Saturday, May 28, 2011

alone in the kitchen

I had the kitchen pretty much to myself this weekend. In a house of 6, its not a common state in which to find myself. Please don't misunderstand, I dig my housemates and the food that comes together when we gather. This situation just allows my inner mad scientist to emerge.

But first I want to go on a little rant. Today I got up and went for a long walking tour of coffee shops knowing I would end up at Sweet Pea... Saturday means vegan donuts... boston cream that is. I needed to work up to the french toast I'd been dreaming about making for a week. Topped with cashew cream.

First stop was a place I didn't even know existed. I walk by it every week on my way to the Night Light... guess I can be a little too focused. Anyway, I saw the sign for a new cafe, so I swung in to get my mug filled with morning caffeine delight.

Looked like a nice, clean, sleek spot. The menu board listed local farms, soup of the day, compote of the day, and that they made everything in house. I was impressed until I saw something that has been getting me boiling hot for awhile now. Single cone filter coffee... melita is what I believe it is called. Here they were making several at once to fill a pump pot. I watched as they used a single disposable filter cone for every cup they poured into the pot.

I understand the desire for good coffee. I don't see the point in wasting land and labor on cheaply harvested, roasted, etc. for a morning rush. But I came to love coffee in a strange way. It was either as a hot beverage in a 32 oz glass loaded up with kahlua cream on a Sunday opening shift after closing the bar just hours before. Or, it was the nights I went dancing with my friend who, at 22 was 3 years sober. We liked to go dancing. It was the 90's in Dallas. We would get crushes on the same women. We had fun. When we went out together, I just drank fruit juice. However, I would meet him at his apartment and we would load up on double cappuccinos with chocolate syrup, vanilla creamer and whip cream (I was not yet vegan, but I can make a damn good vegan version). He had a special way and order of doing the whole procedure. He ended up teaching me because it took him longer to get ready, so I'd make it while he did whatever he was doing.

So that is the long way of saying, I don't drink Folgers. I respect good roasters who take care of those who take care of the bean and the process. I understand that improper brewing can totally mess all that work up. But I do not understand all this waste. I also get pissed when I hear baristas talk about not using natural filters, but to use bleached white filters because it has a subtle effect on the flavor. What gets me the most is that you can get reusable filters that are easy to clean, made of metal or cloth.

Anyway, this coffee thing is driving me crazy. Compote's americano was pulled very nicely, and I proceeded to the vegan utopia of Sweet Pea, then to the french press at Cellar Door and time in the sunshine. Finally, I made it home to make French Toast and a strange but tasty spontaneous tofu maple bacon thing. I ate the French Toast so fast (3 cups of coffee and 2 hours of walking around will do that) I forgot to photograph it, but I am here to tell you, Sara is right, chick pea flour makes the difference in french toast. Also using homemade almond milk with a dash of cinnamon. Oh and artisan bread picked up at the farmers market 3 days prior. It was killer.

However, last nights dinner was a delight. I looked over cook books, overheard conversations, have tasted various forms of polenta that have amazed and confused me. I decided it was time to venture into this new realm of cooking... polenta is my new favorite grain.


I sauteed onion, garlic, celery, fennel, and asparagus before I boiled the polenta. Pre-heated the oven to 400. Poured 1/2 of the polenta in a pie pan, then a layer of black beans I made earlier in the day, sprinkled some nutritional yeast, and topped off with the rest of the polenta mix. Baked it long enough to saute some collard greens, and had an amazing dinner!

 So easy. So simple. And so malleable to seasonal vegetables.... food I can relate to!
I am in love with this food. One more way of one pot meals if I choose it.

Now, what will I do with all that remaining cashew cream?

Saturday, May 21, 2011

fairy tales and projects: aka there is a mother in my cupboard

This may be a difficult thread to follow, but hang in there. It seems that a fairy tale inspired me to make a mother for apple cider vinegar.

For many years now, I have been trying to find ways of bringing back the richness of story telling. All kinds of story telling from fairy tales to sitting around camp fires and sharing old stories, being at ceremony and hearing the healing stories of our ancestors, and trying to encourage people to tell their stories. There is so much to learn and teach. And then there is the cultural flair and flavor I miss when all our pop culture stories are juxtaposed to how Hollywood or some publisher decides we will hear a story based on how much money it will make. Not only do these old stories teach us and entertain us, they give us strength in difficult times to carry on. To not give up. Reminding us that we know what to do, we just need to trust our community and ourselves.

