For me, there’s nothing more uplifting than meeting children who are excited about growing their own food.  So when the Sweetie and I travel, we often google around looking for Edible Schoolyards to visit.

In Phoenix, we really hit pay dirt!  Mrs. Molly Roberts, a retired science teacher called back to replace a teacher on pregnancy leave, happily accepted the challenge and went right back to work showing her students at the Lowell Elementary School how to plant a salsa garden.

Mrs. Roberts understands that kids will get excited about gardening when they know they’ll get to taste the results, so the children planted tomatoes, cilantro, onions, and chili peppers.  To top it off, they planted some strawberries in order to make strawberry ice cream.

The kids planted both sun and shade gardens and make daily log entries to compare how the plants grow differently in the two diverse environments.  Mrs. Roberts also uses the garden to teach about how plants grow, how sun affects plant health, why healthy soil is important, and how to be good gardeners.  The children also learn the value of composting.

In this clip you’ll see Mrs. Roberts and the children telling you exactly what they’re up to.  One of the students shows off the sun garden, and you’ll see how excited all the children are!  I’m the one in the background asking all the questions.

In the second clip, one of the students tells you about what she enters into her log.  Another shows us the shade garden.

Here’s the principal, Mrs. Rosanna Hidalgo, showing us around the campus, rightfully called La Tierra Buena.  Never have I seen a public school with such lovely grounds. And somehow, Mrs. Hidalgo was going to find the time to play basketball with the kids after school let out. As we chatted with her, she said hello by name to every child who passed by. Wish I had a principal like her when I went to Elementary School.

When I emerged from the NYC Food and Climate Summit onto Washington Square Park last Saturday, I was astonished to see  hundred of Santas hovering near the great arch.

At first I thought it was silly, this gathering of raucus, red-jacketed folks chanting “ho, ho, ho,” and “we love Santa.” I learned afterwards that this annual SantaCon gathered 1,000 pounds of food to NYC food banks last year and was aiming to double that amount this year.

In an even broader sense, I like to think of this celebration of a folk hero who gives, gives, and gives some more as a metaphor for this moment, when a burgeoning number of people feel compelled to look beyond their next of kin and give voice to a more universal Santa.

This voice is compelling us to act upon the urgent messages heard loudly and clearly at the Food and Climate Summit: Feed the Hungry!  Heal the Earth!

Consider expressing your inner green Santa by sending bounty to one or more of these worthy causes.

Great last-minute gifts and no angst of crowded malls.  Just a simple click, and you can learn more about their healing missions and make donations or buy sustainable, sustaining gifts on line.

Heifer International: With gifts of livestock and training, Heiffer helps families improve their nutrition and generate income in sustainable ways. They refer to the animals as “living loans” because in exchange for livestock and training, families agree to give one of the animal’s offspring to another family in need. It’s called Passing on the Gift because it creates an ever-expanding network of hope and peace.

Seed Savers Exchange:   This member-supported organization is the largest non-governmental seed bank in the United States.  It maintains the seeds of more than 25,000 endangered vegetable varieties, most having been brought to North America by members’ ancestors who immigrated from Europe, the Middle East, Asia and other parts of the world.  Members have distributed an estimated 1 million samples of rare garden seeds over the past 35 years.

Palms for Life Fund:  Palm in palm with the poor around the world, this organization works with local NGO’s and uses microfinancing to alleviate hunger, support education, adult literacy, and health care for mothers and children.

The Smile Train:  You’ve probably seen the heart-breaking ads of children with cleft palates.  This organization trains local doctors to perform a 45-minute surgery to reconstruct their faces.  The surgery costs as little as $250 and gives each child their birthright:  the ability to smile.

Global Goods Partners:  Creates sustainable livelihoods for women by offering a wide selection of fair trade products including jewelry, home decor, toys, bags and accessories handmade by female artisans.  You can either buy last-minute gifts or make a donation.

Just Food:   Trains urban community members to start and manage Community Supported Agriculture projects in partnership with their farmers.  Also teaches people in under-served neighborhoods to grow and cook their own food.

