E-NEWS
Enviros Overjoyed with Election 2008November 10, 2008Reporting by Roddy Scheer
“LCV is proud to have helped so many environmental champions win in 2008 and to be within reach of our principal goal of a 60-vote pro-environment majority in the U.S. Senate,” LCV president Gene Karpinski told reporters. “With strong new leaders like these, we expect to pass significant global warming and clean energy legislation in the next year,” he added. Source: League of Conservation Voters |
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Bush Pushes for 11th Hour Anti-Green RulesNovember 10, 2008Reporting by Roddy Scheer
According to the New Scientist, some of the last minute rule changes include “getting wolves off the Endangered Species List, allowing power plants to operate near national parks, loosening regulations for factory farm waste and making it easier for mountaintop coal-mining operations.” And once any of these rule changes become law, it may be hard to undo them, and a low priority for an Obama administration with so many fires to put out. Matt Madia of the non-profit OMB Watch, which monitors the federal Office of Management and Budget, told reporters that industry will be the big winner if these eleventh hour rule changes become law. “Whether it’s the electricity industry or the mining industry or the agriculture industry, this is going to remove government restrictions on their activity and in turn they’re going to be allowed to pollute more and that ends up harming the public,” he says. Source: New Scientist |
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COMMENTARY: From Plow to PlateFinding Myself on the FarmBy Alexandra Gross
Ta-da moment After an internship with a vegetarian and environmental magazine in California fell through, my prospects looked like I'd be returning to my small town, jobless. I was forced to reevaluate what was important to me and what I wanted to pursue. I saw work as something that was meant to be thought-provoking, productive, that would allow me to make some sort of money, and, most important, an activity that would give me a chance to enjoy my summer before my last year as an undergrad. Last but not least, as a vegan for nearly four years, I wanted to be around people who enjoyed eating and preparing good food and could participate in the environmental, political and ethical discussions I relished. There’s not much in my hometown of Roxbury, Connecticut: a post office, a market, a gas station, a small restaurant, municipal buildings, a town park and thousands of acres of land preserves. It has a mix of people from the working class to affluent lawyers, actors, authors and professionals to city dwellers or "weekenders" seeking refuge in the rolling hills of Litchfield County. It’s a place often described as “quaint.” While I love my town and all of its natural beauty, it didn’t have much of a job market. Or even traffic lights. As I scrambled to find employment during the last few weeks of my junior year, I realized I had overlooked one of Roxbury's thriving occupations, though diminishing elsewhere: farming. One such farm, Riverbank Farm, is a 55-acre property, owned by Laura McKinney and David Blyn, that prides itself on organic fruits, vegetables and prepared foods to sell to numerous farmers' markets and local health food stores. After a brief but encouraging phone call with Laura, I found myself on the farm in the middle of May, unprepared for how much this experience would both reaffirm and reshape my beliefs in the local food movement and how unaware Americans are of what they eat and how they define about progress and efficiency. The organic stigma
Often times organic and local food are expensive. I admit that when I first started to buy food at farmers' markets along Connecticut’s Gold Coast, I had sticker shock. Beyond the organic certification process and the absence of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and other harmful chemicals, there are other, less obvious reasons why organic is more expensive than those goods without the label. Realizing what happens beyond the farmers' market is crucial in understanding the process and longevity of small, organic farms. Since Riverbank sells to markets all over Connecticut, including those in New Milford, Darien, Westport, New Canaan, New Milford, Greenwich and New Haven, harvest days remain the most important at the farm. These were the days we would go out in the field and fill buckets and bins up with the freshest, straight from the ground, vine and stem foods. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays were filled with kneeling and standing in the dew-dropped rows of peppery arugula, fragrant herbs, various varieties of lettuce, kale, swiss chard, eggplant, cucumbers, summer squash and various other beautiful vegetables. People, not machines, have an integral role on the farm. Hand-weeding was a must to rid crops of pesky weeds, and through the process of running your fingers through the rows of newly transplanted carrots, kale and other plants, you made a personal connection to each individual vegetable in the endless fields. Plunging your hands into tubs of 30 degree water at 8 a.m. was a usual chore as fellow farm workers brought their crops to the wash station to remove the grit and the occasional spider from leaves, stalks and the torso of vegetables. My pants and shoes were often soaked as large green bins were filled with bathed carrots and greens, lifted to let the excess water drain and divided into the coolers for the next market. During the early months of potato season in July and August, the tuber was extracted through the ground in a lengthy, but nonetheless satisfying process (It was my favorite job at the farm). A pitchfork loosened the roots' grip on the potatoes in the ground, and we would uncover the soil to find yellow, purple and rose-colored potatoes in a range of sizes ready to be sorted. Tomatoes, the cash crop of Riverbank and the prize of most farmers' market goers, took hours on end to harvest. Imagine seeing hews of reds, oranges and yellows pouring from the vines, while also weaving through the rows, making sure to pick out the ripe fruits. A single red bucket of tomatoes weighed upwards of 20 pounds, which would then need to be carried out to the end of the rows to be picked up, placed on a truck and sorted for market. In my last few weeks at the farm, some days would involve just picking and sorting boxes of tomatoes. Harvesting plants in the Alliaceae family, including onions, garlic, shallots and leeks, was