Ann Arbor Adieu on Annarbor.com

On Sunday, I watched two of my "girls" deflowered by a rooster.

I had been feeling wary of this upcoming event and my role as a chicken pimp, but we had no choice. Either we were going to kill the girls and bring them with us to our temporary rental home in the freezer, or we were going to give them to friends who have many chickens in their flock.

It seemed highly ridiculous that killing a living creature was deemed better than letting nature take its course – so our girls were introduced to their new flock. Five minutes later, two of our girls were ruffling their feathers, seemingly unperturbed by the 10-second coitus.

Saying goodbye to our chickens was the last in a long list of adieus as we leave this wonderful town.

We have lived here six years, and I feel I only know 40 percent of what makes Ann Arbor wonderful, especially in the realm of food.

As food is the only carnal thing humans can do in public, I salute all those who pursue this world. I am grateful to you all. This world of feeding our bodies, our health, our souls.

Here is the article on Annarbor.om

What I didn't write in this article was the sense of vertigo that accompanied the list upon list upon list as we sold our house and left. Leaving a town where one has lived for 6 years, leaving a town where one went through residency, through oncology office visits, and through falling in love (with the food world, with one's husband, with the reality of the miraculous).

Onward to the next adventure!

Encomium for the USDA and the glory of the DC/Baltimore foodworld!

(Other than being a good word for freerice.com, encomium denotes a song of praise.)

Just in time for a perfect week of spring weather, I visited DC (my hometown) and Baltimore to walk up and down the Mall, visit the Department of Agriculture (USDA), talk to restaurants in love with transparency, take pictures of markets, and explore the food changes that have happened to my town in the past 7 years (since I left).

It was a dizzying week because the food world in the capital area has exploded. Farm to fork restaurants are sourcing from a myriad of new and vibrant farmers markets, rooftop gardens are supplying veggies to restaurants across the street — fed by compost from the very restaurants, and the USDA not only hosts a farmers market onsite — they shared the locations of all markets nationwide.

I began the week talking to Amanda Eamich, Director of New Media at the USDA. Eamich was able to highlight and share several of the tools the USDA has provided to help inform policy and the public. The Economic Research Service (ERS) section of the USDA has built two amazing online tools to help pinpoint food availability and broader “determinants of food choices and diet quality.” The Food Desert Locator shows all areas in the country that are more than 1 kilometer from a source of healthy food — you might be surprised at certain locations. The Food Environment Atlas enables you to view on a map a plethora of food choice determinants. Factors such as the 2008 sales tax from soda vending machines, the 2009 low-income preschool obesity rate, or the 2006 relative price ratio of green-leafy veggies to starchy veggies each jostle for your attention in this captivating tool.

Not only is Eamich working with those two tools, she works with the blog. That is right, the USDA has a blog. And what a blog it is. As the tagline says: “United States Department of Agriculture: Reaching Out, Every Day in Every Way.” There are updates about the First Lady’s Let’s Move Campaign, the People’s Garden expansion to overseas, Chef’s Move to Schools, ‘Know your Farmer, Know your Food’, and even what Smokey Bear has been up to. I walked away feeling our government has truly a vertiginous collection of disparate programs and initiatives all designed to provide access and education around healthier food in “every way.”

The next four days were a whirlwind of visiting restaurants in DC and Baltimore. Chef Rob Weland of Poste Moderne Brasserie showed me his courtyard garden in the Hotel Monaco — where you are literally eating next to a tomato plant growing in a pot. Chef Spike Gjerd of Woodberry Kitchen gave me a tour of his kitchens, including the sausage aging room (all butchered and made in house, naturally) and the wall of in house preserves (the last of the 2000 pounds of tomatoes from 2010 and the first jars of 2011 ramps in evidence). Chef Winston Blick of Clementine spoke of providing compost to Hamilton Crop Circle - a rooftop garden across the street - that, in turn, returns vegetables to his customers. I met with Nic Jammet, one of the founders of Sweetgreen, a sustainable build your own salad/yogurt phenomena that has rocketed to ten locations in the last 3 ½ years. I look forward to attending their Sweetlife Festival next May.

