What's in the News: May 2014

If April showers bring May flowers, what do May showers bring? The month has been a quite a bit colder and wetter than I was hoping, which might lead to a late harvest. We'll see if the sun sees fit to show its face more in the coming months.

Luckily, such uncertain factors as weather patterns won't matter much if we all starting eating Soylent, a new technology pioneered by Silicon Valley types who just can't bear the thought of having to leave their desks for reasons of mortal weakness like lunch breaks. It's probably not actually made of people. Yet.

Meanwhile, farther up the West coast, acidification of ocean water is having a negative effect on oyster shell formation. The blame for this seems to fall, at least in part, on human-caused climate change. Sigh.

In much better news, farmers in Paraguay have opened the world's first producer-owned Fair Trade certified, organic sugar mill. With new, profitable career opportunities on family farms, the brain drain of Paraguay's younger generation from its rural villages is seeing a reversal.

Oh and, I met Michael Pollan.

Michael Pollan in Harvard Square

Of all the email newsletters to sign up for, maybe the least regrettable one in the Boston area is that of Harvard Book Store. The speaker series they host has so far included such high profile speakers as Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, and just last week, Michael Pollan. You can watch the entire video of Pollan's talk here, or read my summary for The Examiner here.

I was pretty excited to get the chance to see him speak again, since the last time I saw him, it was at a much larger venue, but this time around the crowd was to be small enough that he would be answering questions from the audience, and later signing books.

This talk was promoting his latest book Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, which was published last year, but has finally come out in paperback. Cooked is my personal favorite of Pollan's books, because in addition to saying the things that, for better or for worse, people expect Michael Pollan to say, it's a good story that showcases his unique writing style. Part memoir, part travel writing, and part anthropological history, Cooked would be a good read even you aren't a tree hugger or a foodie.

The political message is there, though. And the political message is that we should all make time to cook. For our physical health, and the health of the social bonds that come from sitting down with other people for a meal. At the time I first read this, I was fully on board, taking the gentle chiding to heart, trying to find ways of taking pleasure in cooking, and of spending less time focused on things like work, and Facebook, and Netflix.

As my friends and I were waiting for the talk to start, though, we purchased books for Mike (may I call you Mike?) to sign after the talk. I already had Cooked, so I picked up a copy of Food Rules: An Eater's Manual. As we went back to our seats and started flipping through our new paperbacks, I couldn't help noticing a subtext in many, if not most, of the rules in the book, which was "step 1: be rich." And not the kind of rich that comes from working 80 hours a week, either. The kind of rich that leaves you plenty of leisure time to plan, shop, and cook. You know, such as being a successful writer living in a hub of accessible healthy food like Berkeley, California.

Some rules, like #4 "Avoid food products that contain high fructose corn syrup," and  #36 "Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of your milk," are easy enough for anyone conscientious to follow, but problems come along with #28 "If you have the space, buy a freezer," and #16 "Buy your snacks at the farmer's market."

We all know that inexpensive food isn't actually inexpensive if you take into account the diabetes medicine we'll be paying for in the long run, but factoids like that don't really help when you're at the checkout of Whole Foods- if you're even lucky enough to have convenient access to such a place.

Mike (yes, I'm going to call you Mike) did a good job of addressing this issue with honesty, answering audience questions along these lines with an "I'm just a writer. I can't fix everything; I can just get you talking about it," stance.

So here I am, talking about it. With Corn Free July 2014 just 41 days in the future, questions of access, time, and budget have been on my mind a lot. What can we do to make healthy, sustainably farmed food the norm instead of a specialty item? Is this goal attainable, and if so, will it bring a whole new set of problems with it that we can't yet foresee? Let me know in the comments section, and in the meantime, enjoy some photos from the event.

I wish I had thought of something to say to him that didn't make me sound like Kathy Bates in Misery.

My friend Jenna hanging out with our new buddy, Mike.

Crossing his name out and adding the signature instead was an interesting touch.

What's in the News: April 2014

Spring is technically here, even if it doesn't feel like it, and for many, thoughts have turned to crops. On a small scale, backyard gardens are being planted, and on a large scale, the issue of how in the heck we're going to provide enough food for billions of people becomes more of a concern than even with the growing season upon us. Here are some links to noteworthy articles you may have missed. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section.

From Climate Central: New satellite images show that during certain months of the year, the U.S. corn belt is the most productive region in the world. OK, but does it really count if we aren't putting our harvests to good use?

