If you live in New York and have walked by Rockefeller Center today, you were probably taken aback. Oh no wait, if you're a New Yorker, you're never taken aback.
You think you've seen everything? Well, Ocean Spray, for the third year, has constructed a sizable pit at Rockefeller Center and filled it with a cranberry bog. They call it "The Big Apple Bog." The bog will be moving next to L.A.'s Kodak theater, and then to Boston. The purpose? Education, and the celebration of the cranberry harvest!
The people wading around in there are real cranberry farmers, and are there to answer questions. There's also cranberry farm equipment placed around the square. Have a look in the gallery!
Gallery: Cranberry Bog by Ocean Spray at Rockefeller Center
There's a lot of talk about greening in the wine industry, from sustainability to carbon neutral wine to a Green Wine Summit for industry players this year. Well, it turns out there really is no such thing as waste when it comes to wine: Canadian winemaker Vincor Canada has announced that it will produce clean electric power from leftover grape skins and pulp at its three Niagara wineries. The energy company will convert about 3,500 tons of waste per year into clean power.
Other "green" wine efforts include making bottles lighter for transport, switching to alternative packaging like Tetra-paks, PET bottles, and boxes, using solar panels to generate electricity to run the winery (in sunny California, wineries who invest in this kind of passive energy usually end up with a surplus), and composting old vines to make a healthy soil additive for the vineyard. As the green wine movement gains steam, industry experts wonder: will consumers buy because it's green, or are they still all about taste?
To which I say, why not both? Some of the best wines I've had were sustainably produced. Frog's Leap Zinfandel, Grgich Hills Chardonnay, and Torres Priorat Salmos come to mind. Do you think "green" wine tastes better?
It was while I was in high school that my family started a compost pile. My parents had composted religiously during the early, idealistic years of their marriage (they even kept chickens for a brief time), but as they moved from Santa Cruz to Chicago to Los Angeles to Portland, composting (and livestock) fell by the wayside. When we restarted the family composting program, we all had a lot to learn about what could go into the sink-side bucket and what items were still trash.
If you've been thinking about starting your own compost pile, but don't know how to go about it, Jonathan at Wasted Food has got the poop on backyard composting, via an interview with Brian Rosa, North Carolina's composting guru. They talk bins verses piles, composting with worms and how to ensure that your compost pile is the most successful one on the block.
Fall is a terrific time to start a compost pile or bin, as you can add all the leaves and bits of organic material that you clean out of your yard to the mound. If you make the time to turn it regularly over the winter, you'll have amazingly nutritious soil for your spring and summer vegetable garden.
Delicacies of the land is a short film/music video that teaches us a little about taro cultivation in Hawaii. In Hawaiian culture, the taro, which is a plant with a starchy root used to make the traditional poi,is incredibly important. The root of the plant is referred to as kalo in the Hawaiian language.
This video is an informative few minutes long. It is half sung in Hawaiian with subtitles and half a lecture from Jerry Konanui, a well respected taro advocate and traditionalist. What struck me most about this film was the similarity of the plight of taro and that of most other traditional vegetables such as heirloom tomatoes. There are hundreds of varieties of taro, each one bred over the centuries to be perfectly adapted to different environments of the Hawaiian Islands, but 90% of the commercially grown taro is only one variety. But advocates such as Jerry Konanui are trying to reverse the trend and get people to grow more of the traditional varieties.
This post from Intelligent Travel also includes a short interview with the directors. They discuss the importance of taro to Hawaiian culture and the proliferation of genetic modification on the Islands, among other things. There are also recommendations of places to go if you're visiting Hawaii to find out more about the taro and the isses surrounding it.
Just like in many other parts of the world, industrial chicken farms are putting small breeders out of business in rural India. They just can't compete with the immense economies of scale that the industrial farms have cultivated. Of course, the giant farms keep the birds in unhealthy conditions and then feed them all sorts of antibiotics to keep them healthy.
The Guardian reported last week on a new way that rural Indians are fighting back, and it turns out to be an old way. They are turning to a native chicken breed that is better adapted to the area, can be raised outside, and has a strong immune system so the birds don't get sick as often. Due to all of this, the giriraja breed is easier and less expensive to raise, so even poor rural families can have a few chickens for food and maybe a little bit of profit.