In my quest for stories, I came across and anthology of fairy tales called "My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me" edited by Kate Bernheimer. Its 40 new tales based on the old classics with new twists and turns. "The Brother and the Bird" is based on Grimm's "Juniper Tree", and is where the anthology gets its name. When the author, Alissa Nutting, talks about her attraction/back round of the re-telling of the old tale, she brings up something I have also wondered.

There are a few tales like "Juniper Tree" where the father ends up eating one of the kids and doesn't even notice. He just excepts that the kid is out of the house.... for days... months.... He buys the story. He eats the food with out question. How often do we find ourselves eating what is in front of us because we like the taste, so we don't ask questions, we just accept being told, "its safe, its ok, there is nothing to see here kids, just move along now."

When the truth of it all is, we can taste something is not right. In Alissa's story, the father keeps going out and looking at the tree. He senses something is not falling into place, but its like he is under a spell. And I think that is where many of "us" have been for way too long. We have the FDA, USDA, etc telling us that the food they are allowing out of the factories is safe and good for us. It won't make us sick or kill us. And it doesn't. Well not like the poisonous apple of some wicked witch.

When we actually listen to the stories people are telling, however, we are realizing that their food is making us sick. In fact it is killing us slowly and painfully. What may be the worst part is, that those agencies that we are told are suppose to protect us and keep us safe, are now blaming us for getting sick, and deny us health care. The government has a magical ability of blaming the victim. It could the First Nations People in deep deep poverty because they refuse to leave land the the government keeps claiming resources of. Or the single mother working 2 jobs and raising kids with not enough time to cook whole grains and veggies so sends her kids to fast food.

Its kind of like our nation is in abusive relationship with "our" government. We want to trust and believe that they care, but really they only care about the rich and powerful.

So now it is time to pack our bags and remove ourselves from a relationship that is slowly killing us. We can do it. There is support. We can re-gain the trust of the voices in heads that are saying something is not quite right here and stop eating the poisonous lies. We can bring our foods back. We can revive our stories, our traditions, our food, our health...

Right now, I am trying to revive the dregs of some apple cider vinegar (acv) to make my own.

We've been at the bottom of a gallon of acv for months now. Its full of chunks of things that are the natural part of live vinegar of any kind - ya know when you see some at the store that say something about having the mother in it.

After reading about a mother that kills, and decided for something lighter, so i turned to how to make vinegar in the book Making It. So I headed off to the co-op and got some more acv to feed the dregs, and about 6 apples (fuji's were on sale so... that's what I got).

The dregs plus vinegar:
  juiced the apples:

mixed the 2:

covered with cheese cloth:

and well now its actually in my closet, not the cupboard, to avoid light. Sorry in advance to my co-workers and friends if I start to smell like acv. I plan on moving it to the cupboard once the mother is on the move. It should only take a couple months to have full on acv. I am assuming its a lot like the mother from making kombucha. And judging from my experience of making that, I feel like this will be a great success. Once we have a full mother, we can make as much as we want, you know, like a full gallon... if I feel like juicing that many apples. But then we will never have to buy apple cider vinegar ever again!

Apple Cider Vinegar has so many heath benefits. Some people drink it right up everyday. We have bottles of beverages in the cooler at the co-op made with acv. I personally use it so often, I don't know what I would do with out it. Its in my tahini sauce. I use it when I saute my greens, or making a salad dressing. If you are not familiar with this amazing food, I suggest you introduce yourselves. And then you can tell the story of how you first came to use apple cider vinegar.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Plastic, Gyres, and Health

This week someone came up to me and said, "so I hear you have given up plastic." I guess that is partially true. Plastic has become a great enemy of sorts. I touched on this a while back after watching the movie "Bag It" but I would like to revisit this issue.

Dang near everything we consume, in one way or another, contains plastic either in its making or in its packaging. Of all that plastic, it is estimated that only about 5% of that is recovered for reuse. Around 50% ends up in landfills, and the remaining is "unaccounted for", meaning let free to roam the environment (more than I can say for most animals or people). This free range trash ends up in our water ways and eventually out to sea to choke out the marine life.