When not gawking at menus I was able to visit two farmers markets in the middle of town — and I mean in the middle of town. One is 3 blocks from the Mall and the other is 3 blocks from the White House — producer only, crowded, and diverse (orchids, wood fired pizza, and the first strawberries of the season - glorious). Thank you FRESHFARM for your great work creating pedestrian villages in downtown DC.

My last day started with a meeting with Debra Tropp and her team of committed farmers market devotees in the Farmers Market and Direct Marketing Research Division of the USDA. Food Tech Connect recently posted a great article describing the need and uses for the Farmers Market Directory in a conversation with Tropp. As a former farmers’ market manager, I remember last year feeling honored and vindicated to fill out the survey to populate the directory. I was doing something important when the government asked me the number of people who came to the market or whether we accepted Bridge Cards — my little stretch of pavement 18 weeks of the year became part of something large and meaningful.

Little did I know my 15 minutes filling out the survey would be transformed into a resource available to the world. The information in the Farmers Market Directory is what first populated Real Time Farms database of markets.

The cherry on my Sundae week was meeting with Gretchen Hoffman of the American Farmland Trust - the vanguard group who worked in the 1980s to create and implement conservation easements for farmland. A few years ago, Hoffman spearheaded the America's Favorite Farmers Market Contest, voting starts June 1st!

A week of good food, good company, and good learnings - what more could one want?

Here is the article on Real Time Farms!

(I would also like to appreciate Wendy Wasserman of the USDA, without her help and good sharings my week would have been very different.)

Who knew? I am a domestic terrorist for taking pictures of farms.

"Have you heard about the Slow Food campaign? They are urging supporters to send in pictures of farms to protest against the Florida, Iowa, and Minnesota bills that would make it illegal to take a picture or a video of a farm. They are calling it the farmarazzi campaign." Two weeks ago, I am sharing the news with a fellow breakfast diner at a noisy table at SELMA Breakfast Salon.

"I don't like to hear the word Nazi, that word upsets me."

Nazi, how did we get to Nazi? I am talking about a photo campaign to protest bills, not gassing trainloads of children and systemic fear mongering by the state.

"Oh no, you misheard, I don't like that word either," I slow down and raise my voice, "fffaaarrrmarazzi. Like paparazzi, but farm-a-razzi."

Two weeks later, Slow Food USA has collected more than 33,000 signatures for their campaign, 450 pictures of farms, the legislation has been "indefinitely postponed" in Florida, and Slow Food continues to collect pictures and signatures - urging supporters to contact legislatures.

I recently asked Jerusha Klemperer from Slow Food USA what prompted them to start the farmarazzi campaign in the first place. Klemperer shared, "We first noticed this legislation after it was covered on NPR, and then saw the coverage and concern grow... A well-managed farm should have nothing to hide. Slow Food has always been about connecting producers and consumers so that each can understand each other and build a relationship."

Prompted by Slow Food's campaign, and Klemperer's sentiments, I set about trying to understand more. I became curious as to where this legislation came from. I couldn't stop wondering why three states would all propose the same type of legislation, at the same time, with very similar words.

In the last decade, there seems to be a growing trend to represent animal activists as terrorists. The Ag-Gag bills, as described by Mark Bittman, are the latest addition to this trend. Let us explore the trend and the history that got us here.

In 2003, the FBI received their audit from the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General that stated:

Consider transferring responsibility for investigating crimes committed by environmental, animal rights, and other domestic radical groups or individuals from the Counterterrorism Division to the Criminal Investigative Division, except where a domestic group or individual uses or seeks to use explosives or weapons of mass destruction to cause mass casualties.

Thank you, Will Potter of Green is the New Red, for bringing this to my attention. (You can read the full audit here.)

The recommendation states that in 2003 animal right "radical groups" are being investigated under the "Counterterrorism Division." In a March 2008 Fox News article entitled FBI: Eco-Terrorism Remains No. 1 Domestic Terror Threat, it is argued that "for years, officials have battled against members of shadowy groups such as the Earth Liberation Front and its brother-in-arms, the Animal Liberation Front. Law enforcement has made strides prosecuting cells."

Where is the line between domestic activism and terrorism? To the FBI it is a narrow (perhaps invisible) line. A May 2011 Wall Street Journal's opinion piece speaks to the seeming disparity of having an animal activist rub elbows with mass murderers in the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Terrorists" list. But the FBI is just following the legislative lead from Congress.

