La Vida Locavore is the blog for anyone whose crazy life includes planting, growing, weeding, fertilizing, raising, picking, harvesting, processing, cooking, baking, making, serving, buying, selling, distributing, transporting, composting, organizing around, lobbying about, writing about, thinking about, talking about, playing with, and eating food!
Agriculture
Chair: Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
- Max Baucus (D-MT)
- Michael Bennet (D-CO)
- Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
- Bob Casey (D-PA)
- Kent Conrad (D-ND)
- Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
- Pat Leahy (D-VT)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
- Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- John Cornyn (R-TX)
- Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
- Mike Johanns (R-NE)
- Dick Lugar (R-IN)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Pat Roberts (R-KS)
- John R. Thune (R-SD)
Appropriations
Chair: Daniel Inouye (D-HI) Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: Herb Kohl (D-WI)
- Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
- Dick Durbin (D-IL)
- Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Tim Johnson (D-SD)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Jack Reed (D-RI)
- Robert Bennett (R-UT)
- Christopher Bond (R-MO)
- Sam Brownback (R-KS)
- Thad Cochran (R-MS)
- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Arlen Specter (R-PA)
Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions
- Chris Dodd (D-CT)
Agriculture
Chair: B Collin Peterson (D-MN)
V. Chair: B Tim Holden (D-PA)
B Joe Baca (D-CA)
- John Boccieri (D-OH)
B* Leonard Boswell (D-IA)
- Bobby Bright (D-AL)
B* Dennis Cardoza (D-CA)
- Travis Childers (D-MS)
B Jim Costa (D-CA)
- Henry Cuellar (D-TX)
- Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA)
B Brad Ellsworth (D-IN)
- Debbie Halvorson (D-IL)
B Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD)
- Steve Kagen (D-WI)
- Larry Kissell (D-NC)
B Frank Kratovil (D-MD)
- Betsy Markey (D-CO)
B Jim Marshall (D-GA)
P Eric Massa (D-NY)
B Mike McIntyre (D-NC)
- Walt Minnick (D-ID)
B Earl Pomeroy (D-ND)
- Mark Schauer (D-MI)
- Kurt Schrader (D-OR)
B David Scott (D-GA)
B Zachary Space (D-OH)
- Timothy Walz (D-MN)
- Frank Lucas (R-OK)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- K. Michael Conaway (R-TX)
- Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE)
- Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
- Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
- Sam Graves (R-MO)
- Timothy Johnson (R-IL)
- Steve King (R-IA)
- Robert Latta (R-OH)
- Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
- Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)
- Jerry Moran (R-KS)
- Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Mike Rogers (R-AL)
- Jean Schmidt (R-OH)
- Adrian Smith (R-NE)
- Glenn Thompson (R-PA) *=House Organic Caucus member B=Blue Dog Democrat
Appropriations
Chair: Dave Obey (D-WI) Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: P Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
- Sanford Bishop (D-GA)
* Allen Boyd (D-FL)
- Lincoln Davis (D-TN)
*P Sam Farr (D-CA)
*P Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY)
P Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
P Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
- Jack Kingston (R-GA)
- Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
- Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO)
* Tom Latham (R-IA) *=House Organic Caucus member
P=Congressional Progressive Caucus
Education and Labor
P Chair: George Miller (D-CA)
- Jason Altmire (D-PA)
- Robert Andrews (D-NJ)
- Timothy Bishop (D-NY)
P Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
- Joe Courtney (D-CT)
- Susan Davis (D-CA)
P Marcia Fudge (D-OH)
P Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
P Phil Hare (D-IL)
- Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX)
P Mazie Hirono (D-HI)
- Rush Holt (D-NJ)
- Dale Kildee (D-MI)
P Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
P Dave Loebsack (D-IA)
- Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY)
P Donald Payne (D-NJ)
- Jared Polis (D-CO)
- Robert Scott (D-VA)
- Joe Sestak (D-PA)
- Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH)
P John Tierney (D-MA)
- Dina Titus (D-NV)
- Paul Tonko (D-NY)
P Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
- David Wu (D-OR)
- Buck McKeon (R-CA)
- Judy Biggert (R-IL)
- Rob Bishop (R-UT)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- Michael Castle (R-DE)
- Vernon Ehlers (R-MI)
- Luis F Fortuno (R-PR)
- Brett Guthrie (R-KY)
- Peter Hoekstra (R-MI)
- Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA)
- John Kline (R-MN)
- Kenny Marchant (R-TX)
- Tom McClintock (R-CA)
- Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
- Thomas Petri (R-WI)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Todd Russell Platts (R-PA)
- Tom Price (R-GA)
- Mark Souder (R-IN)
- GT Thompson (R-PA)
- Joe Wilson (R-SC) P=Congressional Progressive Caucus
The basis for this book was one of the most amazing speeches I've ever heard. You know the type I mean - presentations like Al Gore's powerpoint on global warming that became An Inconvenient Truth. The speaker may have nothing more than a microphone and perhaps a Powerpoint, but the audience is transformed. Suddenly, an idea that the audience did not understand (and perhaps did not even know they were interested in) becomes so clear that everyone in the room feels like they can see it, hear it, and touch it. In this case, that speech was given by Eric Holt-Gimenez of Food First in October 2008 and it was about the global food crisis. I guess I was not the only person who was so deeply touched because Holt-Gimenez went on to turn the speech into an entire book with co-author Raj Patel and help from Annie Shattuck. The full title is Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice.