The oceans have these things called gyres. They are these networks of how the currents and winds move the oceans and effect weather patterns. There are 5 major gyres in our oceans. You may have even heard of them mentioned in global warming talks. Trash gets caught in these whirlpool like areas. As I understand it, currently, one trash island is the size of the United States and another is more than twice the size of Texas.

Plastic is made to last a very long time, even though most of it is only in our hands for very short periods of time. Lets just say we hold a yogurt container in our hand for 5 minuets. That plastic container will last hundreds of years, floating around in the ocean. Your plastic bag you used to carry your items in, will blow around for 500 to 1,000 years... maybe in little pieces, but it will be around.

These pieces get eaten by such animals as fish and birds. It ends up causing all kinds of problems for them like dehydration, internal blockages... death. It leads to many many deaths.

Those who do not die from the over-consumption of plastic, may very well die and end up on the plate of a human and the plastic epidemic climbs up the food chain. The chemicals causing health problems become more and more concentrated with each ingestion - bioaccumulation. What does that mean, besides go vegan?

Well lets begin with plankton eating and absorbing the goods of plastic. The plankton is eaten by small fish then that is eaten by a bigger fish like a mackerel then a tuna then a human. All the chemicals and toxins become more and more concentrated, not less. Because plastics absorb other toxins floating around, you not only consume the plastic bits that the fish consumed, you take in all the toxins that have been absorbed. Some pellets found in the oceans have been known to contain poisons 1 million times greater than in the water that surrounds it.

Lets think about the poisons in our oceans from things like oil spills, nuclear waste, mercury, pesticides, dioxin, PCB, DDT, PBA. Those mix with the plastic and escalate the health issues of consuming ocean life. To avoid getting too carried away, lets just focus on the plastic health issues, and here is what you can expect from your food wrapped and heated up in plastic:

Birth defects, cancer (about every type you can imagine), liver dysfunctions, lower sperm counts, endocrine disruption, asthma, infertility, endometriosis, decreased immune system, early onset of puberty, multitude of skin conditions, more infertility, headaches, respiratory issues, all kinds of hormonal changes (mostly decreasing "male" hormone levels and increasing "female" hormone levels), increased exposure to dioxin and mercury....

These are things we are fairly sure of just from having plastic in our every day world of water bottles and the like. If you start to think about the bioaccumulation of these poisons, its overwhelming. I would like to say that I can't imagine what this would look like, but to be honest, its not the future. We are seeing the health effect now. This isn't what will happen when... it is happening now.

But we have a choice! This is something we can take some control over and of. Its not like climate change where we can not envision everyone giving up their cars. It is also not about being having the money to buy the more environmentally green washed lightbulb. Its actually about consuming different, less, and saving money. You simply choose not to get a plastic bag, not to buy bottled water/soda/kombucha/beer, no freakin' styrofoam, re-use everything, drink from the tap (water or beer)... make your own... don't eat animals.

In my current food procurement situation, my food is in plastic for very limited times. Mostly it is in transporting it in an old plastic bag from the store, to a glass container I have at home. I have been experiencing some health shifts. At first I chalked this up to not consuming as many preservatives and such, but after reviewing some of this research, I am changing my perspective.

I have certainly had some detoxing effects like skin stuff, but mostly I my body feels great! My mind feels more clear, sharp, creative. I am 43 years old, and have been experiencing some changes in my cycle, but that has calmed in the past couple months. My body digests and processes my foods much more efficiently.  I've been tired lately, but I think it is because I have actually had more energy to do more things, so I am busier. I wake with out an alarm early. In other words, I feel good.

One strange side effect from all this is that I have felt more emotionally available.... well I don't know about available so much, as being more in touch with my emotions. The walls are crumbling. Its work I've been doing for a long time, and I now feel like I have the space, time, energy, the presence to be present with my friends. It may just be a coincidence, but I can't help but feel that there is a connection in being able to digest my life instead of having to process the toxic waste of plastic. That alone maybe worth never going back.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

no-packaged backpackin

I just entered a cafe with my laptop for the first time in maybe a year or more. I had come to really feeling the disconnect of sitting in a cafe surrounded by people socializing on their computers, when here we are right now face to face, ready to communicate. So, now, most of the time, I sit with a stack of books, my journals, and a non-disposable pen, while others still stare at computers. The exception to this is going to Cellar Door coffee, a local roaster here in Portland. There are people (like me today) on computers, reading books or the paper, and a guy working on his comic book/graphic novel. And when I finish with this blog, I'll start on a story idea I came up with while on the trip I just returned from. So, actually a fairly good place to write.