Last night I had a ball–or should I say a Ball jar?– at a free workshop called Preserving Your Harvest with Canning.

The class was sponsored by Just Food and Green Thumb, two terrific organizations that promote and support community gardens.

The teacher, Classie Parker–who I’m convinced has a secret life as a vaudevillian–kept us entertained while teaching the basics.

“Canning brings the community together,” proclaimed Classie, who hails from South Carolina where she learned to can at her grandmother’s knee when she was five and has been preserving the harvest ever since. “We’re the can-can girls, a hot mess,” she added with a twinkle in her eye and a swivel of her hips.

Classie invited volunteers from the audience to come up and do some canning. They all cut up carrots, onions, peppers, and cucumbers and stuffed them into sterilized jars along with whole green beans and some fresh dill and a few cloves of garlic.

“Pack love in those jars,” ordered Classie as the volunteers pressed the vegetables down hard until the first rim. Then Classie poured a boiling hot pickling liquid over the vegetables. “It’s just 1,2,3–as easy as that,” she said, “1 cup vinegar, 2 teaspoons kosher salt, and 3 cups water simmered together for about 20 minutes.”

Then the seal got pressed into place and the lid screwed on tight. After a giving it a good shake, the jar went back into the boiling water for another 20 minutes, then it was cooled to room temperature. It must be stored for at least 30 days before you can dig in.

“And don’t tell anyone where your pantry is,” Classie warned, “’cause once people hear about your preserves, they’ll steal your jars!” Having said that, she promptly began plopping precious spoonfuls of her own red pear preserve onto crackers to share with the crowd.

After the delicious nibbles, representatives of Green Thumb and Just Food handed out free canning equipment to those who have community garden plots.

I don’t have a plot to grow on, and I was jealous on many counts!

Here’s what it looked like from the front row:

So, enjoy her most recent recipe, for vegetable curry, and check out her site for more.  And let us know if you give this a try!

Eatwell Recipe 25: Quick Coconut Vegetable Curry

Simply put, this curry is “the bomb.” It’s simple, delicious, easy to make and good for you. It was inspired by a similar dish my brother-in-law, Daniel, made for dinner a few weeks ago. He’s a loose kind of cook — instead of reading a recipe he relies on gut instinct. And his instincts were right on in this case!

Although the recipe below calls for green beans, kabocha squash and chard (since those are the things we’d received in our produce box this past week) you could just as easily substitute spinach or kale for the chard, turnips or carrots (or both) for the squash, add some potatoes, etc., etc. Likewise, though I’ve listed curry powder below, you could toast your own spices if you’re a purist or you could also use one of the Thai curry pastes with delightful results. The basic concept is very flexible so feel free to experiment.

That said, the kabocha squash is truly excellent in this curry — its dense, starchy flesh lends lots of substance and its sweet, meaty flavor complements the coconut milk nicely.

Besides tasting really good, one of the nicest things about this dish is its simplicity. It’s a great way to work a bunch of fresh veggies into a delicious meal. I’d recommend serving it with short grain brown rice and a salad.

Quick Coconut Vegetable Curry
Serves 6

Ingredients

* 1 small to medium-sized kabocha squash, halved, seeds removed and cut into 1-inch cubes
* 1 bunch chard, washed, stems removed and chopped into 1-inch pieces, leaves cut into ribbons
* 2 big handfuls of green beans, washed and trimmed
* 2 medium onions, sliced
* 3 cloves of garlic, minced
* 1 tsp minced fresh ginger
* 2 cans of coconut milk (my Thai cooking teacher recommends the Chao koh brand)
* 3 cups of vegetable broth (I use Better than Bouillon and just add boiling water — it’s great stuff)
* A very large handful of fresh cilantro, washed and chopped
* Freshly ground black pepper
* 3 Tbsps curry powder and/or garam masala (you can use more if you like)
* 2 tsps canola oil or ghee
* A pinch of red pepper flakes
* 1 Tbsp sugar

Directions

1. Start by prepping the veggies: Cut the squash in half, remove the seeds and then cut the flesh into 1-inch cubes (there’s no need to peel kabocha squash). Wash the chard and remove the stems, chopping them into 1-inch long pieces. Cut the chard leaves into ribbons. Slice the onions and mince the garlic and ginger. Wash and chop the cilantro.