In 2006, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) was passed to "provide the Department of Justice the necessary authority to apprehend, prosecute, and convict individuals committing animal enterprise terror... for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise." The law specifically states that it shall not be construed "to prohibit any expressive conduct (including peaceful picketing or other peaceful demonstration) protected from prohibition by the First Amendment of the Constitution."

Words have power. The word "terror" is terrifying and our government seems happy to use it often.

Yet for someone working in an animal testing facility I can understand that it would be horrible to have your office bombed. It would be mind-numbingly awful to have insulting slogans painted on your car or home, a total invasion of your sense of security (read here about activities and arrest of 7 activists targeting one of the largest animal testing laboratories in the UK courtesy of The Guardian).

Is terrorism just "mass destruction"? What constitutes mass? More than 100 people in an office? 30 animal testing labs? 5 factory farms with 40,000 birds? This is a quagmire. Our latest addition to the "animal activist = terrorist" trend are the Ag-Gag Bills proposed in Florida, Iowa, and Minnesota.

According to my lawyer friends, the argument in support of the Ag-Gag bills is this. I apply to work in a chicken farm. I take pictures or a video of animals being cruelly mistreated. I post the video on my website. Consumers are so disgusted by what they see that they stop purchasing eggs from that farm and someone breaks in to the facility to free the chickens.

Sharing the information I found gives others a reason to act. I am facilitating criminal activities even though it is not my intent. I have then committed "animal facility interference" (as defined by the Minnesota Ag-Gag Bill, House File No. 1369) and the loss of revenue and potential threat of theft is certainly "interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise" according to AETA. The Iowa Ag-Gag Bill, Senate Fill No. 431 states this conspiracy relationship clearly:

A person who participates in a conspiracy to commit the offense of animal facility tampering, and who acts in furtherance of that commission, is guilty of the same offense as the person convicted of committing the offense on or in the animal facility.

In April 2010, the Humane Society posted a video they had created by going undercover at two chicken farms using the same methods I outlined above. It is a very disturbing video (here is the link if you want to see it) and it would be illegal under these proposed bills.

John Maday, managing editor the nation's oldest monthly livestock magazine Drovers, argued in February 2011 in response to the proposed Ag-Gag legislation that:

We need more transparency in agricultural production. In reality, the vast majority of livestock operations are well-managed, with owners and workers adhering to high standards of animal care. Consumers do want to know more about their food and where it comes from, and when they have a chance to see and experience modern livestock production first-hand, they typically come away with positive impressions.

For farmers and ranchers, the focus should not be on legislation or other means of concealing their production practices. Instead, they should engage the public with a policy of transparency.

Thank you Slow Food USA for bringing this to my attention and for your campaign. Thank you John Maday for your belief in "a policy of transparency" for our farms. Thank goodness I am not the only observer of this trend not sure we are heading in the right direction.

Here is the article on Real Time Farms!

I am in edibleWOW's Spring 2011 issue!

I applied to write this article over the summer and they accepted! Now it is around and about SE Michigan (and there are green eggs on the cover, which makes me happy).

Page 1

Page 2

Tangy Parsley dressing to sparkle your winter eatings!

For the past four months we have been chomping on fresh greens courtesy of our CSA from Shannon Brines of Brines Farm. Curly baby kale, dark soft spinach, tall elegant arugula, and delicate salad mix are grown in his hoop houses. Sometimes he adds squash, potatoes, beans, or frozen tomatoes to fill out the selection (based on sunlight and temperature). I am always looking for a new way to add sparkle to the ballast of our weekly diet. I was served this dressing by a friend who had just attended a cooking class entitled “Reclaim your energy: Adrenal support cooking class” by the National Gourmet Institute for Food & Health in NYC. The recipe was entitled “Dark Leafy Greens with Tangy Tahini Dressing” - I think the three of us groaned aloud when we first took a bite.

I have reenergized my kale chomping excitement - in fact, it goes beautifully on everything. (I have been putting it on toast under a poached egg.) Here is the dressing recipe (that which elicited groans at first bite at the dinner table):

• ½ cup tahini
• 2 tablespoon shoyu (soy sauce)
• 2 tablespoon umeboshi vinegar (or ume plum vinegar)
• ½ cup parsley
• 3 scallions
• ½ cup water

In a food processor, combine tahini, shoyu, umeboshi vinegar, parsley, and scallions blend together then add water and blend again.

