This past weekend...

Because the weather was so beautiful, I could not help but spending a great majority of my weekend out doors.

On Saturday, Joe and I planted our garden full of string beans, strawberries, tomatoes, squash, lettuce, cucumbers, herbs, etc. While they look a little weak, I've been told to just keep them moist and sing to them. Seriously.

Sunday, we visited the Queens Farm Museum and hung out with Mister Marty who took us on a tour and taught us how to make corn husk brooms. The farm is such an incredible place I've deemed it my sanctuary. The farm animals seem so happy and the produce is lush. And I have to mention that we purchased a dozen eggs from their beautiful red hens - delicious!

Oh, happy weekends!

Vilsack: I have my reservations, but I really like this

I admit I have my reservations with Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack - him being friends with big business farming, and all. But, this I like. 

Vilsack is supporting a 1,300 square foot sustainable/rotation crop garden in D.C. The produce of the garden will go to local food pantries. If that isn't cool enough, he is also inviting the chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux to participate.

 

Not bad at all... ENCORE!!!

Chickens in NYC

I think I want to start raising chickens.  Joe laughs at me.... but I'm completely serious.

EARTH DAY!!

I'm sure I don't have to remind anyone, but today is EARTH DAY!!!

While it is my favorite holiday, I hope that everyone gets out there and does their part to help our beautiful planet. Here are some tips:

1. Plant something... anything! It can be herbs, a flower, vegetables, a tree. It doesn't matter if it is in your window at work or in a garden.
2. Say no to meat for one day a week. The stats are astonishing - if you cut out meat for one day you save about 3,300 animals lives in your lifetime! The less animals being raised for consumption, the less waste being dumped into our waterways.
3. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Enough said.
4. Pick up a piece of trash. Easy to do and it will make our streets cleaner!

As always, happy harvesting!!!!

Chimps and the Modern Western Diet

Yet another interesting article from the NY Times.  

From the Science Section, Richard Wrangham, discusses years of study on how we evolved from a Chimp Diet to cooking our food.

Very interesting... especially while reading "The Face On Your Plate".

Where have all the wild horses gone?

They've been hit with birth control darts in an effort to control the population.

Perhaps, instead of jumping the (dart) gun and drugging up wild animals, why not research WHY there is a rise in wild horse population?!

I am highly disgusted.

NY Times Article

More about the behind the scenes on your favorite cooking shows! 

Rise in Oral Allergies

I found this very interesting.  In Europe, they have found that more and more children are allergic to vegetables and fruits.  

While they do not have specific reasons, yet, speculation and theories are looking closely at the modern western lifestyle and diet.  Interestingly enough, car exhaust emissions make for a rise in pollen allergies and therefore may be affecting fruit pollination.  

My question - could this also be in part to GMO's? I know that European countries have stricter laws against integrating engineered produce into the markets... but what if?

Book of the week

The Face On Your Plate... I simply cannot put it down!  

My new favorite "dirty" rice

I've always been a fan of spanish/creole rice.  

Now, try my twist!

Whole Grain Rice, black beans, dried cranberries, and crushed red pepper.

Mmmmm...

Tax Day Tea Parties and The Blues!!

I love this.  

If I were having a tax day tea party, I would serve rooibus tea, boisenberry pie, and fruit with sliced lemon, honey, and mint leaves.  

WFUV has also been playing the blues all day -- how fabulous!  

Tax Day has become my new favorite day.

Youth Forum and Expo: Opportunities in Food, Farming and Active Living

All I can say is that I wish I could attend this event.  Further more, I wish that I would have attended something similar when I was in high school trying to figure out what to do with my life.  I have a feeling I may have chosen a different path.

Kudos to Hilary Baum who puts this event together.  Please check out their website here and see what incredible seeds these people are planting in the minds of our youth!!

Bittman: we're not all perfect.

I am a fan of Mark Bittman and I value his opinions.  Today, he blogged about TV food shows.  I share mixed and biased feelings on the subject.  He comments how shows are not real and that they should admit to mistakes being made in the kitchen - I think this is a bit of a stretch.  

Yes, of course, mistakes are made, but, shouldn't this go without saying?  I would hope that American viewers are not naive enough to think that the Food Network Studios lives in a perfect world.   

Lambertville, Food, & Film

A Lambertville Film Fest about Gardening, Food, and Water!!!  My good friend, Sarah (who is also producing the event), asked me to be a speaker for the film The World According To Monsanto, May 16th.

