Union of Concerned Scientists Cartoon Winner

(Could you kindly rephrase that in equivocal, inaccurate, self-serving and roundabout terms that we can all understand?)

(See the original)

I Failed the Challenge, or What I Learned From the Eat Local Challenge

Eating a 100% local diet is just not easy. I tried, but I failed. And I failed for 3 basic reasons.

• Availability
• Finances
• Time

When I was growing up, we got much of our food from my grandparents. My grandfather raised beef and hunted, so we had a full freezer of meat at all times. My grandmother and my other grandfather both planted large truck farm type gardens and always preserved enough produce to get our family through the winter months. But as my grandparents aged and my parents moved away from the home town, our diets became more dependent on processed foods and packaged produce/meats. And our family menus became less routinely meat, potatoes, and a side vegetable. With the more sophisticated (and I use that term lightly) recipes came the need to mix foods from different regions and different growing seasons. And that was the crux of the challenge I faced in planning a menu for an entire week of local eating.

I have had to acknowledge how dependent my diet is on pastas and grains, dried beans, and nice cheeses. Without pasta or grains, I struggled to come up with ideas for packable lunches. A typical summer lunch for me is tabouli and a piece of pita bread. Bulgar is not grown locally, and while there is a bakery that makes pita bread in Durham, I don't know where the wheat for their flour is grown. Another summer favorite is white bean soup. While I can use locally grown tomatoes, onions, and garlic, white beans are not grown locally. So availability of basic staples of my diet was a significant hurdle in this eat local challenge.

The foods I did find cost me $58 for the week. In a normal week, I would spend about $35, or about 40% less than what this week cost. On the other hand, I don't normally eat this well or feel this happy about my weekly menu, so the additional costs were mediated to a certain extent by that satisfaction. By continuing on the experiment, I hope to find a happy medium.

But that happy medium is going to have to also be less time consuming. For one thing, I am going back to eating cereal in the morning so that I have time to walk before work. Eggs take 15-20 minutes to fix and eat; cereal takes 10 minutes total. That extra 10 minutes costs nearly 1 mile on my morning walk. I do plan to try and find cereal alternatives for the weekend though.

For my lunches I will allow myself to eat sandwiches again. However, I will start making my own peanut butter as soon as I decide which food processor to buy and I will continue buying locally produced cheeses even though they do cost more.

I also plan to go back to eating pasta. Why? Because I love it! I enjoyed spending the time and effort it took to eat locally this week, but I didn't enjoy sacrificing the pasta. "Happiness is not a matter of intensity, but of balance, order, rhythm, and harmony."

Thanks to Carolina Farm Stewardship for making the Challenge!

Carolina Farm Stewardship Eat Local Challenge

The Eat Carolina Food Challenge was initiated by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association to promote locally grown and processed foods. From July 7-13, 2008, approximately 20 residents of North and South Carolina agreed to eat locally and to document their experience with a food log and blog posts.

I signed up for the challenge thinking it would be easy. After all, I've been eating locally for years, but I've never tried to make it 100% of a week's menu. The week started on Friday night, July 4, when I started putting together my shopping list for the Carrboro Farmer's Market. I would need something for breakfast that could be ready to eat in under 20 minutes; lunch food that could be packed and warmed up in the office kitchen; and dinner food, where I would have more flexibility.

I'd already been through Weaver Street Coop and knew that I couldn't document the "localness" of any of the bulk or packaged cereals for breakfast, so I was going to have to eat eggs. I don't really like eggs that much so I decided to make a zucchini and goat cheese frittata and biscuits to get me through part of the week. Then I would have grilled chicken for lunches and vegetable plates for dinner. Or so I thought.

Lunches were the biggest challenge. No one makes pasta from local ingredients or grows grains or beans, and those are my typical lunch staples. Couldn't find peanut butter made from North Carolina peanuts either. I'm going to be saving up to buy a food processor to make my own peanut butter, but I won't be able to rely on that for this challenge.