From Vermont Right to Know GMOs: Vermont becomes the second state (I'm proud to say Connecticut was the first) to pass a bill mandating the labeling of foods containing genetically modified organisms. Now all they need to do is get it signed into law...

From Sustainablog: We may have found a compromise that GMO supporters and opponents can both live with in Open Source Seeds.

From National Geographic: While America has been busy debating the ins and outs of biotech, and trying to squeeze as many ears of corn as possible into a square acre, a team over in England has been finding more farmland by reclaiming World War II era bomb shelters.

Five Ingredient Avocado Chicken Salad

This post originally appeared at FoodRiot.com.

More and more of us are coming out as mayonnaise-phobes these days, and it feels good to know I'm not in as much of a minority as I once thought. It feels even better to know that the things for which I once thought I had to suck it up and use mayonnaise; your chicken salad, you deviled eggs, that kind of thing, have an important ally in the avocado. I've only recently embraced the avocado and its myriad delicious uses, but it seems like I find a new one each week. This time I discovered easy-as-pie-and-almost-as-tasty Avocado Chicken Salad:

Ingredients:

1. The leftover meat from last night's roast chicken, removed from the carcass and cut into small cubes
2. 1-2 avocados, the riper the better
3. A tablespoon on lemon juice
4. 1/2 cup of dried cranberries
5. Your favorite sandwich bread

Directions:

1. Slice up your avocado into a bowl. Remember how?
2. Add your lemon juice, because the oily umami-ness of the avocado will really benefit from a bite of acid. Give everything a good stir. If the avocado is a little firmer than you'd like, and not mixing well, toss everything into a food processor, stand mixer, or whatever you have, and beat for about 30 seconds to get your mixture nice and creamy, adding a little oil if necessary, and scraping down the sides of the bowl halfway through.
3. Stick your bread in the toaster so that it will be ready when the chicken salad is.
4. Stir in the dried cranberries and chicken meat by hand until well blended. Give it a taste and add some salt, pepper, and/or your favorite spice or dried herb.
5. Spread it on your toast, try to move past the fact that it's green, and enjoy!

Farmed and Dangerous Recap: Episode 4: Ends Meat

Ending the season on a cliffhanger when you don't know whether the show will get renewed? Not cool, Chipotle. It's like you're admitting that no one really cares whether your plot lines get resolved or not.

By my fourth episode of Farmed and Dangerous, I knew not to expect too much, but the writers really outdid themselves this time in the underwhelming department. The finale (season finale? series finale? even that seems unclear) failed to tie up any loose ends. For instance, that guy who kept spying on Chip and Sofia never really revealed himself, it was just implied that he worked for...whatsisname. Her boyfriend. Or fiance. Or ex-boyfriend. Or whatever he is. I remember at some point he told his enormous-cowboy-hat-wearing father that they were getting married, because it prompted his dad to observe that he was "finally buying the cow," bringing the livestock themed suggestive joke count to somewhere around 10.

I guess they kind of resolved the Petro Pellet arc, saying that it was just a red herring the whole time to distract the media from Oleyum, (Get it?) a new brand of human food made out of oil. But then that led right into more unresolved issues of its own, notably the super weird final shot of the

(season? series?)

in which a random new character is eating Oleyum brand junk food too close to a cell phone and the credits roll just before he (probably) explodes just like the cow in the first episode.

And then there's, of course, the Will They End Up Together plot. It seems as though Sofia is leaning toward accepting Chip's job offer (wait, what? That's going to get complicated, no?) as she not only decided to break up with Zach, (That's his name! Zach!) but also completely changed her style of dress. She's now less Lydia Rodarte Quayle and more Lori Grimes. (Always change your look when you change your boyfriend, ladies. Men who get free thinkers don't buy the cow...or something.)

So that's it for Farmed and Dangerous. For now at least. What do you think? Was it a complete waste of time? Did you actually like it? Did you think it was a step towards starting an important conversation? Will we see more shows like this in the future? Does Chipotle really have good intentions or is it all just more greenwashing to make a buck? And, most importantly, what show should I recap next?

Farmed and Dangerous Recap: Episode 3: Raising the Steaks

What is with the slightly off pop culture references on this show? In episode 3, "Raising the Steaks," (Get it?) Chip tries to tell Sophia that her father has his priorities backwards by saying that he "watches The Matrix and roots for the machines." Is anyone watching The Matrix at all these days? I mean, I love the '90's, but come on.