2. Once all the veggies are prepped, put your rice on to cook. I recommend either short grain brown rice or basmati rice for this curry.

3. In a large pot, sautee the onions, garlic, ginger and chili flakes in the oil or ghee for several minutes, cooking until the onions have begun to soften and become translucent. While that stuff is frying, boil the water for the vegetable bouillon and mix it well (unless you’re using prepared vegetable broth).

4. Add the vegetable broth and the coconut milk to the pot then toss in the cubed kabocha squash and season it all with curry powder, garam masala, pepper and sugar (there’s most likely no need for salt since the vegetable broth should be fairly salty.) Bring to a boil then reduce the heat to medium-high and simmer for 5-10 minutes or until the squash is beginning to feel tender when poked with a fork.

5. Add the green beans and the chard stems and simmer for another 3-5 minutes or until the green beans feel done to your liking. Then toss in the ribbons of chard leaf and the cilantro and cook for another 2-3 minutes.

6. Allow to cool slightly and serve over the warm rice.

When I first looked at my current apartment, what I loved about it most was the yard, a tangled mess of weeds covering an area larger than the entire (two-bedroom) apartment.  I moved in at the end of the summer and spent my winter dreaming of the bounty I was sure my garden would produce throughout the year. Fresh greens for spring salads. Tomatoes and peppers for summer salsas. Jars and jars worth of cucumbers for pickling and gifting to friends and family. The last of the carrots, harvested as the coldness of fall began to set in. Amidst all my daydreaming, my friend Adam, an urban permaculturalist who now lives in Denver, advised me to get my soil tested for lead.  “You have an old house,” he said, “It was probably painted with lead paint at some point.”

Spring came, and I dutifully ordered a soil test kit from the Cornell Nutrient Analysis Laboratory, but — much like a dentist’s reminder card — it lay neglected on my dresser through March, April, and May.  Finally, after reading a New York Times article about lead in urban soils, I swallowed my nerves and sent my sample off.

The news wasn’t good – my soil had 800 parts per million (ppm) lead, approximately two times (or more!) the maximum safe level for garden soil, depending on whom you talk to – some experts put it at 200, others at 500.  I didn’t know what to do – I checked out Kitchen Gardeners International for advice, and I found someone in a similar predicament, but no good answers.  I let my garden languish for a little while, and searched the internet for a solution.

All my internet prowling also showed me that I’m not alone – even the Obamas’ garden tested positive for lead, creating a panic that was later calmed when it was clarified that their lead levels were far below the safe maximum.

I found out that the news wasn’t all bad though: while lead contamination of garden soil certainly isn’t a good thing, most lead poisoning comes from direct ingestion of soil, and that – in general – plants do not readily accumulate lead.  Fruits and fruiting vegetables, specifically, are unlikely to take up any lead at all – in a 2003 survey[PDF] of contaminated garden soil in Chicago, Molly Finster, Kimberly Gray, and Helen Binns tested 52 pieces of fruit grown in soils with lead levels of up to 2100 ppm, and found lead  in only one of them[PDF], and at a low level at that.  That was enough to convince me that my cukes, tomatoes, and peppers were okay, at least for this year – though my roommate still has her doubts.  The carrots, radishes, broccoli, and lettuces on the other hand? Not so much.  Though it’s not likely that they’ll have accumulated much lead, it’s very likely that they will have accumulated at least some by the time they’re harvested. So I’ve replaced those sections of my garden with flowers, and have tried to transplant some of the hardier looking sprouts to containers on my balcony.  I’m still hoping they’ll make it!