Last year when I took the Dark Days Eat Local Challenge, I found that Whole Foods sold chickens from Winston-Salem. Although I've been vegetarian for 30+ years, I occasionally lapse on chicken and turkey in the effort to incorporate more protein into my diet. Lapsing for the week sounded like an easy way out of the lunch dilemma. So after my Saturday morning trip to the Farmer's Market ($15), I trekked out to Whole Foods for the chicken, taking my barbecue sauce with me so that I could stop at a friends house and grill the chicken before returning home. Unfortunately, the butcher informed me that their chickens come from Pennsylvania, same place that Weaver Street gets theirs. Maybe I misunderstood before, or maybe they've just changed distributors. But for whatever reason, I now had a huge gapping hole in my weeks menu.

A trip back to Weaver Street confirmed my suspicion that without having purchased the veggies at the Farmer's Market, I was out of luck. I did, however, find some North Carolina cantalopes ($23 for cantalopes, local cheese, and milk). But I was still going to have to figure out how to use what I had already purchased to make lunch food. So I reshuffled and decided I could eat scrambled eggs for breakfast and put the zucchini, planned for the frittata, into squash fritters. Total cost for this day of shopping: $38. Already had the eggs, flour, and butter (not local).

My menu for Monday and Tuesday was:

• Breakfast: scrambled eggs (Latta Egg Ranch and Maple View Dairy milk) and cheese biscuits (Lindley Mills flour, local hoop cheese, and Maple View Dairy buttermilk)
• Lunch: Zucchini fritters and cantalope (yogurt for protein--not local); the zucchini was purchased from Elysian Fields Farm (CFSA members)
• Dinner: mashed potatoes, pickled beets, and corn on the cob. Potatoes purchased from Pine Knot Farms; beets from Laurie Heise, and corn from Sunset Farms. Pine Knot and Laurie are CFSA members, not sure about Sunset.
  

So far, so good. The only slippage between Monday and Wednesday, besides my daily yogurt, was breakfast on Tuesday. Didn't have time to make eggs so I resorted to my organic cereal. And I didn't drink local wine with my dinners. At $14 a bottle, it just exceeded my budget, especially since I have a case of wine bought last week at the annual Southern Seasons sale.

Now for the Thursday through Saturday planning. I learned that there was someone at the Carrboro Farmers Market that sold chicken (free range, chemical free) so I gritted my teeth and made the purchase along with some mozzarella cheese (Chapel Hill Creamery) and heirloom tomatoes from Alex Hitt for a total of $20. Gonna have to stick with eggs for breakfast. I really miss my cereal.

The chicken was frozen so I sauteed some veggies and mixed with pasta for Wednesday night's dinner, making extra for Thursday's lunch. Another slippage on the pasta. But I couldn't think of anything else I could take for lunch that wouldn't involve slippage, so if I'm gonna sin, I want to enjoy it. I love zucchini and leeks on pasta!

Menu for Wednesday through Friday:

• Breakfast: scrambled eggs and milk
• Lunch (Wednesday): Zucchini fritters and cantalope (yogurt for protein--not local)
• Lunch (Thursday): Pasta with sauteed squash and leeks and cantalope (squash and leeks from Elysian Farms)
• Lunch (Friday): Roasted chicken breast and cantalope
• Dinner (Wednesday): Pasta with sauteed squash and leeks
• Dinner (Thursday): Snacks at the Orange County Beekeepers monthly meeting (not local) where they were having their annual honey tasting. Quite a tasty dinner even if it was a little sticky.
• Dinner (Friday): Roasted chicken breast, tomato and mozzarella salad
  

I was out of milk so stopped by the Southern Village Weaver Street on my way home from work to pick up bread, milk, more cantalope, eggs, and some Carolina Brewery beer. The beer isn't made with locally grown ingredients, but it is a local brew pub, and I like it. Plus, I love the returnable jug. ($29)

Two more days to go on the CFSA Challenge, but I'm planning to keep this going, sort of, for the remainder of the summer. I don't like eggs for breakfast so I'm going back to cereal starting on Monday. For lunches, I'm planning vegetable pot pie and cantalope (these are REALLY good cantalopes). Veggie plates for dinner.