Here is what I have been doing (the garlic adds more punch than the scallions, but still groanworthy):

• 1 heaping spoonful of tahini
• 1 heaping spoonful of almond butter
• a 6 second pour of tamari
• a 3 second pour of umeboshi vinegar
• a 3 second pour of rice wine vinegar
• 4 garlic cloves
• one bunch of parsley
• water to taste

I have been blending the above and then adding water to the desired consistency. The less water you add, the more of a paste, the more water you add, the more of a dressing.

Enjoy!

Photo courtesy of Cara Rosean of Real Time Farms, thank you Cara!

Here is the article on annabor.com.

What is the abomination of McDonald's "oatmeal"?

This is the bowl of oatmeal shown on the McDonalds website page - a page that has its own jaunty "oatmeal" tune.

Why do we care that McDonalds has introduced "oatmeal" with more calories than their hamburger and with more sugar than a Snickers bar? I put "oatmeal" in quotes because, according to Mark Bittman's How to Make Oatmeal: Wrong, the product should be described as "oats, sugar, sweetened dried fruit, cream and 11 weird ingredients you would never keep in your kitchen."

As of Saturday, the article has lived in the top 10 emailed list for The New York Times since it was published on Tuesday, February 22. Apparently, a lot of people care.

My question is why? Are they preaching to the choir? Or do people actually think in this day and age there is anything healthy about walking through the fabled double arches?

Whether it be SuperSize Me, Eric Schlosser's #1 bestseller Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, or a simple read through McDonalds menu ingredients online. We all know McDonalds is not healthy, yet stories continue to be written, emailed, and commented on - detailing the exact nature of the unhealthiness.

Conrad's "the fascination of the abomination" comes to mind, our inability to look away from a train wreck. However, the true abomination is this. Everyone knows McDonalds is unhealthy and people go there because they have no choice. They have no choice, because as Michel Nischan of the Wholesome Wave Foundation put it at the TEDx food conferece, "they can't afford" real food.

According to the Fair Food Network, 92% of all Detroit food stamp retailers offer no fresh fruits and vegetables. For an urban food desert like Detroit, and for the rural food deserts in Iowa, the dried fruit in McDonalds "oatmeal" might be the closest a child gets to biting into an apple. That is the real abomination, and worth talking about.

Here is the article on annarbor.com.

Muscovy Duck is unlike any "duck" you have ever eaten

David Beemer, of OmniUnum Farm, decided he wanted more control over his food supply. In lieu of purchasing Michigan peat and compost, Beemer decided to raise poultry for their manure, a nutrient-rich and accessible fertilizer. Beemer choose Muscovy ducks as his poultry of choice after being served it at Paul Bocuse’s restaurant in Lyons, France. “I asked for something that I could not get in this country… He brought me Magret - and I ate it. They asked me what I thought it was and I said, “that was probably the best veal I have ever had.” And they said, “This is Muscovy Duck.”

Beemer has partnered with Antoinette Benjamin, of Food for all Seasons Catering, because “she is the only one I have found who knows how to cook them. I am a good example - I overcooked the last one. I just didn’t have time to follow the directions she gave me.”

Endemic in an animal designed to perch in trees not wade in water, Muscovy ducks have about 18% fat as opposed to Pekin duck with 29% fat. This fat difference and the less significant oil gland in the Muscovy alters the flavor of what our taste buds recognize as "duck" and can complicate cooking Muscovy for those not familiar with the meat.

According to Benjamin, trained by renowned French chef Madeleine Kamman, “cooking Magret is a matter of technique. So if you look up cooking duck breast, it is different with the Muscovy. Just because of the fat.”

Recently, I was able to try Muscovy courtesy of ici Urban Bistro in Washington DC. The consensus at the table was that the meat was “absolutely fabulous” and unlike anything anyone had eaten before - a bold, unique flavor arising from a texture that crumbled like veal, unlike poultry’s striation.

I was also able to see firsthand the difficulty of cooking Muscovy. When the breast slices arrived to the table they were medium rare and succulent. By the time we finished eating the meat (20 minutes later?) the slices were cooked through from the residual heat. The flavor was still there but the texture was dry and unappealing.

