Alice Waters came to Charlottesville

Alice Waters visited a school in Charlottesville last week. Beyond the Flavor has a beautiful post from the event. The City Schoolyard Garden Facebook page has several more pictures.

Who: Alice Waters, celebrated chef and owner of Chez Panisse, a Berkeley, CA restaurant consistently ranked among the world’s best. She is an author, and an activist for local, organic food; school lunch reform; and related education and outreach efforts.

What: Ms. Waters visited the City Schoolyard Garden at Buford Middle School, which is inspired by the Edible Schoolyard Project, which was created by Waters, and parents and staff from Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley.

When: April 18th, a dreary, rainy day.

Where: The City Schoolyard Garden at Buford Middle School, where students get hands-on learning about gardening, cooking, nutrition, and science.

Why: Ms. Waters came to Charlottesville to speak about the importance of schoolyard gardens and show her support for the City Schoolyard Garden at Buford. From a description of Chez Panisse Foundation’s mission:

Using food systems as a unifying concept, students learn how to grow, harvest, and prepare nutritious seasonal produce. Experiences in the kitchen and garden foster a better understanding of how the natural world sustains us, and promote the environmental and social well being of our school community.

 

“It’s their misfortune that they lack big eyes.”

Is an Egg for Breakfast Worth This? by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times tells the horrifying story of Kreider Farms, which was recently exposed by a Humane Society undercover investigation. The article describes the dirty, crowded, rodent and fly infested barns where hens are raised and argues that even chickens, who don’t display much personality, should be exempt from cruelty.

I argue that chickens have plenty of personality. I submit the following as evidence:

Guest chickens quickly sized up the threat level presented by Dog, and acted sassy toward him to the point of stealing treats from under his nose.

Guest chickens learned that the humans came through this door and rushed it whenever it opened. They would have come into the house if allowed.

Chickens are hilarious. I’m not sure how anyone who has spent time watching chickens putter around a yard could think they don’t have personalities, or could eat a factory farmed egg or chicken meat product.

What exactly is deli meat?

The fact that “real turkey breast” is a selling point that needs to be advertised gave me pause: what is turkey breast usually made from, if it’s not real turkey? What about other deli meats?

According to an MSNBC article on deli meats, there are three types: whole animal sections that are cooked and then sliced (examples: roast beef, corned beef, turkey breast), sectioned and formed products (example: ham), and processed products (example: bologna).

The first category of meat, whole cuts, is just meat–often with added salt or sugar, and preservatives, as the large surface area needs more protection from bacteria. This type of cold cut is presumably what the cafe above is advertising.

From here the water gets murkier. The second category of deli meats, sectioned and formed, is made from chunks of meat bonded together with proteins, meat emulsions, or non-meat additives, then molded and cooked to shaped it into its new form.

But most cold cuts fall into the third category: processed meats. The technique is similar to that for section and formed meats, but more extreme: the meat is essentially turned into a mush, mixed with additives (sometimes including possible carcinogens, such as nitrates; non-meat animal parts, such as lips, tripe, stomachs and hearts; or MSG), squeezed into a casing ala sausage, and cooked into shape.

The MSNBC article lists and defines many cold cut additives. Yum.

This article lists 15 things you should know about lunch meat.

So, to summarize, and perhaps you’ve heard me say this before: know where (and what!) your food comes from! Read labels and eat real food.

Suburban renewal

Guest post from Buzzy! Thanks, Buzzy!

Sometimes Buzzy likes to relax after a tough day of beekeeping, and what better way than with the most locavore tea she can find?   I was curious to see what I could forage from my own suburban lot, so I gathered dandelions from the lawn for dandelion tea.

I knew all parts of a dandelion were edible, and while a dandelion root tea has all kinds of medicinal benefits, the fluffy yellow flowers will work as well.

So, after a few minutes of picking, rinsing, and pulling out the little tufts of yellow petals, I packed them in a tea ball and allowed 5 minutes of steeping.  The result, with my very own honey, was a little like chamomile tea, and really quite good.