What do you think about returning to native chicken breeds?
It's just crazy how much compostable food gets thrown into the trash. If you don't have a green bin program where you live, or were interested in the ease of composting, you've got to check out this ridiculously informative guide over at Grist.
They have a bunch of informative links from where to get supplies to videos about the wormy goodness of vermicomposting. Heck, if you're really adventurous, you could even look into composting toilets, where your fecal matter gets broken down and then you bury it in the yard. But don't let steps like that scare you -- the composting basics are as easy as pie, and a lot less fecally intimidating.
Just imagine the nice, organic results you can get for your herb or vegetable garden!
In spite of all the articles, all the op-ed pieces, and all the tables of comparison, I've found it remarkably easy to forget that the cost of groceries has steadily risen over the last couple of years. Part of this is the fact that I moved to New York about a year ago. Prior to the move, most of my family's food came from regional groceries and the friendly, neighborhood Wal-Mart. Moving into the Bronx, I was so stunned by food prices price of food that a few pennies here and there were pretty much irrelevant. Recently, however, I was buying a box of cereal when it struck me that the price had risen by a dollar over the last year. Given that the new price was just over $5, this translated to a 25% cost increase in one year. I was stunned.
When asked about skyrocketing food prices, most pundits pin the blame on our new favorite villain: rising gas prices. While gas is partially responsible, it's worth noting that increased shipping costs haven't caused the prices of every other consumer item to soar. In truth, the biggest force driving up the cost of food has been exports; basically, European markets are filling up with cheap American foodstuffs. Over the course of 2008, Europe will have imported $110 billion worth of our produce, a 22% increase over 2007.
This time of the year, I love going to the farmer's markets to try the many succulent and colorful tomatoes. Depending on the season, we can enjoy these fruity delectables into mid-fall. Like so many fruits and vegetables, there are plenty of varieties of tomatoes to try. Below are 8 with some history.
Heirloom - Within this category there are approximately 400 different varieties. Aesthetically, they look striking with their unusual coloring and size. I would not use them to cook with. They're preferable eaten on their own with fresh basil, mozzarella, and vinaigrette.
Big Rainbow - These large beefsteak tomatoes can weigh over two pounds. They've been growing in the U.S. since the early 1900s. They start off yellow, and as they ripen they resemble a green pinkish-red rainbow. They're perfect for sandwiches and cooking.
Brandywine - This is another beefsteak tomato. The Amish community has been growing them since the late 19th century. They're softer than Big Rainbow tomatoes and they're bursting with both sweetness and acidity.
Cherokee Purple - These small sized salad tomatoes are perfect for cutting in quarters. They were first grown by the Cherokee tribe as far back as the 1800s. If you have a sweet tooth, these are for you! They're probably the sweetest large tomatoes at the market.
Djena Lee's Golden Girl - Tomato breeder Djena Lee created this deep yellow variety in the 1920s. They're known for their intense taste and sugar-acid balance. Cut them for your summer salad.
Green grape - This yellow-green cherry tomato has a relatively short history. It was created in the 1980s by being bred between four different heirloom tomatoes. They look like muscat grapes and are great for snacking.
Currant red - These tart cherry tomatoes are the smallest ones available.
Yellow Pear - This gorgeous yellow pear shaped small fruity tomato is great for snacking with grey sea salt mixed in with greens.
What are some interesting tomatoes you've tried so far this season?
Farmers everywhere are being squeezed by high production costs and low prices for their products. Even malting barley farmers in Ireland are being hit, but they're trying to do something about it.
The Irish farmers, about 400 of them, converged on the famous Guinness brewery in Dublin to protest their situation. The farmers want the brewer to do more to support the industry (which I suppose means supporting higher grain prices?). However, Guinness maintains that they get their grain from an agricultural supplier and has little say in the prices the farmers are paid.
A company spokesperson says that the beer maker also has to do what it can to compete with other beverage choices in a poor global economy. I feel bad for Guinness being caught in the middle. They won't have the grain they need if all the farmers go under, but they also prefer the lower grain prices to keep their own prices down. What do you think about the situation.
Last week, I listened to a story on NPR about countries in Central America, notably Honduras, that are turning to genetically modified crops as the global food crisis worsens. Honduras is the only country in Central America that has embraced genetically engineered corn.