Many experts say that urban gardeners should assume that they have lead in their soil, especially if they’re gardening near a structure that was built before 1978, when lead paint was widely used.  If that’s your situation, don’t be like me – get your soil tested before you plant.  I used Cornell, but Brooklyn College also offers a soil testing service, as do many university laboratories around the country, and you can order home-testing kits on the internet or buy them at stores like Home Depot, though I’d be wary of their accuracy.

Here is a great explanation of what soil test results look like.  If you do find lead, it’s not the end of the world.  I plan to do the rest of my edible gardening in containers, and grow only flowers in the yard, but if I were planning to stay in my house for longer than a couple more years, I would sow seeds of plants that would phytoremediate the soil, or take the lead out of it.  I might also work on altering its pH level, because high soil pH immobilizes lead, making it even less likely to be absorbed by plants.

The bottom line is that a little soil contamination shouldn’t stop you from gardening.  Don’t eat the dirt, of course, but don’t panic.  After all, as Edie Stone, the executive director of Green Thumb, said in the New York Times article that finally convinced me to send my soil sample in, “You can’t assume that what you buy at the grocery store is any safer.”  Now, I’ve got a little container paradise on my balcony, and the flowers in the yard make me smile whenever I come and go.  I harvested a couple of the cucumbers the other day, and – after washing them with a 1% vinegar solution like the Cornell Horticulture program suggested – my boyfriend and I enjoyed a delicious salad.

Fans of raw milk maintain that it is healthier and tastier than pasteurized milk. Some of those who favor raw milk say it lessens milk allergies, allowing those who are lactose intolerant to enjoy it, while others favor it because it doesn’t contain antibiotics.

The Federal Drug Administration does not recommend the ingestion of raw milk and warns that consuming raw milk is done at your own risk. According to the FDA, over 1,000 people became ill from drinking unpasteurized milk between 1998 and 2005.

Currently, thirty of the United States allow customers to buy raw milk. In most of the states, raw milk can only be purchased directly from farmers. Because state law varies on this issue, the federal government restricts interstate commerce of raw milk for human consumption. Connecticut and California have the two most liberal laws, allowing the product to be sold with a warning label in supermarkets. Several new proposed state laws as well as a bill in the US Congress might soon change that.

In Connecticut, where seven people became ill from raw milk last year, the state legislature is considering allowing farmers to sell ra milk to consumers. At the center of the debate is whether an individual’s right to eat and drink whatever they want outweighs the potential health risks. A 2008 case in Connecticut highlights the argument for stricter raw milk standards, as a couple of children who had not consumed raw milk became sick from one who had.

In Connecticut the debate also revolves around economics: some farmers say they would suffer without being able to sell to grocery stores because they do not have the room, capital, or time to put in a store on their farm, whereas other farmers believe the bill would actually help them by reducing the transportation costs of bringing raw milk to the supermarket.

Connecticut’s legislature is also considering enforcing more safety testing on raw milk and requiring the farmers who produce it to pay for the testing, which many would not be able to afford. The end result is that if a bill passes to limit the sale of raw milk, at least 14 farms in Connecticut will be affected.

Moving in the other direction, Maryland’s state government is considering passing a bill that would allow farmers to sell and consumers to buy raw milk, which are both currently illegal.

On the national level, Representative Ron Paul has introduced a bill in Congress that would allow raw milk to be transported across state lines for sale.

What do you think? Should raw milk be sold in grocery store or banned completely? Should their be more safety testing and if so, who should pay for it?

Bree Shirvell graduated in May 2008 from George Washington University with a degree in political science in journalism. She is currently a freelance writer in New York, and has written for La Cucina Italiana, OZOlife, ToTheCenter, and PG Media.

It’s tough to argue with a win-win situation-a community of city dwellers partner with a farm to receive a share of produce once a week in exchange for paying their farmer a modest lump sum at the beginning of the season. While you get your local produce, the farmer is able to cover his annual start-of-the-season costs, making it possible to grow his business and get to market once the vegetables really get going later in the summer. But, as one might imagine, there are plenty of logistics involved. Enter Just Food, a venerable organization based in Manhattan that has been facilitating farm/community matches to make successful CSAs for over a decade.