ACME Screening Room, 25 S. Union St. Lambertville, NJ 
[www.nickelodeonnights.org] 
SPECIAL “GREEN” FILM SERIES TO CELEBRATE THE PLANTING OF LAMBERTVILLE LIBRARY’S SUSTAINABLE GARDEN ON MAY 9th & 16th!
TICKET PRICE PER FILM: $7 in advance/$10 at door
BUY ADVANCE TICKETS ONLINE https://friends-of-lambertville-library.ticketleap.com  

May 9th
The Garden
5 pm & 6:25 pm
7:45 pm Post Film Speakers/Discussion: Meg Metz, Farmer’s Market Manager, Hunterdon Land Trust Alliance, Meredith Taylor, Senior Project Manager, Community Gardening and Nutrition, Isles, Julia Taylor, President, SEE Lambertville
A 2009 Oscar nominated documentary feature about the citizen fight for a 14-acre tract of South Central LA land, a farm that citizens cultivated from abandoned land after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992.  But when the City of Los Angeles and a powerful developer tried to evict the farmers and build warehouses, the citizens fought back.  Not Rated; 80 minutes, 2008
Thanks to this program’s co-sponsors: Hunterdon Land Trust Alliance (www.hlta.org  ), Isles (www.isles.org  )

May 16th
The World According to Monsanto
5 pm & 6:55 pm
8:45 pm Post Film Speakers/Discussion   “Food Glorious Food”
Jackie Ricotta, PhD, Associate Professor of Horticulture at Delaware Valley College [http://www.delval.edu], teaches courses on Sustainable Agriculture and Organic Crop Production and serves on the Board of the Bucks County Foodshed Alliance; Kendra Thatcher, Operations Coordinator, Food Network [http://www.foodnetwork.com/], writer of the Media Harvest blog [http://mediaharvest.blogspot.com/] and contributor to Dish Du Jour Magazine [http://www.dishdujourmagazine.com/default.aspx]; Kimberly Kaufmann, Leader Slow Food Bucks County and Co-Founder of Bucks County Foodshed Alliance [http://www.buckscountyfoodshedalliance.org/] bringing farmers, landowners, restaurateurs, educators, environmentalists and consumers together to foster and expand a comprehensive, local, sustainable food supply in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

A film by Marie-Monique Robin, documents the devastating cost of Monsanto’s race over the last decade to genetically engineer and patent the world’s crops.  Robin’s interviews with scientists, legislators, agricultural officials, farmers, shepherds, and families affected by genetically modified organisms (GMOs), has made this picture critically-acclaimed in every country where it has opened.  Not Rated; 108 minutes

*”Slow Food” is a movement to catalyze a broad cultural shift away from the destructive effects of an industrial food system and fast life; toward the regenerative cultural, social and economic benefits of a sustainable food system, regional food traditions, the pleasures of the table, and a slower and more harmonious rhythm of life. 

 
May 23rd
FLOW-For the Love of Water
5 pm & 6:40 pm
8:15 pm Post Film Speaker/Discussion “Drink Local-Flow Global”
Peggy Krist, Water Rights Activist, will speak briefly about how she’s made a difference globally through local projects sponsored by the Jonathan D. Krist Foundation, established in memory of her son.
Jim Waltman, Executive Director, Stony Brook Millstone Watershed Association will speak and lead a discussion on the status of our local water supply and how preservation of those natural resources impacts the global water supply.
A documentary that explores the disturbing reality that our crucial resource, Water, is dwindling at an alarming rate and our greed may very well be the cause. What do we do when we lose our very essence of life? This film explores the problems, solutions and what people are doing on a personal level to fight this battle.  Not Rated; 93 minutes, 2008

** “Take Back the Tap: Taste Test Challenge” will be held in the ACME lobby.  See if you can tell the difference between bottled water and tap!  Conducted by the NHS Environmental Club

What I'm thinking about this week...

Movies: The Future Of Food, The World According To Monsanto, Swamp Cabbage

Books: The Face on Your Plate, Persuasion

TV: All the cooking shows PBS, NYC TV & NJN can give me!

Projects: ACME food film fest, pod-casts, articles for Dish Du Jour, stuffing escarole, taxes, and finishing the guitar

Dish Du Jour Magazine

As some of you may know, I've started writing for Dish Du Jour Magazine - a quarterly, Queen's food publication.

Here is the link to my first article, Behind The Scenes: The Many Hats of a Recipe Developer.  Sarah Copeland is a good friend of mine and the energy behind the Good Food Gardens, which I am graciously a part of!

I'll be posting our conversation for which this article was based, later this week.  It will be my first of many pod-casts!

Have anything you want me to write about?  Let me know!!

Sunday Morning... yet again

The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and the breeze, strong. Sunday Morning on CBS is on, NY Times on my lap top - I know, I know, I hate reading and watching and listening at the same time, but it's comforting today.

Joe and I are making banana pancakes this morning with some yummy coffee and juice. I'll be recovering from surgery for the next few weeks and thus catching up on writing, blogging, thinking, reading, and hopefully experiencing.

Cheers!