Menu for Saturday and Sunday:

• Breakfast: scrambled eggs and milk
• Lunches: cucumber and tomato sandwiches on Weaver Street Wonderful bread and potato chips (yeah, I know....the potato chips are not local, another slippage) (Cucumbers from Maple Springs Gardens and tomatoes from Laurie Heise at Wiseacre Farms)
• Dinner (Saturday night): Spearmint and Lemonade LocoPop and Benjamin Vineyards wine (spent at the Farmers Market in Saxapahaw where I also tasted some excellent cheeses from Hillsborough Cheese Company); not the most well balanced meal of the week, but maybe the most enjoyable.
• Dinner (Sunday night): cucumber and tomato sandwich (see above)

Thanks to the Carolina Farm Stewardship for issuing this challenge. Although I've always tried to eat as locally as possible, putting the extra constraints on my menu planning and shopping gave me a very different perspective on the meaning of local foods and the challenges of living and eating in a global economy.

Another Spring 2008 garden pix

Front_yard1_spr08
Originally uploaded by NC Gardener

My Garden

front_yard3_spr08
Originally uploaded by NC Gardener

Tonali

Last night's meal at Tonali was some of the best food I've eaten in a long time. The meal began with a corn chowder with North Carolina shrimp and locally grown organic potatoes. Unlike many chowders, it wasn't heavy and it wasn't loaded up. The Tonali chef, a native Mexican, understands the concept of less is more.

All of the entrees on last night's menu were either meat or fish, so my main dish was another appetizer, chili relleno. Again, the chef outdid himself. His relleno's are stuffed with light, heavenly, delicious mashed potatoes that complimented the pablano pepper perfectly. Whoever started stuffing them with cheese? My friends had the fish tacos which were unlike any taco I've ever had. The taco shell was soft and the fish (grouper) was lightly breaded. No one asked for a doggy bag.

And then came the piece de resistance--dessert. I ordered the dulce de leche creme brulee thinking I would get something similar to the custard my friend Linda, a native of Puerto Rico, made each New Years from her grandmother's recipe. Tonali's recipe did not come from anyone's grandmother and it was not a custard. It was truly a bite of heaven. Lightly carmelized, topped with a couple of sliced strawberries, rich and creamy without being heavy.

The meal was pricey which surprised me based on the Chowhounds review. His $5.50 tacos were $12 last night. But the quality of the food was certainly worth the higher price.

Tonali
3624 Shannon Road
Durham

Bee Rescue, Day 2

After a good nights rest, I got up early to go to the Farmer's Market and check on the bees. Apparently, the only way to convince a group of bees to stay in a new box is to ensure that the queen is in the box. We had failed to get the queen. The outside wall of the garage was covered in bees. And the neighbors were hot (this is a condo). They wanted the "research project" stopped immediately and the bees disposed of. Only one person was interested in what we were doing.

Ernie went to the bee supply store for advice on how to proceed and was loaned a wet-vac and a special box to connect to it. We spent the next 5 hours vacuuming bees into the box and then emptying them into the hive box. Fortunately, we were able to get the queen early on so we didn't have to keep vacuuming up bees we had already captured and moved. But many of those that were displaced during the vacuuming, headed for the comb we had dislodged the night before. The old saying "busy as a bee" is based on truth, these bees never stopped. They remained focused on their job even when they were drowning in honey.

Yep, drowning in honey. We had put too much comb in the new hive the night before and the honey had leaked out and was pooling up under the cart the hive box was setting on. The bees in the lower box literally drowned as the honey leaked down. So we had to empty the box of all those poor little carcasses and throw out about half of the comb.

As soon as we got it cleaned out, the bees we had vacuumed up and emptied into the hive box started acting much happier. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any pictures of the vacuuming or the happy hive due to having so much honey on my hands, in my hair, on my clothes, and all over my shoes. The next pictorial installment of the story will have to wait until the bees get to my house and start helping me garden.