This year marked their 9th annual CSA in NYC conference, which was held on Sunday, March 8th at Teachers College. Speaking to a packed room of farmers and CSA supporters, Jacquie Berger, Just Food’s executive director, reported that last year there were 62 CSAs across the city-this year there will be 80. In fact, the desire to get local produce in our communities is so pronounced it’s hard to keep up with the demand.

An early pioneer of the CSA model, W. Rogowski Farm partnered with Just Food back in 1999 to form a CSA that began humbly with twelve shares. “Taking this bold step outward was crucial for our farm,” recalled Cheryl Rogoski, the keynote speaker. “My community is Polish, my church is Polish-we’re used to doing things the old-fashioned way,” said the one-time Princess of the Onion Harvest turned McArthur Fellow. “I was scared to death-I didn’t know what I was getting us into. But I was willing to think weird. My father said it would never work. ‘We’re still collecting on produce we delivered six months ago-no one is ever going to pay you for vegetables you haven’t grown yet!’” And yet, the proof is in the produce, so to speak. This year W. Rogowski Farms will be supported by a CSA with six hundred shares. “It’s never been a more exciting time to be a farmer,” she noted.

For city dwellers, forming a connection to the soil where our food is grown may be the foremost reason one thinks to join a CSA, but the underlying principal is that the money you pay at the beginning of the season buys you a share of the farm. While you may not get much dirt under your nails when picking up your allotment of weekly greens, your payment inherently involves you in the business of farming.

In order to facilitate the give-and-take relationship between farmers and their supporters, the CSA in NYC Conference offered a plethora of morning and afternoon workshops that fleshed out the myriad of food-related topics participation in a CSA addresses. Beyond Just Food’s Community Chefs offering tips on creative use of CSA produce or how to make baby food with a weekly share, panels touched on topics ranging from volunteer involvement, offering meat and egg shares to members, worker’s rights, and the farm bill, to what food justice will mean in the Obama administration.

The speakers were farmers, food historians, and community organizers, and when the panels turned into group discussions, the audience of CSA members representing all five boroughs of New York City were able to draw on their personal experiences and share stories that touched on solutions to organizational quandaries, how to incorporate flexible spending plans for low-income members, and how to start a CSA from scratch.

The workshop “Good to Eat: Food, Culture and Nutrition,” posed the questions: Is there a CSA cuisine? How do different ethnic groups incorporate CSA produce into their traditional recipes? Judith Belasco from the Jewish organization Hazon, recounted her group’s desire to feature CSA produce in Shabbat dinner, Professor Fa Tai from the Food Studies Department at New School commented that different cultures have clashing notions of nutrition, and Zaid Kurdieh of Norwich Meadows Farms contributed his experience of incorporating tenets of his Muslim faith into his practice as a farmer.

At the end of the day, it all comes back to the way the food tastes, why we like to eat it and share it with our friends and families. Fittingly, we moved from talking farming politics to sampling products from local purveyors who had assembled in an indoor market. Jessamyn Waldman from Hot Bread Kitchen was vending her local line of flatbreads and floating the idea of starting a CSA that would offer bread shares. “If we can get enough people interested the shares would pay for a new oven,” she told me. Sure enough, just last week I read that her plan has taken off.

Like Rogowski said, we’ve got to be willing to think weird. This week I heard Jimmy’s No. 43, a popular East Village gastro-pub, will be a drop-off point for a CSA. Since when does a restaurant want to encourage its neighbors to cook their own dinner? Now restaurants are relying on their communities in a new way, and like a farm, having regulars invest support makes it possible to sustain and grow business in the face of the economic downturn.

As the gathering was winding down I bumped into Jacquie Berger and congratulated her on such a well-organized and well-attended conference. We started talking about our own CSAs and it turns out we share a farmer! “People want to know where their food is coming from-who makes it and who benefits from their dollars. With all of the turmoil right now people are looking for assurance, solid connections,” said Berger. While it’s safe to say the CSA movement is growing with gusto, the city and my personal food route feel like they’d both just gotten pleasantly smaller.