Beemer's partnership with Antoinette Benjamin is an opportunity for those of us curious to taste more of this unique fowl. As Benjamin says, “Magret is the BEST for the Muschovy - I mean it is JUST AMAZING. I mean as I said, I don’t think that people - most people wouldn’t know, like David, what they are eating. They wouldn’t know it was duck breast.”

Beemer and Benjamin are planning to hold a Muscovy dinner in the Spring. If you are interested, contact David Beemer at OmniUnum Farm or Antoinette Benjamin at Food for all Seasons.

Time to harvest potatoes! (and make Potatoes Savoyarde)

According to the Master Gardener vegetable lesson, potatoes need to be harvested when leaves turn yellow. Deciding to split the difference between a full display of yellow wilted greenery and cold hands, we dug ours last weekend. Just like our kale, our La Ratte potatoes were an unplanned gift from last years planting.

In honor of the potato’s French origin, I decided to use it in a classic French dish - Potatoes Savoyarde.

And wow.

However, before I discuss the dish, I will ponder the potato. Potatoes are not the most glamorous of vegetables. The mind turns to the Irish famine and Van Gogh’s piercing portrait of peasant poverty, The Potato Eaters. Yet those two examples illustrate precisely the importance of this vital tuber in our consciousness and culinary landscape.

They are the workhorse of the kitchen - with many different applications. The potato is baked on the streets of London with cottage cheese and brown sauce, made into gnocchi in Italy and covered with a chili cheese sauce in Peru (Papa a la Huancaina), the first home of the potato.

According to the USDA, the potato is the leading vegetable crop in the United States, with a total production of 41.3 billion pounds. In 2007, the average American consumed 126 pounds: 43.6 fresh pounds and 82.4 processed (mostly frozen). In 1960, the average American consumed 106.3 pounds: 81.0 fresh pounds and 25.3 processed pounds - a fascinating reversal. Whether you are eating a potato frozen, fresh, as chips, or dehydrated - the likelihood is that you are a eating a potato.

Until we started growing potatoes I had no idea what a treat it is to harvest them. Each new vegetable emerged out of the black soft earth as a gift. After continually mounding up the stems of the plants to create a full hill over the summer, the potatoes were easy to pull up out of the mulch and leaves. I felt like it was my birthday.

And yes, Potatoes Savoyarde is a variant on the classic Potatoes Dauphinoise (au gratin)- and choosing to do it with the La Ratte from our garden, “a top quality fingerling” according to Seed Savers Exchange, was a special treat with the robust nuttiness of the vegetable off-setting the cheese. As with all things baked, when presented with a recipe, I used what was in the house - and the result was sublime.

I prefer Savoyarde to the Dauphinoise (au gratin) because it uses stock instead of milk or cream. I was taught to sprinkle cheese between the layers of potato throughout the process instead of putting the cheese only on top.

Potatoes Savoyarde: Take a baking dish, cover the bottom with a layer of lard, overlap thinly sliced potatoes, sprinkle cheese (swiss cheese works best), layer of potatoes, thin layer of cheese, layer of potatoes, thin layer of cheese, etc. Once the concoction reaches the top of the dish, finish it off by pouring chicken/veggie stock into dish until about half full. Finish with another sprinkle of cheese. For about 1 ½ inch of potatoes cook for 60 minutes at 350 degrees.

Bon appetit!

Here is the article on annarbor.com

Kale chips are sublime

Last season, I was tired of kale. Tired of sauteing leaves, tired of putting green stalks in soup, tired of the dense chewiness, tired of hearing how good it is for me (high in flavonoids, blah blah). So, come late last October, I choked down the rest of the leaves, relieved to be finished with that duty for the season.

A farmer friend of mine had told me that kale would survive the winter and come back hardy and healthy in the spring if I cut off the dense stalk right at ground level. He was right. We have several thriving kale plants from last year’s stalk. Unfortunately, the passing of months did not diminish my kale fatigue and I have not harvested much of any of this year's leaves.

Yet here we are again, a new October, and I knew I needed something new to try to help me take my kale medicine before the frost.