Genetically engineered corn is against the law in most of Central America where the crop has been grown for thousands of years. They ban genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to protect their many diverse varieties of corn from contamination. But with the price of corn doubling, Honduras has recently decided to use GMOs.
The food crisis is bringing about a new trend towards genetically modified crops. Egypt just approved GMO corn, and China increased its funding in research on GMO foods. However, this may be a destructive temporary solution. Environmentalists are concerned that biotech crops could damage the natural diversity of plants. These crops are made by injecting new genes that were found in other species. In essence, they're getting rid of previous natural varieties and creating new ones.
What do you think? Should countries view GMO foods as a solution to the current food crisis?
When I was ten or eleven, I read an article in National Geographic World about foraging for food, and it immediately caught my attention. For several months, I made violet syrup, dandelion root "coffee," acorn muffins, and a wide variety of other bizarre concoctions from ingredients that I found in my own backyard. Some of these foods were good and others were horrific, but they taught me a few things about how to survive in the wild, not to mention the underappreciated joys of maple syrup.
In the years since, I've tried cattails and wild walnuts, ramps and rose petals, burdock, sassafras, and a wide variety of other delightful produce. In addition to saving me a small amount on my food budget, they've also continued to bring me close to nature. Now that I live in the city, however, my days of foraging are largely over. While I love the Bronx, I don't know what they're putting on the lawn in Poe Park and have no desire to find out the hard way!
Unfortunately, just as I've settled down in my new urban home, my friend Jen introduced me to Prodigal Gardens, a site that offers numerous recipes for wild produce and herbs, as well as workshops in foodlore and natural medicine. If you happen to be a resident of the upper Midwest, you might want to drop in at one of their classes in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, or ask them to set one up for you!
We all know that we're supposed to wear sun screen to protect us from harmful radiation from the sun, right? Well did you know that fruit or vegetables grown in the sun need it too?
I know that thought has never occurred to me before, but I can see the reasoning. If human skin can get sunburned, why not apple skin? Apparently about 20 to 40 percent of some crops are destroyed every year from solar radiation, according to an article in the Mercury News. That's bad for farmers, who can only use the damaged fruit for juice, as well as the environment, as crops that are more susceptible to sun damage need more water.
The article features a company that makes sunscreen for produce, Purfresh which makes the veggie sunscreen Purshade among other things. I just thought that this perspective on sunburn was very interesting and worth sharing. How do you feel about sun screen for produce?
It was while I was in high school that my family started a compost pile. My parents had composted religiously during the early, idealistic years of their marriage (they even kept chickens for a brief time), but as they moved from Santa Cruz to Chicago to Los Angeles to Portland, composting (and livestock) fell by the wayside. When we restarted the family composting program, we all had a lot to learn about what could go into the sink-side bucket and what items were still trash. 
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In spite of all the articles, all the op-ed pieces, and all the tables of comparison, I've found it remarkably easy to forget that the cost of groceries has steadily risen over the last couple of years. Part of this is the fact that I moved to New York about a year ago. Prior to the move, most of my family's food came from regional groceries and the friendly, neighborhood Wal-Mart. Moving into the Bronx, I was so stunned by food prices price of food that a few pennies here and there were pretty much irrelevant. Recently, however, I was buying a box of cereal when it struck me that the price had risen by a dollar over the last year. Given that the new price was just over $5, this translated to a 25% cost increase in one year. I was stunned.
This time of the year, I love going to the farmer's markets to try the many succulent and colorful tomatoes. Depending on the season, we can enjoy these fruity delectables into mid-fall. Like so many fruits and vegetables, there are plenty of varieties of tomatoes to try. Below are 8 with some history. 
Last week, I listened to a story on NPR about countries in Central America, notably Honduras, that are turning to genetically modified crops as the global food crisis worsens. Honduras is the only country in Central America that has embraced genetically engineered corn. 
.jpg)
When I was ten or eleven, I read an article in National Geographic World about foraging for food, and it immediately caught my attention. For several months, I made violet syrup, dandelion root "coffee," acorn muffins, and a wide variety of other bizarre concoctions from ingredients that I found in my own backyard. Some of these foods were good and others were horrific, but they taught me a few things about how to survive in the wild, not to mention the underappreciated joys of maple syrup. 
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