Jeanne Hodesh is a freelance food writer and committed locavore. She blogs regularly for Takeabite.cc, Saveur.com, and has been published in Edible Brooklyn and Edible Manhattan. She also composes Local Gourmands, a weekly e-newsletter that lists local food events in New York City.

The pork industry’s quaking in its collective manure-encrusted boots over HBO’s upcoming documentary Death On A Factory Farm, set to premiere next Monday, March 16th at 10pm and be repeated numerous times during the month. The documentary follows an animal rights investigator who spent six weeks working undercover at the Wiles Hog Farm in Creston, Ohio and captured repeated instances of extreme cruelty inflicted on the hogs by callous workers.

Folks who tune in to watch will undoubtedly be disturbed by the graphic footage, but they may be equally shocked to learn that most animal cruelty laws don’t extend to farm animals. The film’s co-producer, seven-time Emmy winner Tom Simon, expressed the hope that exposing these particularly egregious instances of animal cruelty would compel the industry to do a better job of policing itself, adding that “if it doesn’t clean up its act, somebody’s going to do it for them.”

“Pete,” the pseudonymous undercover star of Death On A Factory Farm, granted an interview to Time magazine this week in which he talked about what motivates him to do this kind of work despite the toll that being an undercover animal rights investigator has taken on his personal life (question: doesn’t posing for Time’s photographer kinda blow your cover, even with the baseball cap and sunglasses? Just wondering.)

Simon and “Pete” will be guests on Air America’s Break Room Live with Mark Maron and Sam Seder this Friday at 3pm if you’d like to learn more about their campaign to shine a light on some of factory farming’s darkest practices.

With the U.S. economy in freefall, the number of people receiving federal food assistance benefits grew by nearly four million nationwide in 2008. In October the Food Stamp program, whose roots stretch back to the Food Stamp Plan of 1939, was renamed SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), to signal a stronger focus on nutrition – on helping low-income Americans put healthier food on their plates.

While SNAP funds can be used to buy Doritos and Twinkies, after a decade of public health alarms about obesity, heart disease and diabetes, program administrators are trying to reverse the longstanding trend of poor people often eating the least nutritious food. This has strengthened advocates’ arguments that farmers’ markets should be outfitted to accept payment using the Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) debit card system that replaced paper Food Stamps a decade ago.

Items that can be purchased with SNAP benefits at farmers’ markets include the whole cornucopia of meat, fish, produce, eggs, dairy, bread and other baked goods, as well as products like jam and honey. However, getting the payment system in place has been complicated, because markets don’t have the electric hookups and phone lines to allow individual vendors to process EBT payments.

Today, New York is a national leader in making SNAP work at farmers’ markets. From 2002 to2007, Food Stamp dollars spent at the state’s farmers’ markets grew from just $3,000 to $90,000. By 2008, 112 markets were equipped with EBT technology. Even so, that’s just over a quarter of the roughly 400 farmers’ markets throughout New York.

Diane Eggert, director of the New York Farmers’ Market Federation, anticipates that SNAP dollars spent at the state’s farmers’ markets will increase “three to four times this year over last, based on the growing interest in access to local food and greater need for food stamps as unemployment skyrockets.” The Federation administers New York’s farmers’ market EBT program, so I asked Eggert why so many of the markets still don’t accept SNAP payments.

“It’s time consuming and there’s a lot of back-end labor,” she explained. Getting the EBT technology into a farmers’ market is just the first step. Along with the machines, the markets are issued tokens or other scrip that SNAP participants purchase and then use to buy food. The vendors, in turn, redeem the scrip for cash. EBT sales and use of the scrip must be carefully tracked and logged.

In addition to handling the administrative work, more outreach is essential. “Promotional work needs to be done so that consumers know they can use their SNAP allocation at farmers’ markets,” Eggert said. The Federation is working hard to spread the word through food pantries and other community service organizations. They also do outreach through WIC (Women, Infants and Children), the federal program that funds supplemental food for pregnant and nursing mothers and their young children.