I should cut poor Chip a break, though. He's not himself today. His mind is on a particularly sad chapter in his Backstory. "Backstory," (as the writers clearly learned just minutes before the actors showed up to rehearse this episode,) explains how characters ended up where they are, and why they behave the way they do. Sometimes, revealing a key detail in one character's Backstory can influence how another character sees him or her. For example, Sophia's hard candy shell starts to crack when she learns that Chip's father tragically died from complications after being attacked by a boar.

And that Chip is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne
photo credit

When Chip's dad was running the show, their family farm was not an organic one, you see, and the animals were pumped full of antibiotics, so that when his wound got infected there was no way to treat it, since the boar germs had become antibiotic resistant. (Wait, can that really happen?) And that's why Chip is now a rogue sustainable farmer who doesn't over-medicate his livestock. Because inheriting a business and then immediately restructuring everything about it while continuing to make a profit is apparently a lot easier than the lady with the chickens from Food, Inc. made it look.

Sophia shows her empathy for Chip's daddy issues by eating a tomato right off the vine, and conceding that it tastes better than the ones from the supermarket.

And then we go to commercial.

Much like those surreal ad spots on AMC that feature actors from Mad Men, commercials on Farmed and Dangerous make viewers think a little harder than usual about the relationship between advertising and entertainment, and where the line is between the two.

At least once during each episode I've seen, there's been a commercial for a Special K bar that's supposed to help you lose weight. Which is something you're supposed to want to do.

And that's where I stop questioning Chipotle's motives and realizing that I know full well what those motives are. They want to set themselves apart from other fast food chains by sourcing healthier and more environmentally responsible ingredients. Everyone's got their thing that sets them apart from the competition. McDonald's has a clown. Wendy's has square hamburgers. Chipotle has the sustainability angle. And if not enough people know that they have the sustainability angle, well, they'll do whatever it takes to get the word out there, even support industrial agriculture.

Farmed and Dangerous Recap: Episode 2: Passing the Buck

I apologize for my last recap. I had been expecting something that took itself a little more seriously, and I wasn't ready to fully embrace the goofy, campy spirit of Farmed and Dangerous. The reason the script and character development have little more depth than they would in a commercial is that Farmed and Dangerous IS a commercial. Kind of. It doesn't quite know what it is, and that's part of the fun. We're at a weird place in the history of media, just like we're at a weird place in the history of food, so I guess it follows that a show like this should take some weird ideas, run with them, and see what happens. The jokes are bad, but if you come at them with the right attitude, they're the kind of jokes that are so bad they're good. I should get off my grass-fed high horse and stop pretending that that isn't exactly the kind of joke I like.

So about Episode 2: "Passing the Buck." First of all, let me explain that the title of this episode refers to the facts that, in the episode, several characters shy away from responsibility by giving it to someone else, a practice commonly knows as "passing the buck," and also that the main character's name is Buck. Get it? You're welcome.

ANYWAY, we find our antagonist, Buck Marshall, still in hot polluted water over the video of the cow exploding from eating Petro Pellets that his little buddy Chip from the Sustainable Family Farm Something Something Association leaked on the internet last week. The video has gone viral, and Chip is asked to come on a Today Show-esque program and publicize the thing even more, much to the chagrin of Buck and his client, Animoil, whose head honcho, by the way, just happens to be Buck's daughter Sophia's boyfriend's father. Because character relationships. And conflict. And intrigue.

The episode culminates, as last week's did, with Chip and Sophia on a pseudo-date, this time upping the ante from hip organic bistro to fancy tequila bar.

Let the record show that I don't buy that Chip hangs out in places like this. I don't buy that Chip can afford places like this. Unless the writers are giving a deliberate nod to the time-honored tradition of sitcom characters living outside their means in the name of wacky antics, the night's bar tab makes me really skeptical of just where Chip's funding come from. Could it be that his organization is just as corrupt as Animoil? PLOT TWIST!

The star-crossed lovers' farm facts drinking game was a perfect example of what I love/hate about this show. Instead of crafting an actual conversation that two people who disagree about these issues might have, the writers just had the characters take turns listing facts. (The rules of the game were drink every time the other person had a good point. There were a lot of empty glasses by the end of the night, which you would think meant that our heroes reached some some sort of philosophical compromise, but I don't think that's what actually happened.) Their little diorama of how land is used made out of beer nuts and cocktail olives was adorable though.

Are we having fun yet? Who do you think that guy constantly lurking in the shadows is? Will Chip and Sophia end up together? Is any of this making you hungry for a Chipotle burrito?