Bee Rescue, Day 1

A friend of mine has bees. He's not supposed to according to the bylaws of his neighborhood association. But he's told them that he's doing research and got a waiver from the town. During the winter, a group of bees from one of his hives decided to move...into his garage. From outside, you could see the bees buzzing around the area where the joists for the deck connect with the outside wall, but there were never too many, so he waited until spring to relocate them.

Friday night was the night to move the squatters into a new hive and then to my house. We had 5 people to help with the move, but only 3 had "outfits" so myself and the other fashion-challenged person were the photographers. The other three looked like they knew what they were doing. All three have beekeeping experience but no one had ever moved a colony like this before. Normally, a new box would have been out for them to swarm to, whenever they were ready. But in the absence of a prepared box, they made their own housing decision.

The first step was to cut a hole in the garage ceiling and determine the size of the hive. A small hole for what looked like a small colony. After cutting the hole, Ernie filled the inside with smoke to anesthesize the bees. Then he expanded the hole, and then he expanded it further. The final hole was about 10 times larger than the initial opening. By the time the opening was large enough to see the entire comb, the garage was full of smoke and bees were flying everywhere. Amazingly though, they weren't stinging.

Ernie cut the hive into pieces in order to dislocate it. After the first cut, we were all drenched in honey. The next day, I put on a pair of the gloves and could barely get my hands back out they were so sticky. The honeycomb was moved into the hive boxes, and then we all went back inside for a beer. Originally, the plan was to move the hive to my house that night, but because there were so many more bees than originally thought, Ernie felt it was better to let them calm down overnight and move them the next morning. So we plugged up the hole, wished them a goodnight, and went inside for a beer and a movie.

Choose to Be Excellent: In Honor of Eve

"The love and the community which Eve (Carson) spread to all of us was not the result of some divine chance," Tom Reilly said. "It was a conscious orientation. It was Eve's choice."

"Choose to be excellent," Reilly said. "Let us have the courage to choose to be excellent, with a heart."

What goes down the drain gets turned out to pasture via toxic sludge

From Physorg.com

What goes down the drain -- detergents, personal-care products and discarded and excreted medications -- may be out of sight and out of mind, but they are not, unfortunately, out of this world.

Significant amounts of toxic chemicals from households persist in the environment because they end up in sewage sludge. Though pathogens are removed in wastewater treatment plants, no treatment is required to address some of the most abundant chemical contaminants that originate in the home.

So sludge and sludge-rich composts, often containing toxic chemicals, are commonly applied to farmland, parks, forests and yards.

Take ibuprofen (its many trade names include Advil and Motrin), for example, the third most consumed drug in the world. Wastewater treatment plants remove 60 to 90 percent of it, but that's not enough, warns a Cornell researcher.

"Given the volume that is consumed, a lot still goes out to the environment," says Anthony G. Hay, Cornell associate professor of microbiology and director of Cornell's Institute for Comparative and Environmental Toxicology. He studies how ibuprofen and other chemicals present in sewage sludge are degraded by microorganisms.

"Even low concentrations of ibuprofen have been found to affect the way fish spawn, so we don't want it accumulating in the environment," says Hay.

"Understanding the biological fate is very important for being able to predict the potential for toxicity of compounds. In the case of ibuprofen, we were able to show that it can be degraded to nontoxic intermediates."

Since legislation prohibits dumping sewage sludge in the ocean, most of it in this country is applied to soil for its nutrients and to improve the physical properties of the soil, which is often cheaper than landfill or incineration.

"However, there are no requirements in the U.S. to test for or remediate organic pollutants in sewage sludges, and sludges contain a wide variety of these contaminants that conventional treatment does not eliminate," adds Ellen Z. Harrison, who served as director of Cornell's Waste Management Institute for many years until her recently announced retirement.