That said, the book is quite academic, and reading it does not compare to the transformative experience of hearing the authors speak. (Patel and Holt-Gimenez can go head to head in a public speaking contest any day and I really don't know who would win. Both are amazing.) But the book does provide all of the facts underlying the amazing speech in a logical and readable format.
A new study from the University of Michigan finds that kids who eat the food served in schools are more likely to be overweight or obese than peers who bring lunch from home, and also are more likely to suffer from high levels of "bad" cholesterol.
Friday, the DOJ (Department of Justice) held the first of a series of "workshop" to deal with antitrust issues in agriculture. This first one was in Iowa, focusing on issues of concern to farmers. In anticipation of the event, a broad coalition of family farm, anti-hunger, religious, environmental and public policy groups established the website Bust Big Food (obviously in support of government action in breaking up corporations that prevent fair competition in the marketplace).
WHY Hunger says the following about competition in food and agriculture:
There are 2 million farmers and 300 million consumers in the US. Standing in the middle are a handful of corporations who control just about everything that happens to our food between the farm and our plate -- how much it costs, how it's grown, where it comes from, what's in it, and who sells it. Most of what probably matters to you about why food isn't healthier, safer, tastier, or all around better is affected by that narrow bottleneck of power between producers and consumers.
Standard economics holds that if the top four companies in any industry control over 50% of the market, that industry is no longer freely competitive. Right now, the top four companies control 85% of the nation's beef, 70% of pork, and 60% of the nation's poultry. Three corporations process over 70% of the nation's soy. Just one company controls 40% of our milk supply, and Monsanto holds patents on 80% of corn seed. Our food system has become one of the least competitive sectors of the marketplace.
If you want to send comments to the DOJ, please do so here (the deadline was Dec 31, 2009 but it seems that they are still accepting comments).
Eating History: 30 Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine by Andrew F. Smith was the third of three books I recently read that trace American food and agricultural history (the other two are The War on Bugs by Will Allen and Kitchen Literacy by Ann Vileisis). As I said before, the three books provided complementary information to give readers a full picture of how our food and agriculture came to be as they are today. That said, if you have to skip one of the three books, skip this one.
The 30 turning points chosen traced several different plotlines - manufacturing, packaging, and transportation advances; war; the making and defining of gourmet food in America; the roles of nutrition reformers; and the role of marketing. Surely those broad categories leave out many of the 30 chapters in the book, but they also encompass quite a few of them. In some parts, the book reads like the TV show "Unwrapped," and it's written from an impartial point of view (thus not criticizing a number of developments that play roles in making food less healthy). In most cases, I feel that it was probably just fine to provide an unbiased view (as the book is intended as a history book, not a call to action), but in the section on genetically modified foods, "unbiased" turns into "overly favorable" and in fact, wrong.
For 4,000 years prior to the advent of factory-made fertilizers, the Chinese used every bit of organic matter they could lay their hands on--including their own excrement--to return to the soil the nitrogen and other nutrients their vegetable crops removed. It was only through meticulous attention to the cycle of terrestrial rot upon which new life depends that Asian cultures managed to cultivate the same land intensively for centuries, and thereby sustain themselves.
Americans have never been quite so industrious. In colonial days, raising livestock and growing vegetables went hand-in-hand--but not always. Farmers who applied manure and cover crops to maintain fertility were called "improvers." Other farmers, citing a shortage of labor for soil husbandry, simply tilled their land until the soil was exhausted of nutrients. They then moved to greener pastures, something the western frontier seemed to offer in infinite abundance.
Today the frontier is long gone and modern "improvers"--otherwise known as organic gardeners--are left to ponder where to get the materials they need to maintain soil fertility. I should know. I go to great lengths to make the compost I use to feed my hungry kitchen garden here in the District of Columbia: snatching leaves my neighbors put at the curb in the fall; begging grass clippings from landscaping crews; hauling bags of coffee grounds from Starbucks; shoveling buckets of horse manure from a riding stables; religiously collecting our own kitchen scraps. Yet, it never seems to be enough.
