Pizza night!

So believe it or not, but this is the first time I've made pizza in our apartment. My goal was to not buy any ingredients that we didn't already have. This is probably how pizza was originally developed, bread with leftovers on top!

First course: Local salad greens, hood river pears (thanks to mom and dad), raw almonds and sunflower seeds, simple vinaigrette.

Pizza 1: I called it the Rustic; potatoes, sauteed collard greens and cabbage, crimini, sharp cheddar, marinara.

Pizza 2: Marinara and crimini; cheese is expensive!

Pizza 3: Sharp Cheddar, Pear, Herbs. Before and after. Olive Oil it when it first comes out of the oven, Delicious!

Even Portland can be beautiful in Spring!

Taken from the parking lot behind our apartment. Its amazing that we have blossoms in February! More to come...

Weekly Rations

Well, here is what I brought home from the food co-op last week. Its basically our week of food, missing some farm eggs and a few more veggies from the farmers market. I usually buy yogurt and butter every other week, as they last a couple weeks. The nice thing about the co-op is that everything they carry is organic, so you aren't tempted to compare prices. They also make everything very affordable and buy from local farms so there is usually some local veggies even in winter (this week's local stuff was garlic, onion, cabbage, kale, and the yogurt too).

Heirloom Grains

Went to a presentation a couple weeks ago about heirloom grains. The guy doing the presentation was a farmer living in eastern washington. He has been cultivating several varieties of heirloom grains and pulses on his farm that only gets 8 inches of water a year! Since industrialization has wiped out most of our old world grain production, there is very little heirloom grain seed that is sold commercially. This farmer had to start with a gram of seeds (a small handful) that he received from a federal seed-bank. He grew that small number and started doing his own selection and cultivation. Thus, it took him several years to be able to grow enough quantity and quality to sell.

Modern industrial agriculture grains are grown for qualities like lodge resistance, ease of transportation, hulling, dependablility on chemical fertizers and herbicides, endosperm size, etc. This kind of grain production is not only harming the soil, but is becoming less and less nutritious for us to eat. For example, modern wheat grown is selected to produce less bran and germ because most wheat is refined into white flour. We're constantly breeding out of our food the very stuff that we should actually be eating more of!

This same logic is followed in many elements of grain production. Another example is the height of the grain. The taller the grain the more subject it is to lodging (falling over due to wind). This doesn't harm the grain but makes it more difficult to harvest. Modern grains have now been bred to be much shorter, a seemlingly beneficial solution right? Well, because the plants are grown to be shorter, their roots now don't grow very deep leading to less nutrient uptake and more dependence on artificial fertilizer/hebicides and irrigation. Well thats just great! We're breeding grain to be less nutritious and more dependent on inputs and chemicals. Who is this benefiting??

There are many examples of why heirloom grains are superior to grow and to eat, I encourage people to do some research, its very fascinating! The reason that we don't know more about this is that heirloom grains don't fit well into our capitalistically driven society that is powered by 'cheap' oil and greed. Our shallow understanding of agricultural 'efficiency' has led us to do some extremely devastating things to our land and our bodies. Heirloom grains are just one example.

So go buy some spelt, emmer, and teff! Check them out http://www.lentzspelt.com/

The blessed food?

Been thinking about "Saying the Blessing" before we eat. I grew praying as a family before eating our dinner and continue to stop and pray most nights before eating. Its a good thing to pause and thank God for what we have and to refocus on him for our provision. There is an irony in my mind however, it seems to me that God may not want to bless our food. As I continue read about our industrial agricultural food system that feeds us, I question more and more whether our food warrants God's blessing.

Would God bless a dinner that is supporting a food system that ruins the soil it came from? A system that pollutes our air, water, and the food itself? A system that exploits poor nations and workers, diminishes biodiversity, drives farmers out of work, supports corporate monopoly, and creates public health decline?

Let's ask ourselves a simple question: instead of asking God to bless our food, shouldn't we be asking God if our food blesses him?

Fields of Plenty by Michael Ableman

Just finished this book a few days ago. A fun story of a farmer touring sustainable farms for a summer. Interesting reading about the different farms from a farmer's perspective. He's very gracious and is able to see the hope and passion in each farmer's life. Here are a few quotes I like:

“People’s perception of scale is influenced by the relatively recent idea that farms should be big and far away from the communities they serve.... As a society, we no longer have a concept of what an appropriate community-based scale would be for our farms. They have become factories cranking out product, reducing valuable living soil to an inert medium for holding plants up in the air and turning independent farmers into cogs in a corporate machine.” p.119

(quoting Tom Willey), “ ‘We must consider it a scientific fact that you are what you eat, the same molecules that make up the food we consume become the molecules of our minds and bodies. So, unless you are your own farmer, you should choose one as carefully as you would choose your doctor or your pastor. Therefore, it is fitting that farmers, like doctors, lawyers, professors, and pastors, should command a high level of respect and income, commensurate with this level of responsibility. I consider it an honor and a privilege that you have chosen me to be your farmer.’” p. 74

Epic dinnerness!

Mac and cheese from scratch using raw sharp cheddar and blue, roast beets sauteed in butter and balsamic vinegar topped with blue cheese, roast broccoli and a sourdough baguette (not homemade). Can you say delicious?