Gardeners may unknowingly use sludge-based products, such as free compost, because labeling is not mandated. Some products even use the term "organic" on their labels, says Harrison.

To make matters even more complex, Hay adds, "Most wastewater treatment plants were designed to target industrial pollutants. There are no requirements for monitoring chemicals from personal-care products, pharmaceutical compounds or antibiotics. We are interested in knowing what compounds are out there and if biodegradation is making these things less toxic or more toxic."

While looking at sludge, Hay's research team found high levels of compounds commonly used in detergents such as alkylphenol ethoxylates that "get more toxic as they degrade, becoming persistent compounds that mimic estrogen," says Hay. "The concentrations being reported in the environment are below levels of concern for most humans but are high enough to affect fish populations by changing sex ratios, resulting in fewer males. The question is, what is the long-term effect on populations? We don't really know.

Working with graduate student Abbie Wise Porter, Hay found alkylphenol in sludges from Syracuse, Cortland, Ithaca and Cayuga Heights at levels that were five times higher than most other places that had been studied. This suggested that the sludges had about 15-40 times more estrogen activity than dairy cow manure, which is considered to have high estrogen levels due to lactating cows, says Hay.

In addition, Porter found triclosan, a widely used biocide (used to kill bacteria), in all of the sludges at quite high concentrations. "Triclosan is coming from the antibacterial hand soaps, deodorants, toothpastes and many other personal-care products," says Hay. "There are more and more reports of triclosan in environmental samples ... in fish, and in high concentrations in breast milk. Triclosan is not all that effective in these products, but it is still being marketed to the public to quell their fears about microbes. Unfortunately, triclosan inhibits our ability to eliminate other pollutants from our body so it may be doing more harm than good."

So what are consumers to do?

"Not buying anti-bacterial hands soaps would be a good first step since regular soaps are just as effective," says Hay. "With respect to the other pollutants we detected, people can select fragrance-free products when possible and look for products that are labeled as biodegradable."

Harrison adds that, at the legislative level, banning the use of certain toxic chemicals such as the most toxic brominated flame retardant -- which is banned in California -- would be appropriate.

Also, people should find out where the sludge from their local treatment plants goes, and make sure it is not used at schools or parks, says Harrison. "When they obtain compost or soil amendments for their yards, they should find out whether they contain sewage sludge. And of course, they should try to use products that don't contain toxic chemicals and should not flush unwanted chemicals or pharmaceuticals down the drain."

More suggestions about environmentally friendly products can be found at http://www.fingerlakesbuygreen.org.

Source: Cornell University

http://www.physorg.com/news120927003.html

7 R's of Anti-Sustainability

From Sustainable is Good:

1. Refuse to consider thoughts and opinions other than your own. If you are right and everyone else is wrong, why bother?

2. Remain glued to the status quo. After all if what you have been doing works, why take a chance on changing anything?

3. Reject any idea that even remotely sounds like compromise even though sometimes, that is the best way to accomplish progress.

4. Resist any new technology unless it is absolutely perfect and supports your position. “See I told you it wouldn’t work” can be all so satisfying.

5. Ridicule anyone who appears to be profiting from their work in sustainability, especially if their margin appears to exceed your own.

6. Repel anyone seeking knowledge or help. Everyone knowing as much as you do cannot be a good thing.

7. Resign yourself to the fact that the environmental problem is too large to be fixed. Seek new goals that are easier to achieve!

Bill Richardson on Energy

Bill Richardson at last night's Democratic candidates debate in New Hampshire:

"You know, what we need is an energy revolution in this country. Not some of the bills that the congress has passed. We need to go to 50 miles per gallon fuel efficiency. We need to have 30 percent of all our electricity renewable. We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the year 2040. And we need the American people to sacrifice a little bit."

Now that would be an energy policy I could support. For more details, see http://action.richardsonforpresident.com/page/s/energyplan

How cool is that that we have a woman, an African-American, and a Hispanic running in this race!