Through its Farmers Market Nutrition Program, WIC also gives money to 46 states to issue coupons that can be used to buy food at farmers markets authorized to accept them. In 2007, more about 1,300 farmers markets, road side stands, and farmers in New York State alone were authorized to sell food to WIC coupon holders. While the dollar amounts are tiny – just $24 for an entire season in New York, for example – the hope is that they will introduce low income residents to local sources of fresh food.

All told, as of June 2008 there were 605 farmers’ markets nationwide equipped with EBT technology, a 14 percent increase over the previous year. But while some states, such as California, Connecticut, Michigan, and Missouri, are rapidly increasing the number of farmers’ markets that accept SNAP benefits, others have only a few. Those of us who routinely shop at the markets can help by asking whether they have EBT. If the answer is no, be prepared to explain that not only will accepting SNAP benefits help low-income Americans eat better food, it will increase market sales and support for local farmers.

While Eggert called New York unique in running the SNAP program at farmers’ markets state-wide, markets across the country that accept EBT funds “tend to do an excellent job of outreach,” she said, adding, “This effort is in its infancy. But the U.S.D.A. is encouraging it, and they are working on developing guidelines.”

Meanwhile, much more outreach is needed to sign people up for SNAP benefits. Income levels of people who are eligible to receive benefits this year range from about $13,500 for a single person to $18,200 for a family of two, $27,500 for a family of four, and so on.

As unemployment rises and the nation continues shedding jobs, at least 30 percent of eligible Americans and immigrants are not enrolled for this crucial form of food assistance, so every voice is needed to help spread the word!

food stamps, federal assistance, wic, snap, supplemental nutrition assistance program, farmers markets

Oh Bacon, I miss your bacony-ness!

All the rationale in the world won’t make the absence of bacon less unsettling. But what’s more unsettling is farm factory bacon’s story. Crowded into tight pens that prevent free movement, hogs become crazed and bite the tails of their penmates. To prevent this, factory farmers dock, or cut off, the tails using equipment like this without painkillers. Naturally clean animals, factory farm pigs are stacked in cages, and the top pigs excrete on those below them. Contrary to cliche, pigs aren’t happy wallowing in their waste.

I’ve already been a little on edge staying true to my new diet, and last weekend I hosted two friends in my studio apartment, so I was nervous how they would take to my request for a vegetarian “detox” menu (not to mention how they would handle the proximity of my refrigerator to my bed). Luckily, they were receptive, and we all agreed that we needed something warming. Something comforting. Soup was on all our minds. What is it about soup that can snap us back into our comfort zones with such ease? It’s magical really. Starting with vegetable broth steeped with ginger and garlic (an essential olfactory experience I think) we added whatever vegetables we wanted. No fuss. No stress. Pure comfort.

Though we may have looked like pent-up hogs in my little apartment, with bowls of soup in hand, we were happier than pigs in well, you know… open pastures.

Bacon-Free Noodle Soup or Happy Pig Soup
(Serves 3-4, leftovers likely)

2 T Ginger, minced
2 T Garlic, minced
1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced
64 oz. (2 boxes) vegetable stock
1/2 butternut squash, cut into 1/2″ pieces
4-6 ounces mushrooms (shiitake are nice; crimini are cheaper), thinly sliced
3 heads baby bok choy, leaves separated
Salt and Pepper
1/2 package (7 oz.) firm tofu
3 oz. Somen noodles (any long noodle will be fine)
Toasted Sesame Oil (optional)

1. Heat large stock pot over med-high heat. Add ginger and garlic and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring frequently, until mixture is fragrant. Add scallion whites and cook for another minute. Add stock, squash, mushrooms and bok choy. Season generously with salt and pepper. Cover pot and let simmer for 30-45 minutes.
2. A few minutes before service, add tofu, scallion greens and noodles. Dinner is ready when the noodles are cooked to your liking. If desired, lightly drizzle each bowl of soup with toasted sesame oil.