You may be asking why I left the house with my laptop today? Good questions. Since I've been back, I have had a really difficult time being in doors. Having that fresh air in my lungs, and the moist air of the fog on my face... oh and the smells of the forest....

Then today, I stepped outside the house and into our garden, and the smell of the spring rain hit me so hard that I just had to get on my bike and ride somewhere to fill my lungs with this air and force my muscles to pump it's vitality through my body. So here I am invigorated, and telling you about a weeks vacation that resulted in almost zero trash.

Last week I accomplished one of my 3 goals of adventure for this year; I went to backpack with the redwoods. I was able to get our for 6 days by myself and just be. The results have been amazing for my mental and physical health, and the food was pretty darn good too!

I was able to pack all 6 days worth of food in my pack, and this is what it looked like:


What are all those things? Well there is some lentil soup, chili mix, a heavy soup mix, pasta, sun dried tomatoes, soy curls, peanut butter and chocolate chips, dried fruits, oatmeal,  quinoa flakes, couscous, my spice mix, hot chili peppers, granola, my morning elixir mix, vita-mineral greens, homemade tortillas, kale chips, nuts, some sugar, couple avocados, lemons, apples, orange, olive oil. I think that is most of it. Some of it was road food, but most of it is what I took out with me. This is where I make a confession. I decided to buy a bottle of whiskey. I weighed the options, and felt that the comfort of ending the night with a nip of whiskey in lieu of fires at night was worth the bottle. And having a hot toddy on chilled nights was worth it.

I ended up actually not needing much of this. In the mornings I had my morning drink and a mix of vita-mineral greens and was good to go until an afternoon snack of nuts and fruit or avocado. The granola I ate while on the road. And I never did eat the pasta. The cold sort of made the olive oil not quite usable. The first night's meal was actually extremely amazing thanks to Mark and Karen of Flying Onion farm. I picked up some of their kale raab at the farmers market before I headed and out, and it was worth the space and weight for that meal.

I was also able to harvest some wild nettles for a little freshness to otherwise dehydrated meals. And for dessert a couple times, I was able to have one of these:

Salmon berry flowers! So sweet! One is all I needed to fill my mouth with delight after a little meal. Although, shortly after I took this pic, I had to promise a bear that I would not eat anymore if it promised not to eat me. Seemed reasonable. I never actually saw the bear, but I heard it, and I could smell that I had passed an animal scent of some kind (yes, I am sure that smell was not me).

This is what my view was like during most meals:


And the above is where I refilled my water supply... I love the taste and energy of wild water. I made sure to fill up all my containers on the way out so that I could keep drinking it down the road and in the city. I believe that it is what made my hot toddy so dang good!

So what exactly is the trash that I made? Well mostly it was from the package of the batteries I had to get when my rechargeable ones died, and that is it! All the containers/bags that I used to carry the food in were ones that were around the house, or that I always use when I go out. There was some compost from the fresh fruit. The twist tie on the raab was used to keep some other bag that held the dinner bags closed. Now I have a bottle of whisky, however, and my feelings on that are, well, mixed (actually a top shelf local whiskey). I feel like I compromised a bit, but I also feel that not having a fire, especially by myself, is a good trade off. And, for the moment, that I will only use this while I'm out camping.

I did have one really odd thing happen upon returning, and that is that I kind of forgot I was doing this thing. I was facing some cooler shelves at work and saw some vegan cheese or something that I didn't think we carried before, and thought, "oh that looks good, I should try it." That was followed with, "wait, there is a reason you can't... what is it?" and then I was like "oh yeah! cool!"

Last night I was re-inspired  by this couple that stopped into the coop while on their book tour. They are amazing, and their book, "Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World" is fantastic. Check out Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen at rootsimple.com

It's inspired me to try some things I hadn't thought much about yet. I've realized that some things are easier for me because I just don't care about having some things, like cookies and bread, around much.... but more on that later. Where should I venture to next? Take a train to.....