So I tried a variant on a kale chips recipe I found in the world of dehydrators/raw food. I can honestly say that it was the closest I have ever come to eating a plate of food like an 18-year-old-boy eating a pizza (there was no chewing involved). I inhaled these delicate green chips.

Kale chips are crunchy, intensely subtle, salty, warm and wonderful. There is not any of the bitter flavor associated with kale when prepared this way. As an even better bonus the chips are super fast and easy.

When I did a bit more research I learned that you can bake kale chips in your oven for those who don’t have a dehydrator. Instead of dehydrating for two to three hours at 95 degrees F, you can pop them on a baking sheet for 20 minutes at 300 degrees F (or until crisp).

Here is the recipe I used for my chips.

- Cut four leaves from plant.

- Remove stem and cut into large pieces.

- Toss in a bowl with 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon olive oil and sea salt.

- Let sit for 10 minutes to wilt a bit from the liquid (one recipe I found said to wait an hour)

- Place in the dehydrator/baking sheet.

- When they are crispy and warm, they are finished.

- Devour them as fast as you can before your friends learn how good they are.

(I will end with a thank you to the earlier maligned plant.)

Oh kale, of cruciferous and flavonoid fame, thank you for being such a delicious chip. You pulled me in with your sturdy frame and healthy fronds, and though I strayed from eating your flesh, I am once again pulled back into the fold of loving you – with your sea salt, oil warmth beguiling me in. All hail kale!

Here is the article on annarbor.com

(March 2015 update: Here is an updated page from the great folks at Health Ambition about the health benefits of kale - with recipes too!)

Grandmother's Chocolate Mousse recipe

As always on the lookout for a recipe that will use a lot of eggs, I dug out my grandmother's chocolate mousse recipe. Ten eggs later, it is as decadent as I remember - an easy and delectable treat for you and your guests.

Unlike the plethora of chocolate mousse recipes: from Julia Child to my backyard egg mainstay book, "Eggs" by Michel Roux, this recipe does not call for any sort of dairy or butter. In fact, aside from the eggs, one could consider this vegan.

The recipe is easy and fast. The end result is scrumptious. Imagine eating a luxury dark chocolate bar with a spoon, like it is ice cream.

I procured my baking chocolate from Mindo Chocolates, our bean to bar business in Dexter. The 10 eggs were from our backyard chickens. Water, sugar and vanilla round out the ingredients.

Here is the recipe

1 pound best quality baking chocolate

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup water

10 egg yolks

3 teaspoons vanilla

10 egg whites

Melt together (in a double boiler) the chocolate, sugar and water. Stir. When smooth, cool, stirring occasionally. Add well-beaten yolks and vanilla.

Beat egg whites until able to hold peaks. Fold egg whites into chocolate mixture. Put in a deep crock or individual serving dishes. Refrigerate at least 12 hours.

(Serves 6-8)

This is what I learned from doing the recipe.

Instead of using a double boiler to melt the chocolate, water and sugar - I used a metal bowl on top of a pot. That worked just as well and was much more economical than purchasing a double boiler. The chocolate is the consistency of icing when you add the egg yolks; there is no need to add extra water to make it creamy. I also learned that egg whites treble in volume when beaten, ending up on the floor. Next time I will use a larger bowl from the outset.

As for serving 6 to 8, I cannot imagine wanting to have more than ½ cup of this rich chocolate immersion after a full meal. I divided mine into 10 teacups and six espresso cups (making 16 servings) and refrigerated for 36 hours. I removed the cups from the refrigerator two hours before serving to bring out the flavors.

For those at your table who want something lighter and less intense, I would recommend offering at bowl of whipped cream and perhaps some berry jams. Everyone likes making his or her own dessert, and the chocolate mousse is sturdy enough to be the bass note of whatever dessert compilation is orchestrated.

Here is the article on annarbor.com

Storing harvest bounty: canning vs. dehydrating

Last winter I received Mary Bell’s Food Drying with an Attitude: A Fun and Fabulous Guide to Creating Snacks, Meals, and Crafts - and I put it aside because I did not have a dehydrator. Like last year, I started this season with drying tomatoes in my oven, but the tomatoes take two full days to dry in the oven at 200 degrees. So I bit the bullet and bought an electric dehydrator - one built for the task.