Dinner tonight was divine. We ate the carrots, stinging nettles, and spring garlic we harvested earlier today, along with rice and black beans. See our pictures and recipe below.
I'm now the proud mother of 4 baby fig trees! Back in January, I attended a fruit tree propagation workshop, which I wrote about on this blog. I came home from the workshop with 6 fig tree cuttings, 4 blackberry cuttings, 2 pomegranate cuttings, and 2 dragon fruit cuttings. The goal was to wait for each of them to take root. And, so far, 4 of the figs have done so:
Fig tree cutting with roots and some vermiculite sticking to it
It took about 6 weeks to two months for it to happen, but it did. And it didn't happen like I thought it would. As you can see here, the roots grew out of the side of the cutting. I had assumed they would grow out the bottom. A few weeks ago, I found my first evidence of success. This cutting had a few roots growing from it. I tried to transplant it by sticking it into a pot of soil and I knocked the roots right off. Oops. I felt rather ashamed and disappointed, and I put the cutting back in the vermiculite, hoping it would grow some more roots.
Then about a week ago, three of the others grew roots. This time I transplanted them MUCH more carefully, gently holding them inside a mostly empty pot and adding soil around them so I wouldn't damage the roots. I moved them outdoors to a spot with very little sun. I did this for about an hour the first day, and then I brought them back in overnight before moving them back outside for good. Today I moved those three to a slightly sunnier spot. Then I checked this cutting to see if it had recovered, and it had - quite well actually! So I transplanted it as well (very gently this time!) and moved it outdoors to the same shady spot where I started the others. Cross your fingers and hope I don't kill my new baby trees!
As for the other plants, one of the dragonfruits was damaged by heavy rainfall, and one (perhaps two) of the blackberries became a cat toy. The others are just hanging out in moist vermiculate and hopefully growing some roots.
We've got our first real harvest this week! Behold, carrots and spring garlic:
I also plan to pick a bunch of stinging nettles, to round out tonight's celebratory meal. And there will be much more to come in the next few days. Tuesday, I noticed our very first baby sugarsnap pea:
We've now got several peas this size, but none are ready to eat yet. Still, they are getting close and I'm getting excited!
Apparently Americans are transfixed by the reality show Undercover Boss, a show in which a boss goes "undercover" to find out what average employees' lives are like on the job. In one show, a boss finds out that a woman who works on a garbage truck has to pee in a cup because the job doesn't allow for any breaks - not even to pee! As I heard this, I realized something. I've long wished more people would read the book Nickeled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich, which tells of her experiences trying to make a living by working minimum wage jobs. But if you really want the American people to pay attention to something, I guess you have to turn it into a reality TV show. No doubt they are getting a good taste of what Ehrenreich says in her book as they watch Undercover Boss.
With this in mind, here are a few shows I'd like to see in the near future:
Survivor: In this show, the CEO of a company gets to experience the food poisoning his company's products give his customers. The most popular episode would no doubt be when Stewart Parnell, CEO of Peanut Corporation of America, eats his own tainted peanut butter and suffers from salmonella.
Farm Swap: Where an unsustainable farmer trades farms with a sustainable farmer. Imagine what would happen when a guy who farms 2000 acres of corn and soy in Iowa (and maybe owns a nice hog confinement with about 8000 hogs to go with it) trades farms for a week with someone who grows 40 acres of organic veggies and raises chickens on pasture.
Undercover Farmworker: In which people who eat foods go undercover and work in the fields alongside migrant workers picking tomatoes or strawberries. A spin-off version of this show could also feature international locations in which consumers go undercover among coffee and cocoa growers. Sadly, it would probably be illegal to have American children who love chocolate go undercover among child slaves on cacao plantations in Africa.
Ultimate School Lunch Makeover: In each episode, a school cafeteria that serves vile, unhealthy food will get a makeover to serve healthy, delicious, sustainable food to the kids.
Trading Lobbyists: In this show, two opposing sides of an issue will trade lobbyists (and lobbying budgets) for one week. Biotech and pesticide companies will find themselves stuck with no money and nothing more than a few homemade websites and blogs, while sustainable food advocates will suddenly find themselves armed with millions of dollars, corporate jets, the best PR firms in the nation, a full team of skilled lobbyists, access to powerful politicians, and front groups through which they can coordinate their campaigns.
I've had a great time in the Bay Area, and while the people were the best part of my trip, the food wasn't far behind. (In fact, if the people I've visited and met weren't so damn incredible, the food would have easily outranked them because oh my god it was good.) So I figured I might as well share with y'all what I've been eating, in case you've got a chance to visit too.
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