RIP: Squeeze the Pulp

Squeeze The Pulp (STP) was initially set up as a political forum to counter to OrangePolitics shortly after Carrboro annexed the Homestead Road communities. While OP is a blog, STP was a discussion forum, a technology that I much preferred. Content-wise, STP was angry about the annexation and especially the annexation process. But occasionally the discussions were much more informative than those on OP because the posters weren't all in agreement with each other. On the other hand, some of the discussions were just downright offensive. After a particularly ugly thread on Moses Carey, in which one poster used a number of racial epithets, Fred Black and I left that forum and swore never to return. I went back on that promise during the fall 2007 election when I was supporting someone who I thought the angry posters would also support. Unfortunately, anger was all some of those folks had to contribute to the political dialogue and their vitriol and name calling contributed, in large part, to my candidate's loss. Instead of using the technology to rally around her, they used the technology to trash-talk those they opposed.

Today, a new STP has been unveiled in the form of a wiki rather than a discussion forum. Two "columnists" have been given their own sections of the wiki to moderate. One of those columnists was the most virulent of the angry posters. "We have brought on some of the more controversial posters from the old Pulp as contributors. Each controls their very own slice of the Pulp."

So after a couple of years of blasting OP as someone's private sandbox and criticizing that individual's editorial decisions, now Mr Angry Poster has his own private sandbox in which he can make his own editorial decisions. Talk about hypocrisy.

And then there are the definitions. Apparently the owner of STP has a lot of Mr Angry Poster in him. Here's an example: “BOA” – A term used to denote the governance board of Carrboro, known for its playpen mentality. Only pals are allowed in. Often compared to the monkey house at a zoo, the BOA is known for the figurative flinging of monkey dung at those in opposition to the errors in judgment routinely committed by the BOA." Now there's a great strategy for improving political discourse in the community. The Angry Posters seem to overlook the fact that VOTERS select the Board of Alderman. They were so ineffective in supporting the candidates from their area that they lost what should have been a slam dunk change. Now they resort to name calling. That just about sums up STP.

The owners of STP and OP have the right to do whatever they want with the technology they manage, even in STP's case if that means giving rights to individuals who have less than the best interests of this community in their hearts. We'll see how these changes work. To the STP owner: it would have been nice to have known this was coming so that those of who did invest the time and effort to do research could have pulled our old contributions. I will not be posting at the new site.

New Years Resolutions

I have done a miserable job of fulfilling my Dark Days Eat Local challenge. But in my failure, I have learned that this is not the time of year to take up cooking. While I used to love cooking, over the past 10 years or so, I've let my career take top priority and have fallen into some rather atrocious eating patterns. The Dark Days challenge has put me back into cooking mode, thinking about cooking as a craft that takes time and gives enjoyment rather than just an end-product intended only to assuage hunger or drown my problems with.

So this years New Years Resolutions have to do with food.

1. I renew my vow to fix at least one meal a week that is composed exclusively of locally grown foods, regardless of the season.

2. I also intend to invite friends over for a meal at least once a month. Cooking for others is great motivation to try new recipes.
food budget goes to purchasing commercially produced (e.g., over processed) yogurt. With Maple View Farms milk so easily accessible, there is no reason not to make my own and re duce my reliance on pre-processed food even further.

My other resolution is to get back into documentary making. Today I began documenting old store fronts in Orange County. I'm starting with Cedar Grove Township. Here are two stores on old Highway 86:

3. And last but not least, I plan to begin making my own yogurt. A large portion of my food budget goes to purchasing commercially produced (e.g., over processed) yogurt. With Maple View Farms milk so easily accessible, there is no reason not to make my own and re duce my reliance on pre-processed food even further.

My other resolution is to get back into documentary making. Today I began documenting old store fronts in Orange County. I'm starting with Cedar Grove Township. Here are two stores on old Highway 86:

Rain Barrels

With the continuing drought, I need some way to save the few remaining plants I have in my yard. What better way than a rain barrel, especially one that I can make myself thanks to an OWASA workshop. It was fun and easy.