I purchased the dehydrator week ago, reread all of Bell's engaging and intriguing book, and I have not turned the machine off since. I pack slivers of color, once hefty tomatoes and gleaming eggplants, into airtight jars and debate the pros and cons of dehydrating vegetables vs. canning vegetables. Here are my thoughts so far - I look forward to hearing yours.

Dehydrating pros

- Food is considered raw when dehydrated below 105 degrees (because it maintains enzymes and nutrients that are leached by higher temperatures).

- The labor involved is minimal. I cut the vegetables at night and pack them into jars in the morning.

- The equivalent ingredients take up less room when dehydrated than when canned.

Dehydrating cons

- Dried fruit and vegetables do not last as long as canned items.

Canning pros

- The recipe is finished when you open the jar, as opposed to drying the basic ingredients, and then making a recipe in the winter. (This could also be considered a con.)

Canning cons

- The labor involved is focused, hot, and continuous. From cooking the sauce, to the hot water bath, to preparing the jars - unlike dehydrating, it does not happen while you sleep.

This last point for me is the crux of the matter. A food preservation technique that is self-contained, creating results while I sleep, is incredible. To me, that is a winning food preservation technique.

Here is the article on annarbor.com

A locavore discussion: why preserve tomatoes for the winter?

I have been scratching my head recently over a recent Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, called Math Lessons for Locavores, by Stephen Budiansky. First, I felt kinship with the author when he agreed with what I learned when I did my organic berry jam cost comparison article - namely, the efficiencies involved in shipping food long distances, “adds next to nothing to the total energy bill." Then, he goes on to posit that household energy usage is the true culprit, accounting for “32 percent of all energy use in our food system, the largest component by far."

The Op-Ed piece concludes with the same argument I learned from economics in high school; we should “grow lettuce, oranges, wheat, peppers, bananas, whatever, in the places where they grow best and with the most efficient technologies – and then pay the relatively tiny energy cost to get them to market, as we do with every other commodity in the economy." This is his rationale for being wary of the terms “food-miles" and “sustainability" - which are rapidly joining “organic", “natural", and “free-range" as words that connote gold and denote tin.

He gives very convincing evidence that the energy used in transporting grapes from Chile can be less than the energy used for the extra freezer your family buys to freeze your local rhubarb. But his fallacy is assuming that we need, as a nation of Americans, to be eating those grapes in March.

For the last three weeks, at the Westside Farmers' Market, I have overheard customers ask the vendors whether or not they have any lettuce to sell. I think this is because tomatoes are ripe. At some point in our national assumptions, a burger became married to “lettuce and tomato." The question, “would you like lettuce and tomato on that?” became coupled together and ingrained into our national consciousness. Therefore, when you go to the farmers market and see tomatoes, our brains look for the lettuce - “it must be here! How can I make a proper burger without it?" But the two vegetables are not ripe at the same time: lettuce typically arrives in the spring and tomatoes in the fall.

Bananas on our breakfast cereal, apple pie in May, watermelon for the 4th of July picnic, orange juice and coffee in the mornings, chocolate for Valentines Day, lettuce with tomatoes for BLTs in March ~ many food pairings in our American culture assume cheap oil, willing trading partners, and organized large-scale transportation.

Our supermarkets groan under the volume and the diversity of our food choices - during all seasons of the year. That abundance of choice and quantity is not serving us. According to a recent article in Scientific American, Americans throw away between 25% and 50% of all of the food we produce for domestic sale and consumption. A 2009 study from the National Institute of Health concluded, "US per capita food waste has progressively increased by ~50% since 1974 reaching more than 1400 kcal per person per day or 150 trillion kcal per year. Food waste now accounts for more than one quarter of the total freshwater consumption and ~300 million barrels of oil per year."

You only throw away that which you do not value. The NIH study tells us that Americans are a spoiled nation when it comes to food. There are 6.8 billion people in the world - 1.02 billion of them are hungry.

One out of six people is hungry, yet we are overwhelmed with a relentless supply of bananas and lettuce and avocados and apples all seasons of the year. It is understandable that our national barometer for what to expect at the market has been skewed. It is understandable, and a huge tragedy, that we throw so much food away.

Why preserve tomatoes for the winter? I preserve my tomatoes for the winter to help me reset my internal barometer as for what I should expect on my burger.

Here is the article on annarbor.com.