash and reuse. I wish somebody would come up with a cheap sustainable alternative to these ubiquitous veggie bags.

For our exhibit, our classmate Chelsea is creating a tablecloth and napkins out of reused fabrics. It's Art and can be used again! We're asking fellow students to bring in cups/plates for themselves and another to share. That way we dont have to buy or throw anything out. Plus it makes us responsible and hopefully shows this skill to others attending.

The Menu

Today is April 1 – the official beginning of our kitchen test month. I have to reign myself in and settle on a menu. I believe we have enough recipes to select from, but with a plan of thirty people and only a budget of $75, can we really make this happen?

Chris , a fellow eco-artist, has offered to help us with food donations. He is a produce manager in a specialist organic food shop and we are profoundly grateful for his generosity.

Paul, my partner in this project, and Jessica, another eco-artist, will be preparing the fare. Paul is a professional gardener and we know he will be our source for good wholesome and nutritious eggs, colorful too. I suspect he has a few other things, like herbs in his garden as well.

Over the weekend I took a list of ingredients to the Berkeley farmers market to get a sense of cost, availability, and locality. With that information I then revisited our candidate recipes and determined which were the most suitable given our constraints. I eliminated some recipes due to expense and/or ingredient access and drew up the following menu proposal. Note, however, that as we kitchen test this menu may again change due to things like the "sog" factor (i.e. how well do each of these hold up over an evening?), complexity (are there too many dishes to prepare with only 2 chefs in the kithcen? is any recipe simply too time consuming?), and convenience (can certain dishes be prepared in advance?).

Savory

Caramelized Onion Tart

Greek Spinach Rice Balls

Garlic Toasts with Fava Bean Puree

Asparagus Leek Fritata

Thai Starter OR Crispy Lettuce Rolls

Baby Vegetables with Orange Dressing
OR Shaved Raw Asparagus with Lemony Vinaigrette


Sweet

Strawberries and Oranges

Liquid

Water infusion with orange and lemon slices

And of course, I’ve added yet another new recipe into the mix found only last night -- the shaved raw asparagus with lemony vinaigrette (pg. 23, asparagus, lemon juice, olive oil, salt/pepper, parmigiano-reggiano cheese) from The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market Cookbook, a comprehensive guide to impeccable produce plus 130 seasonal recipes. How had I missed this one? It looks like it has been around for a few years with a copyright of 2006. My pile of cookbooks is getting out of hand, but it does make a nice addition. It is conveniently organized by season and ingredient. For example, the Spring chapter includes apricots, asparagus, blueberries, cherries, dandelion, fava beans, fennel, green garlic, lamb, peas, potatoes, rhubarb, sorrel, stinging nettles, and our favorite strawberries. And it is filled with advice on choosing, storing, and preparing these ingredients with a handful of delicious looking recipes. But I did say I had to reign myself in, so I perused only the Spring chapter for finger foods and found that it complimented my previous recipe selections. That is, I found a few recipes for asparagus with vinaigrettes and also a fava bean crostini recipe.

Bon appetitio! We'll see you soon on the test kitchen front.