Here's what the finished product looks like. It began with a 55- gallon barrel, provided by Mark Ray Rain Barrels. Mark had pre-drilled the holes, one for the spigot and one for the overflow valve, so all we had to do was install the hardware. Apparently these barrels are not only useful, but they are easily obtained through NC Wastetraders. The only problem is that they were originally used to store food products. The one I selected had a distinct eau de dill pickles.

The tricky part of making this barrel is installing the spigot. While the spigot itself simply screws into the predrilled hole, it's necessary to put a washer on the backside of the spigot to keep it in place and leak free. That means.....crawling into the barrel to get to the backside of the spigot. Could anyone ask for a better photo opportunity?

For every 1,000 square feet of roof, one inch of rain produces 625 gallons of water. I'm going to need to make a couple of more barrels to collect even a portion of the runoff from my roof. Unfortunately, we're not expected to get that much rain for the next several months so I've got some time.

Caroleena's Tuscan Kitchen

My friend and neighbor, Carol Barrow, who taught me to make the Spanish Tortilla has published a cookbook, Caroleena's Tuscan Kitchen.

Carol, who was once an Italian contessa, will be signing books at Weaver Street Market on Saturday, December 22, from 2:00 - 4:00 pm.

Locavore and Dark Days Challenge Recipes

The Oxford University Press’ 2007 Word of the Year is locavore, meaning a person who endeavors to eat only locally-produced food. “The word ‘locavore’ shows how food-lovers can enjoy what they eat while still appreciating the impact they have on the environment,” said Ben Zimmer, editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press. “It’s significant in that it brings together eating and ecology in a new way.”

In my attempt to become a card-carrying locavore, I've taken the Dark Days Eat Local Challenge. This is definitely a much harder challenge to meet than I expected. So far, I've managed one meal a week, but neither meal has meet a full range of nutritional needs. Here's what I've made:

Silken Chicken: Although I am primarily vegetarian, I do occasionally eat chicken or turkey but only if it it is ethically raised (free range, no hormones, etc). For the Dark Days Challenge, chicken is going to be my best bet for locally grown food. For the silken chicken, I was able to use locally produced cream also, but the spices and herbs aren't grown anywhere close to Carrboro.

Spanish Tortilla: This recipe was given to me by Caroleena Barrow. She served it one night when I dropped by for dinner, and I've asked her to make it for me twice since. It has a very simple ingredient list--potatoes, onions, and eggs. Carol insists that white potatoes must be used, but in the spirit of the local challenge, I used locally grown red potatoes and couldn't tell the difference. Latta's cage-free, brown eggs and locally grown yellow onions made this a totally local meal, and once I overcame my fear of messing up a dish that I love, incredibly easy to make. boil potatoes in salt water (I didn't peel them). When cool enough to handle, chop into bite-sized bits. Sautee onion in too much olive oil. Scramble eggs with salt and pepper (no milk). Add in onions and potatoes and turn into a skillet. Cook over low heat so that the eggs cook slowly into omelet-like consistency. Flip when dry enough not to fall apart (I messed this part up). The non-local part came from the salsa used to top the tortilla. I'll be checking for locally produced salsa at Weaver Street since I suspect this dish will become my winter favorite.

The Role of Women

This excerpt came from the most recent email update of the E.F. Schumacher Society. It's from a book entitled "Why the Village Movement" by Gandhian philosopher and economist J. C. Kumarappa. The publication date is 1936, once again demonstrating the principle of what's old is new.

CONSUMERS DUTIES

Often buyers are only concerned with satisfying their own requirements as near as possible and as cheaply as they can. This way of going about the business is to shirk one¹s duties. What are the duties of an effective consumer or buyer? When buying an article of everyday use one has to take account of the full repercussions of one¹s transaction.

1) One should know where the article comes from,
2) Who makes the article?
3) Under what conditions do the workers live and work?
4) What proportions of the final price do they get as wages?
5) How is the rest of the money distributed?
6) How is the article produced?
7) How does the industry fit into the national economy?
8) What relation has it to the other nations?