among the most labor intensive. After the plants were picked, sorted and dried in the barn, a group of workers and I would sit outside, trim off the beard-like roots, stalks and other less desirable elements of the aromatic veggies. To put it simply: Every vegetable and fruit has a backstory. Hardworking and conscientious individuals select your food, enduring hours of intense and efficient labor to provide you with the best product possible. Market research On Saturday mornings, I went with my friends and fellow farmhands Kate and Nicole, along with Laura and her two children, to the New Milford market. After the truck was unloaded, the tents set up and the produce was out for consumption, customers began to arrive. Beyond the incredible vegetables, the farmers' market was and remains a chance to interact with people of all different income levels and backgrounds, something you may not otherwise do in a regular supermarket. It was not unusual for customers to ask us or other market participants for recipes for a certain vegetable or how to preserve or can them for the winter months. Over the months I spent at the market, a sense of customer loyalty was evident, as people came week after week to stock up on produce and, ultimately, to support local farming and the Slow Food movement. Farmers' markets are, in a sense, a microcosm for the way in which our society needs to shift: A place where people talk to and respect their neighbors, where community-based business is supported, where health consciousness is established and where quality over quantity is at the forefront. ALEXANDRA GROSS is a journalism student at Fairfield University and future intern at E. |
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Salts of the EarthChefs Weigh In on this Ancient SeasoningBy Yvona Fast “Salt is born of the purest of parents: the sun and the sea.”—Pythagoras (580 BC-500 BC)
Line in the Salt Today, many believe that highly processed sodium chloride is not a wise health choice. Shannon Hayes, author of The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook (Ten Speed Press), is concerned that in order to keep the salt dry and white, refiners add bleaching agents and aluminum compounds, which have been linked to Alzheimer’s. “The processing strips salt from nutrients such as magnesium salts—which I have found essential to my own well-being. I feel good, clean salt is critical to healthy brain function,” she says. Like Hayes, many prefer natural sea salts for their lower sodium and higher mineral content. According to the Salt Institute, seawater contains about 3.5% (by weight) dissolved minerals, including calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, sulfur and 80 other trace elements. This means natural sea salts are slightly lower in sodium (97-98% sodium chloride). Many of these minerals are abundant in other dietary sources (calcium in dairy and magnesium in green vegetables, for example). And sea salt has only minute amounts of iodine, which is necessary for normal thyroid function; deficiency is linked to goiter and some forms of mental retardation. According to the Mayo Clinic website, “Sea salt and table salt have the same nutritional value. The differences are in taste and texture.” Others are turning to unprocessed sea salts for their variety of flavors and textures. Fleur de sel from the coast of Brittany is favored by French chefs. Vogue food writer Jeffrey Steingarten prefers English Maldon’s crunchy, pyramid-shaped flakes. Pierre Laszlo, author of Salt: Grain of Life (Harper Perennial), compares salt to wine: “Wine is an aqueous solution of ethanol and yet different wines taste differently and some are definitely better. Why? Because of the trace amounts of hundreds of different molecular species. Salt is no different. Its taste and its health benefits stem from trace impurities. To me, the (impure) grey salt from Guerande has a richer flavor than the (very pure) flower of salt, also from Guerande.”
Seasoning salts—smoked salts and blends of salt with spices—also add flavor. Most people are familiar with garlic or celery salt, but today’s exotic flavor blends include Turkish black pyramid sea salt, which gets its color and flavor from charcoal, and Tea-smoked sea salt, which combines Mediter-ranean spices with flaky salt. Didi Davis of Massachusetts-based Salt Traders, which sells many rare sea and herbed salts, says, “A natural product, gourmet salts have gained popularity over the last decade. The trend has spread from restaurant chefs to home cooks.” Some chefs, however, feel the texture and color of gourmet salt is lost while cooking, and that it is best saved for a finishing touch where the unique crunch and color of various salt crystals is more noticeable. When salt is dissolved, they prefer the clean flavor, crystal texture and cheaper price of kosher salt. While this coarse salt is refined, it is pure sodium chloride without additives. At a dollar or more an ounce for gourmet salts (versus just pennies for an ounce of kosher or table salt) each cook must decide if gourmet salt is worth the price. YVONA FAST writes a food column, “North Country Kitchen.” Her website is Words Are My World.n |
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Behind the GreensFive Questions For The BowerbirdsBy Amanda Peterka Phil Moore and Beth Tacular have given up on the human world. In the backwoods of North Carolina, they live in an Airstream trailer with no electricity or plumbing, the nearest town about 15 minutes away. This Walden-like existence is perfect for creating mellow music that conjures thoughts of crackling campfires and warm summer evenings.
Guitarist and songwriter Moore and percussionist Tacular, along with Mark Paulson on piano, violin and percussion, make up The Bowerbirds, a band that began by writing personal music to praise nature. Talk of the band’s poetic and sometimes haunting lyrics about humankind’s ability to destroy the natural world soon made its way into indie circles. The group makes music naturally—electric guitars and amplifiers are absent from the debut album, “Hymns for a Dark Horse.”
1. E: What’s your songwriting process—do you write songs outside?
2. E: What mainstream amenities are you going without in the middle of the woods?
3. E: When you’re touring, do you have environmental standards that you live by?
4. E: Are there any environmental issues that you’re most concerned about? 5. E: Kind of like what you’re doing, living out there in the woods? CONTACT: Bowerbirds
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