DISCRIMINATE BUYING

If the buyer has to make her influence felt, the further afield she goes for her goods, the less will be the power of her influence at such distance, the less the chances of her information on various points raised being accurate, and the less will be her personal interest. If the goods come from a source which may be tainted with exploitation, either of sweat labor or of the political, financial or economic hold over other nations, or classes, or races, then the buyer of such goods will be a party to such exploitation, just as a person who buys stolen articles from a "chore bazar" creates a market for stolen goods and thus will be encouraging the art of stealing.

Therefore, any one who buys goods indiscriminately is not discharging her full responsibility when the sole criterion of her buying is merely the low price or the good quality of the goods. Hence, we should buy good only from sources from which full information is readily available and which source can be brought under our influence; otherwise we shall have to shoulder a share of the blame for sweat labour, political slavery, or economic stranglehold. We cannot absolve ourselves of the all blame by merely pleading ignorance in regard to the source.

If the raw materials for making cocoa are obtained from plantations on the West coast of Africa which use some form of forced native labour, are carried by vessels on sea routes monopolised or controlled by violence, manufactured in England with sweated labour and brought to India under favorable customs duties enforced by political power, then a buyer of a tin of cocoa patronises the forced labour conditions in the West coast of Africa, utilizes the navy and so partakes in violence, gains by the low wages or bad conditions of the workers in England and takes advantage of the political subjection of India. All this responsibility and more also is put into a little tin of cocoa!

Are we prepared to shoulder this grave responsibility and pander to our palate or shall we content ourselves with a cup of nutritious milk drawn from a well-kept cow at our door? These considerations are not far-fetched but actual. Anyone who looks on life seriously and as a trustee cannot afford to ignore these far-reaching consequences of her actions.

Dark Days Eat Local Challenge

I hereby accept Urban Hennery's challenge to cook at least one local meal through the lean days of winter. I don't have anything frozen or canned so I will probably have to learn a lot of new sweet potato recipes. Want to take the challenge? Here's the rules:

1. Cook one meal a week with at least 90% local ingredients
2. Write about it - the triumphs and the challenges
3. Local means a 200 mile radius for raw ingredients. For processed foods the company must be within 200 miles and committed to local sources.
4. Keep it up through the end of the year, and then re-evaluate on New Year’s Day
5. The challenge starts now, or whenever you sign up.

Desegregation then, what now for Chapel Hill?

November 8, 2007 News and Observer

Forty-five years of history fell away at UNC-Chapel Hill on Thursday night.

Participants in Chapel Hill's tumultuous civil rights demonstrations of the early 1960s said that, in some ways, a lot of progress has been made. In others, there's still a long way to go.

They met for a panel discussion at UNC's Wilson Library to celebrate the republication of John Ehle's 1965 book "The Free Men," which chronicles Chapel Hill's desegregation.

The movement was marked by dozens of demonstrations, sit-ins, hunger strikes and other protests. Some demonstrators were physically assaulted. Hundreds were arrested.

Several panelists made the distinction between desegregation and integration and said they feel the latter is lacking in Chapel Hill.

James Foushee, who participated in demonstrations, said, "Chapel Hill is going to become, in the next five years, an all-white town."

"We have desegregated," Karen Parker said. "Integration is up to the individual."

"Blacks are priced out. Are the people of Chapel Hill aware of that? No, they're not," said Wayne King, who covered the protests for The Daily Tar Heel, UNC's student newspaper. "It's harder to notice that ... no black people are having breakfast in the Carolina Coffee Shop. ... Would you notice?" he asked the audience.

Many of us notice. The problem is what to do about it. I do not believe that building luxury housing surrounding the remaining historically black neighborhoods in downtown is an acceptable solution. Gentrification received little to no discussion in last week's municipal election. Will Raymond tried though and I thank him for that.

(photo from UNC News Service press release, photographer: Jim Wallace)